Caravan Dispatches - Schizophrenic Weather along the Way - Kampala and Dar es Salam

14^th November, 2011 

‘This weather is schizophrenic,’ a caravanite says. He is right. This trip has been interesting. The weather changes without fail. One moment it is hot and the next it is chilly. A minute later and you have a serious downpour. Today at the border of Kenya and Tanzania we drove into a light drizzle which turned into a a heavy one and later it shone like it had not rained. The Uganda border is also one that gave us a challenge as it was raining cats, dogs and everything in between. I feared that our documents would get wet. The Task Force of the Trans African of Hope was the first to traverse the terrain of this caravan. We started out in Nairobi and drove down to Kampala over night. That was the first time were experiencing how the caravan was going to feel. Boy! Was it tiring. I think we had imagined how it would be but had not gotten into our system that indeed this was going to be both fun but also very tiring. That same day we went to a partner’s office, discussed more on the caravan over lunch, then the weather happened. It rained so hard that people who had been sent to get our lunch had to wait it out for 2 hours for the water to subside. The lunch did eventually come. The weather though didn’t change as it rained most of the night.

Back to the present….   

    

I am in a bus now headed to Dar es Salam via Morogoro, where we will stop for lunch. We are sweating because of the heat but heavy clouds have been dancing along with the sun. I can say with certainty, it is going to be raining soon and not lightly. Yes, l have since coming to this trip, acquired a talent of being a weather man. So two hours later and it has just started to rain, heavily. The caravanites in the bus l am in are sweating. Yes, and l didn’t stutter. It is raining heavily as we wait for one of our buses to finish up some matter with the police. So here we are. We can’t go out because you will be drenched and inside the bus, a cooking cake box. So l sit here with my face running a river, not of tears but of sweat. Hours later…Somewhere in Tanzania. It is still raining heavily.I am looking through my window and all l see are heavy clouds amidst heavy downpour. It looks foggy and so our driver is being cautious.