What you don't know...

by seguaro314 (Imgur).

"Unknown unknowns" the idiom coined by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during a press briefing during the invasion of Afghanistan, continues to find relevance in my life. Its latest application came during a camping trip near Lake Manyara.

David had received some black light flashlights for his birthday, because we were told by someone last year that if you shine them around at night, you can see certain creatures like chameleons and scorpions because they have some kind of iridescent substance in their skin. David is a nature lover and likes to find creatures of all kinds. We had tried the light on chameleons we had caught and put in a tree a few months ago. The results were middling, and the lights were put away for several months, but remembered and packed when we decided to go camping.

In retrospect, looking for scorpions at night might have been better tried for the first time before we were on a camping trip and staying in a tent. Long story short---it is true! Scorpions, black as coal and completely invisible to normal flashlights glow like flourescent Christmas lights under a black light. But what was really creepy, is that they come out at night and were everywhere!! On rocks, on the grass around our campsite, near the entrance of our tent! And with my super bright headlamp, I could not see them. From that moment on, the late night walk across the lawn, to and from the bathroom, became much more scary, and I wore a thick soled pair of shoes rather than flip-flips! I am still weighing whether it better to know the invisible hazard out there or be blissfully ignorant. After all, none of us have ever been stung before, even in flip-flops. So the only added value seems to be stress.

Backing up a bit, the reason we were on a camping trip last weekend was to round off the one week mid-term break the kids had the week before. The kids being out of school while Rebecca and I still need to work is always a bit of a challenge as we don't have great support systems in place when we both need be in the office. Rebecca is off on Tuesday and Thursday so those are covered. We could leave them at home on other days as they are old enough to fend for themselves, but generally lack the initiative to do much more than watch screens all day. (In fairness, there are not really kids their age around the compound to do things with.)

Rebecca stayed with them most of the week while I worked, and they did have some good play dates with other kids who were out of school. But on Friday we took a vacation day, in order to have a long weekend, to get away as a family.

Several friends of ours told us about a relatively new camp (Migombani) up the escarpment from the town of Mto wa Mbu (Mosquito River--an unfortunate name for a charming town) on the way to Karatu. We left in the MCC landrover on Friday midmorning (thanks to Rebecca's packing the night before) and got there after lunch. We turned off the road at Mto wa Mbu and drove up a surprisingly steep road/path for several kilometers about 1000 feet up the escarpment and seeming to go nowhere but into deep brush for quite a ways. Then quite unexpectedly we came to a gate that led to a lovely campsite, with a flat lush expanse of short green grass, dotted with tents and small boma shaped buildings with bathrooms, showers and a multi-user kitchen, and a small bar and restaurant under a gigantic beobob tree in the center of the camp, and a number of picnic tables and chairs shaded under large umbrellas. At the front lip of the camp site was a fairly large cashew shaped infinity pool (that means the water is full to the brim and overflowing) that overlooked the rift valley and lake Manyara below. It was a commanding view!

our tent next to camp tent

We had rented one of the permanent luxury tents, which was also set to overlook the camp and rift valley, and we brought an old MCC tent we found in our container. It seemed promising, an 8 man Coleman that was really gigantic. We set it up next to the luxury tent. Some of the fiber glass poles were kind of cracked and duct taped, but when we set the whole thing up it took on the right shape and the poles, when extended seemed to provide the necessary double-arch support to keep it up. We also battoned it down with tent pegs just to be sure.

The first afternoon and evening we set up camp, went swimming, and made dinner. We had bought a cool stove that attached on top of a squat gas cyclinder. It cooked our burgers very effectively. It was a pleasant evening until the sun went down, then quite suddenly a 50 km gusty wind started blowing up from the valley. It blew all night and I was worried that our Coleman tent might collapse, it was leaning back more than any of the other tents set up by others around the camp.

