Bike Stand

Saturday when I thought of riding my bike and going someplace just for the heck of it. Since I’m still not very good with the bike I planned to go to Nyangao, one hour bus ride from Ndanda and around 38-41 kilometres away. It’s a good place to go because in case something happened with the bike I can always ride the bus and put it someplace or just throw it away and having a target location, with friends who can accommodate me for the night is pretty uplifting for my nervous spirit. That was the first long journey I took with a bike. Back home I stopped biking after I got into an accident. Here in Africa, I learned again to appreciate the joy of fresh air on my face and ponder the exciting thought of having the clothes I’m wearing as the only armour against the pebbled tarmac road in case I fall. It was 8:30 a.m. when I left Ndanda, had breakfast first with Bruce (another volunteer from Newala). A little bit slow in the beginning, felt a little twinge of anxiety for the long journey ahead. It was already hot, with the sun set high on the right. I’ve been travelling the road for so many times in a bus that there is no possibility that I could get lost so that’s one less concern for me. People seem to be happy (or maybe that’s just me) seeing Mchina passed by, keep yelling and calling my attention. The road is mainly tarmac except for some parts which are being built and it goes up and down ( I think is more up) just perfect for a good day exercise. There was some occasion that I am cruising on a very long stretch of road that I could see the people on the other end falling down from earth. With the sun bearing down and seeing the heat wave rising just like in Coke commercials in the dessert, well that’s what I daydreamed of while pushing my pedals away, that pretty soon I would be drinking a cold a and refreshing Coke (some commercials are really convincing). The most thrilling part of the ride is seeing many birds. Got a glimpse of kingfishers, brown headed parrot, big hawk, bigger eagles and much bigger hornbills. It would be too rare to see these birds if I just sit and wait in my garden. In the beginning I doubted myself if I could do it, the thought of busses and cars driving by too fast that you can only see a blur of them and my bike breaking or falling apart in the middle of nowhere. I am also really worried about dump trucks carrying big boulders that go, like rampaging elephants. Pushing speeds with the intention to kill anyone or anything on the way. Road kills of unidentifiable things are scatted along the way being feasted upon by those really stupid crows. I’ve seen one incident in Ndanda when one of these trucks, didn’t notice the newly built humps, sped through it leaving behind few pieces of rocks bigger than a half a cow with a big thud. The driver didn’t even noticed what happened and just continued with his slightly than normal speed (I think 120kph is normal) to his destination. I arrived in Nyangao proper after a two and a half hour ride. I was so happy that I wanted to raise my hands like the bike racers on TV after winning a race but since I don’t know how to do it and scared of falling down so I just smiled and congratulated myself, went straight to a store and bought coke for my reward. I was having an ecstatic moment that I set aside the thought of the need to go biking the same route the following day. I was surprised that I was not that tired, maybe because I never really exerted too much effort and stop every time there is a shade or maybe I’m just too strong hehehe. Sunday afternoon after a full lunch I’m back on my bike again inspired by the big birds atop the trees keeping my mind out of the really hot sun by thinking of happy thoughts. The promised of a cool bath and freezing coke in the fridge back home keep my legs inspired to kick those pedals. Going to Nyangao the road seems to be always going up but going back it seem that the road is also going up most of the time, maybe its just the heat but I did made it back with an exhausted body and a foolish grin on my lips that I wore to my bed that night.

I was daydreaming today while doing my CD4 testing (my expensive CD4 testing)….. multitasking my friend. Anyways my dream was our blood center was providing us with enough blood supply which our patients demand to prevent them from DYING. Our patients are becoming more demanding nowadays but who cares,… really,… not me, I’m just here to do my expensive laboratory testing for HIV patients and to help the laboratory as well so I can suggest other expensive methods to test HIV patients. Then Humprey came trotting in, wearing his angelic smile as if his holding the good news in his hands which he left for me to read. It goes like this…

