When Jenny received her residence visa on her birthday I asked Musa, our AVI in-country manager, if I could have mine for my birthday. Last Monday he sent me an email to say that my visa had been approved - a bit early but I'm not complaining. So now Jenny can stay until the end of July 2021 and I can stay until the end of August 2021. Our jobs finish in October 2020 so we have some thinking to do about what happens then. Do we just pack up and go home or do we use the remaining 9 months or so to travel to interesting places in Africa and beyond? From Kilimanjaro airport we can get to the Middle East, Europe and several countries in Africa quite easily and cheaply. We could keep our car and house until the visas expire. The best things in the short term are no more immigration stress and half price entry into the national parks!
A major milestone last week at work with the submission of a big project proposal to the Nordic Climate Fund. If successful this will keep ECHO staff busily and usefully employed for three years and will see some really exciting work done in villages on the slopes of Mount Meru and nearby Monduli. No I turn my attention to two new project proposals while we await the decisions on the two earlier ones.
With the weather warming up we threw off one of our blankets recently. Never before have we slept regularly in Africa with one blanket let alone two. We have been watching the storm clouds brewing to our north and west but still no rain here. The Serengeti plains had heavy rain a week or so back. It is probably not coming until November but we can hope for an early wet season.
To celebrate our new status in the country Jenny bought four new plastic chairs to go with a table we already had. These are installed in the back garden and we had a lovely day on Saturday out there with books, the footy, the cricket and some nice birds.
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| The wifi reaches too! |
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| This Red-chested Cuckoo sat on this branch in the garden for about five hours and didn't call once. |
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| Pachnoda ephippiata (Fruit Chafer) is a large scarab beetle that is quite common in our garden. This one has its head down. |
On Sunday we were up early for a birding morning at Kilimanjaro Golf Estate south of Usa River. We were late - first the guard couldn't undo the padlock to open the gate to let us out. We had to go out another, rarely used gate that took some opening as well. Then of course we got lost on the estate looking for our rendezvous point. Eventually we met up with four of the Attraction Birding Club crew and we spent five hours wandering the course and adjacent bush. We only saw one couple playing golf so you never have to worry about errant golf balls. The birds list was 85 species with four lifers for me. Two were lifers for everyone - Alpine Swift and Pallid Honeyguide. The others for me were Red-fronted Tinkerbird and Bare-eyed Thrush.
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| Purple Grenadier |
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| Mid-sized Leopard Tortoise hiding from Jenny |
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| Bare-eyed Thrush |
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| Nubian Woodpecker (female) |
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| White-browed Scrub-Robin |
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| Spectacled Weaver |
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| African Grey Flycatcher |
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| Little Sparrowhawk and brunch |
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| Hildebrandt's Starling |
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| African Yellow Warbler |
Hello Steve,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I miss you and Jenny, not Hamilton though!
How are you both? It has been a while since I contacted you. Nice to read all the posts and the wonderful pictures. I wish that I could sit with you over a coffee and listen to your explanations about all the birds and the projects you were talking about.
I will have to sit and read all your posts and will get back to you. I wonder I could have your phone # and if you have WhatsAPP or any other free App I could talk to you. Take care and enjoy the African wildlife!!
Raj