Roof, mountain, scrubland

We visited Daniel’s home. He had asked us for help with his roof.
The usual advice is to avoid providing funds on request, but he described the problem with his roof in a letter.
Much as he had described it, the trusses were infested with ‘du-du’ or ’mchwa’, termites that feed on the core of the softwood usually used for roofing here, unless it has been sprayed, or soaked or pressure treated.
I pushed a knife blade into the timbers up to the hilt. With the current wind and the coming rain it could be that Daniel and his wife wake up one morning with the roof at floor level. I think the roof was being held up by itself, with not much help from the timber.
Daniel’s home is three rooms, an outside ‘choo’ and some storage. The floors are hard mud, and the surroundings, at the moment, are dry dust. There is almost no furniture. Daniel is a farmer and he works the shamba at the Trust cottage to provide us with papaya, bananas, tomatoes, spinach, aubergine, carrots, beetroot, coriander, basil, potatoes, peppers, grapes, chillies. He works his own land for some maize and peanuts and millet. He has to store his food for the hard dry season.
We visited Morogoro. This sounds like a child’s story. Morogoro is a university town more or less half way between here and Dar es Salaam. It nestles itself in a valley between mountains, and even at this time of year has water and greenery. We walked a long climb to half way up one of the mountains. Its full height is 2100m above sea level, getting on for 7000 feet. Think of Ben Nevis on top of Ben Nevis.
We stayed in a lodge. It was exceptionally pleasant with a view of mountains and a dry river with a pool that had crocodiles that had eaten two dogs.
We drove there in a large Nissan 4x4.
We had a day out in Dodoma via the back roads: the back roads through the real scrub desert, hardly a bird or a goat in sight, short stumpy thorn bushes scattered across the dry, grainy sand, the road occasionally becoming just a broad space covered in cattle tracks, the bridges just concrete fords for the time when the rains will flood from the surrounding hills.
There is much to admire, a lot to call beautiful, and an existence that is close to having nothing but the willing people around.