Father Arkado has killed nine scorpions on the walls and floors of the house here at Olbalbal during the last two weeks. It is the deep dry season here and strong winds constantly raise great clouds of dust. I am always looking for a place out of the wind. Maybe the local scorpion population is too. One was crawling up the wall next to my bed…Lucky we spied that one!

A couple of days ago I noticed that my car license ran out and I was getting ready for the five hour trip into Arusha when I heard that it could be renewed at Karatu that is two hours away from here. I went there and was amazed at the technology that made it possible to renew the license quickly. At the mobile phone store, they led me through paying for the new license using my cell phone. That took just minutes. Then I went to the licensing office and they already had notification in their computers that I had paid. The clerk then printed out my new license and sticker for the car. That whole process took less than ten minutes. It used to take hours waiting in line to pay for a renewal and then about six weeks to get the new license and sticker from Dar-es-Salaam, the capital.

Another thing that is amazing to me is how adept the Maasai young people are at using their phones. They exchange Maasai music and Maasai music videos via blue tooth instantaneously. There seems to tons of contemporary Maasai music on line together with the Maasai music videos. The young people have ways of getting this stuff on their very inexpensive mobile phones. It is not unusual to come upon a couple of warriors herding their cattle out on the plains that are sitting under a shade tree watching a music video on the tiny screen of a mobile phone.