Akeake

Gale force winds caused damage to a few of my trees, and it took me about three days on the end of my chainsaw to tidy up. The last tree – I shouldn’t ever say, ‘last’ –I doctored was a Dodonea. That’s its genera name, which I use the name as a common name, but the Maori name for it is Akeake. It is indigenous to New Zealand, and curiously enough – well maybe not curiously if you don’t care a fig about the planet – the same species is indigenous to parts of Australia, Africa and South America. Curious because the little black seed does not float, and the wing does not allow the seed to fly very far. So that means the species must have been around when all that continental drifting was going on and that’s a long, long time ago.

The wood of Dodonaea viscosa is very heavy and strong, so Maori found it ideal for weaponry and walking staves. Chewing the leaves relieves the pain of toothache and the cooled boiled leaves were used to treat burns and scalds as well as to stop bleeding. Twigs were used as toothbrushes by Maori, Incas and Maasai and probably many other tribes. I used to grow it in the nursery here in New Zealand because the species tolerates harsh coastal conditions, where a lot of other plants do not thrive well. The experts have put another ‘a’ in the spelling, it was Dodonea when I went to school, now it’s Dodonaea, someone must have thought that was an important thing to do.

Among the joys of working with the Maasai and Arusha tribes, is their generosity when they host you. Staples outside meal times are loshoro and sour milk. Sour milk is self-explanatory, although it needs a shake-up when the water and solids separate. Loshoro is cooked maize kernels with sour milk. Traditionally both of these stapes were stored in calabashes, made from hollowed out gourds. To line the calabash so that the milk does not taint it, and to add flavour to the contents, the ash of ol getinai is used. Ol getinai is none other than Dodonaea viscosa, or good old Akeake!

On our way to the Ngorongoro Conservation Reserve and the Serengeti, I recognised the scrub on the side of the road, there was not much of it and there was no seed on it, but I knew I could find it elsewhere. A few weeks later, Mo my snail-hunting buddy, wanted to spend a Sunday afternoon in the Arusha National Park, checking out the gastropod molluscs. There is a wide variety of vegetation zones in the park but he was keen to look in the rainforest areas.

It was an exciting day for me because it was the first time I had been in the park, which is well-known for its lack of big cats, making walking less hazardous. Mind, there are a lot of buffalo, and they are about as hazardous as the big cats, but never mind! Anyone would be excited to see their first colobus monkey with his bushy black and white tail! And the clouds of iridescent blue butterflies that lapped on the edges of puddles. Or the smallest of antelope of all, the dik dik, always in pairs but oh so secretive. I noticed the Dodonea bushes had seed that was nearly ripe, but the snails took present priority, but the next week, I intended to return!

The road through the park was rough, with corrugations and sharp-edged rocks. There was never much traffic, just a couple of Landrovers morning and evening, which were loaded to the gunnels with standing passengers on a caged deck. They were top-heavy and would tip over easily, so the driver kept to his path – any other vehicles just had to get out of the way! People also walked the thirty odd kilometre route, sometimes with donkeys laden with goods for the market. There are likely to be giraffe, buffalo, zebra, baboons and warthogs along the way, elephants too, but while I saw plenty of droppings I only saw one elephant during seven years of using the road.

We puttered up the road in the little Maruti and stopped by a good clump of Dodonea. I listened for other traffic and checked for buffalo sign. The vegetation was high, so I could not see much but figured if buffalo were around, I would see droppings or at least smell them. They are only glorified cattle and I know mine poo on a regular basis. I’ve also tracked deer and wild pigs, so had a fair idea what to look for. All appeared clear.

We picked seed for about half an hour, and I reckoned we had enough, at least for the present. There came a sudden crashing in the undergrowth! I wasn’t prepared to move, running blindly wouldn’t be a good thing because whatever it was could have mates! But where! The crashing stopped as suddenly as it began and I looked around for the danger – on my level. It was the wrong place to look, because far above me was the neck and head of a giraffe. She was looking down her long nose at me flashing her eyelashes like a latter-day Dame Edna! With a, ‘What are you doing?’ look in her eye!

We just backed away as quietly as we could and returned to the vehicle. I think she just came to check us out! Perhaps she had been snoozing in the heat of the day. Who knows? But she showed no intent to chase us!

