Monday 10 December 2007

The travels continue


I spent the first week of December in another of the language areas, travelling around every day to visit different parts. Another beautiful region, very green, farms everywhere growing maize, potatoes, beans, bananas, avocadoes, tea… I drank gallons of tea (which was a challenge as I don’t like it) and soda and ate lots of good Tanzanian food (chapatti, rice or ugali, with beans, green leafy veg, cabbage and occasionally beef or goat meat) – people’s welcome was wonderful to behold. I also had a wonderful taste of home when, much to my surprise, we came across some blackberry brambles!
When using public transport it was scary to watch the conductors running alongside the minibus and jumping onboard, and jumping off again while it was still moving ready to persuade people to use their bus, to take their luggage and help them aboard.

During our travels, we were recording people telling stories in their mother tongue. Despite not being able to understand a word (except for the odd Swahili one that slipped in) it was fascinating to be involved in this and to meet with people of all ages, especially wazee (older people).

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