A Bit of Curiosity…

I’ll admit… I enjoy writing the blog, and I enjoy that I get visitors on a pretty regular basis. I average around 30-40 views a day, and have had more than 100 when I promise lots of pretty pictures, talk about the Serengeti and toss up a head’s up on Facebook.

But… what I don’t know is who all’s reading this thing. Thus, if you wouldn’t mind just making a comment on this post to tell me that you’re reading, and maybe offer up any suggestions, I’d really appreciate it.

I’ll have something new before the weekend, hopefully.

Cheers;

 Rivers

Back to Basics

Note: Photos posted over the next 2-3 days.

Since I’m such a gregarious lad, I was asked about a month back to show one of the new interns around the tribunal. She’d just arrived from St. Kitts and Nevis and knew no one. I happily obliged. Tanya was a friendly and interesting intern in finance, and she came to a few meals with some friends and I, and got to know people. Part way through last week, she returned the favour. She invited me – and a few others – to dinner at her house.

This was a mind-boggling invitation, since she currently lives with her uncle – ICTR President, Judge Byron. As a legal intern, I would have the chance to be dining with the highest ranking legal figure in the tribunal on Saturday night. I turned it down.

Colin, put away the cyanide pills… you don’t actually have to kill me for this one.

The reason that I was drawn away from this very interesting opportunity was that Andres Perez, one of the permanent ICTR staffers who happens to live at White House, popped his head into my room with an even better proposal. Leaving early on Saturday morning, 8 of us would caravan to Lake Eyasi to spend the weekend checking out Tanzania’s largest soda lake, just outside the rim of Ngorongoro Crater, from the comfort of a luxury tent at Kisima Ngeda lodge. That would be cool, yes, but not “skip-the-president-and-subsequent-request-to-be-a-judge-myself” cool.

He then explained that we’d spend Sunday morning out on an actual hunt with a local tribe of Hadzapi natives – one of the few remaining tribes that still speaks with a click language. We would be invited to partake in some of the freskly caught/cooked kill, check out a Toga blacksmith who made arrowheads and then meet a local Toga king. Yeah…somewhere in there the balance tipped.

Thus it was that at 8:30 on Saturday morning, Ronnie (the lad who runs the White House) and I got into an Escudo with Maggie (one of my supervisors) and took off. Following us were Lindsey, Shelton, Chiara (my other key supervisor) and her boyfriend Lloyd (a Newfoundland-born ICTR prosecutor). Andres would be leading the way on his trusty dirt bike, which kind of looks like Gonzo… though it hurts his masculine sensibilities when we tell him his hog looks like a Muppet.

The trip started out auspiciously enough. We flew across the well-paved road on our way to the turnoff. And since there was only 46km of dirt track, we figured it wouldn’t be that bad. This, of course, was before we missed the dirt track turnoff and Andres was forced to ask for directions to a lodge that by now, none of us could remember the name of. We got back on track shortly, though, and began to wind our way along the dirt track. I should probably point out that the only thing that separated the road from the surrounding countryside was that the road featured slightly fewer Acacia trees and bushes, and slightly more large, jagged rocks. One of these rocks actually served as a test of the durability of Maggie’s undercarriage, when we became lodged upon it. Thankfully, Ronnie and I had eaten our Wheaties, and disengaged the Escudo from its rocky perch.

We arrived at the lodge around 2:30 or so, and took a quick dip in the pool before lunch. Lunch – which was arguably the second-best tasting salad I’ve ever had – was followed by a team wander out to the retreating shores of Lake Eyasi. Eyasi is a ‘soda lake’, so called because it is more basic than acidic, having become alkaline with the dissolving particles of sulfur, phosphorus and soda. (For a better scientific explanation, ask someone who doesn’t have a BA in PoliSci). It was not, as I’d rather hoped, a giant pool of Passionfruit Fanta.

What made the lake particularly interesting was that as it recedes under the hot skies of Tanzania, waiting for the long rains later this year, the lake leaves a cracked brown crust that one can walk on towards the remaining pool of water. As you get closer to the centre of the lake, the cracked crust becomes darker… and then suddenly gives way underneath your probing foot to sticky and … ‘aromatic’ black mud that coats your shoes for three days. This is especially made worse if the two people you’re walking with (say… Shelton and Maggie, in this hypothetical) use YOU to push themselves out of said mud, sinking you in another 3 or 4 inches.

Making up for the squishing sensation that felt – and smelled – like someone had stuffed my shoes with week-old halibut was the massive collection of pelicans and flamingos that dotted the circumference of the lake. Pelicans, this just in, are large birds. If you’ve ever seen one eat a duck – and hey, who hasn’t – you’d know this, but these birds were just way bigger than I thought. The flamingos, though whiter than I’d hoped, were also a nice touch.

After having spent an acceptable amount of time perusing the lake, we retreated to the lodge – carefully avoiding the billhartzia (sp?) filled ‘natural’ swimming pool/organ destroyer, and collected a few beers and some Amarula for our hike to the top of the rock outcropping to watch the sunset. With birds flying, silhouetted, against the dying sun and a massive thunderhead building behind us in the east, accompanied by lightning, we got a pretty spectacular show. Dinner, back at the lodge, was made to match as I had the best meat I’ve ever had – roast ox scallops. On a gastronomic scale, they were tied with bacon smothered in maple syrup wrapped in lobster and served over pan-fried gold for sheer deliciousness.

All this, of course, was equivalent to warm bread rolls before the filet mignon… it’s nice, and appreciated, but not why I came.

That arrived the next morning. After breakfasting quickly, we collected our guide – Alfai – and headed off into the serious backbush of Tanzania. The previous day’s dirt track now looked like the Autobahn. Once we were good and properly 4km past the middle of nowhere – we were now just east of it – our guide told us to stop. I got out of the vehicle, and honestly, didn’t see any reason to have stopped. I heard it first – a low murmur of conversation and the sound of a very simple stringed instrument being plucked nearby. We wandered about 10 meters into a thicket, and found about 10 Hadzapi, dressed in shorts and beads, working around a fire, sharpening arrows and sucking on a seriously foul pipe.

I know this pipe was foul, because it was offered to me, and not wanting to appear rude, I took a serious draw. My general attitude towards smoking is “Only when I’m actually on fire” (or attempting to annoy Kimbop), so I was unprepared for the filling of my lungs with acrid smoke. I suppose I should have seen that coming, yes. The things I do in the name of politeness…

The Hadzapi put out their fire, and began to make a new one. You know that trick of rubbing one stick against another? They did that, using the flat of a knife as a base, and rapidly spinning a pole of wood inside a small hole to create friction. Helping them, naturally, was a 2-year old who was, therefore, playing with both fire and knives. Andres, who put his hands to the test, managed to actually get enough charred and smoldering ashes to start a fire, even if his palms later blistered like he’d been playing catch with the sun. Meanwhile, one of the Hadzapi, apparently unconcerned with minor things like 3rd-degree burns, was holding the still hot ashes in his hands with a pile of brush, and blowing on it all to get the flames up.

These are the lads we’re about to go hunting with.

They pass out bows and arrows to the menfolk. They do so somehow managing to never once double over with laughter at the remote chance of us doing damage to anything other than ourselves. A few of the Hadzapi break into a trot, and we go racing after them. The hunt is on. It’s almost 7:30am. Around the bush we trot, with Hadzapi occasionally slowing down to shoot at birds no larger than pigeons and occasionally breaking into a fullout sprint to chase – and I kid you not – squirrels. At one point they spot a squirrel in a tree, and about 6 guys gather around the bottom, aiming their arrows up, and when the squirrel – foolishly – decides to make a break for it, the Hadzapi go bananas. They all start yelling, screaming, firing arrows, throwing rocks and the utterly terrified squirrel takes cover in a thornbush. No amount of coaxing, prodding or bombing with rocks can convince the suddenly-wiser squirrel to appear again, though, so the hunt continues.

This was, I should emphasize, a very real hunt. The Hadzapi, being wise in the use of their resources, used us mostly as scary large things, having the whites encircle bushes where they thought game might be hiding, in order to scare it towards the hunters who actually knew what they were doing.

In the end, the game total was 2 squirrels (one, by some incredible shot, taken in the head), a groundbird and a small pigeon. Of those four animals, the white people were responsible for zip… though we did manage to make a lot of noise and likely scare off everything else. The Hadzapi make a new fire, in the middle of the bush, and prepare the meat. To clean and make the meat ready, they hold it by the tail… and drop it in the fire. Fairly simple preparation, really.