Despite the strong gusts we had a nice evening and that is when we went out and explored the grounds with the blacklight and discovered the scorpions. We went to bed fairly early, and the next morning David came in our tent to tell us that their tent had indeed collapsed during the night under the force of the wind. Sure enough, I came out of the tent and found the poles had bent at the weak points and it was lying over. Oren was still inside fast asleep, but the tent was pretty much lying on top of him. Fortunately it was a dry wind and there was no rain. We set the tent back up. In the morning the wind was still strong but blowing in the opposite direction.

Yellow-billed storks

We had an activity planned for Saturday--a day in the Lake Manyara game park. We have a friend from church who is a park ranger-- Godliving Shoo, also a great birder. We knew he was in training at the park and also worked for a tourist company in the area. He got the day off and we picked him up at the gate of the park. We drove our landrover but it was great to have a guide, especially going into a park for the first time. Lake Manyara park is not like the Serengetti, much of it is in a deciduous forest fed by an aquafer, so there are not expansive areas of Savannah where you can see for miles. Much of the driving is in the trees. Manyara is a great place to see birds, but there is wildlife as well.

Marshall Eagle

We spent about eight hours driving around the park and saw a number of environments from forest to savannah, to marsh land and a long stretch alongside the lake where we saw many water fowl including flamingos. One of the really surprising things we saw in a tree where some other cars were parked was a lioness! We thought they were looking at a bird somewhere up high when we stopped then realized a huge lion was right in front of us on one of the lower branches. Lions do not normally climb trees but they have adapted in this habitat, to help them see prey. (There was some evidence that this is not normal behavior because the lioness slipped and literally almost fell out of tree onto a car, but managed to recover herself clumsily.) Their paws really look too big to be comfortable standing on a narrow branch. We saw many other animals including elephants, giraffes, many antelope, zebra, baboons, blue monkeys, cape buffalo, and I could not even list all the birds, but Veros eagle owl, and the marshall eagle were among my favorites. We also saw a batteleur eagle there which is quite rare. It was all good except for a bit of problem with tsetse flies which did sometimes get into the landrover. We were wearing long pants and socks but we did have to swat from time to time.

We returned back to camp exhausted but very satisfied and enjoyed a cool swim as the sun set. We made dinner and noted that the wind had picked up again. I did not think we could secure the tent sufficiently for another night of wind so we brought the kds' sleeping bags and air mattresses into our tent, which had plenty of space on the floor. (We had a raised king size bed!) It was good because that night we had gale force winds and a torrential down pour. Our tent was under three rooves and stayed completely dry, but when I looked at our Coleman the next morning it was completely collapsed and had about 3 inches of water collected inside. The kids would have been flooded.

We did not rush out the next morning, we had a leisurely breakfast and then began to pack up as things began to dry. We had to roll up the tent wet and planned to dry it out on our clothes line. After a morning dip in the pool, we headed back to Arusha. Despite the rain that night it had been a very nice trip and hope to return to the camp again sometime in the near future. It was not too expensive and very nice. We stopped for dinner at Aim mall and had masala dosas! (for any fans of South Indian food, Aroma is a great place to get them located there.)

Giraffe by the road on drive home

It was good to get back into the normal routine this past week with the kids back in school. Rainy season is now upon us and we have had heavy rain most nights. It is still hot in the day, and the pool water is still refreshing but cool in the morning.

 A final highlight was Ash Wednesday. We had a service at church right after choir practice, so we treated the congregation to a prelude we had worked on the past week. John Stainer's "For God So Loved the World" from his Crucixion Oratorio. We nailed it in my opinion! The Ash Wednesday service was very nice and Rebecca preached and did the imposition of ashes at the end. The kids were very good considering they went right from school to hanging out at church for choir practice then staying for a service that ended about 7:45 pm. We went to Khans barbeque on the street after the service with a family from small group who have kids who are very good friends of David and Oren. (they will be returning to Canada in April which will be sad for our kids.)

Enough said for this week. Here a few more photos from the trip: