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| Part
1: Goodbye Northamptonshire |
This
is about as far from my comfortable little Northamptonshire idyll
as one can get.
No neat and compact house; no tidy garden with azaleas and daffodils,
no rolling fields of yellow rapeseed.
Nary a supermarket and not a post office in sight. Nor, for that
matter, any electricity, running water, television, refrigeration,
microwaves, Internet or telephones. And it's sublime!
I have
come here to Longido in rural Tanzania to work on a Maasai literacy
programme with MondoChallenge, a charitable organisation based a
short drive away from my home in Woodford Halse.
World away
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| A
house in Longido |
Longido,
however, is a world away from the life I know, and teaching English
to the Maasai has virtually no parallels with my normal work as
a media consultant. But already it feels like home…
This
mountain village is a dusty speck on the map of Tanzania. Home to
two thousand Maasai, spread out in bomas across the plains between
Ol Tipesi to Kimakouwa, Longido lies between the cities of Arusha
and Nairobi, on the far northern reaches of the Maasai steppes.
Mountain of God
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| A
view of Mount Kilimanjaro snow-capped peaks |
From
the Open Air Boma School at which I teach at the foot of Mount Longido,
I have a clear view of the snow-capped peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro,
Mount Meru and Oldonyo Lengai, an active volcano on the shores of
Lake Natron known as the 'Mountain of God' because that is where
He apparently resides!
Never before have I gone to work with such a view. This breathtaking
panorama has remained virtually unchanged since the dawn of time.
It makes me feel small and insignificant in the grander scheme of
things.
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