We are duly offered – and accept – small quantities of squirrel organ and bird breast, which we munch down. The squirrel was kind of pasty and squishy. The bird was actually pretty good. Then came the coup-de-gras… the guide asked us if we wanted any souvenirs, and the Hadzapi – who for all of their very traditional ways, have clearly dealt with white people before – take off the majority of their beads, unsling their bows and arrows, and set it all out. Of the 8 of us, 6 bought a bow and two arrows. Genius marketing by the Hadzapi: give them a bow and a couple hours,  who hike us back to their camp for some target practice with our new bows.

We all shoot at the rabbit-sized target – Andres manages to consistently whiistle his arrows a mere 2-3 inches over it – and are promplty shown up by the 2 year old… who takes a bow a foot and a half taller than he is, notches an arrow, and sends a shot arcing on a ridiculously high parabola, which then lands – thud – in the middle of the top of the target. Cue the whites going nuts. The kid turns around with a grin that nearly splits his head in half. It was incredible.

From there, we went on to visit another tribe – the Toga. The Toga are known for being very tall and the natural enemy of the Masaai, who are the dominant tribe in Tanzania. We start off at a Toga blacksmith. He is the ultimate recycler. A standard padlock, such as could be found on any shed in Canada, is turned into an arrowhead and a bracelet. This is all done, mark you, with a hammer and a fire that is hotter than a Venutian furnace. From there it’s on to one of the Kings of the Toga, who at 74 and 6’6 is an imposing figure. He and his wives – who, we were told, he shares with his sons – are incredibly welcoming, performing song and dance. However… since there were no age-appropriate males to do the male dance role, I volunteer and spend 3 minutes jumping straight up and down to the tune of the Toga singing. I should note, of course, that I am doing all of this in my plaid pajama pants, since I’d brought no other long-legged clothing that was deemed appropriate for going through Acacia thorns.

Finally, exhausted through, we return to the lodge for lunch and a swim, then begin the trip back to Arusha. 46km of dirt track takes us almost three hours, but hey… we went hunting with the Hadzapi. It was totally worth it.

*Note: “Worth it” should be expanded to include the other car taking a wrong turn, getting lost and spending an hour at a coffee plantation; 7 of the 8 of us developing some kind of illness the following day, with yours truly getting it far away the worst; and, of course, needing to figure out how to get a bow and arrows through customs. Tommert/Bashmir… any ideas?

Rainforest and Mountains

Often I put more thought into coming up with a catchy title than I should. I have seriously taken about 20 minutes to fire off some 1000 words and mulled and muddled my way over the 3-6 words of the title for about 25. There’s no real reason for this… I just like lame puns, and the headline is a chance to show off my favourite. I took a break from that today, simply because, well, its hard to be more eye-catching than “Rainforest” and “Mountains”.

I am also making today a double-long post, in honour of the fact that its been, like, a week since I last wrote.

But before I get into that… allow me to throw out a belated “Yippee-ky-yay, Mother Canoers!” for the success of my favourite politician of all time… a Mr. Barack Obama. I, along with a whole host of others, packed into the one bar that opened at 5am to show the results pour in and was able to celebrate with Americans, Canadians, Tanzanians, Italians, Australians and the rest of the gang as He was elected. (Yes, I’m giving Obama an honorific capitilization of He. You really don’t want to get me started on how much I love this guy.) So – after his victory was all but wrapped up when Virginia swung left, the cheers broke out, the clouds parted, the angels sang… and we all remembered why we didn’t really hate John McCain in the first place… and then got to hear Obama deliver an exceptionally thoughtful and moderated address. Of course… we didn’t actually hear much of this, because Kenya – right next door – had actually exploded from the sheer pressure of every foot in the country simultaneously landing after the excited victory jump. The vibrations knocked my 8000 Tsh omlette off the table.

In any case, I needed a way to celebrate, so I latched onto a trip that Antony – who was at Peponi with us – was preparing. Along with Chris Shelton and Lindsey and a host of others, we were off to the Usambare Mountain range, near the eastern coast of Tanzania. For those of you currently going “Umm… where?”, don’t panic. I needed a map, a printout and a pronounciation guide to figure it out. As it happens, the Usambaras (pronounced: “Oo-sum-bar-eh’s”… which is delightfully like an average evening plan for a Canuck. “Where we goin’?” “Oooh… some bar, eh?”) are referred to as the Galapagos of the flora world. Aside from the diversity of the plant life, the biggest draw is the unparalelled view of the African plains from the Irente Viewpoint. The sharpness of the contrast between cliffs and flats is, they say, rarely more apparent.

The trip, though, didn’t start auspiciously. The night before we were to leave – for a place known for its views, mark you – there was a massive thunderstorm painting the sky ominous blacks and greys. On the plus side, I convinced three equally insane friends at the White House (Hilary, Mary-Lou and Jonno) to go outside and play frisbee with me in the African downpour. The water was ‘brisk’ (read: hypothermia-inducing) and extensive. It was pretty great… as long as you ignored the lingering clouds.

The next morning – Friday – was even more unnerving. As I cracked one eye out the window near my bed, I saw a lot of bugs flapping about. I stumbled onto the balcony in my pajama pants and realized, half to my amusement and half to my utter terror, that it was a plague of locusts. You know that you’re no longer in Canada when Biblical prophecies are coming true in front of your eyes.

I worked until around 10:30 – giving every person aside from myself, Antony, Lindsey and Chris enough time to drop out – and then headed over to the bus station to pile onto one of the cramped death machines, apparently referred to quite seriously as “transportation.” We were headed east along the highway towards the coast, then doubling back and heading north-west from Mombo to Lushoto. At Lushoto, Peter – the owner of Irente Farm, where we would be renting a guesthouse – was to greet us and take us up. It all was going quite well so far.

We arrived in Mombo and caught a daladala – a smaller, minibus-sized deathtrap – to take us up the windy mountain road into the Usambaras. This road makes the Sea-to-Sky look like a train track. And the driver was clearly the reincarted soul of the Roadrunner, taking corners at a speed better suited to European fighter jets and leaving only puffs of dust and the sound barrier behind. Lindsey – along with a whole host of yelling Tanzanians – showed some nerves. These were not helped when suddenly the daladala decided to stop working on the ascent, and begin a gradual descent in reverse that seemed to be picking up speed. After some discussion, the daladala was turned around – a 5-point turn on a road no wider than a driveway clinging to the side of a cliff over a drop of, I don’t know, 3 billion feet – and coasted back down to the nearest town to pick up some gas. At the gas pump, some of the passengers began a friendly and lively attempt to kill the driver as they pulled him from his seat and started pushing him around. Eventually, somehow, cooler heads prevailed and we all piled back in to try again. At this point, it is fair to note that “cooler heads” does not always mean “wiser heads”. The trip up was – somehow – almost as exciting, featuring the driver responding to his critics by stopping in the middle of the road, getting out of the van and trying to hitch a ride back down on a passing transport truck. He eventually returned, again, and carried on up the road… until he was unceremoniously fired at the next town, and a replacement garnered in a process that took about 2.3 seconds. I don’t think the minibus even stopped rolling. However – we eventually arrived at Lushoto, picked up some veggies, chickens and hot chips, and headed off with Peter to Irente.

We awoke to a lush, green world filled with chirping birds, gorgeous vistas and giant snails. We had, once again, won the jackpot. A local fellow who did tours of the area offered his services to us for a reasonable price – which I was roundly mocked by my travelmates for offering… since I apparently offered 4x the price we’d been quoted by Peter as a good starting point the night before. In my defense, I should point out that for a 7-hour guided tour of the mountains, we were paying $10 Cnd – or Tsh 10000 – each.

 

The hike was great. The Usambares are – according to Lindsey – very similar to Rwanda, in that they’re very hilly, green and with a reddish complexion to the soil. The views were incredible, and the hike meandered its way up and down the side of mountains, down through dense and verdent rainforest and culminated at the peak of Magamba Forestry Reserve with stellar views on all sides.

My personal highlight was probably the chameleons that our guide pointed out to us early in the hike.  True to form, they were adept at changing colour to match the surrounding foliage, and how he saw them remains a mystery. The first one he saw seemed amicable enough… considering that the guide grabbed him out of a tree and offered him to me to hold. Since I actually love lizards, I was not about to say no… even when the lizards subsequently glared me down, hissed angrily, dug his claw into my index finger than leaped off my hand like a basejumper drunk on height. Apparently, though, this jumping thing isn’t unusual. The guide explained to us – and I quote him here, and have yet to research this – that chameleons females reproduce by having the babies grow in their stomach… before jumping into the air, having their stomach explode, releasing baby lizards in all directions and killing the mother. This strikes me as unlikely, but invents a fascinating comparison in their talents.

Chameleons, apparently, have got camo down cold… but need serious work on the reproduction front.