Wealth

According to Oxfam, eight men hold the majority of the world’s wealth! The actual figures are fairly startling and perhaps obscene when you consider to poverty in so many places around the world. Those eight guys no doubt contribute hugely to the world economy because whole industries are built around them and those industries employ a lot of people, fa gravy-train for some. Some of them own more than the economies of entire countries!

As well as those eight hugely wealthy men, there are plenty who don’t have to buy the cheap cuts of meat, who own high-end cars (perhaps a few of them), live in mansions and bask in their good fortune. Most of us that have but a few bob to rub together, dream about winning the lottery and becoming rich like them, even though good sense tells us it’s not going to happen.

Old Bert, the oracle used to say that you had to be in the other bugger’s boots to know what it’s like, and I’m here to tell you that old Bert was a wise guy! For instance, if someone suggested that I take Donald Trump’s place, I’d run a mile wade the Waimakariri and climb to the top of Mt Kilimanjaro to avoid doing so! On the other hand if I suggested that Donald Trump work half a day on the end of a chainsaw, I’m sure he would try to yak his way out of it, or reach for his wallet to pay me off, or call on a henchman to sort me out.

I know nothing about those top eight or and not much about those people wealthy mansion-dwellers, and while I could use a million bucks, I don’t really want to be in the shoes of ‘the elite’, if indeed that’s what they are. There is a suburb-cum-village of Arusha called Njiro, where the wealthy congregate to live. They have built flash houses and appear to have all the gaudy unnecessariness that wealth encourages. But to protect all of that stuff, they erect huge concrete black walls topped with electric fencing, or barbed wire. Access is through steel gates, locked securely with either electronic opening or security guards. So in fact they live in a sort of prison! If you are locked in, that’s a definition of jail.

Sudden wealth is probably a bit different to gradually amassing it, but nevertheless the security side associated with wealth can be problematic. Who can you trust? Lawyers and accountants have been found dipping their sticky paws into the honey pot either for advantage or for theft. There will always be hangers-on who believe you can afford to help them above anyone else, either through gifts or just acquiring. All of that is bad enough, but what about friends and relationships? The little green man, envy, becomes an enemy, so friends you have financially left behind, fall behind as friends, which encourages you to reach out to another bunch who are more like your financial equals. Enter the peacock syndrome where displaying wealth becomes competitive.

Children who don’t experience the value of life’s struggles or the value of social harmony often have no clue of how to survive without parental wealth. When they overstep legal boundaries, they don’t have to face up to the same consequences of someone unable to afford smart lawyers. Levels of substance abuse and depression are high among rich-list kids, and apparently they are just as delinquent as other kids albeit on another level. You see, while it is natural to look over the fence with envy at the rich buggers in this world, you have to be careful what you wish for.

Is the distribution of world wealth fair? Put another way, is the distribution of poverty fair? Children should not suffer the pain of hunger nor die of starvation, while fifty percent of world food production is wasted! Television is saturated with cooking programmes while countless numbers in the third world must find fuel before they can cook. There are ghastly diseases and infections that cause painful deaths in children and adults, meanwhile drug companies make generous profits for their shareholders. Huge tracts of the world population have no access to clean water, or even drinking water, while others clean their cars weekly and water their lawns with clean, treated water. People are being blown to bits in warzones and other areas while armament companies keep churning out their products meanwhile fearful civilians arm themselves for the same reason infants need security blankets.

There are some words that go together. By and large, black and white, body and soul, loo and paper. What about fair and equitable? Never will life anywhere be fair or equitable, because that’s just the way mankind has developed, but a little, just a smidgen, of either one of those is better than the way we are headed.

Open Sesame

The water situation was not good at the best of times at Makumira so I had to carefully balance what little was in our tank between our household requirements, the tree nursery as well as enough for a few people who could not make it down the tricky path to the creek. It was normal for water to flow into the tank for around half an hour at 7:00am, but when it didn’t, I wasn’t overly surprised. As a last resort I could get my nursery workers to cart water from the creek, which took several trips for them because the nursery alone required about two drums daily. In the house we learned economise.

I was aware that no water was coming into the tank so was not too surprised when Nnko, the teacher responsible for the environment and infrastructure of the secondary school, arrived with four students. He wanted me to take them up to the intake of the water scheme ‘because there was a problem’. This was the typical vagueness of the language.

