More on the Pare Mountains from Jim Lovett

Eastern Arc Mountains Forests and Fauna

(Endemic = native to an area, and to be found in just/only that area,
or something like that.)

In the Eastern Arc Mountains, a great percentage – maybe 50% - of the
plant species and a much lesser percentage of the fauna are considered
to be endemic. In particular the African violet is considered to be
indigenous to just this area. Endemics are to be found in all of the
habitats; rocks, heathland, grasslands, forests and the wetlands.
The endemism includes mammals, birds, amphibians, butterflies and
reptiles. Some of these species have very small distributions, i.e.
are confined to extremely localised areas. Most of the endangered
species are not only forest dependent; they are dependent on the
primary forest which itself is under great pressure, having suffered
extensive clearance for agriculture, cooking and house building – the
building bricks in the Pare mountains are fired on site, ingenious.
These species would appear to be connected to both Madagascar and West
Africa, the biodiversity having developed with their long period of
isolation. Rather in the same way that has been observed in the
Galapagos islands.

Now…  in the same way that the vast number of water bodies in Ireland
led to considerable flooding since there was no overall control and
subsequently no one to actually dig a ditch. The same problem is
occurring here with regard to forest management, or should I say
multiple management. There’s the national park department, the
national monument department, the forest department and many more...
and then there’s a local dimension to all this also with county
councils and the local council all firing up new policies and pulling
at each other, the very same as we find at home in Ireland. Meanwhile
the burning continues and the forests diminish. Same as it ever was.

The dress/ the bus/ and the football !

Just a quick update on what is happening in the Pare Mountains !

Well today I just returned from the dress makers with a fantastic dress. We are off to a St. Patricks day ball on the 19th of this Month so there was a call for a new dress. Its not to often we get to dress up anymore so we are all extremely excited about our adventure to Dar es Salaam next week and to throw on the gladrags. Getting a dress in Africa is not like getting a dress in Ireland. You do go shopping but it is shopping for material. It is a long process, firstly we have to get up at 6 am to catch the only bus out of Suji to the small town Same to get the material. The bus journey is always an interesting one, anything can happen. We have had people been thrown off for refusing to pay, there is always room for one more person..... the bus can accommodate 25 but often carries nearly 100 people standing  ( I may be exaggerating a little bit) , but it is always a tight squeeze ! I reckon there will be people on the roof before the year is out ! The music is another interesting part of the journey, the African music is always blaring and we wonder how the driver does not loose concentrating or how anybody has not gone deaf yet! I make sure to always have the ipod on hand , although their music always wins out in the end and I do find myself at times singing along ! So you get the material back up the mountain ( Belinda and Aisling just about got theirs up, the bus got stuck in mud half way up and had to walk the rest of the way in their  bare feet) and you bring the material to the lovely dressmaker Ruth just below our house. I spent a while on the Internet picking a design out and made some attempt to draw it out.She has a measuring tape and an ancient sewing machine ( not electrical). She is a very talented young woman and 4 days later I have a gorgeous dress , which would have cost about 200-300 euro at home, I paid 12 euro for material and the dressmaking skills (that included a tip !) I will be making more trips to Same for material.
Photos to be uploaded after the event !

Teaching is coming along nicely although we are all starting to get a bit nervous about the mocks coming up in May. The students in form 4 are now coming in at 7 pm and studying until about 11. So we are always on standby and check in with them a few times every evening.I also have my form 2 students talking with my sisters friends students in a school in Dublin. Here the students are learning a little bit about Irish schooling our culture along with learning how to type and use the Internet. It gets a little crowded when there are 60 students trying to sit around a laptop though, so hopefully we will have set up some kind of a computer lab by the end of the year.

Latest football updates
Suji high school ( the private school in the village ) 7-0 Malindi ( A bit of a disaster)
Malindi 4-0 Gonjanza. A great victory and some great football.
Malindi 2-2 Tae ,(some terrible Ref decisions)
So the football team is coming along nicely and the players are great.
I even have one of them in a Mayo jersey ! One of my form 4 students goes by the name Anthony Mayo, so i thought he deserved to wear the great colours of Co.Mayo ! A Ciaron Mac Donald in the making for sure.

A Day in the life of Teachers and Pupils in Malindi Secondary School by Jim Lovett

A Day in the life of Teachers and Pupils at Suji Malindi Secondary School by Jim Lovett.

Saturday morning 6:30 and am still in bed – lying in on me new

mattress, luxury – thought I might try to describe a typical day in

the school here.

You will hear the kids start to arrive at 05:45 or so

and by 06:00 there is a general air of excitement outside the house

and around the school. Some of them will already have done 2 hours

work by this time – they will sometimes nod off as a result, or so I’m

told … i.e. it doesn’t happen in my class - . They will be given some

brooms and a general clean up goes on, then there’s assembly and

singing a few songs (1) the national anthem (2) a Pare, the local

district, song and finally the school song – will sing these ta ya

when I get home, all followed by some words of encouragement by one of

the teachers.  

School proper then starts at 07:40. This has never

happened. The best you could hope for is about 08:00.

Classes are forty minutes which is not enough time as getting them

settled takes at least ten minutes when there can be up to seventy

children in a class. The ages of the kids varies greatly, the fourth

form should have kids of around 15/16 years but there will also be one

or two as old as 23 who ‘must’ have an education, and all ages in

between.    The subjects are; Swahili, English, Geography, History,

Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Civics, Religion in it’s any guises here

– more later on this – and last but not least Mathematics, the

standard here is very low as there is no consistency and any half

decent teacher is ‘head hunted’ away to some private school where they

will be fairly paid.  The state schools pay little or nothing; I won’t

go into it … politics. So what they really require is some stability

in their teachers to bring them from first year to fifth year in one

consistent batch.