Africa HIV city care questioned
More HIV/Aids patients in Africa could be treated if funds were switched from expensive laboratory testing to local care in villages, research suggests.
Results from a six-year clinical trial of 3,500 people showed that lab tests of how anti-retroviral drugs work and side-effects do little to prolong life.
Money saved would enable a third more people to be treated, one doctor said.
In the West, laboratory tests are routinely carried out. There is still no cure for HIV/Aids.
But anti-retroviral drugs can stop the disease from developing.
'Marginal benefits'
Scientists in Uganda, Zimbabwe and Britain followed almost 3,500 patients over six years for the study, known as Dart.
Dr Peter Mugyenyi said more than six million people in Africa required care, but only 2.2 million were currently getting it.
The laboratory tests are very hard to carry out in most of Africa, the research suggests.
“ We now understand that the intensive laboratory tests which are routinely done in the West only bring marginal benefits ”
Dr Peter Mugyenyi
The difficulty for rural Africa is that the regular laboratory tests are expensive and require sophisticated laboratories that are often only available in cities - many hours' drive away from the villages where people live.
The trial results show the regular tests have either no benefit or very little benefit to survival rates.
The results showed that 90% of people who received anti-viral drugs and three-monthly lab testing were still alive after five years compared with 87% of people who received the drugs without undergoing regular testing.
If regular laboratory tests are not needed, doctors say it will be much easier and cheaper to give treatment in village clinics - rather than making patients travel to cities, where most treatment in Africa is concentrated.
Practitioners say with trained healthcare workers they can provide close supervision and support, and give HIV treatment to many more patients close to where they live.
Treatment 'breakthrough'
Dr Mugyenyi told the BBC Network Africa: "I would describe [this study] as a breakthrough, because we now understand that the intensive laboratory tests which are routinely done in the West only bring marginal benefits.
"We could actually do nearly as well by very good clinical monitoring of patients, making sure that trained healthcare providers look at their symptoms and signs and determine whether treatment needs to be changed or whether they need to have any modification in their care and treatment."
British International Development Minister Mike Foster said that while anti-retroviral treatment saves lives, the cost of the accompanying laboratory tests "significantly reduces the number of people that this treatment can reach".
"Crucially, the money saved from paying for these tests could enable more people to safely receive treatment, including those who for whatever reason are unable to travel to the laboratories."
Have you, or anyone you know, been having regular laboratory tests in conjunction with HIV treatment in Africa? If you would be willing to speak to the BBC News website about your experiences, please use the postform to get in touch. Your details will not be published.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8160403.stm

Published: 2009/07/21 12:04:13 GMT

© BBC MMIX
What really good news to celebrate for. Makes me want jump up and down and scream…What am I doing here? Better get my arse where its needed.Good thing it was just a dream. Here's a better breaking news. Africa HIV census and following patients for 6 years without doing anything, just following, questioned. May I suggest a worthwhile census next time… a hundred years study on why we don’t have blood supply until now and the cause and effect of not transfusing blood to a DYING patient because there’s no blood supply in the blood bank.

Joyride

Travelling again tomorrow. It’s going to be real stress free and exciting. Sunday when we reserved our bus seats, the ticket seller said that he doesn’t have the tickets there so he just wrote in his logbook. He never gave the tickets until yesterday, after I hassled him. He promised it Monday then Tuesday, his reason is that we already took a picture of the logbook with our names on it with our celphone, that’s why its enough, funny him, doesn’t he know that the inspector rips the tickets into two after checking it, what if he rips our celphone apart. There are other bus companies available though. Its either Business class comfy, where you ca still breath inside and First class, if you are sitting and breathing at the same time, we opted for the latter, 2 seaters, crosswind type (strong wind crossing inside the bus every time, Krus krus ang hangin as Ate Ofie puts it in tagalog). Travelling to Dar is really exhilarating, the huge bus continuously dodging reckless bicycle drivers and suicidal animals. Every time we experience a hump in the road I just can’t stop imagining that we ran over a chicken, dog or if a really big hump a cow or a Volkswagen. Just pray for their souls instead of sleeping. I always bring my religion with me when I need to step up the bus. Then there is this 60km rough road, really rough road during summer and marshland during rainy season. I never passed there without a car or a truck stuck in the mud or a hole. Mia, one of the volunteers here lost her shoes when she decided to get out of the car to check what’s causin traffic in that part of the road last time. It’s her first time to pass there and I think it would be the last too. Good thing it’s just her shoes, there might be something else lurking beneath those murky waters. Then the worrying of the engine of the bus overheating or anything going wrong. Last time our back tire exploded, good thing it was the back part if it was the front while cruising on that speed, pieces of my beautiful body will be scraped using a spoon in the road for sure. We waited for an hour for it to be fixed then continued, an hour later, the same tire exploded again. Oblivious of what happened or maybe because of the blasting stereo featuring Kiswahili religious songs the driver keeps on going. He just decided to stop when the tape finally came to an end and we are going down a hilly part. He might have thought that God is not with us after the songs ended. Since the spare tire is already used up we waited for another bus to come along to borrow their spare. Took us another 2 hours. Good thing we got out of there alive and arrive after 12 hours, the usual travel time is just 8 hours. The same thing happened to Nelson on his way from Dodoma. They got a flat tire and they don’t have a spare so they need to wait for a long time that the passengers got rowdy. The driver wielding a roaring chain saw seems to unafraid of the others brandishing their small knives and pipes. After people get bloody and all, (no one was cut in two) which is a good thing the police came and arrested the driver. Who drove the bus…that I didn’t get. Anyways during the chaos Nelson keeping an open mind dialled the VSO emergency number……. but there is no signal hehe…We will travel again tomorrow….this will be fun.

