The Maasai. I will start with the roads. Most of the Tanzania that I had seen up to last Wednesday was fairly flat. With the exception of mountains in the distance and the peak of Kilimanjaro appearing every now and then in the sky, my experience of Tanzania was certainly not hilly, The gradual climb up to Kiboshi hospital or the even more gradual slope down into town had lulled me.


Even Wednesday, though it seemed extreme, could not have prepared me for Thursday.


On Wednesday we drove from Moshie to Arusha. I actually slept on the way which was surprising because Marina's New York style driving is truely terrifying, but when we got to the Medical Missionaries of Mary Sisters in Arusha I woke up and after much organisation and disscussion we set of and I got my first experience of the dust.


The dust. Imagine the worst road you know; the road from Allihies to Urhan over the mountain is good compared to what I have in mind so picture the very worst road you can, double it, add serious potholes and craters and then add a ten inch deep covereing of the finest, fluffiest mud dried into dust. Spread this evenly across the road from ditch to ditch hiding every washed away chasm and boulder and break. Also add, at regular intervals, two foot high earth baricades which may be an attempt to moderate wash away during the rains or may be an attempt to slow wild drivers. (All the roads here have speed bumps which bring you to a complete halt if you want to cross them without having your wheels torn from underneath you).


Driving on these roads is like being at sea, the car lumbers and wallows throwing up great washes of dust when it falls into an invisable pot hole then lurching and clambering up the other side only to tip down into the next one with the dust splashing up against the side of the car as high as the roof.


I was lucky I was introduced to this in stages, that first day we didn't go very far. But the second day it was my turn to drive.


I grew up in Co Dublin where we would go “in” to town so when I moved to Allihies it took me a while to get used to going “out” to the village but “in” to Reentrisk where I lived. In the west of Ireland we also go “in” to an island which I would have thought was “out” in the sea. But having driven two hours “in” to the Maasai lands I finally get it. In is intimate, hidden and hard to get to, in is private, in is why we are outsiders who will catch our glimpse and leave again, washing off the dust and forgetting.


In is also a valley. After driving for a while on fairly level ground following Camilla's tracks and dust cloud ahead of me the road took a dip down a dry, mud walled gorge. Going downhill in the dust was not so much driving as floundering softly in a downward direction but when we emerged from the end of the gorge we were looking from a height down into an incredibly beautiful valley. Now, for the first time, I understand how high we are that we can fit this valley below us and how far down I would have to go to reach the sea.

We continue following Camilla's dust cloud, sometimes we have long stops to let the dust settle because we can't go forward over this ground unless we can see; sometimes the road has a sheer drop on one side and we must snake to the other side of the road to cross over a narrow dust bridge.


By this time I have worked out that the best bit of road to drive on is the part that is covered by a strange dappled patina of lighter marks. I have been following these marks for a while before I realise they are footprints and they show the places where the dust is at its shallowest. Many, many footprints, many people, many cows. Thursday is market day and people are on the move. Every footstep followed by dust.
The journey is greuling but we get to our destination at last where a very gracious man shows us into his spotless front room. I've been told that the Maasai people suffer from eye problems because of the dust and this is what we see, eye and chest, but even though we are seeing people in a lot of pain a calm spreads when we settle into work. I have learnt to work a bit more slowly now and hold my nerve and all of us are working because our host must translate for his family into swaheli and each patient describes their symptoms as best they can and the hum of Africa rises from the ground around our little group and envelopes us in a cocoon of friendship and ease.


I try to remember this gathering over the following week as we wade through a treacle of bureaucracy trying to sort out the official stuff of our stay here and encounter many of what Jeremy calls Africa obstacles but I think might be white person obstacles as Africa seems to bring out the worst in us.


Marina left today but before she went she told me to hang on until I see the results of my work, that that is why I am here and that my muzungu troubles will pale when I see that I can help people who might otherwise have absolutely no health care.


Pendo is still alive though she is very, very fragile. Jeremy and Camilla bought her two nights in a hospital so that she could go on a drip to help her dehydration and she is on a new remedy which has helped her with the diarrhoea and vomiting again.


I learnt one word of Maasai, I don't know how to spell it but it sound like a-shane-a-lay and it means thank you.