One Night in Karatu

The next morning, we left Arusha for Karatu. What was amazing to me was that the road between Arusha and Karatu has been fixed!  It was either pavement or blacktop all the way between the two towns.  (When we were here in 2013, there was road construction much of the way, and we traveled on either dirt or gravel roads almost the whole way.)

We passed Lake Manyara National Park on the way, where we had a great view of the lake.  Baboons played along the side of the road, and we were able to take pictures and watch them for awhile.  It took about three hours to reach Karatu, where Brian and I were excited to see familiar places. 

We drove straight to the volunteer house, where we spent the night.  (The Tumaini Educational Corporation, which supports the Tumaini Junior and Secondary Schools, rents a rather large house in a development of houses, many of which are rented by ex-pats who live in Karatu. That is the volunteer house.) The house has a living-dining room, two large bedrooms, each with two bunk beds, and two single rooms – one with a twin and one with a double bed. A kitchen and two bathrooms complete the house.  We settled into our rooms, and spent some time with Adrienne Luczkow, the program coordinator for the Tumaini Schools, talking both about the video we will do during the third week of the trip and about Adrienne’s experiences in Tanzania.

Then we went off to the Kitela Lodge, a VERY fancy safari lodge, where Gloria Upchurch, from the Olmoti Clinic, had invited us to dinner.  The other volunteers from Gloria’s group were there for dinner, along with Rachael Fitzpatrick of Angels Outreach, her husband, Greg Taylor, and Rachael’s two college-aged daughters.  Rachael, Greg, Abene and I had a meeting about the Lake Eyasi production, and we were later joined by Modest and Lightness Bayo, before we had dinner. The Bayos are the founders, respectively, of the Tumaini Schools (Modest) and the Lake Eyasi center (Lightness).