Mchina

You are an Mzungo if you are a fair skinned foreigner with lots of money. Mzungo means Europeans but white people are all the same here, they have loads of moniieesss. Mchina in the other hand is someone who can jump really high, catch a fly with a pair of chopsticks and can kick butts. Apparently many people here have witnessed the great powers of the Chinese, courtesy of pirated kung fu movies. That really shows the effectiveness of education thru movies and television. That’s where I fall, as an Mchina, but I’m a true bloodied Pinoy, doesn’t know any martial arts,( I'm trying my best to improve my running ability to compensate) but happened to be blessed with dead gorgeous eyes… what a pity. What always go under my skin, apart from everything else when it’s hot is when people upon seeing me will try to converse in an incrompehensible-parrot-like-chinese talk. It goes like ay-spik-layk-dis-cos-ders-ants-bay-ting-may-bols which is like a baby talking while being born. There’s nothing else to do but respond with @#$78*1?’%4 which is also a bunch of letters I don’t understand because its %$#@*&^% hot here. Anyways, I still like the greetings here which go around three minutes per person you meet.. The thing is, each greeting consist of asking how are you today (habari sa leo?), how’s your work (habari sa kasi), how did you wake up (by opening my eyes) how’s your house (nyumbani), how’s your children (watoto) and so on but you should always respond with nzuri, poa, swali which just means good. Meaning you are not really allowed to reply on what you really feel, even if your sick, not feeling well, you cannot open your eyes because of sore eyes, your house is burning, you cannot speak because you are choking from your own snot because you have the Mexican flu (Attention VSO, no data yet about Mexican flu in Tanzania?) or your children are the spawn of the devil, you still ought to say POA! You should lie, it’s always good to lie, and that’s why I just walk with a bag over my head every time, to avoid the exchange. Children on the other hand are different greeting machines. They always start with Shikamoo (I kiss your Feet or I’m under you knees) with a slight bow of heads. You will feel like you’re a king or a prince or something important (in your dreams) when they do that. The correct reply for that is not (go ahead and kiss it!) its marahaba (my pleasure or you are under my knees) but really these kids wont really go down to the ground and start smothering your feet with wet kisses. They will just follow it up with Ninaomba pipi or simply PIPI! (I like candies) so give me one or we will kill you and the grammatically and politically incorrect, Give me my MONEY! The greeting that every newbie’s will definitely like here is when someone you greet will reply SALAMA! It really means peaceful but imagine a big burly black guy holding a big knife while smiling and greeting you with salama. I just walk with my back side against the wall if ever that happens.

All about mangoes

One sweet delicacy that I missed since coming here is the dried mangoes from Cebu. These are strips of mangoes freeze dried or chemically dried making it not so dry and chunky, like bubble gum (we call it not so dried mangoes) and coated with sugar. It’s a truly healthy snack just like chocolates coz they both came from fruits. Anyways, these mangoes are made from Philippine mango which is the real mango. It taste like the real thing, unlike other mangoes which tastes like…. I don’t know. I had a fill of these special fruits when I was young. We had a big mango tree in our backyard teeming with fruits twice a year. It gives shade from its big trunk and leaves, branches giving rooms for beautiful birds, plus all the fruits that I can pick and eat. Then my mom sent somebody to cut it. The fruits keeps falling on the roof, leaves constantly blocking the drain pipes, all the bird shit and all the caterpillars hanging around like Christmas balls. So we had mango firewood for a month. Here in Ndanda we also have mangoes trees as well. What a surprise! There is a mango tree when I look out of my room window, there is a mango tree when I look out the laboratory window but theres no mango tree in my bathroom window coz I don’t have a window there. Basically they are everywhere. During mango season these quite trees becomes great battlefield arena. Pregnant women, old ladies with baskets, people in crutches and casts stays and awaits under these trees for the….. FALLING. They don’t believe in using a pole (that’s too tiresome), climbing the tree (too dangerous), so they wait for the fruits to fall. Patiently on a lookout from early morning till late noon, constantly monitoring for the slight change of wind, always aware of other people sudden movements. Then the DASH, the sudden rush of all the people for the falling fruit. Like gladiators, pregnant women using their bellies as ramming grills, guys in cast for shields and crutches for weapons and old slow ladies using their cunningness and toothless smiles to charm the others from stomping her to death, all running for the single fruit. At the end of the day, they show their piles of mangoes like trophies . When I was in kindergarten somebody told me that the human heart is shaped like mango unlike the apple shape that we always draw. I got a zero mark from that advise, for I drew a heart and colored it yellow. My teacher did not believe me, I guess she needs to read more about human hearts.

