Morning Mzungu in Mwanza
Sitting here on shore of Lake Victoria having breakfast. The waves are lapping the shore, more tranquil now after their exhausting exuberance of the previous day. Weather was fine earlier but a few spots of rain now. Sky looks fine though. I’m on my second cup of coffee and looking at the birds. Such an astonishing variety. As usual, I don’t have my zoom with me.
I watching the fishermen in their unusual looking small boats, canoes?, on the placid lake. The scene looks very exotic.
The local security staff here are dressed in traditional African dress, a sort of longhi and a red shawl over one shoulder, with one arm free. They look like I imagine a Masai warrior might look like. I feel like a pale, slightly pudgy mzungo next to them.
There’s an expression used frequently in Ireland that goes : “ah, sure, its grand” It’s a response to a bounty or a catastrophe. Or anything in between. Or sometimes something completely different. I think we might have got that from Africans, or maybe Berber slave traders. Or maybe they learned it from us. Or maybe not.
Anyway, the reason I’m twittering on about this is because I ordered a ‘breakfast pizza’ this morning: eggs, cheese, peppers on a pizza base. Instead I got a mushroom omelette. Slightly different. I found myself getting a bit irritated and then said to myself ‘ah sure, it’s grand; it’s way too hot to sweat the small stuff’.
I scoffed down what was on my plate. The omelette was grand.
We’re off at 9am for our trip to Musoma, a city which sits on the eastern edge of Lake Victoria, close to the International borders of Tanzania with Kenya and Uganda. Musoma is located approximately 60 kilometres directly south of the geographical point where the borders of the three East African countries intersect. The town is located approximately 225 km by road, northeast of Mwanza, the nearest large city. Musoma lies approximately 480 km by road, northwest of Arusha, the location of the headquarters of the East African Community.
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