Around town

I've been around town the last few weeks,
so the pictures are also from around town.

We have a new shopping area on the west side
of town, and if you look to the left,
you see the blue parasol's of the new pizza place,
which beats all the other pizza places
(except the Italian restaurant).

they started with some nice foreign pine trees...

and spent quite a bit on landscaping, so it is a pretty place...

My office is on a research station in
the country, so wildlife visits us regularly.

Even in town, the views can be nice.
If you look to the right you can see
a trace of the second bow of a
spectacular double rainbow.

Namibia (2)

Gobabeb Desert Research Centre is beside
a riverbed that divides a flat white gravel
desert from a desert full of red dunes.


They say that this river floods during part of the year,
but I would have to see it to believe it.

Namibia (1)

Last fall I went to a meeting about agriculture and carbon
in Namibia,which is in southwestern Africa.

We flew into Windhoek, which is very modern and nice.

Then we drove west to Swakopmund on the sea coast.

It is a tourist town with beaches and nice shopping and restaurants
and they say there is a huge sand dune, but I didn't see it.

And lots of interesting European architecture...we stopped
for an hour, then went out to the research station where
we were actually working.

Hello again!

My heavens! I haven't posted since before Christmas!

Sorry, things were very busy at the end of last year.


Speaking of Christmas, I went through Schiphol
Airport in Amsterdam just before Christmas.


It was well decorated for the holiday.


This airport has everything;

a library


a family area and playroom


and a museum.
in addition to everything
that most airports have.


It was a pleasant contrast to what was going on
outside.I hear that just after I passed through,
airports in Europe and the US were
snowed in and closed.

Bolero 2

We only cut seven trees in Bolero.

Oxcarts seem to be the favorite means of transport
in Bolero. Here is one filled with harvested maize.

Bolero had some of the prettiest Faidherbia trees.

Bolero

When we arrived in Bolero, in Rumphi district, we
found trees almost as large as the ones in Karonga.

Speaking of beginnings, the young man in this picture,
Herbert Jenya, is going to begin school in January at
the Forestry College in Mzuzu.
It will be quite a new beginning for him.

The trees in Bolero had a much heavier crop of
seeds still on the tree than anywhere we have been.

We found bicycle transport in Bolero, and in all the villages,
but in Bolero there is an older form of transport more favored
than bicycles. Check next week to see it.

I'm back!

Hi everyone, sorry for the hiatus, I had a couple of very busy months.

First, an announcement for Kiva:

http://www.kiva.org/

Kiva matches specific lenders to specific business-people in developing
countries who need micro-loans to develop their businesses. I have
used them for several years and can recommend them highly.


Back to Karonga....some trees there were very old,
like the grandfather tree here which is
losing limbs and struggling to hang on.

The favorite use for large Faidherbia trunks in Karonga
was for canoes on the lake.

One day we finished early, and went to the Tanzanian
border. This is the Songani river. We walked over
the bridge, walked around town for a few minutes
and looked around, and crossed back. No one
asked to see documents, even from me,
and I obviously wasn't from there!