After visiting the peak of Magamba, we wandered towards the Irente Viewpoint – promised that it would be worth its fame. And true to its word… it was. The cliffs towered over the plains of Africa like a Queen over her chessboard, catching and holding the light on their rocks and casting satisfying shadows over the foothills. The cliff itself was about 1500m above sea level (according to my trust GPS) and about the closest to the edge I dared go was to dangle my foot over during a photo… and to crawl, army-style, on my stomach and hold my arm out over the edge to capture a picture with my camera angling straight down.

 

We tottered back to the Farm and began to prepare our dinner. We were not eating like paupers either. The night before, we’d whipped up a pasta with tomato sauce made from scratch and avocado garnish, along with red wine and celebratory champagne (“To the President-Elect!”). Saturday night we feasted on a vegetable stew over rice, wtih seasoned and barbecued chicken (note: Chris cleaned and prepared the chicken, I q’d it. This was no nancy-pants chicken breast fillet) and baked brownies, the box for which Lindsey had brought from the States.

The next morning came way too soon, and forced us into a cab by 6:40am, and off to Lushoto to catch the bus back so that Chris and I could go back into the UN to continue our work. I am happy to report that our bus driver was much more sedate and had stocked up fully on gas. And, like he needed more love from us, stopped at a place where we could order newspaper-wrapped hot chips with tomato sauce… handed to us through our bus window… for about a dollar. Tanzania once again finished strong.

Note: If you didn’t pay really clsoe attention, go back and blow up the first photo.

Moving into the White House

Timing, as they say, is everything.

I’m writing this post about 12-16 hours before I hope to see the votes pouring in for my favourite politican of all time, the Evil Emperor Zurg from Toy Story. Alternatively, if my 12-second write-in campaign fails, I will settle for Barack Obama pulling away from John “I don’t make french fries” McCain and providing me with more hope in politics than I’ve ever had.

I’m writing this post about 12-16 hours after I, myself, moved into the White House. If you’re reading this blog for the first time, attracted by the political name that hints at the election, you’ll wonder how on earth I made myself a crucial enough Obama advisor to actually be able to head in and start measuring for drapes in D.C. The answer, of course, is that there is a large, white house in Arusha that has been so named. This despite the fact that it contains, of some 15 residents, 9 Canadians and 1 American.

 Regardless – I have moved out of the house I was in before and into White House as of last night. I figured I would provide you with a handy chart comparing the two, in order to help make the rationalizing for my decision more clear. In honour of the pending title change of my homeboy, Senator Barack Obama, to President Barack Obama, I will also compare the less-famous Washington version of the White House.

Category	Brewery House	White House (Arusha)	White House (D.C.)
Rent	$200	~$300	100 million votes
Roommates	Two French potentially-lesbians who fist fight and step on each other’s chest; one fairly happy-go-lucky Kenyan	An assortment of Canadians, Brits, Americans, Germans, Venezuelans, Tanzanians, interns and medical volunteers	The Ghosts of Great Men, The Ghost of Dick Cheney’s humanity
Animals	Occasional Gecko	3 chickens, 1 goat, blonde dog, brunette dog, tortoise, cat, assorted geckos, staph bacteria (Note*bacteria only suspected at this point)	Some kind of dog, if Obama wins. If not, moose head.
Concerns	No internet (despite being paid for), no TV (despite being paid for), food I bought disappears like ice cubes in lava; can’t walk to work	The shower is more of a drizzle, really	Bush gave copies of the Oval Office key to Huckaby to “get Obama good”.
Intangibles	Mama Anna and Anna (housekeeper and daughter) were awesome and cried when I moved.	Ronnie, Chris Shelton and Lindsey provide witty and charismatic company; can share cabs to social events	Knowledge that the only time the building has burned down was at the hands of Canadians during 1812
My Room	Single bed, private room	Twin bed, corner of a hallway, cordoned off with curtain.	Probably the detention cell
Nearest Store	Cigarette Stand, 20m to left. Tanzania Breweries, across road.	Variety store specializing in goods that expired in 2006 and cold pop, 5m to the right	Concession stand selling hot dogs and watered down beer at Washington Nationals Park
Distance to Work	20 minute walk across bridge where UN staffer was stabbed with screwdriver last year	14 minute walk across absolutely no sketchy bridges	Slightly more than a short bike ride
Decibel Level	Wake-Up Time: 0, Wind-Down Time: 0	Wake-Up Time: 12000 (roosters); Wind-Down Time: 20 000 (14 roommates)	Average Day: 2000; volume of taunt when Obama rejects Biden’s layup: 4000
Most Similar To…	Margaret Laurence – *snore*	Terry Pratchett/Bill Bryson – All awesome, all the time	John Grisham – while probably overhyped, still usually worth it
Likelihood of Being Made into a Hit TV Show	Diddly divided by squat	Reasonably good, if in “Big Brother” vein	Zero. Who wants to watch US politics at work?

One Month in Africa

So – as of sometime over the last 48 hours, I’ve been in Arusha for exactly one month. I’ve added “United Nations” to my resume, drank Konyagi while overlooking Ngorongoro Crater, succesfully made purchases at Central Market in Swahili and watched the sunrise over the Serengeti and the Indian Ocean. I have also managed to avoid being eaten by a lion.

I’ve tried to put all of this into words for you. But even the best words have trouble capturing the mood as well as a picture can. Thus, in lieu of my normal rambling, I’ve fought through about 1400 pictures and 14 hours of uploading to bring you never-before-seen images that take you right from my goodbye party in Victoria to the Halloween party we had last night with nothing more than a sentence about each, considering each picture is theoretically worth a thousand words. That means this post is…. 27 687 words long. Thanks for following along so far – two months to go.

I should note, by the way, that the safari is seemingly underrepresented. This is because there’s lots of photos of it already.

Nothing says goodbye to BC  like making a human totem pole.

(Christie’s Pub – Victoria, BC)

I miss having roommates who I actually like – like Jeff and Karl.

(Christie’s Pub – Victoria, BC)

Yes, yes, don’t laugh because it’s true they’ve trusted me to work at the UN.

(Christie’s Pub – Victoria, BC)

Its true – I get great arm candy becasue I won the Masters.

(The Bengal Lounge, The Empress Hotel – Victoria, BC)

Oh, Africa, you have no idea what you’re in for.

(Pearson Int’l Airport – Toronto, ON)

I really wish my jacket was made of velvet at this point.

(London, England)

Take that Tom – my feet have now grown to be bigger than the towers of … umm… that building.  Somewhere, Chris Shelton cries that I can’t recognize the building from HP sauce.

(Thames River, Rivers Feet – London, England)

Proof that the early bird actually gets to see the sun rise over the Indian Ocean.

(Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania)

I don’t buy it – there’s zero good chocolate.

(Arusha Int’l Airport – Arusha, Tanzania)

You can tell that we’re in Africa, what with the rough life we’re living and all.

(Dhow on the Indian Ocean – Tanga, Tanzania)

Just in case you’re wondering – Team Canada/Norway beat Team Germany/Holland.

(Peponi Resort – Tanga, Tanzania)

Antony was officially on crocodile watch while I took this picture.

(Glades – Tanga, Tanzania)

Gin and tonics actually help prevent malaria – somewhere, Colin Hoult is very happy.

(Peponi Resort – Tanga, Tanzania)

Look carefully… you can tell that I may miss some things about North America. 

(My Office, ICTR – Arusha, Tanzania)

You can’t tell here, but my quads are recalling the hill that Acadia University is built on.

(Foothills of Mt. Meru – Arusha, Tanzania)

… excuse me, I need to visit the washroom.

(Foothills of Mt. Meru – Arusha, Tanzania)

This is just to prove that I didn’t just Google “waterfall” and steal someone else’s photos.

(Footfills of Mt. Meru – Arusha, Tanzania)

Unlike in Victoria, Tanzanians have to hide their drug-use… which is why we climbed the hill because it WAS high, unlike the fellows in the extreme left of the photo.

(Foothills of Mt. Meru – Arusha, Tanzania)

There is nothing like eating turkey on Thanksgiving… even if it had to be imported from Kenya.

(White House – Arusha, Tanzania)

Excellent camo – can YOU spot the zebra in this picture?

(Tarangire Nat’l Park – Tanzania)

At least, not without buying them dinner.

(Tarangire Nat’l Park – Tanzania)

Somewhere, this monkey’s friend is saying “Just take two steps back and you’ll be in focus.”

(Tarangire Nat’l Park – Tanzania)

Chris Shelton can fly like an eagle.

 (Serengeti Nat’l Park – Tanzania)

I think my love of these trees may be influenced by the fact they’re called “Acacia”… though the fact they’re more twisted than Ali’s sense of humour doesn’t hurt. 

