Already the end of my stay in Tanzania is approaching rapidly, it is time for some more (maybe last) pictures and little stories, a post about the accumulated deeper thoughts and feelings is coming up, unfortunately in German — Google Translate is your friend — but here some international accessibility first.

This is a view I loved passing by many times just outside Kagondo. Where the river starts to which all the children flock with their small yellow water canisters, and it makes for a gorgeous view with the lush green it nurtures. The cell phone tower on top is a symbol of progress, I guess.

A picture of the local way of dealing with garbage, both after the fact (black spot) and waiting for the next go (spread out trash). Sad but true. And it smells! Along with it, with no intended connection, the church in the process of getting a new roof, with money I believe from some Catholic fund from Italy…

Then a sunset over the picturesque, if probably not too comfortable old primary school building in the middle of Kagondo. There are some more classrooms nearby, in slightly better shape. And a bunch of other schools, there are many children here, even though a number do actually still die young.

And there is the fruit of Action 5 work, even thought not money — we helped acquire funds from the German Embassy to Tanzania, and now the students can at least drink rain water during the day. I believe there is even some food provided for the youngest, coming from this „kitchen“ …

But at least the way out is again stunning-looking, the same valley as above, dipped in golden sunset light.

While I never worked in the primary school, I did teach some holiday classes in a second secondary school (haha) called Nyailigamba, which was built by the Ugandan government — everybody keeps saying „by the president“, I suppose that reveals a lot about the understanding of politics. That president had led an eventually successful resistance movement from across the border against some other tyranny over there, and built the school to thank the locals here. At least a useful thank you, no doubt. It is even equipped for the future, with a computer room. Just waiting for (a) the computers and (b) connection to the electric grid.

The buildings are very nice not only outside but also inside, even though I still had to struggle for scrapes of chalk to work with. The running costs are provided by the Tanzanian government, and while I took the pictures there and talked to the headmaster we discovered that the cost of my camera equals about four months of school budget. Consequently, other things are more improvised, like the school bell.

Of course, there is a sports ground and a good view, even though I might be the only person enjoying the latter. And I didn’t get to enjoy the former, no frisbee with the students here. They had quite a tight schedule even in the holidays, and due to the lack of food and stuff were quite eager to go home after school. Just one indication of how I’m living in a different world even here — I bring water and peanuts for snack to work, and could well have some exercise and game after teaching.

Turning farther away, a highlight of the last weeks was a local football championship (seven clubs), of which I attended the finals with Justus, and had a privileged seat because of him, very good to be friends with a councilor. The playground was very rough, as was the playing style. This is the lonely goalie at one point during the game, everything happening in the other half at that time. And notice the paths crossing the „field“, and the litter.

This are the players at the beginning of the second half-time, and the paramilitary local police guards. It was actually good they where there, because the mood after the game was even rougher than the game itself. There was definitely unhappiness with the referees in the loosing team, and for a moment there was escalation of violence in the air. Still wouldn’t want to encounter these „police“ alone in the dark, especially not the guy on the left. The others had more an air of nice drunkards.

These are the trophies played for — unfortunately, the big one lost it’s decoration about one minute into the celebrations.

Well, the celebrations where — guess what — sorta rough too, but definitely a good party, with music from big speakers and all.

Now, even further away to Bukoba, and a look from above on the city and its beautiful shoreline. The endless water is Lake Victoria, of course.

This is another aerial view of the nice location and surrounding, and a closer look at a modern church being built, and a back street glimpse.

Now, the seemingly only other occasions for celebration apart from football (and much more frequent) are ecclesial in nature. And even though they sometimes make a sad face during a song …

… Christians can party too.

I’ll end with looking out into nature. First downwards, to the for me fascinating discovery of how pineapple is grown — tiny plant for that size of fruit!

And then upwards, to the red moon eclipse that I could admire in a cloudless black sky, in the company of all the sparkling stars you can imagine — much more than any industrialized country’s atmosphere allows through. But the sky in Germany was cloudy anyway