Arusha, Friday, February 10, 2017

John’s symposium was over, but not completely: They could all sign up for field trips on Friday, and, of course, John did. All I knew about it was that he would need to be at the big blue hotel even earlier than usual in order to get on a bus which would take a group out to an agricultural site. When he returned, I found out that they had visited AVRDC - The World Vegetable Center, the UN crop development center for Sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of six such centers in the world and its mission is to develop better strains of vegetables which can be easily grown, harvested, and eaten to reduce the malnutrition in the region.  They have a genetic repository and give farmers seeds for improved strains of crops. I’ve rarely seen Africans eat any vegetables other than manioc greens or a native spinach and yams, so getting people to include more vegetables in their diet is an excellent goal.

John had assured me that he would be back in town by 1:00, or at the latest 1:30, and said I should meet him then for lunch at FiFi’s.  I wasn’t overly excited about returning to FiFi’s, but since I had made a 12:30 appointment with Aly, my Arusha hair genius, I would be downtown anyway. Unfortunately, just before 11:00, Aly texted to say he was ill, and we would have to reschedule. Since John was out of phone reach, I couldn’t call him to cancel FiFi’s. So, I went as arranged, but less than five minutes after arriving, John called and said the group he was with had decided to add a visit to some far out—in both meanings—sustainable resort being built out on an almost impassable trail. The phone went dead before I could lodge my protest. I soothed myself with not only the day’s special, Chinese garlic pork and rice, but also an expensive strawberry milkshake, which wasn’t all that wonderful.

After lunch, I headed straight for the little grocery by the Naz Hotel entrance to buy a bottle of Dodoma wine. However, where the Dodoma wine had been only a day before was a gaping hole on the shelf.  Someone had come in and bought it all, red and white, sweet and dry. I think this might mean that it is actually very good, so I inquired when more might be available. Sometime next week—maybe.

Trying to get back to Kundayo was a nightmare due to the highway construction.  There was an enormous traffic jam where Ray normally turns toward Kundayo, so we had to back track and drive far out of our way in order to access a bumpy dirt track we could drive on.  There was a huge CAT shovel and two Masai women with four donkeys blocking our way, and yet somehow Ray managed to weave in between them and get me home.

Less than 10 minutes after I got home, John showed up. Fortunately, he had had the bus he was on drop him off at Kundayo Road instead of returning to the conference hotel, or he would have been caught in the traffic jam for hours. The best part of the day came when John reported on all he had seen and learned at The World Vegetable Center and told about the rather eccentric Finnish woman at the not-yet-ready-for-tourists sustainable resort they had jolted to off in the hills. She told the group that she had come to Tanzania on a safari from Martinique, where she had lived for many years with her husband, fell in love with her guide, and decided to stay here with him and build this resort. Not only is her resort not yet built but it will also be an enormous challenge for anyone to access it.  Who knows how long the much younger former safari guide will stay out in the boonies with her.