(Serengeti Nat’l Park – Tanzania)

Every day after work, Anna and I play one of these games for an hour: hide the sandal, somersaults on the lawn, frisbee, drawing, dancing to Moulin Rouge soundtrack, tag and practicing our 15-step handshake.

(Brewery House – Arusha, Tanzania)

Yes, this is for Halloween – no smart comments requried.

(White House – Arusha, Tanzania)

 

There was 4 Canadians on a team of 5 – we were never going to lose flip-cup.

(White House – Arusha, Tanzania)

Get to Know Arusha!

This post has been rattling around in my head for a few weeks… it’s mostly stuff that I couldn’t write about on its own, but I felt helped to provide an interesting picture of the city I’m living in. The same thing kind of holds true for the snazzy and shiny new page listed at the top – Unscripted. It’s a collection of quotes taken from public transcripts that I’ve been reading over for the last few days. Sometimes funny, sometimes not – the quotes all elicited some kind of reaction from me.

So…

• Lunch in Arusha shouldn’t cost more than 6000 Tsh ($6.00 CND, for those of you who have the memory of goldfish). If you know where to go, lunch is 2500 Tsh – and that includes a cold Fanta, rice with beef, spinach and a bit of salad.
• The Swahili word for 10 – kumi – is very close to the Swahili word for female privates – kuma. This led to an unfortuante incident where my taxi driver almost killed us because he was laughing so hard he almost took us off the road.
• On that subject, the Swahili word for “brother” is “kaka”. Pity my poor brother Tom who shall be nicknamed “Kaka” forever more.
• Freeman – my favourite taxi driver – has told me that rather than ever walk after dark, I should call him, wake him up, and insist he come and get me. Regardless of whether it’s 2am on the only day he takes off (Sunday). He’s also invited me to a Tanzanian wedding (!!) in November. I am very excited about it.
• Bread here is not soft at all. It could be used as a projectile weapon quite easily… if there’s ever a food-fight here, I’m totally breaking out a loaf of white as a bludgeon.
• On that subject, the first jam I bought here was “watermelon”. It tastes – and looks – like Jello.
• I have heard two great responses to the request “Mzunga… give me money!” One is from Chris Shelton who says “No! You give me money!” and one is from Ronnie who says “Mzunga?! Where?!?”
• I will be very shortly moving from my current location (“Across from the brewery”) to the White House (“Where all of the brewery’s products are consumed!”) Though in all seriousness, I’m very excited – the vast majority of my friends here are among the 15 tenants of White House, and as of Nov. 3rd, I shall be one of them.
• My Obama t-shirt has made me more friends than standing up in an Irish bar and yelling “Guinness on me!” would have done
• One of the other workers at the UN has the common sense of a cactus, since after I warned him NOT to send me a file I KNEW that contained a virus, and told him a way to get me the information without sending me a virus, he did so anyways. Now my laptop is down until I return to Canada. I look like I’m coming off a lifetime 2-pack a day habit. My hands shake, my voice trembles and I lash out violently at anyone who looks like Bill Gates.
• On random Tanzanians in the street, I’ve seen two Toronto Maple Leafs products thus far, one UVic t-shirt, one U of Waterloo baseball cap and zero Ottawa Senators gear… showing that even people who couldn’t tell ice hockey from Jeremy Shockey know the difference between awesome and not.
• I seriously miss late-night pizza delivery.
• I played my first game of Scrabble and Euchre in this country last night. I – along with Julie – won in Scrabble 265-153-110. I then paired up with Ronnie to eke out a 10-9 Euchre victory.
• One is NOT to refer to Zigiranyirazo, an accused genocidaire, as “Ziggy Smalls.” This is especially true in formal documents. Who knew?

Work It Out

To people with zero interest in my work with the UN, feel free to ignore this post. It’s disgustingly focused on the 9-5 of my life. If, of course, by 9-5 I mean 8:15am to around 6:30pm. They keep me busy.

Despite the fact that I paint a rosy picture of wildlife and waterfalls, there is actually a 3rd ‘w’ component to my time in Arusha: work. I know, I know… from what you’ve read it seems like I actually do as much work as a government official two days from retirement. However – that’s probably not fair to my average week. If, of course, you believe it’s possible to already have an average week when you’re still not yet at your first month at the job.

When I arrived in Arusha, the name that appeared on my official letter as my supervisor was Mr. Mandiaye Niang – a Special Assistant to the Registrar. Thus far, I have put approximately 32 minutes of work in for him. This is not because I’m slack, but rather because immediately upon my arrival, I found that he had loaned me out to the Deputy Registrar to help them with a project on penal code summaries.

After the ICTR convicts somebody, it needs a place to send them. There’s a holding facility near the tribunal that’s used to house the accused genocidaires right now, but with the ICTR pulling up stakes and calling it a show by 2010 at the latest (in theory), there won’t be blue hats with guns around forever. Thus, a certain number of countries have signed an agreement with the UN to allow for prisoner transfer.

This is where I came in. My first chunk of time in Arusha was spent brushing up on my ability to read laws in French. As it happens, the countries with which the ICTR has the agreement that were assigned to me all use French as their primary legal language. These were assigned to me because I am relatively proficient in French. I’m able to ask a girl to dance, to order a cold beer and to, apparently, read complex interrelating laws on prisoner’s rights and the intricacies of the penal regime. The worst (best?) was France’s. At one point the law actually made a specific note that it is a requirement for a prisoner’s food to be sufficient, well prepared and – this is the kicker – well presented. God, I love the French.

But that project is, for me and for now, in the rearview mirror. I have become – apparently – the first intern in ICTR history to do concurrent work for multiple sections of the body. Not only am I officially under the watchful eye of the Registry and, by extension, the Deputy Registrar – I also now work for Chambers, which is the body that serves as the Switzerland to the Prosecution’s France and the Defense’s Germany.

My newest project is incredibly riveting… provided, of course, you’re at least a bit of a legal geek. Every day I’ve been going through hundreds of pages of witness testimony looking for specific information pertaining to the accused who’s case I’ve been asked to work for. Once I’ve finished this task – which has something around the neighbourhood of 4000 pages of testimony in it – I’ll be helping to compile the information, and then aid in the drafting of a section of the judgment that will be presented to the judges for their consideration.

I don’t know about you, but I find that pretty darned interesting. It’s kind of hard to link up with the fact that a mere month ago, I was still rhyming off our five different kinds of local draft beer and seriously pimping out our crab cakes. I’ve gone from “mashed potatoes, Jasmine rice or roasted new potatoes?” to “What kind of conclusion does this evidence lead toward?” It’s quite the jump.

Of course, being an intern with a somewhat inconclusive permanent home doesn’t just mean I get to jump from fascinating project to fascinating project. Friday, for example, I was asked to do some projects that – as far as I can tell – no one else wanted to do.

On the plus side – this did allow me to get some cheap shots in at Sarah Palin’s expense, which is always fun. The Palin proposal was veto’d, sadly, but that doesn’t prevent me from having enjoyed it nevertheless.

Note: For those of you who tried to view the official letter of acceptance in my very first post, I have now corrected the link – and included it again in the body text of this post near the beginning.

Lions and Cheetahs and Zebras, oh my!

Introduction
Tarangire
Serengeti Plains
Olduvai Gorge
Ngorongoro Crater

Having spent the vast majority of my summers in the gorgeous confines of Muskoka and Huntsville, I thought I was used to seeing some spectacular displays in the wild. The moose that was in the middle of the road, blocking our van during our first ever trip to Algonquin Park stands out. As does the time that a black bear stood up and leaned against the door of our cottage, waking my dad up much faster than the coffee he was preparing would have. Even when I travelled I’d seen some neat things. The koala who I had to prod across the road while delivering pizza on the Gold Coast of Australia, straddling a fault line in California, watching the green monkeys wander carefree around my feet in Barbados and contemplating the vastness of the Pacific Ocean while an orca smashed into the water, side first, all compete in my mind for the most lasting impression.
 
The 4-day, 3-night safari that I just returned from, which meandered through Tarangire, Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti Plains, trumps them all.

I’m going to play spoiler of my own post here, and take a second to list all of the animals that we saw during the safari, just so it gets you in the right frame of mind. We saw, in no particular order: ostriches, lions, zebras, giraffes, warthogs, waterbucks, secretary birds, leopards, elands, impala, Thomson’s gazelles, hippos, black rhinos, white-backed vultures, Nubian vultures, Tawny eagles, Bateleurs, Vervet monkeys, olive baboons, spotted hyenas, black-backed jackals, guineafowl, reedbucks, hartebeests, Grant’s gazelles, a honey badger (deceased), buffalo, wildebeest, crowned cranes, flamingos, African hares, Crowned hornbills, grasshopper buzzards, an African fish eagle, hyraxes, dik-diks, black kites, superb starlings, a monitor lizard, elephants, Kori bustards, agama lizards, white pelicans, marabou storks, banded mongoose (mongeese?), topi and my personal favourite, cheetahs.

