Feet up day

It's been a quiet morning here in Mbeya....

I was already awake when the muezzin began his call to prayer this morning and, as it was very distant, as it was a newer loud speaker than in Iringa and as I didn't have to get up and go cycling, I blessed him accordingly. Thanks to son Dan for alerting me to the fact that it's the muezzin and not the mullah who does the wailing. As "Gem" Blythe might have said, "Gerrit right !"

It's taken 4 days to do the 320 kms from Iringa, 3 days from when I lasted posted, to get here. All in all, a satisfactory term's work.

The road out of Mafinga (last post) went up and up onto a bleak and undulating plateau. It reminded me of the Scottish borders around Kielder: lots and lots of emptiness. It was all the bleaker for there being a strong, cool, southerly wind and a rare cloudy sky for most of the morning. Nobody lives there and for a good 25 miles the land was mostly given over to forestry. The rest was grassy moorland, shallow lakes and swamps. Since Dar es Salaam,  Mufinda Paper Co lorries have been thundering past me and this is where the timber comes from to make the stuff. I was glad when the sun came out around midday and I got back to village  and small farm raral Tanzania. The next two and a half days are already a blur so I'll have a quick look at my paper diary and map.

That day, after my post from Mafinga,  it appears, I did 100 km and reached Makambako around mid afternoon. I felt cold and feeble when I got there and crashed out on the bed in what turned out to be half brothel, half hotel. You can't always tell from the outside as they are not marked "brothel", just "guest house". I must learn the Swahili for "Are you a brothel? If you are, just B and B please" . Fat chance. When I woke I had half a freshly slaughtered chicken, deep fried, and a huge pile of chips for the equivalent of a couple of quid, out in the yard, just before sun-set at 6.30ish. I had a couple of bottles of Kilimanjaro lager with it and felt much better for the calorie boost. As the sun set  and it got cool I headed for a windowless door marked "bar". It was one of those moments when you know in a millisecond that this is not where you want to be. There were a number of chuckling young ladies and a few blokes sitting around and the usual loud African music. There were coming and goings through a door at the back. I sat down in the middle, ordered a beer, wrote some diary and hopped it quickly, to more chuckles.

The next day, day 17 since leaving Hx, is entitled "Easiest day yet" in my diary. The first 10 miles were gentle downhill with the sun rising behind me and the air cool. At the foot of the slope in open country, I stopped to put on some sun-cream. A young lad of about 20 stopped and asked what the problem was. He was on a bike with a large plastic tub of water on the back.  This is a common sight, although often it's  a young female with the tub on her head. I explained what the cream was for and we got chatting. He was a charming, earnest, well (English) spoken lad with whom I could have talked for hours. He was a maths teacher in the local secondary, having done A levels. I've met several such lads in a similar position. We talked about teaching and I then asked him for some key Swahili words to make life easier: "where food?" "no sugar", how to say "not" and so on. I jotted them down. Then he said in an even tone, " I want to improve my life. My father is dead and my mother is in a bad condition." Oh no! I thought, here it comes."I want to go to Dar es Salaam to study for a degree." I thought I'd better dive in " If I had a thousand dollars to spare I'd give you them but..."  "Oh! No! " he said, totally embarrassed "That's not what I meant" And he didn't...

I gave him my blog address although he had no internet access, not even at his rural secondary school. He jotted down his name, which was Sixbirth. After 20 minutes or so we shook hands and I pedaled off. It reminded me of the powerful advert (anybody remember whose it was ?) of about 10 years ago which showed a young African lad in a mud hut managing to study at night thanks to a bright light-bulb over his head.

I had more roadside chats during the day, usually with older teenage lads desperate to use their already good English.

That night I stayed at Chimala, having ridden along the foot of the Livingstone Mountains which rise up steeply to the south. They have an African name on my map but the locals called them The Livingstones.  To the north is still an endless plain. The air is brilliantly clear and you can see mountains at 60 or 70 miles distance, at a guess, maybe further.

I found a Lutheran centre cum guest house for the princely sum of 5000 TS, about 2 pounds. As I was looking for the washing line I bumped into another young maths teacher called Lusajo Mwanjwango. We cycled into town together, had a beer, lots of pleasant chat and beef and chips.

Yesterday was a mere 75 kms but there was a sting in the tail. After some easy cruising I came to another major doorstep in the landscape of about 2 or 3000 feet. It looked a lot less from the bottom of the hill so I went at it like Lance Armstrong on drugs. Drenched in sweat and nowhere near the top, I reached a village and had a meal in the filthiest restaurant I've ever eaten in. The food was good though - rice and beans in a tasty sauce - and yet again I chatted to a  teacher. "No school today?" I asked. He explained that it was towards the end of term and it was exam time. The other half of the hill was a major challenge (it reminded me of the hill between Weardale and Teesdale a couple of years ago pre Bruges). I took it in small, painful bites. At the top is a town called Uyole which is a major junction. It's where the road splits. Left, and south, goes to Malawi. Straight on leads to Zambia, and Lusaka, after several hundred miles. My way is left but today I carried straight on, on a plateau, to the big town of Mbeya where there are ATMs, Internet cafes and a better class of hotel than I've been used to. I'll have to backtrack about 10 km to the junction when I continue. The tank was practically empty again on arrival but after a lie in, some breakfast TV, a hot shower and some breakfast everything is fine.


Well, it's lunchtime. Thanks for reading. More later