Fri 14 Nov
We woke beside the beautiful Lake Hashengie shrouded in mist. Some of our helpers were sat on the client stools around the morning fire, wrapped tightly in their blanket sized shawls. After breakfast we set off on our day's walk making our way around the shore and stopping to look at many exotic birds. Then we turned away and up past fields of cereal crop all at different stages: ripening, drying, threshing, winnowing, and hay stacks. Local people used their cows three abreast to walk a tight circle over the dried crop, this breaks the millet, barley, and wheat from the stalk. Later the ears are collected and thrown up in the wind allowing the light husks to blow further than the heavier grain.

We stopped at a village water pump, the sort that western charities help to install all over Africa. There were quite a few people waiting to use it with their jerry cans and gourds. I was pleased to help and posed for a photo just for a personal record after my fund-raising efforts for WaterAid.

Mid morning we started to climb up a wooded valley away now from the agriculture. We had lunch on the path in a lovely shady grassy spot near a river. In the afternoon we continued up hill and down dale, stopping briefly to sample the "talla" (a locally produced beer resembling muddy water, but very popular with our mule men) reaching our camp at Lat late in the afternoon, just as everything was beginning to glow in the setting sun. We bought firewood and eggs off the villagers; Solomon showed us how to check they were ok by holding them up to the light. I was by now achingly aware that I had forgotten to pack a sleeping mat so we also bought some straw from the locals and I stuffed it into my plastic survival bag. This proved to be a most excellent alternative and became a nightly ritual.

Sat 15 Nov
After a brief uphill start we seemed to spend the rest of the day going downhill. All around at all levels people were busy in the fields, mostly collecting the harvest. As we descended it got hotter, and hotter, and windless, and we noticed the dust more.