Saskia 10

Perhaps the only volunteer speech therapist in this part of the word. A beautiful ,vivacious, smart, caring and loving woman who had so much ahead of her except for one tragic April 30, everything just went to a halt. Her contract is supposed to end this June. She is already packing and getting ready to go home to Holland but after the incident,she suddenly needs to go home earlier than expected. Family members are supposed to be excitedly waiting for her to get off the plane, beaming and smiling, instead they awaited for their daughter whose lips unable to smile, hands unable to wave, and heart already ceased to beat. Their beloved daughter, our co-volunteer,our friend, already gone HOME.. Children she help, wont forget, friends she met, will always cherish the memories, family members she loved, will always be reminded. People might be sad some even angry, but Im sure shes in her rightful place . She might be smiling now, she might be happy now. At eased with all she accomplished, fulfilled with all she did, satisfied with all the smiles, friendship and warmth she brought to our hearts. She’ s happy to be HOME

Saskia Tien..we will remember

Sunday Trip

I injured myself AGAIN. I think its just part of being Atletang Pinoy as Sir June puts it. Last time I sprained my ankle while playing basketball. A big foot was suddenly catching mine while going down from catching a ball in midair. The last thing I know I was down in the ground, writhing in pain. Sunday I was happily jogging along when again suddenly a rock jutting out of my way tripped me. I can remember it in slow motion. I was just about to climb out of this canal when the end of my shoe kissed the rock. I tried to regain my balance but my other leg got rubbery on me, so I supported my whole body with my left arm but the inertia is still there pushing me forward making me tumble over, hitting my left knee on all the gravels. The result was bloody palms and scraped knee. I never expected it, that even my G-shock got shocked. The supposed to be scratch resistant glass, now had cracks on it. Good thing that the injury was in two places that’s why I got over the pain fast. It’s still a long way home but I was able to make it walking. It make me smile remembering what my friend Humprey say about people tripping. “Buti naituon ang nguso, kung hindi bangas ang tuhod.” ”Good thing he fell with his lips/face first or else hell get a scraped knee.”

Happy weekends

Its always like this . People ordering stuffs at the very last moment, on times that the reagents are almost finished. They always think that if they order today, it would just miraculously drop from the sky tomorrow. I keep on telling them that it doesn’t work that way. I’m no magician who can pull out rabbits from my magical hat, I can pull out a hair though, if its necessary. Added pressure is the suppliers not supplying (they should be called unsuppliers). Need to order and follow up on them a couple of times. One even have one month break, for inventory they said but haven’t delivered any of our orders yet I’m just a volunteer, I keep telling myself but sometimes it doesn’t help me at all. Sometimes I just want to give up, burst into tiny molecules or I might hurt somebody and regret it after. I love Fridays. Time to think about all the frustrations on the working days and time to relax a bit, for the coming two days are free. I hate Sunday Nights, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays,Thursdays. Sorry for this, I’m just really happy today

