Dom of Redmire visits Irkeepusi, a Maasai village near the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania.
Hi Everyone,
I've been having a really exciting time visiting Ponja in Tanzania. He took me to visit his village called Irkeepusi near the Ngorongoro Crater. I met lots of sheep and goats and cattle. I could not speak their language but they were all very friendly to me.
Here I am with some of the children, at the special enclosure in the middle of their village where they keep the animals safe from lions and other predators at night.
Everyone was surprised that I have such a thick wooly fleece. I explained that where I come from on the hills of Northumberland the weather gets very cold in winter and I need my thick fleece to keep me warm when it snows and the bitter wind sweeps across the hills of Otterburn.
Ponja showed me the houses made of sticks and mud which are the traditional homes of the Maasai people. They are easy to construct with local materials and easy to repair. Each family has their own house. There are box beds off the main circular central area. The parents sleep in one bed area and the children in another. Small children sleep with their parents. There is an outer room for the baby sheep and goats. The mother has a fire in the centre on which she cooks. The cattle, sheep and goats supply the Maasai people with nearly everything they need. They can sell them to buy the cloths for clothing, cooking oil, tea, rice and maize.
During the day, the animals lie close to the school room, waiting for the children to finish their lessons so they can take them out onto the plains to find grazing. Much of the land round Ponja's village is very dry and the children have to take the sheep and goats long distances to find enough food.
The Maasai people traditionally wear red woven blankets and over many generations the lions have learned to keep well away from the men in red.
In Tanzania water is precious. The villagers have to carry all their water from streams or wells. When a stream runs dry,
they have to dig down in the stream bed to reach water lower down. It is often very muddy and dirty from having to dig down in the stream beds for it, and because all their cows, sheep, goats and the wild animals such as zebra and gazelles also walk into the mud to get the water. Then the water has to be carried in buckets over very long distances. It is heavy and time consuming work.
Here where it rains a lot, we don't know how lucky we are just being able to turn on a tap.
Rachel Blackmore and her husband have formed a charity called Weston Turville Wells for Tanzania or WTWT for short!
They are working with Ponja and the people in his village to have a new water supply installed nearer to Irkeepusi. Their website is www.wellsfortanzania.org if you want to read more about their work to relieve the poverty of the Maasai people in the area.
I'm off to New Zealand next. I'll be in touch again soon.
I must say some of these students from The Hermitage School are fond of a treat! 70 of us met up at school at 6.00am on a Saturday morning, (not much chance of a lie in!) to take part in the 22nd Allendale Challenge. I heard some of the staff say this was their third time to do this 26 mile walk/run for charity!
You can just about see me in the group photograph at the start of the Challenge. The students and staff took good care of me as the terrain was very uneven, boggy, smelly and very challenging. It was a beautiful hot sunny day & you could see for miles around.
There were over 800 people taking part in the Challenge and all I could see both in front and behind me was a long snake of walkers and runners as far as my eyes could see. My new friends at The Hermitage took it in turns to carry me over the difficult parts of the course. I overheard one girl saying that ‘Hermie would be filthy dirty if he tried to walk through the peat bogs’ and that ‘he would probably sink over his head and never be seen again’! Yipes this frightened me no end and so I clung on to my carer!
Some of the students and staff sank up to their waists and chests in mud and had to be dragged out. They were very cheerful throughout and laughed so much they were almost crying. We walked through moorland, heather, peat bogs, water, swamps, uphill and downhill, along roads, paths and stony tracks which eventually led back to Allendale. My four feet were hardy and my woolly coat protected me from the wind and sun, so I was fine but unfortunately my two
legged friends suffered with blisters on blisters, sprained ankles and sun burn, ouch!
At one point I was very upset when I saw one of my fellow sheep who had become stuck in a bog & who had obviously departed this life. Once again my good friends took me into their care and made a fuss of me. You can see from the photographs how many new friends I made on this day. Just before tea time Lily picked me up to show me some of my brothers and sisters on the moors, they were bleating away and it made me feel very proud to see them all.
