What a Day!

I went with Fr. Sossy today to begin the process of buying a small dairy herd (7 cows). We travelled to the Tanzania Livestock Research Institute in Mpwapwa, which is about 100 kilometres away. Mpwapwa is known for a certain breed of cattle developed there -- called, well, the Mpwapwa breed. After some discussion we were discouraged from buying them because we expect greater milk production -- closer to 20 litres per day than 10. We were cool with that, because we'd planned on buying the Boran-Friesian mix. The National Ranch Company (NARCO), we were told, has such a mix (though not necessarily F1) -- and we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble by stopping there, saving ourselves 40 kilometres since it is that much closer to Dodoma.
All was not lost, however. The researchers we met were very helpful, including giving us some good advice re: goats, pigs, and chickens.
We left the office happy until we saw the land cruiser with a flat tire. A young worker was called over to assist us, and we were soon on our way to get the puncture repaired. We arrived at the repair shop only to find there was no electricity. Ugh. We finally found a repair shop that could manage without electricity and soon we were on the road to Kongwa to visit our friend Sr. Immaculata, SCIC, and deliver some things to her from Dodoma. Between Mpwapwa and Kongwa (a 40 kilometre distance), we hit a bump and the pick-up just petered out. Sossy thought the fuel guage might be broken and that we were out of fuel. After over an hour, Immaculata came to our rescue with a mechanic who diagnosed the problem immediately, made a temporary fix to get us to Kongwa, and then did a more thorough repair.
We left a 11 in the morning and returned at 7:40 p.m. I have a sunburned left side as a souvenir -- and another story to tell about adventures in TZ!
Video to follow when I have enough 3G umph to upload it.