That’s 16 birds worthy of mention, 12 types of ungulate (note to biologists: I have no idea what an ungulate is. 12 is therefore an approximation), 3 different big cats and a bunch of things that defy simple categorization. With the exception of the rhinos and the flamingos, the furthest away any of these creatures were (at one point) was 10 meters – or for Americans reading, 28 cubic milifeet. The closest was a lion that walked right up to one of our jeeps and passed, oh, 4 feet behind it. That list, by the way, may not be exhaustive. We did what we could in terms of documentation, but it was impossible to keep up. And these were not isolated incidents. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say we saw 20 or so of the big cats, 50 or so of the hippos, 100 or so giraffes, 250 or so elephants, well over a thousand zebra, easily over 5000 wildebeest and probably around 10 000 gazelles of various types. In 4 days. We also watched the sun rise over the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, the sun set over the same and also paid a visit to Olduvai Gorge – the place where the oldest known evidence of upright humans exists. Yeah… a sidetrip to that.

Kind of makes that poor moose standing alone on Highway 60 feel a little insignificant, though I in no way denigrate that experience. This is simply to give you an idea of what I was expecting (if we saw a single zebra I’d be happy and a giraffe or two would be incredible) and what I got (more meat on feet than a Fat-Camp Fun Run).

So with no further introduction, allow me to delve into the details. Sit down and grab a coffee, slow your pace to “elephant jog” because this is the Director’s Cut edition of Lawrence of Arabia – you’ll be here a while. I did my best to ensure it’s worth your time.

Tarangire

I had no idea what I was in for, this much was clear.

I caught a cab over to the White House around 8:30 or so, and loaded my bag into one of the two Jeeps that would be bouncing us all over Tanzania for the next 80 or so hours. Five Canadian volunteers not from the UN were in one car (Mary-Lou, Julie, Nat, Becky and Hillary), while I sat down with Chris Shelton (who will be playing ‘Chris’ the rest of this post), Lindsey and Ronnie, the three I knew best of the group. The Jeeps were the definition of rugged: they had 8-slice toaster sized radios bolted to the ceiling, two diesel gas tanks and a roof that could be bolted open or closed, depending on whether we were in transit or transfixed mode.

As we all piled into the car, Chris expressed that his strongest desire was to see a honey badger. After I’d inquired as to this animals relation to Winnie-the-Pooh, I was informed that a honey badger – otherwise known as a ratel – is an animal that is considered to be the fiercest of all African animals. Apparently, some Africans would rather go mano-a-mammal with a lion than a honey badger. And wouldn’t you know, only a few kilometers down the road, Chris got his wish. Of course, this honey badger wasn’t going anywhere fast since it had gone mammal-a-Mack truck and come out on the losing end. Still – the fact that Chris  had wished something and it had appeared seemed a promising sign. This was to become a trend. I won’t detail every time it happened, but on at least 10 separate occasions, we expressed a desire to see something, and the next new animal we saw was exactly that.

This is probably a good time to introduce Mohammed Ally – The Greatest – who was to be our driver and guide. He was incredible. More on him later.

I knew very little about Tarangire. I was told it was a good place to see elephants, so I was guardedly optimistic we may see one or two. It also was a good stop for me, personally, since it was the location of one of five geocaches I hoped to snare on the trip. As we entered into the park, Mohammed pointed out an amarula tree. The fruit of this tree, which contains naturally occurring alcohol at some point in its lifecycle – is used to make the cream liqueur known as Amarula, and also serves to occasionally – and this is true – make elephants so drunk they pass out.

We arrived at the park entrance, located under the outstretched arms of a very large baobaob tree, and I found my first cache in Africa. The fact that this accomplishment only gets two sentences tells you, yet again, how mind-boggling this safari was.
We entered into the park and began our game drive, to see what we could find. About 110 seconds in, we came across a tree filled with Vervet monkeys. They chattered, showed off and made a general spectacle of themselves. At one point, a mother ran across the grass with a baby clinging to its underside, swinging like a hammock and holding on like a mountain climber. I figured, naively, that this would probably be the trip highlight.

Over the course of the rest of the day, I found out how wrong I was. I got my first look at part of the annual wildebeest migration, when long trains of 150 or so animals wandered across the road in front of us. I tried to count zebras and totally lost track. I gave up around 900 or so, and that was after the first couple of hours. We saw a family of warthogs snorting around – warthogs unfailingly referred to by Mohammed as “Pumbas”.

There is, by the way, no more ridiculous creature than an ostrich. This is an animal with a fat feather-duster for a body, a matted pink pipecleaner for a neck and two elastic bands for legs. The black males blend into the yellows and browns of the savannah like muksie in a goldfish bowl. When they run, they look like 6-year olds who are trying to kick dirt at the people behind them. Their eyes bug out like Wile E. Coyote when he looks down. How on earth they’ve survived to this point is a serious testament to the ability to run 70km/hr and to kick your stomach through your spine.

Tarangire proved as good as its word, providing us with our first views of elephants. These were not lines-of-elephants in the distance, these were creatures that eat 250kg of vegetation a day standing 20 feet from our car. At one point, a young male used his head and tusks to shake a tree in order to knock down the fruit. Any teetotalers will be happy to know that it was not amarula fruit he was after, however. There were to be zero frat-boy elephants on this voyage. Despite the proximity of the elephants, I also took this time to learn how to use the binoculars as an additional camera zoom, just in case we were to be frustrated after Tarangire. While I needn’t have worried, it was still a neat trick.

We pulled over to nosh on our packed lunches, provided by our excellent cook Henrique, and were immediately greeted by a series of also-hungry monkeys, superb starlings and a Bateleur eagle.

That afternoon we also got our first glance at the hilariously named dik-dik. A dik-dik is basically a white-tailed deer in kindergarten. At full size, a dik-dik is probably only slightly bigger than your average housecat. And it’s, basically, a type of deer. Dik-diks also mate for life, so it’s quite common to see them in pairs. Apparently, if one dies (being mauled by a passing squirrel seeming to me a likely cause), the other dies soon after.

On we carried, and the wonders kept on coming. We saw a 12-foot tall termite mound that had been taken over by mongooses (mongeese?), with about 8 peering out from various holes at us as we drove by. We saw hyrax – a raccoon-like creature that’s most closely related to elephants – nestled in trees. And I got my first ever view of a giraffe in the wild. This struck me as especially unlikely, since Brad Weldon – a very good friend of mine from UVic – had spent some time convincing me that they didn’t exist and were part of a massive conspiracy against him. Anyone who claims they do exist has been gotten to by the controversy. The fact I now claim to have seen them may, in fact, drive a wedge between us. Giraffes, by the way, are right up there for the coolest thing I saw on safari. The markings, the gait, the sheer size and the propensity to be near roads make them a tourist’s dream.

Of course, not everything was warm cream and dead rats. For those of you unfamiliar with the tsetse fly, allow me to enlighten you. These beasts are about the size of an average housefly – maybe a little narrower and a shade longer. They are capable of biting through clothing into your skin and take practically zero time to settle before they do so. Unlike a mosquito, which at least takes a second to set his feet, tsetse flies come down hungry, and with their own utensils. To the untrained eye, the four of us may have looked to be enjoying a simple game of “smack every surface in the car – including Ronnie’s nose – with a sandal”, but in reality it was an attempt to kill the evil things. And since they carry African sleeping sickness – which was explained by Lindsey to mean “You go to sleep… and continue to sleep” – there was some real concern. At least, until Mohammed told us that we’d need to be bit by about 1000 before we got sleeping sickness.

 

As if that hadn’t been  enough, as we were leaving the park a monitor lizard creeped its way up the road in front of our jeep before hanging a sharp right into the tall grass. We left Tarangire to head to our campsite for the night, and I was convinced that even if we had great big goose-eggs for the next three days, I’d already gotten my money’s worth. Lindsey and Chris, both with previous safari experience, convinced me that I didn’t need to worry. This was only a warmup.

Serengeti

The next morning, after fighting every killer bee in Africa off of my toast, we loaded our gear and departed for the long, bumpy and dusty ride to the Serengeti. The fastest route there – and the only one that can be done in under two days – requires you to go through Ngorongoro Crater National Park. So it came to be that we were actually headed to Ngorongoro, but with no real stops for game drives planned.