Ms. Piggy Takes the Bus

There are already 10 confirmed cases of swine flu in the Philippines . Congressmen are not even concerned because they are immune to this, so its safe for them to horde all the pork barrels. They can use it again for the next Pacquio fight. As of now, here in Tanzania we don’t have any idea if the flu infected someone. I’m not even sure if they are testing it . If somebody already died of the Mexican flu, he probably was misdiagnosed with malaria or something. If it truly comes here, then it would be a great timing for us to exercise the evacuation plan of the office. Yippee! The flu will surely plague the whole country in a matter of hours, especially if the infected person rides one of those dalas going around. With all the people inside at a given time. Even more space can be forced if all the passengers inside have still room to breath. All it would take is one sneeze and everything would fall down, even the walls of these mini buses, being rusty and dilapidated. Good thing that there is no Goat flu and chicken flu, because these comfortable dalas are the best place to get them. Yep! Goats and chickens are also passengers who needs to pay for the space they are occupying under the seats. The fun part starts on getting a ride. Unless you are in a bus station where you can get in immediately , but if you are standing by the road and trying to wave for a ride, the very efficient dala will stop a 100meters away from where you are .Then you need to push and shove everybody just to get in. Finding a seat is not really an issue. I don’t know if its better to stand up on your toes all the way to your destination (usually 4 hours travel or more) or sit with all the asses in your face while the chickens are pecking your feet, plus some moms putting their crying children to your lap hoping that you won’t protest and throw them away the window. Then the sacrifice of going down. There will be a stampede especially if it stops in a place where there are many passengers waiting. With all the people standing in the aisle and people rushing to get in and out at the same time .Its always faster to get out of the window going down which I did twice already, having my big ice boxes and sitting at the back of the bus. Its always exciting because the driver is always seems in a rush leaving your bus stop. Contrary to that, they always take their time drinking their tea in Mnazi moja,(an hour or more depending on their mood)while all the passengers are waiting inside the bus which is parked under the sun. The dalas are such a convenient public transport, good thing they don’t allow pigs in there and congressmen too.

Origami

Irena and other JICA volunteers held a presentation here in Ndanda about the destruction brought about by the Atomic Bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. It was a great opportunity for me to take a look on their side of the history, so I didn’t let it passed. It was really interesting with the posters, pictures and film showing about the two places before and after the bombing. The Japanese girls clad in Kimono and the toys they bought are also a good way of introducing part of their culture to the Tanzanian secondary school students. The students however are keener on taking their pictures beside the women than actually looking around the auditorium where the information are pasted. There was a commotion outside while the film was being shown making it impossible to hear what is being shown in the small television. Plus other students milling around just for the hell of it while other were really interested and are asking proper questions. We learned how to do a giraffe out of two pieces of papers. The Japanese are really good on these. There is one picture there that really stuck to my mind. Its about Sadako, she was a survivor of the bombing but developed Leukemia as an after effect of the exposure to radiation. She folded 1000 paper cranes hoping that this would cure her illness. But it never did. Sadako is also the ghost in The Ring Movies. She never did Origami there but she brought chill to my spines until now, everytime I remember the movie. She is this girl with matted, greasy hair, dirty fingers and can’t even walk straight. I know another person which has the same attributes but she never as scary as Sadako

Birds again

Last time I came from Dar I happened to get myself one of the bird books on sale. I always wanted to purchase one because every time I wanted to identify a bird I had just seen, I had to borrow the book of Jo or Piet. After perusing my new book, I had the idea of making my own book. There are some mistakes in the book i bought, like the place where these birds can be seen. I’ve seen so many but they are not supposed to be there like the ground hornbills and the white shouldered raven here in Ndanda, maybe they are just illusions or ghost of birds hehe. Plus the names of the same birds are easy to make. Just look at their distinguishing features like the spoonbill(spoon bill, no they don’t eat spoons) bee eaters(they eat bees) Pin tailed whydah (pintails)Golden weavers (golden and they weaves) and the common bulbul (they are common hehe). Though some are hard to comprehend like the mousebirds (are they mouse or are they birds?, they should have called them supermousebirds), the buffalo weavers ( I’ve never seen any buffaloes being weaved)widow birds (do they eat the male after mating like the blackwidows)secretary birds (they don’t look like any secretaries I knew, maybe they can be taught how to do shorthand, they eat snakes anyways). I already started to name birds which I think are not properly described by the book. I got the common garden bird (always in my garden), common tweety bird (tweets every morning but I never seen it wherever I looked. Maybe its one of those nasty crows trying hard to be cute) and the common flap a lot who looks like an eagle or hawk but flaps the wings all the time during flight. Anyways I might name my book, The Common Bird Book

