Hello All--
I have not posted for a few days because I have not been in town. I'll get to why in this post. For now, I will be spending a lot of time on the net so I can better give you a picture of what it's been like. So I may revisit some things I started describin g in my last post.
Where to start??
I'll start with the road from Nairobi to Arusha, again. So we took off on this road to see our first sights of Africa (from the ground, and in daylight). The road is paved, but has a plethora of potholes, no traffic lanes or painted lines (it's basically a two-way road, one lane for each direction), on which the car you're in should be on the left side of the road. I've found that the cars in Tanzania only abide by that as a suggestion, with much of the time spent passing other cars and coming VERY close to the oncoming traffic! If necessary, people will drive off the side of the road a bit to allow room. I have seen no crashes so far. So you LA drivers: be thankful your fellow drivers are sweet.
We stopped at the border on the Kenya side and then over on the Tanzania side to show our residence permits, passports and be shuffled back only the bus.
Along the road (on both sides of the border) we passed through many vilages with brightly colored buildings, clothing worn by the people, bananas (all green) sold on the side of the road, other fruit, crafts (many of which were tourist-oriented paintings and jewelry). Also along the side of the road we saw many Maasai people. If you don't know, these are the people belonging to the tribe (Maasai, what else) that has actively resisted modernization or change of culture. And yet they have a reputation of charging you to take photos of them (which is true). They are the people you've seen photos of wearing brightly colored fabrics draped like robes (in red, purple or the occasional blue pattern), an abundance of beaded jewelry, many varied and stretched piercings and typicaly carry spears. They live around their cattle, which they highly value. On the side of the road we would see mostly men or a range of children from very small to adolescence with a herd of cattle, sheep, goats or cross-backed donkeys, sometimes accompanied by a dog. They would watch us as we drove by, watching them, too.
What boggled my mind was that we would often see one person in what you and I would call the "middle of nowhere", walking, alone, and not see anything for miles before or miles after. Where are they walking to? Where do they LIVE? Or they would be sitting on the side of the road in the same manner. Just sitting. Not looking unhealthy or devastatingly poor... just like this was normal. Sometimes the children would put their hands out as we passed by, apparently asking for a gift or money. Only once on the whole road did the driver stop and give two kids each a bottle of water, to which they smiled graciously and waved jubilantly.
As for the scenery, it was mostly open, savannah-like terrain. To be expected.