But before we could even consider that, Ronnie and Chris decided that we needed some tunes in the car. Thus, they disembarked at a local village and went in to secure the kind of music that would help to convey the majesty of the African landscape. They came back with Abba Gold, on cassette and a mislabeled Bob Marley tape. I was so proud I almost cried.

 

We entered Ngorongoro and took the windy, brick-red dirt track up to the crater rim and along it, around the outside of the park. At one point, the jungle cover broke and we were rewarded with a stunning view down into the crater. I was also rewarded here with the rarest of all prizes – a first-to-find geocache! I recognize that when staring at a World Heritage Site, one should probably not be more excited by a small chunk of plastic, but hey, I’m wired kinda funny. Mohammed noticed the excitement and came over, and we began to explain geocaching to him. He seemed fairly interested. This was later hypothesized to be because of the simple fact that his job is to know everything there is to know about these parks. To have a Canadian muzungu with a Thundercats t-shirt teach him something he didn’t know – no matter what it is – must be fairly unique.

We continued around the crater and down into the endless plains of the Serengeti. En route we were rewarded with numerous dirt-devils – small tornadoes of dust that whirl about, causing no real damage but immediately bringing to mind flying cows. The road into Serengeti National Park from Ngorongoro Crater is as smooth and comforting as limestone being run across a cheese grater. There were potholes the size of Michigan separated only by a strip of ‘road’ thinner than Kate Moss. How each one of them has not been designated as its own World Heritage Site escapes me.

We arrived at the entrance to the park in mid-to-late afternoon, found another geocache and got into a staring contest with a few agama lizards. If you were alive in the 80s, and recall the nylon jumpsuits that were popular among the Hal Johnson-types, you will know the colour of this lizard. It was hot pink and neon purple. All it was missing was an Annie Lennox poster and an improving Blue Jays team, and it was ready to rock.

The plan was to get to our campsite – located in  the Serengeti and separated from the animals of said park by diddly/squat – and then go for a game drive as the sun was dropping. However – Serengeti wanted to get a head start on being worthy of its reputation. Thus it was that we saw two female lions basking in the sun about 20 meters off of the road… as a warmup for seeing a young male and a female under the tree about 4 meters off of the road. Before we got to the campsite. To be fair, the park is 14763 square meters, so it’s not exactly a summer’s stroll from A to B, but still. TWO sets of lions? That just seemed excessive.

 

We made it to camp, dropped our gear, and opened up the first of three bottles of wine we’d brought for the night. Thus it was that as the sun began to descend, bleeding red, orange and gold over the jet-black silhouetted acacia trees, we were able to watch from the back of a safari jeep while enjoying a 2006 South African sauvignon blanc. The barbarians at the park gate didn’t have any from New Zealand.

 

We returned to camp and tucked in for the night. Due to the numbers of people, we had four tents of two and one tent of one. For the previous night, Julie had grabbed the solo spot, but for tonight I’d volunteered. There was something that appealed to me about being in the middle of the Serengeti on my own in a tent. This decision wasn’t even rattled by the sounds of lions grunting and roaring as I began to drift off to sleep. Or the hyenas doing much of the same. Or the fact that as we ate dinner, an African buffalo walked through  our campsite. While I recognize that buffalos aren’t exactly carnivorous, they do still weigh up to 850kg and have a set of horns that speak eloquently, coming quite quickly to the point, of just how little you want to be in its way.

We awoke the next day to the sun doing much the same as the night before, only in reverse. We were on the trail by 6:00, and off to see what the Serengeti had to offer. This, the 3rd day, was to be the most rewarding.

The first experience of the day was the chance encounter of a group of hyenas – 2 adults and 9 or more kids – roughhousing in the morning sun. The sounds of birds chirping and the wind in the grasses did very little to disguise the sound of a gazelle skull being cracked open by one particularly hungry hyena. We carried on driving and soon came across the bizarre looking secretary bird. Think of a small eagle of some kind balancing on the legs of a blue heron, only instead of eating fish, it hunts poisonous snakes. Then give it a Mohawk. That’s a secretary bird.

However – our contemplation of the secretary bird was quickly turned on its head by an even cooler development. At Lake Manyara, the lions are known for being quite unusual, since they climb trees. This is a normal occurrence in leopards, but in lions is unique. We found a lion in a tree in the Serengeti. At least, it was in the tree – about 20m away – for the first while. Then, it stretched, yawned, clambered down the trunk and began to walk purposefully towards the jeeps. The progression went something like this: This is so cool, this is so cool, this is so cool, look how close it is!! Ohmygod look how close it is, oh god, oh god, oh god. The switchover occurred when the lion hit the 3 meter mark with no real signs of slowing. As it passed behind the girl’s jeep, they responded with what seemed to me to be the perfect decision. Lowering, en masse, slowly into the jeep and away from the opening in the roof where the lion could leap into and have herself a buffet breakfast.

 

Around this time, Mohammed decided he wanted to go for the toughest find: a leopard. The Safari “Big Five,” so named originally for their difficulty in being hunted, are buffalo, elephant, lion, rhino and leopard. I have listed them here in increasing difficulty of being found. And wouldn’t you know, with 3 of 5 already wrapped up, we were due for… more good luck. Mohammed managed to find us not only a leopard lazing in the sun, but one with a baby leopard right beside it. My boss, Chiara, who’s been on 5  Safaris has never seen a leopard. Forget one with a baby. Since the leopards were about 20m away, my binocular trick came in handy to snare some photos of them.

We returned to the camp for some brunch. Julie and Nat learned the importance of not turning your back on baboons when they posed for a picture near a few. The large male on the left here decided he was bored with standing around, and took a healthy run at them. Thankfully, as evolved humans who are (arguably) the current pinnacle of evolution, they knew the best thing to do: let out a startled scream and forget dignity while beating a hasty retreat. The baboon wandered back to the rest of his family, snickering.

The one thing that I’d wanted to see so far and had yet to was a cheetah. By this point, I’ve started to realize that I’m in an ‘ask and you shall receive’ situation. Mohammed got a bead on some cheetahs well out into the plains, some distance from the road. I was still pretty excited, though, since even through the binoculars it was easy to tell that the cheetahs are seriously gorgeous creatures. Mohammed was getting ready to go, but I asked for a just a few more minutes. So we gave me a few more minutes of wide-eyed rapture, before I said we could take off. Mohammed, this time, asked us to wait a minute.

As soon as a nearby safari vehicle had passed, and disappeared, he asked “Do you want to go see them?” We were like “Um, what?” “Do you want to go and get pictures?” There was a confused cacophony of four people yelling along to the theme of “Hells yes!!” with aassorted positive noises and high fives. Mohammed gunned the engine, fired off the road, and took off into the middle of the Serengeti towards the tree the cheetahs were under. We got there, snapped photos rapidly, Mohammed yelled “We go now!!” and he spun the jeep around, and fired us back towards the road. The cheetahs took enough interest to briefly stand up and yawn, before dropping back to the ground to resume their advanced “doing nothing at all” class.

We made it back to the road, with adrenaline visible in our eyes and some stellar photos of the cheetahs… not to mention a series of four photos in randomized snapping trying to get the cheetahs as we roared out. I think we got the trunk of the tree, the roof of the other jeep (confusedly following us), the ground in front of the tree and then Chris’s pants.

We were curious, though – with the hurry to depart that Mohammed was in, what was the potential trouble that we’d get in if we’d been caught leaving the road? The answer was $100 fine and Mohammed losing his driver/guide license. Mohammed seriously rocks.

 With the cheetahs under our belt – not literally, that would be terrifying – it was time to depart the Serengeti for Ngorongoro Crater.

Olduvai (Oldupai) Gorge

On our way out of the park, though, Ronnie asked how far off of the main road Olduvai Gorge was. When Mohammed said it was only 25 minutes off the track, Ronnie asked if the other three of us would be interested. We all enthusiastically gave our assent – and I was one of the most vocal.

Those who know me will of course not be surprised that I was totally on board… despite not having a clue what Olduvai Gorge was. Whatever – it sounded cool. And it turns out, as Lindsey and Ronnie explained, that it’s very cool.

Olduvai Gorge – locally known as Oldupai Gorge, the original name that was mispronounced by the German scientist who first recorded it – is commonly referred to as “The Cradle of Mankind.” You know something is worthy when it earns The Capital Letters in its Nickname. What made it the most interesting was the plaster cast of the Laetoli fossilized footprints – a trail of footprints thought to be made by early humans about 3.6 million years ago – or roughly the time that Jim Breneman started middle school.

