Saturday, August 2, 2008

We meet in the lobby of the Hotel Mkonge at 9:30 AM to depart on the PDSS. We visit four sites away from Tanga. One site is next to a village with a 20-stall milking shed set up for hand-milking cows. It is located next to a dip tank of the standard construction, and close to a soccer field. We plan to recommend the crush site be on the other side of that field.

The next site we visit involves going into a town with a curious billy goat sitting on a concrete pad next to a flour grinding station for maize and cassava. At first I think he is not ambulatory because his two front hooves are not worn down at all and he tends to “kneel” on his carpi like a goat with footroot. However, he does get up when offered what appears to be cassava flour from a young man in a red T-shirt (“AIG” logo); this goat appears to be a town favorite and gets amorous with the red T-shirt guy by mounting him to the delight of the children watching; all to our amusement while we wait to meet with the village officials.

The next village is next to tidal flats just off the Indian Ocean. A cemetery in a grove of trees at that town is curious to me. Except for two graves, none are marked other than with stones containing no carving or names and dates of birth or death. My impression from the proximity of these stones to each other that many of these are children's graves, which is certainly consistent with the high childhood mortality that one reads about in Africa.

We stop at a resort on the ocean with a thatched roof cottages for guests. Several white Europeans (or so we assume they are) are staying there. The beach and surf look good, with several guest swimming. Several of our party have soft drinks as we visit this site as a diversion. It is next to, and perhaps associated with a large sisal plantation. This area is west of the Tongoni ruins that we visited a week ago today. We take the same rough road back into Tanga that we traveled last week on that visit.