27 May: Manyoni -> Bahi

We woke up to loud chatter and busy activity while the children gathered outside their classrooms, all laughing and wondering what on earth are these tents doing in their school. Coming right up to the tent, looking right in with curiosity, we had children huddled around us giggling and gossiping with wonder and in no means quietly. We waited this out until they were called to class. The teachers and head mistress were so excited about our visit, they asked if we could talk to the whole school. After the kids finished their exam, we went to the school hall.

About 250 children came scurrying in, desperate for the front seat. It was chaotic! James, a teacher who welcomed us yesterday and went out of his way to make us feel comfortable, called the hall to order and took on the role of translator. He's a very enthusiastic, charasmatic man, really getting the students pysched. The RhinoArt talk went differently to the schools in Nairobi as everything was translated so I had to talk slower. Even though the students are learning english, it wasnt that easy to communicate, especially to 250 students. Anyway, we got the children into groups and the lesson was a success. The students seemed to really understand the message. One of the teachers actually said to me that he really thinks our lesson was affective as many of the children would have had either an uncle or someone in their family who is a poacher. This was interesting as we were actually engaging with people who this was such a reality for. Lets hope this message will be passed on and remembered.

Kayla, Mwanzi School head mistress and James

The children at Mwanzi School in the hall

We left Manyoni just after 1 pm, not giving us much time to cycle, but it was important for us to spend time at the school and really get our message across about protecting our rhinos. We got onto the saddle and headed down the T3. We cycled 25/ km without seeing any sign of a fairly decent town, ocassionally seeing some cattle grazing and only a few people selling reed mats along side the main road. Todays ride was lovely, we had good weather and only decline, we were cruizing through all the baobabs.

The dry, barren land full of acacia shrubs and baobabs

We then got into Bahi, a small town where we found a beautiful church. We approached the priest, Father Abel who was only delighted to meet us. We had the intent of just camping on the church grounds but he insisted we stay with him and he invited us into his private home. While he got the rooms prepared we went into the church. This Catholic Church, a massive, beautiful, historical building has been standing for over a 100 years and over the last couple of years the church has grown so much they extended it, around this magnificent ancient baobab. Its amazing to see the Christian community so ripe in Tanzania. We offered to cook for Father Abel which consisted of couscous and chickpeas, we were now running low on food supplies. He insisted on getting us meat and wine.

Chris andvKayla with Father Abel in front of the Catholic church in Bahi, Tanzania

We sat for an hour waiting for him, starving and exhausted, he eventually showed up with a 5 litre old water jug of sweet red wine and dried rubbery pork pieces that still had a few strands of hair on it. We sat around the table together, all slowly swallowing our food, trying not to spit it out. This is exactly what we came here to experience, all the different lifestyles and understanding how local people live. Now quite tipsy off the pastors wine, we were so ready for bed. We ignored the cob webbs, avoided the toilet and went to bed.

Our room for the night at Father Abel, we took our own linen

Cycling distance: 29 km

Time: 1:31 hrs

Ave speed: 19 km/hr