Never knowingly taking the shorter route

Ok, so the last month has been interesting.  We did two trips.  Firstly around the diocese here.  We spent three days visiting the various parishes and seeing how building work and so on was going.  We were camping out in churches and getting food as we went along in the villages, but on the last night we were unable to find anywhere serving food so one of the massai we had with us went to the nearby settlements and bought a goat, which we then proceeded to slaughter and cook on an open fire.  This was all done with quite some efficiency.  I can’t imagine many vicars in England managing to skin a goat quite so easily.

The next trip we went on was to Morogoro.  This was mainly to pick up some more volunteers and do some msungu food shopping, but we took the opportunity to go to mikume national park (as Andrew convinced me to do).  This was really cool, and we saw lions and elephants really close, and giraffe and zebra and monkeys and hippos and so on.

The downsides, I guess, have been that I still feel at a loose end here, mainly waiting till I go to Dubai and see my family and then England to see all my friends.  Also our housemaid stole money off us, one of the guys here got arrested for not having his work permit on him (though he has one - its just highlighting how I cannot stay without a visa to me).

But, all in all I’m doing ok.  Slightly dispondant but ok.

I will be going to a Massai village tomorrow evening and staying over there for the night then going to a Massai celebration the next day.  Then some time over the next couple of days I’ll be heading to Dar, then flying to Dubai on Friday afternoon, then flying back to England the following Friday.  In less than two weeks I’ll be back in England.  Still not sure what sorts of jobs I’ll be looking for or whatever.  So I guess we wait and see what happens next.

So, no joy on the visa front.  The possibilities that I had haven’t worked out and, while I could scrape around for something to do somewhere or go travelling again or something I don’t really feel like it now, so I’m going to come back to England and then re-assess.  I’ll be getting back on 28th March and working things out from there.  I’m not aiming to rush back into work, especially as I really don’t know what I want to do, so I’ll probably just bum around staying on friends floors and at my parents and stuff for a month or so (consider this notice).

So, has this all been a waste of time?  Has it been a mistake?  Hmm, I’d say no.  I had a really good time travelling, met loads of nice people, had lots of interesting experiences, and since I got here I’ve met nice people and seen a side of Africa few people get to see, so I’d say its been a good experience.  There have, obviously, been negatives, though.  I’ve not been able to do the work I was promised, and that’s really got me down.  I think I’ve learned a lot.  I am more suspicious of development work now, I wonder if it can ever be sustainable and I have learned that there needs to me a lot of organisation behind work such as this.  I have a big bunch of questions in my head that I will ask if I do this again.  And will I do it again?  Maybe.  I am not decided.  I think if I did I would do it with a bigger organisation and with a better idea of what sort of support I might get and a more concrete job description - but I’m certainly not put off totally by things.

What’s the future hold, then?  As I say I’ll be thinking about this from now on and I’ll try not to rush into anything in England.  Maybe I’ll try and get a job I really enjoy in England (what, I cannot say).  And if not one that pays a lot in London, then use that money to do something nicer that pays less at some later date.  Maybe I’ll do neither of these, I really don’t know.  Suggestions welcome.

So I went to Zanzibar. I spent a few days in Nungwi, diving, then a few days in Stone town at a music festival. The fastival included a 95 year old woman who looked like a turtle, several versions of traditional african drag, lots of crazy instruments you’ll never see anywhere else and really bad rap music. All in all I had a good time.

After that we spent half a day in Dar while we waited for a couple of other volunteers to turn up. We went to a place called Sea Cliff, which is where the NGOs and embassies are. Its a crazy Mzungu (white person) world! There is a supermarket called “Village Supermarket” that has western brands (I bought some Newcastle Brown Ale and some pork scratchings), and a food court full of western food. Its like some alternative world for rich white people. The only Tanzanians were working there. Its pretty much what I imagine a modern collonialism to be like. I must say I felt pretty uncomfortable there, though, I mean its just a place to go to pretend your not in one of the worlds porest countries. I can imagine people coming to visit there relatives who work there and thinking that Tanzania’s all like that. I got to see a white person making a black person go round with the trolly and get the things off the shelf for them.

So after that we left for Dar, via Morrogoro. Eventually got here (the rains have not been kind to the roads). Back to being one of 6 white people in town. Back to people staring and pointing and shouting “Mzungu” at me (makes me wonder what would happen if I shouted “black person” at a black person in England. I suspect they wouldn’t be too happy).

