Road rules

 You can see the problem

There's no break in the median strip at our corner.  There's one about 50 metres before the turn if you're heading away from town on the Highlands Highway, the next is 1 km further on at the roundabout.  What's a driver to do?

Luckily there's a handy bus stop on the side heading back in to town so if there's no bus and no traffic you can slide through the gap in the median over into the bus stop, then it's only 20 m on the wrong side of the road to the turn.  Easy done!  And very familiar as a tactic used to turn on to the T2 - our main road in Arusha - from the bottom of our street, the grandly named goat track, Sakina Avenue.  In Tanzania the rule was supposedly you could go the wrong way on a one way street but any accident was automatically your fault!

This week we have had a break from the office for an hour or so and travelled up the Highlands Highway as far as the Department of Agriculture and Livestock's Erap Farm.  It has seen better days with more staff, more activity and more funds in the past.  It was a place where training happened decades ago and the dormitories are still there but heading towards dereliction.  What makes it interesting is that even though we've only gone half an hour up the Markham valley the climate is completely different.  It is much drier at Erap than in rainy Lae and the range of crops that can be grown is completely different.  It seems here climate change is having an affect, and the manager told us there is now more rain than in the past and taro is being grown under natural rainfall when once irrigation was needed.

Just past Erap is the beginning of the oil palm plantations - big business in PNG, on the mainland now too when once it was restricted to the islands.  It's a monoculture replacing grasslands where cattle (bulmacow in Pidgin!) had grazed since the forest was cleared post WW2.  We are rapidly getting a potted understanding of tropical agriculture.  It has been a steep learning curve starting as it did from zero.

On the subject of roads I'd say the Highlands Highway and the Glenelg are pretty similar as far as needing maintenance goes.  Potholes and broken edges abound and there are several stops and diversions for roadworks.  Between Bubia, where NARI is, and Erap two new bridges are being built.  The highway will soon be four lanes divided road all the way from town to the airport.  That will make a big difference to the trip for those lucky enough to fly.  Driving isn't as crazy as it was in Tanzania and Uganda - no goats, chickens and children to avoid, and no pikipikis and bajajis.  But there is the risk of car jacking! 

We are lucky now to be driven to and from work by NARI drivers and are learning some Pidgin from them.  The systems put in place to keep us safe work well and we are very happy.  Today, Saturday, is shopping day so we've been to town to the department store and to the supermarket and then the 9 Mile roadside market for fresh fruit and vegetables, this with the security company contracted by AVI.  We should be all set for the week ahead!