Work, safaris and daily life

Work

Busy at work in recent weeks with several project funding application deadlines since the start of the year.  I think I've sent off two applications and have another one due in a week.  Hard to remember what proposal I'm working on sometimes.  Several others are coming up in the next few months.

Out of the blue we were approached by an Italian company, Treedom (www.treedom.net) to work on a tree planting project.  They obtain funds from large corporations who want to offset their carbon footprint and use the funds to buy trees for planting all over the world.  They currently have on project in Tanzania and want ECHO to be their second partner in the country.  I spoke to their project manager for East Africa by Skype a few weeks ago, put together a proposal and he has just been to visit us. It looks highly likely that we will have a 5 year contract with them.  Very exciting on many levels: many trees will be planted in heavily eroded catchments, ECHO will get a nice injection of funds and security and we can use this relationship to leverage new projects.

This huge hole in a village road leads to the primary school and is a direct result of erosion
that tree planting will help to reverse.

Despite a reasonable number of trees in this scene there are erosion points in the grazed pasture and few trees above to slow down water during a storm.

In November ECHO hosted a conference in Rwanda and one of the speakers presented information on a form of compost for providing highly diverse populations of fungi and bacteria to soils.  Soils here are run down in terms of nutrients and micro-organisms so we thought we'd have a go at building our own bioreactor.  I did some research and found an instruction video and manual.  Last week the planets aligned and the whole team plus visitors helped to build the beast.  Unlike ordinary compost it will not need to be turned over at all.  The only maintenance now is to keep it moist.  In 12 months we will see what we have and if it can help grow food here.

Start with a pallet and some shade cloth.

Erect a wire mesh cage and check the aeration tubes for a snug fit

Shade cloth around the outside

Faith bringing in the first load of mulch and woodchips

Filling the bioreactor - now we water daily and wait for 12 months.

Safaris

On Sat 8th I went with Per Holman and some of the local bird club members to Mererani and Shamburai Swamp.  We'd had a great day there in October so time for another visit.  There is a competition underway with Tanzanian birders to see the most species in 2020 and we all needed water birds.  We got bogged, twice, for a total of 2.5 hours and there were no water birds on the swamp.    After extracting Per's car from the bogs (he wouldn't let me take photos) we decided to spend an hour or so in nice acacia woodland hills well away from any water.  I got three lifers in that time - Scaly Chatterer, Mouse-coloured Penduline Tit and Pygmy Batis - great names all of them.

Somali Bunting

Red-winged Starling

Scaly Chatterer

On Sunday 23rd Jenny and I, with Alex Rees and three of the local lads went back to the woodland and I got another three lifers: Golden-breasted Starling, Eurasian Nightjar and White-throated Robin. The starling is one of the most spectacular birds in East Africa.  Nightjars are always special as they are so hard to see.  The Robin is a serious skulker and we stalked several for ages until one finally sat in plain view for a few seconds.

Delonix elata

Common Rock Thrush

European Nightjar

Unstriped Ground Squirrel

Pygmy Batis

Blue-capped Cordonbleu

? Butterfly

In between these trips Jenny and I went to Arusha National Park for a day.  Fairly quiet for wildlife and tourists so pleasant enough.  I managed some nice shots of Blue Monkey and Olive Baboon and Jenny captured a Cinnamon-chested Bee-eater beautifully.  One lifer was a Black-fronted Bushshrike high in the trees on the Ngurdoto Crater rim.

Cinnamon-chested Bee-eater (photo by Jenny)

Common Buzzard drying out after a thunderstorm

Warthog

Blue Monkey

Olive Baboon

Daily life

Our landlord Paul Oliver came home for a few weeks after many months having cancer treatment in the UK.  He looks quite fit and is enjoying catching up with his friends here.  He also took clients on a two week Tarangire/Serengeti NP safari.  We've had a couple of great chats with him - he has been here running safaris and lodges since the early 1980s so has many stories.

I tried again to register my SIM card with VodaCom yesterday (attempt no. 10).  I failed again.  Apparently my fingerprints taken by immigration on our arrival in April are out of date - they need to be less than 3 months old!  I think I've exhausted all my options now and Jenny has also given up.  If they cut off our phones we will sort something out then.  Maybe we can redo our fingerprints when we fly back from Australia after Easter.

Our CommBank visa cards were hacked recently.  Probably someone tampered with an ATM we used and got enough information to bypass the security on our cards.  They removed 200,000 and 300,000 TSh (about $Aus320).  The cards have been cancelled and we hope to get the money back.  We'll collect the new cards after Easter.  In the meantime we are using our emergency backup cards.  If they are compromised we will have to sell some of Jenny's ever increasing collection of curios.

We joined a team at a quiz night for a new rotary club a few weeks ago.  Great fun with lots of discussion between tables as to the answers - there are some very pedantic people around.  We came third out of maybe 20 teams.

Our car is going really well but we have had a few tyre issues of late and even though the treads looked fine we thought the rough roads were taking their toll on valves and sidewalls.  We bought four new tyres a month ago and have had no more problems - touch wood.  They should last for the rest of our time here.  We have had brake squeaking and then a disturbing thunking noise from the front somewhere also recently so I took the car to the bush mechanic adjacent to ECHO and he fixed both for 160,000 TzS ($Aus100) and his labour was only 20,000 TzS.  Such a relief to have a trustworthy mechanic close to work who can fix these problems.

I arrived to see if the car was ready to go home - nope!

Otherwise we lead fairly quiet lives.  We get home quite tired and are in bed by 9 pm at the latest.  We are watching Season 2 of The Crown, Season 3 of The Money Heist and Season 1 of Chernobyl.  All excellent.  Netflix is watchable most nights but our internet is occasionally too slow and there are times when the power goes off mid-episode.  We listen to the ABC radio news and either AM or PM every day so know far more about the goings on in Australia than is probably good for us.  I should probably stay off Twitter as well...

Footy is back this week with a pre-season match between Essendon and West Coast on Friday.  How long before my early enthusiasm and confidence is tempered?  Surely this is the Bombers' year!

We head home via Addis Ababa and Singapore on the 4th April, stay in Melbourne near Dad's until after Easter, catch up with all the kids and other family.  Then we have a few days in Hamilton before heading back here on the 18th.  Looking forward to the break!  Hope to see some of you.