There is a small break around 10:00 and the big break for lunch

arrives at 12:40 theoretically but this all depends on the water

situation and more but not here, o.k. so the whole school must be fed,

this for the students means maize and beans, always!! Now the beans

take about five hours to cook on an outdoor fire, logs like – the

logs/ wood are/is brought in by the students daily with a great forage

going on once every two weeks, when all head off into the local

forest for a day, more later – this cooking requires massive amounts

of water, which is scarce at the moment, and so proceedings can be

delayed for any … any … any length of time … God.

This is mostly carelessness as there is a perfectly adequate supply

for the schools needs but the relevant authorities don’t care enough,

as they have other businesses to administer. Also this is Africa.

All these disruptions make teaching difficult, but the kids themselves

are very bright, and some, like anywhere else are eager to learn.

On a lighter note, last Thursday we the Malindi teachers joined the Suji –

well paid – teachers and took on a bunch of fourth formers at soccer, promptly –

we were told, punctual is the word they used - at 15:00 hundred hours,

well you can imagine what happened next, we closed up the school a

little early, so innocent, and were on the pitch at 14:55 where we

waited for an hour and a half for the other teachers to turn up, then

another half hour for the students. I was exhausted in the little kick

about and as a result we lost – it was something more than 1-0.

A Day on the Mountains by Jim Lovett

A Day Hiking in the Mountains around Suji by Jim Lovett.

Haya is o.k. in Swahili, so haya boys and girls.

Last Saturday we all went on a twenty mile hike from our valley – Suji

-  bypassing the nearest big village,  Chome, and continued on to the

foothills of the highest mountain in the northern chain, it is called

Shengena Peak and stands at 7,800 feet. Aine – Mayo, Aisling –

Leitrim, Belinda and Aaron – Donegal an mesel comprised the Irish team

and representing Tanzania was; George,  Eneza T Eneza,  Solomon James,

Elihinaki,  Abbas,  Abihudi and Togolani try saying that with a

mouthful of rocks, in fact try sayin anything …

We set out at daybreak, six o clock, without a guide, because ‘one’ of

us had just lost all patience, we weren’t long gone when he turned up,

Remani Kiangi, and the day would not have been the same without him.

Remani is 75 years old an comes from the nearby town of Gonjanza -

also in Suji, self educated, he spoke English very well and was a mine

of information. His strengths were on the German and English

occupation of the area, they started the mining operations – gold and

semi precious stones – and the various cultivations – potatoes (a

blight in 1943 nearly wiped the place out), cabbages, carrots, coffee,

cocoa, tea, pepper - and the biggest industry alive today the

cultivation of sisal, introduced in 1892 when just 62 plants were

brought over from Florida, it is today the biggest money producer in

the area. You might say money for new rope … well I might…He was also

well up on the medicinal properties of the forest flora so that such

and such was good for settling stomach ache etc, etc and he is 74 and

getting younger be the minit. At one point on the way home I thought –

out loud – that it might rain soon, we were assured that there would

be no rain for at least 3 to 4 hours. It rained 5 minutes later. The

same as if we were at home … by God. We arrived back in the valley …

slidin down on our respective a**es and drowned like rats. But a great

day had been had by all; it was a ten hour hike.

The assault on Shngena Peak cannot be made from here, might start in

Chome. Number of monkeys seen – zero. Number of elephants seen – zero,

but then again they haven’t been around here for thirty years.

Or something like that.

The Eastern Arc Mountain Range by Jim Lovett.

The Eastern Arc Mountains

       There exists a mosaic, from the border of Kenya, to the border

of Tanzania with Mozambique which includes the islands of Zanzibar,

Mafia and Pemba and embraces the so called Eastern Arc Mountains,

stretching for some 700 hundred miles from the Taita Hills in Kenya to

Southern Tanzania. There are 12 main mountain ranges running from

north to south some of which are: the Taita Hills, North and South

Pare, East and West Usambara, North and South Nguru, Uluguru and

Mahenge.

        The highest point is in the Ulugurus and the average peak is

around 8,000 feet. Geologically the mountains are formed mainly from

Pre-Cambrian rock uplifted about 100 million years ago. Their

proximity to the Indian Ocean ensures high rainfall, and the climatic

conditions have been stable for the past 30 million years although

variation from year to year can be considerable, a result of the El

Niño effect, leading to droughts or floods. This high rainfall and

long-term climatic stability along with the isolation of the separate

mountain ranges have resulted in a flora and fauna that are both

ancient and diverse.

        The original forest cover on the Eastern Arc Mountains is

estimated to have fallen by about four fifths in the last 2000

thousand years to the mid-1990s when records were last taken. While no

reliable information exists for the true extent of recent forest loss

it is more likely to have deteriorated than improved.

         Although the main biodiversity values are concentrated in

the forests there are a significant number of endemics (especially

plants) in non-forested habitats. While there is some debate in terms

of plant biogeography between the Eastern Arc Forest and the Costal

Forest Mosaic where approximately 60% - a considerable proportion of

species – are found in both regions.

        More importantly however is the fact that both of these

forest types contain a great number of species strictly endemic to

their areas.

Jim Lovett,

Malindi Secondary School