We were given the privilege of hearing a lecture about the Gorge by one of the staff – Mr. John – who explained to use the age of the different layers of the Gorge, the time of its discovery, and the evolution of the scientific work done on it. There was also a small museum with different skulls of different stages of man’s evolution over time.

The museum also contained a series of the stone tools used by prehistoric man that have been unearthed in the gorge over time. To my untrained eye, they looked mostly like large rocks. Then again… I suppose that’s because that basically was what they were. Large rocks. The exhibit tried to convince me that they had been chipped into the shape they were by early tools, but let’s be honest… you don’t need a particular shape to your rock when you’re using it to bash in the head of dinner. As long as its big, it’ll do the trick.

Ngorongoro Crater

We got to our campsite, perched high on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater shortly before the sunset. Ngorongoro isn’t truly a crater, as the name would suggest. As Lindsey informed us, a crater is caused by a meteorite, whereas a collapsed volcano – such as the one that created Ngorongoro – is correctly referred to as a caldera.

We set up camp with a specific purpose in mind: we had our tents facing east, near to the rim, so that in the morning, when we awoke and looked out the tent door, we’d get to see the sunrise over the trees. This was sheer brilliance on our part.

What we didn’t expect was that some kind of animal would use the area around our tent as their feeding ground for much of the night. This caused Ronnie to wake me up in the middle of the night (the fact I’d rolled onto his separated shoulder may have also had something to do with that) in order to inform me of the presence of the animals. I fumbled around in the dark for my glasses, which I put on… and then promptly realized that it was still pitch black and my glasses didn’t come with night-vision. I went back to sleep. Chris, on the other hand, managed to actually break the Guinness World Record by not blinking once from bedtime – at midnight – until around 5:30, when the sun rose, and he finally realized they were just zebras. The fact that our drink around the campfire that evening was Red Bull and Konyagi (a local gin with an ingredients list of: konyagi flavor, fine spirits and deionized water”) may have helped.

 

We sat down to breakfast before our final game drive of the safari, and it says a lot that an elephant was able to wander past through the brush about 20m behind us, and I had to convince Mary-Lou and Lindsey to look up from their breakfast long enough to point to its approximate location for a photo. Clearly, we were being spoiled rotten.

Finally,  we began our descent into the caldera itself, some 610m below the rim. The road – about as wide as your average driveway, and about as solid as broken chalk – was handled with panache by Mohammed, who it appeared could probably drive through a war zone without noticing the barbed wire or roadblocks.

There were only, really, three things we hadn’t seen yet: a large number of hippos, a kill and a rhino. The caldera did its best for us. First we went to the appropriately named Hippo Pool where a number of grey, round rocks turned out to be, in fact, hippopotami. These are seriously dopey looking creatures, though if you get between them and water, your last thought is likely to be “My dear God it moves fast for a bunch of fat on legs, and its teeth are enorm…”

Soon, Mohammed picked up on the radio that a warthog some distance away was in serious trouble since it was now grazing happily about 10 ft. from a female lion. We raced over, hoping to catch the dinner show, and arrived before the lion made a move. And continued to not make a move. And continued to not make a move. At one point, I swear to you, this lion could have just opened its mouth and the warthog would have walked inside – the lion was, literally, about 2m from the pig. But apparently not even kind of hungry. We watched for nearly an hour, before deciding that they were probably Simba and Pumba, and unlikely to have their friendship falter in the next few minutes.

That left only the elusive black rhino. And wouldn’t you know, we ended up seeing not one – but two. The rhino was the only thing, really, that we didn’t get to see from right up close, depending on the binoculars to get a good view. But it hardly mattered, since we were able to get all of the Big Five in one trip, and threw a bunch of other neat stuff in for good measure. Like, on this day, more zebras, wildebeest outlined against a massive backdrop, pumbas and buffalo.

As weird as it sounds, the Ngorongoro Crater was almost an anticlimax, since the previous day had been just so fantastic. That said, when we stopped for lunch, and had to cower in the jeeps so the kites (the bird, not the child’s toy) wouldn’t eat our roasted chicken, I managed to find one last photo that helped to summarize everything we’d seen.

I think you probably agree – the dignity of the African wilds could be captured no better.

What a trip.

(Note: The delay from time of safari to posting was to allow photos to be uploaded (34 in total, I believe) and the 5000 words you see before you to be written and edited. Thank you for your partience and continued readership.)

Monday, Monday (Fa la… fa la la la)

It’s been a little while since I managed to scrape together enough minutes to actually write something down and share it. I mean, the last you heard from me I was chasing hornbills on a mountain en route to a waterfall where I would encounter army ants while staring at a monkey.

Let’s be honest – topping that was going to be kind of hard. But what I heard on Monday was certainly enough to at least be playing in the same league.

On Monday, while I was hard at work reading about Rwanda and Benin, Chris Shelton wandered up to my office to do two things. Firstly, he wanted to invite me to Canadian Thanksgiving at the White House that night. I will say that there are few occurrences more ironic than being invited by a Brit to a house named after the US for a Canadian holiday in the middle of Tanzania. Alanis Morisette’s head will explode if she ever actually reads this blog, since working Tanzania into a rhyme scheme is harder than eating soup with a three-hole punch.

Following that, dear Mr. Shelton invited me to join him, Lindsey, Ronnie and a collection of Canuck compatriots, for a four-day, three-night safari that would take me through Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire National Park and the Serengeti. After I’d finished cleaning up the drool from my floor and re-hinged my jaw, I checked the price, swallowed hard, and forked over nearly $600 US for the trip. But let that not dissuade you from putting on your party hats and boogying, because I am – starting Friday morning at 8:30 – off to see zebras, wildebeests, lions, elephants, rhinos, giraffes and the some of the most famous national parks in the world. This is an expense clearly worth paying. (Besides… there’s geocaches at the entrance to a couple of the parks, which means I can finally add a new continent to the list of ‘em that I’ve found a cache in.)

This, of course, has required some careful maneuvering. Since it was such short notice, I didn’t have the necessary cash on hand to pay the safari company. I thus spent more time than I’m comfortable recording where my employers can read it, wandering around town looking for ATMs willing to ignore my daily limit of 500 000 Tsh. None, sadly, were. Further, I had to convince my wonderful boss – Chiara – to give me some time off.

For me to get time off is going to be increasingly difficult, however, since it seems I have set an all-time ICTR record by being assigned to not one, but two different sections of the ICTR. In addition to the work I’m doing for the Registry, I have also been assigned to do work for Chambers. This means I have not one or two supervisors – the ‘orginals’, Mandiaye and Chiara – but also Maggie, Roland and Dave. I am the Scott Downs of the ICTR – the durable lefty with the ridiculous hair. The Chambers work, by the way, is very, very cool. Again, confidentiality limits details, but I can say that I will be aiding in the drafting of a judgment on one of the accused. This is about as hands-on as I think it’s possible for a legal intern to get – and more closely tied to my personal interests than a story on a Maple Leaf who goes geocaching while drinking peach juice from Timmy’s.

A legal intern, in any case… While I was at Thanksgiving at the White House on Monday, Julie – a rather stunning girl (Canadian, naturally) – told me about her first day at one of the local hospitals where she’s interning. She’s a 3rd year biology pre-med student at Laurentian University, with a wee bit o’ medical volunteer experience in her background. Day one: show up to work, put on surgical gloves, aid in delivering baby, aid in breast cancer tumor removal, aid in entopic pregnancy… This is, as far as I can tell, the medical equivalent of showing up at the ICTR, being introduced to one of the accused, and told “Good luck – you’re running his defense. Trial starts in 45 seconds.”

Dinner, incidentally, was fantastic. It featured a turkey brought in specially from Kenya, broccoli salad with bacon, avocado and tomato salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes with cinnamon, two types of stuffing, apple crumble – and my own contribution, vanilla ice cream served with real maple syrup that I’d brought over when I came.

So that was Monday. It’s Thursday afternoon now. Imagine – just imagine – what happened between Tuesday and now.

(In very brief, I started eating at a local’s restaurant near central market, conquered my digestive tract, discovered we have papaya trees AND banana trees in our backyard, discovered that one in every three bottles of Coke tastes like chlorine, scored a goal in football (!!!), watched England beat Belarus, attacked France’s penal code (actual line: “Les détenus doivent recevoir une alimentation variée, bien préparée et présentée” – only in France would they worry about serving inmates food that’s got good presentation), tried ugali, bought a small whiteboard designed for little girls (more on that some other day) and was asked for money, based on the colour of my skin, 53 times. I counted.)

P.S. I have spent over 40 minutes trying to get this *!#$%ing thing to post.

