Back home in the states, Christmas goes hand-in-hand with bare trees, wintry cold, snow on the horizon and bundling up to go outside but here it’s summer year-round and Christmas pops up when it’s hot with tropical foliage everywhere. Some trees and plants have striking red and green foliage right now and that looks pretty “Christmas- y.”
Oddly enough, the wintry trappings of Christmas that developed in northern climes have been transported here with depictions of a bundled-up Santa pulled along by those ridiculous reindeer and fake Christmas trees with sparkling lights whose intent, originally, was to ward off the wintry dark!
But the generous spirit of Christmas transcends climes and borders and that was brought home to us when a Muslim friend turned up at our door with a little evergreen tree branch that he cut from somewhere way up the mountain just for his Christian friends. Nathan cut it down to size for a table centerpiece. Several weeks ago I got a locally-made crèche with African figures to add to my little “global” crèche collection so that went under the little tree-branch.
We had planned to spend Christmas weekend on the coast in Bagamoyo north of Dar es Salaam but torrential rains washed out bridges and roads in that area. About five thousand people who live in low-lying areas of Dar lost their homes. With more heavy rain expected in the next few days, it’s not likely they will be able to return. The Tanzanian government is promising to help them find other housing, even offering them land far outside the city if they are willing to relocate. I expect the town planners in Dar would be happy to move people out of the crowded city and a flood might look like an opportunity for them – but probably not for the people who are displaced.
We went out west to Iringa when Jess was here. Iringa is high and surrounded by rocky outcrops and mountains. One afternoon we hiked up to some rocks above the town and that’s where we took the picture at the top. There’s a craft shop in Iringa run by the Lutheran church that sells ice cream, chocolate pastries and cakes so we spent considerable time there! We also discovered an Italian Consolatta convent in town that makes wonderful pasta, pesto, ravioli, caponata, jams, and other delights that you can’t generally buy here. We came out of there carrying boxes of good stuff! There’s a Consolatta monastery west of Iringa that makes cheese (wow!!) but it was too far away, alas.
We also spent several days at Ruaha National Park. I really love Tanzania’s game parks. Without them, a lot of these animals would be wiped out by now and Tanzania does a good job of protecting these rare creatures while using money generated from park visitors to help surrounding communities. The night sky in the parks is breathtaking. You get the feeling of being alone on the top of the world surrounded by the widest sky imaginable and the stars just burst out at you from the horizon to top. When we lived in Babati many years ago, there was no electricity at night and I would sit in the backyard and gaze at the Southern Cross and the entire brilliant southern night sky and feel at one with the cosmos. Thirty years later, in every town of Tanzania, it’s too lit up at night to do that.
We saw elephants, hippos, giraffes, gazelles, zebras, water buck, impalas and other animals at Ruaha. Here are a few pictures:
Ruaha allegedly has 10,000 elephants and here are a few of them.
The lions were all focused on their own lives and activities -- paid us no mind. Note the little cub on the left.
And the "Little Prince" baobab trees were all leafed out and everywhere -- forests of baobabs. Loved it!
Simply beautiful!! Blessings and Shalom, Sharon Sauer
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