Where Zebras Roam and Monkeys Steal Snacks

Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika. Zebras wander the roads and monkeys hop from tree to tree. There are apparently two families of zebra in town, each frequenting their own particular area; one family came early each morning to visit us! And the cheeky monkeys hopped from tree to tree outside our cottage with beady eyes peeled, waiting for the opportunity to steal a snack. We left our breakfast table momentarily unguarded one day and quick as a flash they scarpered off with our loaf of bread!

Zebras outside our cottage

We enjoyed a lovely few days with Tim's parents at Jacobsen's in Kigoma, a beautiful spot with a private beach on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Unlike Lake Victoria, this lake (in the Rift Valley) is deep and clean and lovely to swim in! While Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa, Lake Tanganyika is the deepest, the largest by volume, in Africa. It is second in the world to Lake Baikal in Siberia and it is the longest in the world. As well as being close to Ujiji, famous as the meeting place of Livingstone and Stanley (see the last blog post), it is also close to Gombe, the home of the research centre where Jane Goodall has carried out her research on chimpanzees. We wanted to visit the chimps there, but you have to be bigger than Louisa to be allowed in the Park

Lake Tanganyika

It took a while to get there from Mwanza. We started the journey on Monday; a four hour drive which included a chaotic ferry line-up, to Geita on a tarmac road.

 

A night in Geita

We continued on Tuesday on a bumpy dirt road for 11 hours. The road was not in good shape due to rain the previous day. At one point we came to a halt on a very muddy section of road with a truck well and truly stuck in front of us and others looking perilously close to their demise. Unable to carry on, we turned back and took a detour passing by the gold mines. Lots of mud but no gold. We were all happy to arrive at our lovely accommodation at 6pm that evening!

Stuck in the mud

Greedy Gold Diggers

While in Kigoma, we enjoyed lots of swimming and dingy boat antics in the Lake. We were able to meet up with good friends, the Essers, who we met in Iringa and who now live in Kigoma. And we enjoyed meeting up with another friend, Pastor David Nkone, the brother of Huruma. You will already have read in the last post about our interesting excursion to Ujiji, not far from Kigoma. Then there were evening games with Grandma and Grandad and just time to read a book! We were all sorry to leave early on Saturday morning.

Since arriving back in Mwanza, the girls have returned happily to school and we had the excitement of celebrating Dad's 70th birthday!


A Birthday Dinner at Malaika

The waiters and waitresses came to sing Happy Birthday!

Back at Lake Victoria

Tim is busy! Today he begins his teaching course at the Bible College, tomorrow and Thursday, he and his Dad are teaching a 2-day Pastors Conference and next week Tim starts the Conservation Agricultural Training.

We go with Tim's parents to Dar es Salaam on Friday for the weekend; we are thrilled for Amisadai who is going to be baptised there on Sunday. This will be with Victory Christian Church with Pastor Huruma, in the Indian Ocean! We are so proud of her making this step; it is quite unbelievable how quickly she is growing up!

(Sorry about the repetition in this blog with Amisadai's ... we were writing them at the same time and Amisadai published hers first!)