Felines

I came to Africa to see some of its big cats like the lions, cheetahs and leopards. We went to Mikumi park on our first week here. We never saw any but I’ve seen so many domestic cats anyways. They are different from the Philippine domestic cats because they maybe the direct descendants of the wildcats here, plus they have Dutch names. Kleine smeerpoets(Klayn smeer poots, aka Ginger) it means little dirt bag because he is always dirty when he eats, with all the food on his face. He became a literal dirt bag when he reached adolescence. He started to hump his mom and his sister so Francijn decided to say goodbye to his balls (ouch!). Kleine meid (klayna mayt, meaning small girl, I think) she is so small and malnourished. She used to be vegetarian, eating only beans when she was young. Two male cats Baraka and Mzee (old) were sent to America to their former owner Sheena. They might be the most travelled Tanzanian cats as of now. We shared a very hot and stinky ride with them to Dar last December. I wonder how they handled the winter. The 2 females the mom and sis of the previously mentioned cats, Koroma (meows a lot) and Tiger (I never thought I will see tiger here in Africa) are already in Holland hopefully still making lots of noises and climbing roofs without knowing how to come down. Jo’s cats are named Krijger (Krayger, meaning hunter) he can meow without a sound and loves to kill small defenceless animals, and Kneus (kanows,clumsy) who always get himself into accidents. Once he put his tail between a closing door and got bitten by something so that his paw became thrice as big. Their balls needs to come off too, soon! ( 4 ouch! for that) Lisenka has another cat, a vicious cat who always attacks unsuspecting guests. I heard he attacked John one time (good for him, he doesn’t like cats and Manny Pacquio who had beaten their boxer to a bloody pulp last time, and he’s old). And finally Ute’s cat (German) who is so fluffy and white who I would call Fluffy because I don’t know the German word for fluffy.

Cordon bleu

I’ve been an avid fan of the avian species since childhood. I can still remember how they flew around, made lots of beautiful noises every afternoon, and then the clearing started, the cutting of trees for the ever increasing population of our village. As fast as they came the birds suddenly seized they’re performance because the stage was being dismantled. I needed to go to the deeper part of the woods just to observe them again but many of them are not there anymore. Here in Africa they are facing the same problems. The burning of bushes every year. I think for the korosho (cashew) which would be easier to pick up when everything is cleared up. Also the development which wouldn’t co exist with the wild life. People would start to notice the disappearance of big creatures first, like the elephants and rhinoceros and then the small ones like the birds and insects. Another cause is the introduction of crows from India which supposedly eradicate the population of rats in the city that might bring the plague to the people. But because of mismanagement the already big number of crows and ravens are continuously growing, preventing the indigenous birds to exist. Mousebirds are continually declining in Mwanza as I have read somewhere. Even the big and powerful birds of Africa like the hawks and eagles are in danger. Last Saturday I saw a big hawk being attacked by a bunch of lousy ravens. According to Piet this is because the ravens are threatened by the presence of the hawks near their nesting places. While they are still here I will cherish their beautiful songs and assorted colours. Unforgettable birds are the sunbirds with their metallic feathers, the lilac breasted rollers with their breast (colour, breast colour I mean), kingfishers whom are not all kings and eat fish, some preys on insects and little frogs, the whydahs and paradise flycatchers with the tails longer than their bodies, firebirds who are like flying plums and the all time favourite of Doc Rene (one of the things that made him stay and finish his contract), the Cordon bleu, the blue birds. They look like small Mayas with sky blue feathers. They come in gardens and are rather tame. They eat seeds and insects and are so common but I’m still amazed by their cheery attitude. I’m planning to invest on one of those high end binoculars. It would be good not just for observing birds.. hehe.

Mr. Baobab

Like the elephants and rhinos of Africa, the baobab is such a sight that its difficult to ignore. My friend shared a story about its legendary existence. According to folklore the Baobab was created by God as the most beautiful tree in the whole Afrikingdom. The thing is, he became so very proud of this status. He started to become too boastful,that it started to annoy all the other creatures around. All they can do is look and listen to his littany. They cannot even touch and get close to him. Birds aside for being inferior animals, according to him are not allowed on its branches because they might just poo on him. Butterflies, which according to him is not colorful enough and very small in size, aint allowed to his flowers coz their ugly catterpillars will just eat his precious leaves. He is totally on to himself. One day while he was annoying all the creatures with all his continous complaints about them living too close to him God got fed up, uprooted him and planted him again headfirst. Thats how the baobab got its looks today. A towering figure but still awkward in appearance. The moral of the story is....Don't annoy the birds and butterflies, they are such cry babies and they kiss ass just to have it their way. Just like some of your co workers, they might look beatiful and cute outside but they will always take the opportunity to peck or put powder in your eyes. They also have ugly children.