Life is the flower of which love is the honey!

As we now ended our six week stay, but we have still two weeks to blog about, we’ll start with the fifth week of our stay in Tanzania. We had already made the blog about the fifth week, but because of some internet problems, we couldn’t publish it. Our next blog will follow in a week!

We are approaching the end of our six weeks stay at the mzumbe university campus and I think we start to realise it. Saying goodbye for the last time to beekeepers we helped, saying ‘this is the last Sunday at the campus’ or ‘this will be the last chapati we’ll eat’. Okay, no, I was kidding: Milan and Femke got addicted to chapati’s during our stay, so the last chapati will never be eaten!

As you could read in our last blog post, we had been teaching 3 beekeeping groups in the Mvomero region in our fourth week. As our theoretical beekeeping courses went very well that week, we planned to do the same thing in Mzumbe with two beekeeping groups. If Chowo, our driver, would read this he would say: “Mr. Jonas, do not compare theory to practice!”. With his words and our own experience in mind, we planned to go harvesting with the two beekeeping groups.

On Monday, Milan and Jonas went to Morogoro to buy boots for the beekeepers and to print some pictures (some sponsors can expect a postcard in about seven days). In the afternoon we visited Tony’s group. Every time we speak of this group, Milan’s ankles start to itch again and Femke starts to beat imaginary insects in the air, Faith runs away as fast as she can and Jonas, as cool as he is, stays calm of course. Maybe this sentence tells more about who is writing this blog than the real situation. But if you have read our previous blog posts, you should know our last visit to this group wasn’t a nice experience. Faith started to teach some basic beekeeping to the group. The group was very interested in the difference in beekeeping between Belgium and Tanzania. It had been a hot day and some big clouds were forming behind the mountains. After the little beekeeping course, Faith and Femke were dropped off at the coconut bar (about 2 km from the apiary) and Milan and Jonas jumped in their beekeeping suits. We wanted to start harvesting just after sunset, because at that moment there is just enough light to see the combs and to find an escape route without falling in one of the numerous fish ponds in the neighbourhood. The smokers prevented us from starting the harvest, we couldn’t make them smoke. When the smokers finally worked, it was already very dark and the wind was blowing hard. We started opening the hive and everyone knew what he had to do once we opened did this. Bees were buzzing very angrily and hundreds of them came out of the hive like little kamikazes. But we were more prepared to it. Jonas started to cut out honeycombs and showed the beekeepers how they look. After a while it started raining. Maybe this was the reason the bees calmed down. After cutting a few combs, we approached the brood nest of the colony. We showed the beekeepers the brood comb and told them to never harvest this. There is no honey in it and bees get really angry if you cut this out. We got back to the car, while it was raining really hard. The road back to the coconut bar had become one big slide and the car got stuck. We jumped of the car with our beekeeping suits still on and started to push. After a while, we finally reached the coconut bar and got back to the campus with a satisfied feeling (and for Jonas also one sting in his upper lip). We were really happy.

The next day we went to the carpenters to write the names of our sponsors on the hives. After that, Faith and Jonas washed the dirty beekeeping suits. It was a tough job, but after hours of washing we could be happy with the result: white beekeeping suits! In the afternoon we had an appointment with Tony’s beekeeping group to show how to process honey, but all the beekeepers were sick (we still don’t know their real reason). Only Tony wasn’t sick, so we showed him the processing for the second time.

Wednesday we had the plan to visit the other beekeeping group in Peko (a village near Mzumbe, half an hour driving). The only problem was that they didn’t respond our phone calls, so we couldn’t do anything. In the evening Tony passed by our house to give a jar of the honey we harvested and asked if we could join him on Saturday for another harvest.

Having no specific plans on Thursday because the beekeepers still didn’t answer, we went to Nico and he said we should just go to Peko. Arrived in Peko, we saw beekeepers and made an appointment for the next day. From Peko we went to Morogoro to visit SIDO, a company that produces honey jars and to buy some smokers at LEKAT. We ordered beekeeping suits and checked if they already arrived at the post office, but unfortunately they didn’t.

On Friday we wanted to print some beekeeping manuals (we found a manual in Swahili on the internet) before going to Peko, but the printer in our VLIR-office that could not print PDF’s and the print shop at the campus that had no electricity prevented this. Without the big manual (we had already made our own small manual), we went to Peko. Faith told them the basics of beekeeping and afterwards we made some pictures with the sponsored hives. After the photoshoot, we prepared two hives to be colonised by melting wax on the top bars. As the sun was already down, we stopped building the construction for the hive and put on the beekeeping suits. The beehives were situated on a hillside. It wasn’t that easy to find the beehive and walk to it because it was already dark. We put the beehive down, blew smoke around it and opened the lid. Jonas started cutting the first comb, which was filled with a little bit of honey. He started feeling bees running over his face and moved back in the dark. At the same time, Milan had some bees in his boots and went back to the car. The beekeepers closed the hive after 10 minutes and we started to shake of the bees. After a while, the bees didn’t follow us anymore. We made an appointment to process the honey the next day and drove back home. This time Jonas got stung three times above his eyes. We now know what happens to your face when you get stung in your lips or above your eyes. We would really like to know how it’s like to get stung on your ears. I’ve been told that Femke will volunteer for this, so we hope we can present you some even nicer pictures next time.

We had promised to come back the next day, on Saturday. The problem with that was that Chowo couldn’t get the university car. He had promised to fix another car, but he didn’t succeed. Femke didn’t feel well, so Faith, Jonas and Milan took the bus to Mlali and from there they walked to Peko. As the weather was very hot, the trip wasn’t that easy. Somewhat later than promised, we arrived at Peko and told them about the honey processing. At 3 o’clock we had a meeting with Tony’s group and when we finished telling the beekeepers about honey processing, it was already 1h30, so we took a pikipiki (motorcycle) to get back to Mzumbe. We made the hives we gave them ready for bees and started preparing ourselves for the honey harvest. This time Faith joined Jonas and the beekeepers to collect the sweet honey from the hive. Because the bees got into the suits during the harvest at Peko, we taped the small opening in the suit, so nobody got stung. This time Jonas didn’t cut out the combs, but the beekeepers did it themselves and they knew what to cut out and what not. We were all very happy that our harvest was a success and we went back home.

We’re now monday and we planned to go to Mvomero, but at the moment we are still waiting for Nico and Chowo to come…

For those who are wondering what we eat every day, we can present some pictures:

The first one is called ‘chapati’ and is some kind of pancake made out of flour and water. The upper one in the right is called ‘Pilau Nyama’. Pilau is spiced rice and Nyama is the meat you can see. This dish is always served with beans and spinach. If you ask for ‘Wali Nyama’, you get rice without spices. The last dish is called ‘Chipsi Mayai’. It’s like an omelette with fries.”

So, this should have been our blog post on Sunday, but we post it now. Tomorrow we go on holidays to Zanzibar. Afterwards, Milan and Jonas come back to Mvomero to work another two weeks with the beekeepers!

Kwa heri,

Faith, Femke, Milan and Jonas