Happy New Year. Time flies. It’s 2009 now. The rest of my stay is one year and three months. It seems very short, but thinking that I will spend Christmas and a new year again in Tanzania, it seems to be long. As my new-year resolutions, I am thinking to work hard to master Kiswahili further do more exercise, and try to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.
(Family of elephants?? I met so many elephants there)On December 27, 2008, I left Dar es Salaam after 5 months stay here and visited the State of Iringa and the State of Morogoro, where our colleague volunteers live.
Iringa is located in almost centre of Tanzania and on the mountain. Here in Dar es Salaam, it is mid summer now. The temperature is about 32 or 33 degree Celsius and furthermore it is very humid. However, in Iringa it is very cool, and I felt even cold at night. I saw someone wearing even down jacket, but it is actually too much even in Iringa. However, it seems many Tanzanians that Iringa is a very very cold place. I was impressed that Tanzania has various aspects. I spend four nights and five days in the State of Iringa, but in two days of them, I spent my time in Ruaha National Park, where we drove for three hours from Iringa city.
(This mail lion had eaten a few days before and was feeling full, we heard. He was taking a rest.)When I was a small child, there was a TV program called “Wild Kingdom”, and my family used to watch it together. In Ruaha National Park, the very landscape and the view which I say in that TV program spread in front of me in reality. That made me feel finally I came to Africa. It is a rainy season at that time, so it is difficult to predict where the water is and at the same time it is difficult to come across animals. Since I heard that it is not easy to see animals in this season, I did not expect so much to see many animals. However, fortunately the game guide whom my colleague introduced me has more than 25-year experiences and he found us many animals.
Thanks to his professional guide, we could see the family of lions although we saw them from far. At the same time, we could see the lions attacked a hippo, which had never happened to even our professional guide until then.
At night we had dinner together in the restaurant in the national park. We talked about many things such as about Japan, Tanzania, our family and jobs and so on. The guide is in the same generation to me. He started working after he graduated from primary school. He was a very smart boy, so some people found his talent and gave him various chances. At the end he became a game guide. Even now he study about animals and he said to me that he was writing about animals and plants which he knows. He told me that his dream is to publish his own book. Thinking of my childhood, I did not think of anything seriously then.
Anyway I was very pleased to see such a wonderful person whom I can respect from the bottom of my heart in Tanzania.
(This is the view from the restaurant on the hill on the way back to Iringa city .)
Tutaonana
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