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Some cheeky kids who came running up to see us wazungu wandering around.

This is a view looking towards Meru across Leah’s land. Beautiful landscape…

This is Leah. Probably not her favourite picture of her…

We had our first ride in the back of a pickup truck in Africa. It really is one of the nicest things to feel the wind rushing through my hair and look around at the vast landscape and think “I am really here!”.

Yuki enjoyed it too. She thought I looked like popcorn bouncing around in the back while I took this picture.

This is a picture of what I think is called Laterite or desert pavement – the soil gets baked by the sun into a crust. The wind blows away dust leaving the larger stones on the surface. Moisture evaporating causes the surface to crack like this. I think it is quite beautiful, but it causes many problems for agriculture on the continent.

Leah took us out to the land Vem has bought with her. A beautiful bit of land to the west of Mt Meru. It has a lot of thorn trees and odd looking cactus. Leah is busy with the fencing job. She has plans to build a house. It will have an amazing sunset view.

The drive to KIA gave us our first sight of Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest mountain. Yuki’s first sight of it. Still breathtaking for me, despite the fact I lived for four months seeing it everyday. There is definitely less snow than I remember. The lines of brown now seem to reach all the way to the top. Might be seasonal though. Sad if it is permanent like some climate experts are saying.

The photo can’t really get in the sheer size of the mountain. It is vast!

Woke up in the middle of the night. In my dream I was beset by a swarm of mosquitoes, returning in sorties for further helpings of my blood. Awake I was convinced the dream was true, and I was itching all over at the thought. This kept me awake fitfully for some time. I stayed in bed till noon trying to escape the headache and nausea that had enveloped me.

Leah was supposed to come at 2, so we could go to KIA and pick up our boxes. I called at 2:30 to find that she had a problem on her shamba, and we would have to wait till tomorrow. I don’t think we will be opening the internet cafe on the 1st February at this rate! Worth a try though.

Yuki and I spent some more of the day in the garden, looking at the different plants and reading. Mary was hung over too, and we didn’t see much of her during today. We also went for a short walk up the road, meeting many small children and shop keepers. We thought we got to Ngaramtoni, where there is a large market on a Thursday, but discovered that Ngaramton is further up the road to Namanga and Nairobi. Later on Phillipo took us up there. We struggled to maintain a conversation with him, but our Kiswahili barely extends beyond the basic greeting habari and hujambo. The phrasebooks we have don’t really get beyond requesting things and ordering people around. I think being able to ask someone if they have a girlfriend or what music they like is pretty important too!

Phillipo helped me buy some Massai sandals made from old tyres. They bere TSh1000, but should have been only 500. I think either our mzungu status, or my wildly differing foot sizes resulted in this.

Ngaramtoni was hectic. A dusty bustle of Massai people selling:

• kangas folded into brightly coloured pyramids;
• fruit in giant heaps;
• enamel crockery
• watches and radios.

Many people wanted to talk to us, and we were followed almost all the way home by a foetid child…

On the way back we visited the Texas Bar, where I beat Phillipo at pool. We got back with the last rays of sunlight disapearing behind the hills to the west. A bit of a quiet day in which we contemplated ways of staying here longer. Ultimately we must become self sufficient and not eat into our savings more than we planned.

Met a lot of people at the party. Some contacts and some new friends. People from all over the world, and all over Tanzania. Impressed some with my minimal knowledge of Kichagga – the local language amongst the Chagga people of Kilimanjaro.

Yuki drove Mary’s car back to the house. She had to dodge Masaai herding cattle down the main street out of Arusha.

During the whole time we were at Leah’s this huge mzee maribou stork stood on the roof of the french guys house.

The first time I saw a maribou stork I did a double take. On the first I thought I saw a person dressed in a strange bird like outfit. On the second look I realised that what I saw was a bird the size of a person. It was terrifying to see it scrat around in a rubbish heap. I imagined it impaling me through the chest with that cruel dirty beak. Storks bring babies? Take them more like…