Dispatches from the field: Part IV

GerladKuku

The Gerald Kuku chicken stand. Every time I pass it (twice a day) I wonder who Gerald is and why he never has any chickens.

In two days, I’ll be boarding a Swiss Air flight out of Dar es Salaam. All told, this visit to Ifakara has been relatively uneventful (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). It’s the period of short rains right now, which is just enough to dampen down the dust on some days but for the most part it’s hot and sunny and dry as a bone. I haven’t been stuck in the mud even once this time. This isn’t to say that life hasn’t been interesting. Some of the things I’ve seen include:

Giraffes, elephants, a breathtaking diversity of insects. Mantises as big as my foot and one small enough to fit on the tip of my pinky. Tiny, bright blue birds that put North American blue birds to shame. An huge owl taking flight off a fence post.

A rooster trying to mate with a duck, and a man recording it on his cell phone. Demonstrating that people the world over will whip out their cell phones whenever animals start doing something freaky.

A man with broken basket of tomatoes on his bike, hundreds of tomatoes scattering across the width of the one paved road here. Four people riding one motorcycle. One of them was holding up the flag of the political party that has held the presidency in Tanzania since they gained independence in 1964.

Which reminds me, it’s election season here in Tanzania right now. The opposing party is much more popular, even at the local level. The other day I was out walking with one of the technicians and we stopped by the house of his “grandfather” (not actually his grandfather, just an older family friend). The grandfather gave us fliers for one of the candidates running for a village leadership position and they tell me, confidently, that even Obama endorses their party.

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