Eleven and a half hours later after starting this Challenge me and four of my friends, Amy, Jay, Vicky and Gill completed the Challenge. I think I may have made history as I am the only sheep to have completed the Allendale Challenge, baaaaaaaaaavellous!!!
Our nominated charity for this event is Willowburn Hospice and we are hoping to
Well I got here at last! Although my tortuous route took nearly 3 wks (which I think included a detour to Australia) and I have to say I was getting a little cramped – sheep have rights too.
My invitation was to visit Stephen Pointing, senior vet for the government’s Agricultural Department. However the delay in my travel plans meant that he left on his annual holiday on the same plane so we never met.Shame, but his loss really, and I can’t hang around for his return as i’m due in Scandinavia next month. Still i am disappointed as he promised me a visit to Ascencion Island on the way back, wherever that is, and now I’ll never know.
Instead i was looked after by his very helpful assistant, Mrs Sarah Bowles, here with me in this shot, and judging by the country’s crest they have their priorities right in this place, it’s good to see sheep being given their rightfully, prominent place on top!
I had thought sheep were the major industry on the Islands but with only 600,000 of my clan here, we’re even outnumbered by the 770,000 penguins!! (That’s probably why there’s so many on this poster!)Although we still outnumber the 2,500 human inhabitants by 300 : 1.
Sarah kindly showed me round the island (well a little bit of East Falkland anyway – I’ll look at the other 739 separate islands next time!!), and took me to one of their major sheep breeding sales
.
I put in a bid for a most charming Corriedale (I presume named after our 2 TV ‘soaps’) Ram, but would have had trouble getting him into my travelling crate anyway.Apparently these and the Polworth are the most predominant breeds (although I’m sure a good old Scottish Blackface would do much better) on the 88 farms that cover the land mass – a total of about the same area as Wales!
Just time for a bit of relaxation before the long trip home, i hope there’s an executive class this time, and some wildlife sight-seeing.Apparently Tourism is the 2nd most profitable industry (after Fisheries with us poor sheep demoted to 3rd), mostly to see the aforementioned penguins but i was most impressed with the Elephant Seal – now there’s an animal that knows the benefit of a bit of blubber!
The shot below is me enjoying a pic-nic after a dip in the ‘old briny’, although this sea-grass is a bit coarse for my delicate taste and i can only hope the grass has started growing back home in Northumberland.Save some for me girls - I’m coming home!
If anyone would like to know more about the F.I. please visit www.falklandislands.com
Gunnerton Baar left Holland just after the Japanese tsunami towards the end of March. I have just had word from Anne, who lives in Paris, today:
'I have a feeling that Gunnerton Baar has had an extremely exciting spring in Malaysia with my friend Emma, who works at Aerospace in Holland. Emma seems to have totally adopted the sheep as she will keep it with her for a few weeks, still!
Here are the first photographs!
I think they are great, and i love the one with the cocktail and straw!!!!
One of my favourite places to go is the local market in Uijeongbu.It’s an eye opening experience.The first thing you notice is the sheer volume of people.Then you are hit by all the different smells-sweet, savoury, spicy, everything!You can buy almost everything at the market; it’s a great spot for people watching too.
Koreans see food as a means to feed the body and the soul.A meal in Korea is not complete without the side dishKimchi.There are many regional varieties, 180 to be precise!It is made from Chinese cabbage that has been salted and then fermented in the spicy red sauce made up of garlic, peppers, onion, ginger, fish sauce and spices.It’s really tasty.
There are so many street vendors selling food.These steamed wontons (dumplings) are one of my favourite snacks.Inside there is usually meat and vegetables. They taste so good!
I get to try lots of different Korean food at school.Surprisingly, the school lunch is quite tasty.We ALWAYS have rice and kimchi and the other three bowls are a surprise each day! I have to remember that Koreans always eat their rice with a spoon, not chopsticks!
I really like the Korean BBQ, it’s a real sociable meal.Everybody sits around a circular table, in the middle is the bbq.Pork and beef are the main choice of meats and there are around 6 side dishes to taste-pickles, kimchi, salad, vegetables, seaweed soup to mention a few.There's such a variety!