Rivers to Waterfalls

This is going to be a long post. I understand that. But! There’s monkeys, mountains, waterfalls, shoes made of car tires, blisters and – most importantly – photos!! Also there’s more hall-of-fame ridiculous metaphors (thanks Jeff) and possibly cookies at the end. Though, as always, don’t get your hopes up for the cookies.

Following the proceedings on Friday, I needed a little bit of a pick-me-up. So my roommate, Andrew Ngobe, and I went to the central market in Arusha where, theoretically, you can get anything up to and including numerous copies of the Honus Wagner card. My guess, though, is that they may not be real. Andrew is known as AK2, so named by me. This is because his name is Andrew (A), he’s from Kenya (k) and we already had another Andrew from Kenya as an intern. Hence the deuce.

The purchase for which I was most excited was a pair of the Masaai-worn sandals, made out of old tires. The Masaai are probably one of the most famous African cultures – the warriors are known for carrying around a spear, and wrapping a red and purple blanket around their shoulders. They also have the original stretcher-style earlobes. The idea behind their sandals is that they protect your feet from large thorns while out in the bush. I have zero doubt they provide this function, since I wore them to walk to the tribunal today (Sunday – apparently I’m addicted to the Interweb) and I could stand on whatever jagged rocks I felt like, to no problem. The only tiny little hiccup is that my feet are now covered in blisters and oozing indescribable liquids, since – apparently – tire tread isn’t designed to cover human feet. The rubber has worn away at least 6 layers of skin – and I have a blister the size of Addis Ababa. On the plus side, even if I gain some what, I can be assured of not wearing through the rubber, since the tread says on the bottom it’s good for up to 795kg. I would have to really start hitting the buffet for that to happen. (Side note: my feet really, REALLY hurt right now. The sacrifices I make to keep you all informed…) (Sie Note 2: There’s pictures as well, today, since I’m the only person in the entire damn UN who’s at work on a Sunday. This means my Internet moves at a reasoanble rate. You’re welcome.)

But what I was really excited for was Saturday. At around 8:45 Saturday morning, I caught a cab over to the White House – where a number of the other interns live. The house organizer, a Canuck named Ronnie, had set up a hike to a waterfall tucked away in the foothills of Mt. Meru. Mt. Meru, by the way, is a fascinating mountain. You can see it from pretty well everywhere in Arusha. It regally wears clouds the way a monarch would a velvet cape. The sun makes the greys of the rock almost hum golden. It’s a great mountain.

It would be about a 9-hour round trip, with a 3.5 hour hike in, a shorter hike back (since the ascent back was much more rapid) and some time spent lazing around at the waterfall and associated pool. In the middle of the African jungle. I was pretty pumped.

We met up and began the hike north. We passed out of the Arusha downtown and began to walk throguh the more simple part of town. There was a decided decrease in the quality of the road, and a marked increase in the number of stares that comes with twelve “mezungu” (white/priveleged people – in Arusha, the two are considered synonymous) following a modernized Masaai guide. The guide – Moses – lives at the White House now, but used to do this hike every single day on his way to and from work between his village and Arusha.

We were out of the more heavily populated part of town soon, and began the trek up the side of a hill.  The angle of the path was about 70 degrees. I’m pretty sure that at particularly steep points my body was actually parallel with the ocean line.  Also – as mentioned in a previous post, the air here is very thin. Hiking up a hill? Doesn’t help. I sounded like a broken bellows half the time. The other half of the time I was silent as the grave, since every noise emitted by my steam-whistle windpipe used up important energy I needed to conserve for (hopefully) chasing monkeys.

So we wandered our way up and over this hill into the Masaai people’s land. A little homeless boy who’d hung around us a bit as we were leaving Arusha had apparently decided to make a day of it, and came with us on the entire hike. And he did it in plastic flipflops, making all of us feel like total sloths in dire need of our creature comforts like, y’know, shoes. And water.

At the top of the hill – right after we’d passed St. Peter having a chat with Sarah Palin’s political career (*zing*) – we were fortunate enough to see a hornbill. For those of you who don’t know what a hornbill is, you can rest assured that the second you saw it, you’d immediately think “Oh! THAT’S a hornbill! Of course.” This bird looks like a cross between an eagle and a rhino. It’s freaking awesome. That was my first fully in-the-wild experience with some African fauna. I know there was monkeys when I was at the Ocean, but they were, I imagine, a wee bit domesticated, living as they do around a resort. This hornbill was straight out of BBC’s Planet Earth.

After the excitement of the hornbill, we were given permission to enter into a traditional Masaai house made of cow dung and wood. It was small, cramped and smokey. These are my overwhelming recollections of it. Moses gave us a very brief rundown on Masaai culture, touching on the rites of manhood and womanhood (which sound very very painful) and their history as a nomadic cattle-herding people.

Then it was back to the track, as we wended our way along the crest of the hill and down the other side into a river-cut valley between two hills. On the way we had to negotiate around cattle and goats happily using the path as ‘flat’ grazing ground. We also saw mahogany trees that are probably the biggest things I’ve ever seen. I remember, when I was in Germany, seeing the cathedral in Cologne and being wowed by the fact anything could be that big. These trees were the exact same. The photos simply can’t do them justice. Each branch on the tree was big enough to be a massive tree on its own. And there were at least 30 of these tree-sized branches. This tree was awesome. This was the Yankee Stadium of trees.

Finally, we began our seriously steep descent into the valley. The drop was at least as steep as the climb had been, only with the added excitement that falling down while going down means that you’ll fall a lot further than your own height. The propensity of tree roots to try to trip me up only added to the fun. Eventually we reached the bottom of the hill and changed shoes. This was because the last 20 minutes or so of our hike was to be straight up the river that comes from the waterfull. In the river. To be fair, the river itself totally failed to overwhelm me with massive quantities of water. This is the advantage of hiking up rivers during the dry season instead of in the long rains that arrive in February. And this river was crazy cool because we were in real jungle now. There were ferns on either side and as far up as you cared to crane your neck there was nothing but impenitrible forest. Sharing the river with us was an awful lot of Arushan youth who’d made the trek out together to enjoy the waterfall. I would later learn, however, that they were not particularly welcome since they’d failed to pay the soldiers who guarded the area the appropriate amount of money. Thankfully, Moses had done the necessary cajoling with the soldiers and provided enough money to cover all of us.

When we finally arrived at the waterfall, I was suitably impressed. For me, of course, the waterfall simply served as a terminus more than as a destination. The waterfall cascaded down from about, oh, 350 ft. above us and into a silt-strewn pool of water at the bottom. We clambered up the cliff and stood behind the waterfall at one point, which was fairly cool, and then enjoyed our lunch. At one point, Lindsey decided to test her own Masaai sandals for floatability. They sank like Hoffa. Moses, once again proving his absolute indespensibleness (spelling pending) was able to probe around the water until he found them and returned them.

After a stay at the falls, we began the hike back to Arusha – which was, not surprisingly, much the same as before. There were, though, a few things very worthy of mention. First of all, we saw a blue monkey chattering away at us from up in a tree, and seriously enjoying some fruit. We also saw a 2-inch wide band of army ants wandering across the path in front of us. Having seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull I was quite careful not to bother them.

The view on the way back was stellar. There had been quite a few threatening dark clouds staring over us, but they had been reduced to just a few fluffy white ones while we were surrounded by jungle, and the result was stunning. The photo below of Mt. Meru may be the best photo I’ve ever taken, in fact. To be fair, a chinchilla with a stick and some spraypaint couldn’t have messed up capturing the beauty of this mountain. I have a serious crush on Meru.

The last thing we did before descending once more unto the seething hurly-burly of Arusha was to stop at Moses’s family house. We got to meet his parents, his youngest sister and a few of his brothers. Moses’s parents have had enough kids to field a baseball team. With a first base coach. (For those who don’t follow sports, that’s 10.) These kids have started having kids, which means there’s now also a farm team and fans. Seriously – the Arusha Hilltops begin play in MLB in 2011. His family, in an act of incredible generosity and one that deeply honoured me, brought out a leg of roast lamb for all of us to dine on. Moses and his brother carved it into pieces, and they brought out chairs, and we sat – overlooking the plains and hills of Tanzania – eating hot roast lamb prepared by local Masaai. There were ever cute puppies for people to cuddle. Seriously. I don’t know if it’s possible to top that for the good life. I’m still a little in shock at just how welcomed we were into Moses’s home. What a place Tanzania is.

I will, however, end this post on a kind of ironic note. When we were at the top of this hill, theoretically as far away from the auspices of Western civiliazation as possible, nailed to a tiny little hut was nothing other than a little ad for the refreshing taste of the real thing. Oh, American advertising… you may be the single strongest force on Earth. Except of course, the promise of cookies. Of which, again, there are none.