Judy's Turn to Blog

When I left home, the primary purpose of this trip was to view and photograph the animals.  That all changed with our drive to Tanzania.  Yes, it was long and uncomfortable but what I witnessed along the way left a huge impression on me.  Since then, my primary focus has become the culture and lifestyle of the African people, especially the children.  I’ve taken well over 200 photos from a moving car window.  They’re not all perfect but I think they will tell the story.  It’s the children that break my heart.  Here are some of my observations. 

I’ve seen boys, 4-6 years old herding cattle before they are of school age. 

We drove past an orphanage with 5 or 6 children standing across the road, all waving, hoping we would stop and visit. 

I’ve only seen children playing on a hand full of occasions, 2 times boys were running along rolling a bicycle tire with a stick and the other times were toddlers playing in the dirt.­­ 

The people here walk for miles and miles to fetch food and water.  The water is carried in jugs either on the top of their head or hanging on their backs, very heavy as you can imagine.  It depends on the tribe as to which way it’s carried. 

The women with infants all walk with the baby in a sling on their back with only the baby’s head showing.  It looks like they’re in a straight jacket but I’ve never seen one unhappy baby. 

I’ve seen women with cut up branches tied up and carried on their head.  They use the branches for fire wood to cook with. 

Those that can afford public transportation are piled into a normal sized van with are up to 14 people in each one.  Other than that, the most widely used mode of transportation for the people are their feet.  I see people walking in the middle of nowhere and can’t help but wonder what they are doing there and how many miles in one day they walk.  The ones that ride bicycles all haul necessities.  They have to walk the piled up bicycles up the hills and the looks on their faces is painful!

The second District hospital we visited had an Optometrist.  I asked him why I had never seen a Kenyan with eyeglasses.  His reply was that as long as they can count the number of cattle and tell them apart by color they’re happy with that because they don’t have the money for eyeglasses and never have to read small print.  I’ve never seen a Kenyan with sunglasses either because they don’t want to spend the money on them.

Children can walk as long as 5 miles to and from school all by themselves.  I saw that time and time again.  We’d drive for miles and see the children, all in the same uniforms, walking home.  I also see many children that are way to young to be walking alone along the highway.  I'm talking 3 and 4 years old!

We saw a large group of men with pick axes and shovels chipping away at the mountain to make gravel.  The dump truck backed up to the mountain and the men shoveled the gravel into the truck beds.  So basically, they were human tractors.

Here's a link to my Shutterfly site with photos of most of what I've described.  As much as Iit pains me to post photos that are not in clear focus, I think  you can still appreciate them.

http://bestofshow.shutterfly.com/