The Selous Riverside Camp is about 30 minutes drive outside of the Game Reserve and whenever we went to the airstrip of the Game Reserve, we had to drive through one of the local villages - Mloka.
The road was a dirt road which had recently been rolled to make driving it easier. There is little vehicle traffic and what there is can present their own challenges such as 12 foot pieces of timber being carried sideways on a motor bike
or two water tankers taking over the whole road.
This mobile phone “shop” is typical of the design and construction of the house we saw.
This one (selling paintings to tourists) is slightly more advanced in that it has some concrete around the veranda.
We were told that when you want to build a house, you just choose some land and get on with building it.
Your neighbours will help with the basic structure but it is then uo to you to build the walls, usually mud over a framework of sticks.
Although there are power cables running into the village, there is no electricity. The cables were erected two years ago but were never connected up at either end. Water is pumped up by hand from the relatively high water table and communal gatherings at water pumps were a common site. We came to the conclusion that the process and demands of living was almost a full-time occupation.
We noticed a growing number of concrete blocks around the place
and a few houses, the local primary school
and this church had more of an air of permanence about them.
Compared to Primary Schools in England,
this classroom which was for the first year of primary school was very bare.
We were told that some children cannot go to school because their parents cannot afford to buy an exercise book for them to write in.
We found the process of driving around the village and looking at its buildings slightly uncomfortable. We were obviously “wealthy tourists” and whenever we stopped, lots of children would run up to us shouting “Pipi” (the Swahili word for sweets) and we were expected to given them some.
We tried to ensure that the local inhabitants were not included in our photographs (other than that above) because it is considered rude to take someone’s photograph without their permission.
A River Safari
The River Rufiji is home to much wildlife
and late one afternoon we went on a safari along it.
Wooden Canoes were very common on the river. These are made
by hollowing out (by hand) a tree trunk and are works of rural art in themselves. Apparently it takes two men about a week to construct one. We saw a number of ferries crossing the river which were in fact canoes such as this.
Bird life was in profusion along the river.
This Malachite Kingfisher just sat there posing for us and was not at all perturbed when we got close.
And this is a Pied Kingfisher.
Lizards are very common and also a danger to birds because they are adept at eating whatever they find in a bird nest.
This was the smallest crocodile we saw, said to be about two weeks old.
And this monster was the largest we saw. When it saw us, it lumbered into life
and waddled down the shore into the river in our general direction. Fortunately we then moved on!
Yellow Weaver Birds live along the river bank and, as with their cousins in the game reserve,
use local material to make their nests.
Again quite unperturbed at out presence.
The river was full of Hippos with numerous Pods staying cool in the water.
Occasionally they would rise up to show us how large they were
or spy on us to make sure we were not a threat.
I still find it hard to imagine an animal such as a 4 ton Hippo managing to climb up a steep river bank along a path such as this.
We waited in the middle of the river for the sun to set
and when it did, it was time to go back for dinner.
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