Last weekend some of the World Challengers, Charlotte, Dan, Lauren, Becky and Kate took me on one of their training walks in preparation for the Indian Himalayas Expedition. It took us about an hour to reach Bollihope in the school minibus, I watched the countryside wizz past from the front window and saw some lovely new born lambs in the fields.
We met up with some of our Durham School Challengers and their teacher too. We set off on our walk over the heather and moorland at about 11.00am. It was uphill for quite a way and the Challengers were map reading. The pace was fast, I was so pleased I was carried in the ruck sack at this stage. The weather was clear and we could see for miles.
Lunch time soon came round and we relaxed in the springy heather; Dan & I had some fun on the marker post!
I think my new friends like me very much as they are always stroking my coat and cuddling me!
We had a lovely day in Weardale and finished our circular walk at 4.00pm. Everyone was tired out and on the way back to school we all fell asleep, apart from Gill as she was driving the minibus!
I overheard the Challengers talking about another walk on April 9th…… it’s called the Allendale Challenge and it’s 26 miles! That sounds a long way and I have four legs to carry me, poor Challengers….I think they are very brave taking this on.
I've been in Sacramento with Bill Rich. Bill has this huge corgi dog named after his sister, Tippy. Later on, I hope to go visit her in Arizona. Bill is quite a good pet owner and treats all his animal friends (and me) with utmost respect. I've felt quite like royalty here. He even took me on holiday to Maui with several other of his friends. I found a wonderful place to take a nap in the forest there in Maui.
I've included a picture Bill took of me there. It turns out that I never got a Margarita a
t Bill's house in Sacramento, CA because Bill mostly serves red wine. But while in Maui, I did have a nice Rum drink called Maui Wowie. Mmmmm. Very, very delicious!
I hope all is well there at home. The next time I write, I'll likely be in Arizona visiting Bill's sister, Tippy.
Here I am, with my co-driver Ray, about to embark on the long journey that is known in Australia as “going across the Nullarbor”.
It is quite a distance. From the township of Ceduna in South Australia to the township of Norseman in Western Australia is 1200 kilometers (nearly 800 miles).
For all of that distance there is not one human settlement, only a number of roadhouses that provide food, fuel andovernight accommodation for the traveller.
The Nullarbor Plain is totally flat and treeless, as the name willtell you.
It seems that it is possible to see forever.
You can see meperched on a road sign that shows that I am 175 kms from the Western Australia border, all around it seems that there is nothing, and thenmore nothing.
But the journey is not boring. In fact the treeless plain is aminority of the complete distance, and recent rains have brought about quite a green look to the shrubs and small trees that grow in this dryland.
Then there are the Nullarbor Cliffs. These cliffs extendunbroken for some hundreds of kilometres and in many places it is ashort walk only from the road to the edge.
This is not for thefaint-hearted. It is a long sheer drop straight down to the waters of the Southern Ocean and the cliff top is broken and crumbly ground –you have to be very careful.
But what a magnificent sight and such a wonderful wild place!
One feature that I will remember is the Ninety Mile Straight.
The roadtravels for ninety miles without a single bend. Off we went, withnothing to worry about except to remember to wave to the drivers ofthe few cars coming in the other direction.
That is something I willthink about next time I am stuck in motorway traffic.
Although it is a place where few people live, I did meet two lovelylittle girls. Jorja who is eight years old and her sister Hannah who is six.
Jorja and Hannah live with their parents at the MundrabillaRoadhouse. They are not able to go to a regular school because there is no school anywhere near Mundrabilla. Instead they are pupils of the School of the Air that is based in the town of Kalgoorlie.
The teachers conduct the classes over the radio, and the students are in a‘classroom’ that extends over hundreds of square miles of remote outback country. So Jorja and Hannah will probably never meet their classmates but they do know their voices very well. Jorja and Hannah would be very happy to receive emails from any girls of the same age who live on the other side of the world, the email address is -
