PICTURES!!!

CHAIRS!!! Look at them all, 4 of them and a coffee table on the back of a bike! This is my clearing out my house, selling my belongings to a nearby primary school teacher starting up his life. While he took the large majority of my stuff, I also gave some flowers and big water tanks to my neighbors, and pots to Mama Leo and Sato my housegirl. Those weren't carried on a bicycle though. Actually, one of the flowerpots was carried on my neighbor girl's head, which made quite a sight [see her a few pictures down with water on her head].

FRIENDS!!! One last picture of the gang, me with Dominic and Deus, two of my best friends in Misungwi. Backdrop = my passion plant, pretty much ALL of my pictures over the last few weeks were with a beautiful green background, which is NOT typical [that would be bare empty farms/fields], but anytime you want to take a picture here they find the greenest area around and that's the spot.



BANANAS!!! Although it took the entire length of my stay, I did manage to successfully grow and harvest a big bunch of small, but oh so sweet bananas. And then ate them all in one day, with the help of my neighbors and guard. Baba Leo joked that I must have been planning it from the beginning, since we harvested only a week before I am scheduled to leave. FYI - 88 bananas in total, give or take a few.


FLOODS!!! The rains have come, but perhaps too much? Many farms are flooded, and this was before I left - apparently the rains, and flooding, has gotten worse since then.


MEAT!!! This is at the big weekly market in Misasi [will write more about this in future entry, well, future entry about my last week at site]. The woman in the picture is the head of the ward, and she is in charge of a big stand with MEAT. Lots of goat meat, goats, goat heads, goat stomachs, etc...



MAPOSI!!! That means poses. And I had some nice ones during my last week at site, took a ton of pictures - here I am with my friend Anton who runs a guesthouse, and his wife and children and younger brother. His eldest daughter [in yellow dress to the left] is a top student in 1st grade - I know, I looked at her homeworks and exams for about 10 minutes. Nice picture, though the shocking whiteness of my upper arm is disturbing.


MORE MAPOSI!!! This time with some of my favorite people at the Misungwi market. Same day, same shirt, same white inner-elbow showing up clearly...


TIRES!!! This guy makes sandals out of old car tires. I bought a pair, though I expect they will be somehow uncomfortable to wear. Creativity and resourcefulness, however, that I expect I may miss once I get back to the land of plenty...


WATER ON HEAD!!! This is my neighbor Kabula carrying water on her head, a big bucket of it. This, actually, is not a big deal, but is something that I will miss seeing when I go back to the States [though I do NOT like the idea that Tanzanian women expend considerable time and energy just to fetch water, a service that should be more accessible to all].

HUSTLE!!! This is my favorite daladala from Misungwi to Mwanza, in part because the conductor guy is really funny [picture of him later, maybe], and in part because the wording is priceless. Indeed, hustle never DOES sleep. There are about 8 of these in total, others reading 'On my way to Church' or 'Machavelli.' They all park in the yard across from my house, and it's fun to watch the parade of them drive off on the mornings I manage to get up before 6am.


FEET!!! I was taking pictures of some of my Masaai friends, who guard the resthouse that I stayed in for the first 3 months in Misungwi. After taking the pictures, I showed them on my digital camera how they turned out. At that point, I really wished that someone could take a picture of THAT site, me surrounded by 10 Masaai in traditional garments, laughing and being amazed about their pictures. Well, noone to do that, but I snapped a few pictures of our feet to give some sense of what was going on. I count feet belonging to at least 7 people in this one, including my self [guess which feet belong to me?!]



More pictures coming soon, when I get back to the states, that is if I can find someplace with connection better that at my parents house, which is still a dialup, a SLOW dialup connection...