A Weekend with the Family
Today was Saturday and so we had not planned any school visits. Instead we had arranged to meet up with Robert’s daughter Diana and his son Peter.
We had a relaxed morning with a leisurely breakfast of beans, eggs, cassava, sausages and spaghetti followed by some mandazi. There was also soup available as well as fruit and bread, so a fairly good example of a Tanzanian breakfast.
Robert picked us up at about 11 for our drive to Chato. We stopped off on the way at Hamisi’s office in Katoro to pick up the computer equipment for the Chato schools we would visit on Monday. Katoro is fast growing town and Hamisi does good business here.
Once we have all the equipment we continue our journey to Chato.
The roads are pretty quiet, just a few lorries and buses, not many cars. Most people walk or use bicycles or carts. As we approach Chato we pass the bus station which still isn’t finished.
Diana is at University in Mwanza studying to be a radiographer but has been doing some work experience at a hospital in Dar es Salaam for the last few weeks. She was flying up to Chato today to meet us. We had planned to pick her up from the airport as we drove past but her flight was delayed 2 hours so we went and got some lunch and then checked in at the hotel first. This visit we have decided to stay at J’s Hotel.
It is very quiet here. In President Magafuli’s time all the hotels were always really busy but now it seems that the whole town is very quiet.
Our room is TSH 100,000 (approx £30) a night including breakfast and is fine.
We head back to the airport at 4.30 to meet Diana. It is lovely to see her again. We drive to a local restaurant for some drinks and food and spend the evening catching up.
The following day we are all driving to Biharamulo to visit Peter who is in his final year at secondary school there.
Robert and Diana pick us up after a fairly basic breakfast of pancake, chapati and egg. Again I think this is because the hotel is so quiet.
It is 60km to the school on a rough road or 130km on the tarmac road….Robert opts for the rough road. Luckily it actually isn’t too rough and takes about 1 hour 20 minutes.
This is a government secondary school and Peter is a boarder here. He has had to have special permission to meet us and come out for lunch.
It takes a little while to find him as he was in a class which surprised us at it was Sunday. However I think this was because they are starting their mock exams next week.
Peter gives us a quick tour of the school before the heavens open and we retreat to the car. There are about 1200 students at the school and about 500 are boarders.
We now drive to Biharamulo town in the rain to find somewhere for lunch.
It doesnt seem like there is a huge choice of places but we find somewhere that does do food and has somewhere for us to sit undercover. However with the rain the temperature has dropped and its is pretty cool.
We order some food and hot drinks. Although the place is not great it is really good to catch up with Peter and hear all his news. He will do his Class 6 exams later this year and hopes to go to University after that.
Once we have finished lunch we drop Peter back at school and then take the tarmac road to Bwanga where Diana can catch a bus back to Mwanza.
We then drive back to Chato stopping on the way to have a look at the gold mines.
We got back to Chato and had a couple of hours at the hotel before meeting Robert for dinner. We went to place recommended by Robert’s friend Msale which did Kiti Moto - a pork dish that we all like. It was definitely the busiest place we have been to in Chato and we had a good meal.
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