It is a long journey up there and I didn’t speak much because the track is steep and slippery in places. But I did fathom that the teacher and his students had been up there the previous day, which was why ‘there was a problem’.

The water scheme, I was told, was managed by some women’s group who apparently had used most of the funds on themselves rather than the project, so the work and materials were shoddy. Farmers tapped into the line, because it was plastic, instead of the proposed steel, and of course plastic is easy to tap into. Farmers stole the water to irrigate their crops and would often block the line with screwed-up plastic bags and no concerns for the people below who need household water. The teacher and the students had been looking for blockages.

Near the intake, water was gushing, damaging the track and a small farm, sluicing the soil and washing away recently germinated bean plants! It turned out that one of the students, digging for the pipeline had broken it with an adze causing the geyser! I was horrified that they had left the water gushing, damaging the elderly woman’s farm and crop overnight! I asked why they had not made repairs.

‘The school has no money for the necessary parts.’

‘So why did you drag me way up here?’ I asked.

‘To show you.’ Replied Nnko.

It was obvious to me that Nnko and the headmaster had discussed that I would probably fix the pipeline.

I felt sorry for the farmer, she had lost half of her soil, which was why I felt real pressure to rush, even though the cause was already lost for her farm! I also knew that if I didn’t act, it would compromise the water supply to the hospital, the local people, both schools and to my nursery! On the way down the hill, we called at the school plumber, fundi, and arranged to meet him either at his house or the intake after I had been to town for the parts. I had one joiner at home.

It would take me half an hour to reach home, collect some money and another half hour to get into town. It was just after midday when I arrived but at midday the shops closed for lunch until 2:00pm! Frustrated, I had to cool my heels, but meantime I managed to buy two lengths of four inch pipe from petty traders and tied them to the roofrack.

I was concerned about the farm, the time to make repairs and the time to travel as well as the necessity to irrigate the nursery that evening. I waited outside the hardware store, Tanga General and at 2:05 the Indian woman arrived with her Tanzanian helper. There were three padlocks securing the steel shutters covering the double doors, the woman handed over a key and the man returned the key it was the same for all the locks. The removal of the shutters revealed concertina steel barred doors with another three padlocks, again they were unlocked one at a time, each time the key was returned and the next one handed over. It was turning into a bloody ritual!  Next there were the wooden doors, this time with a padlock at the top and one at the bottom, those were opened by the same ritual! Finally there was a normal double door with a normal key and door handle.

‘Open Sesame!’ I said as at last I entered the shop. I think my comment was lost!

The power was out! In the dim light they could not find a four inch joiner, so to the storeroom, where there were three layers of padlocked doors! Inside the storeroom though, it was pitch black! The torch batteries were flat but Juma was sent running for petrol because the generator was dry! When he returned, there was light by way of a humming generator, but they didn’t have any four inch joiners!

Getting just a tad tetchy I drove to another store, Bulk Supplies who were busy with the after-lunch-crowd, so again I had to cool my heels! Finally, the assistant searched but could not locate a four inch joiner! While waiting I noticed one tied up on a neat display board!

‘I’ll have that one.’ I was not my normal polite self anymore!

The assistant finally acquiesced but jibbed on the price! I had just Tsh30000/- in my pocket and my hand was on the joiner - firmly. The assistant was not sure of the price, but thought it was more, perhaps Tsh35000/-! I did not bargain, I snatched the joiner and slapped the notes on the bench.

‘Don’t worry about a receipt!’ I called over my shoulder and I set off back to Makumira.

After picking up the teacher and his students, I rushed up to the intake where the fundi had plugged the pipe with a banana tree trunk and cleared the pipe ready to make the repairs. Water flowed again.

At the fundi’s request, he and I checked the line and figured out the cost of rehabilitating the line, but keeping the old materials. My funding request was approved, so we spent a few days carrying out the work. I spoke to the village government about illegal tampering of the line and received a promise that the matter would be addressed – I think the chairman was one of the offenders! Along the line we established new standpipes and taps for the village communities, and all agreed the hospital should take priority for water allocation.

Somebody unknown to me, perhaps the fundi or at least some appreciative person, ensured that I received my daily ration of water by switching the line on and off to the hospital.  The amount was well-judged because there was seldom any excess.

It’s nice when things work out.