Also this week we went to the Massai market again and ate some meat. Had my hand shook by lots of people. We also went to a Massai village and to the church there and saw pleanty of singing and dancing from the choir and watched a Massai child being baptised by a white peson while being scared out of their whits and fighting to get away (many think we have no skin, apparently).

So, having a good time. Work wise there’s still not that much going on, though I have been convinced that the database I’m doing is not going to be a total waste of time. Visa wise, still not looking good. Probably be back in Blighty by the end of March.

The plan for this year was to spend all of it here, splitting my time between two projects - one here and one in Arusha. This was to be OK because it used to be fine just to do that on the three month tourest visas. However those rules have changed and it is now required to have a work permit. I have, therefore, spent the last few days seeking out a solution to that. There are a couple of options kicking around, but I’ll have to see if either of them come off - else I’ll have to leave. I think my plan, if I leave, is to come back to Blighty fo a while (perhaps year or so), work and save up some money, then try again with a slightly more organised organisation. I’m not sure how likely it is to get this sorted in the next week or so - though as the Mothers’ Union are on the case it’ll probably happen very efficiently!

Anyway, other than that I have been continuing to help with the computer stuff - although there has been very little point in me helping with the teaching as the two here who are doing it are very competent. Other than that I have been working on a database to centralise the information that they store here about the diocese and the education facilities in the areas and so on. I am still not 100% sure that it is going to be really useful, but I am going to implement a subset of the functionality and data, then see if that is useful and implement more if it is.

In addition we decided to celebrate Burns night last night - one of the other volunteers in town is fairly scottich and so we thought it might be fun. Kenna made an approximate haggis and we had cock-a-leaky soup and various other scottich bits with bagpipes and poetry and wisky and stuff. All good fun. Will wore a kilt made from a Massai Shuka.

I plan to spend the next week continuing working through this stuff, then the following week I am going to probably go back to Zanzibar to go diving again, then see a music festival, then pick up another couple of volunteers to bring back up here. The others from here are going for the festival and to pick the others up, but I thought I’d extend it by a couple of days as I am no longer sure I’ll be able to come back in the summer. If the permit looks totally sorted in the next week then I’ll probably not go, but I think that’s fairly unlikely.

Hi,

I have now been here just over a week. I have managed to find some work to do, helping the two computer teachers here with fixing up various bits and bobs round site. Their classes start on Monday, so I will probably help with them a fair bit too. I also have a list of databases that might need creating - though I think that they might not really, we’ll have to see, and we have a bit of a scheme to do something interesting that has not been asked for - hopefully that’ll come off and I’ll let you know if/when it does.

So, life here is interesting. Its pretty quiet. The routine seems to be to do a bit of work in the morning, followed by not much in the afternoon. I have been spending my afternoons doing various personal tasks and trying a bit of my swailli and similar. Evenings I have a meal with Kenna and possibly Will (the only other Westerner in town), then either watch a movie or use the internet.

Other than this fairly staid routine I have participated in a mercy mission out to one of the villiages (a child dieing from malaria needed taking back to his village) - which consisted of driving through some beautiful woods on some bery bad “roads”; I have been to the local Massai market (manada), where the Massai gather twice a month to traid cattle, buy clothes, knives, snake bit cures and the like, and then get drunk and fall over. We were quite the odd ones out and had a lot of Massai staring at us and greating us and stuff; I have also been to town a few times and am getting to know it a little - there’s not much there, but it seems hard to navigate around without proper buildings and roads and signs and stuff - all the dirt tracks look the same at the moment. I need to get used to navigating by trees and rocks and things, I guess.

The only other thing that happened here, really, is that CCM, the ruling party, used the cathedral here to gather to choose their candidate for a by election that is about to happen here. This seemed to take a lot of shouting and chanting, followed by a lot of sitting around and making the place look untidy, followed by being paid to show up! They trashed a few of the gardens that Kenna had planted here and dropped litter everywhere and caused us to all feel besieged for the day. But they’ve gone now and thats a good thing.

So this weekend I will be planting some vegetable seeds and going to a little house that is on a hill overlooking the area for some food and probably doing very little else. I have put a few photos up too.

I am now at KCC in Kibaya, the place where I will be living for the next few months. To get here from Dar we drove the landrover to Morogoro on tarmac, spent the night there and then drove a couple of hours on tarmac to get to the dancing road. The dancing road is an 80km dirt track that is the main road into Kibaya. It took a couple of hours to pass, as its currently fairly dry here and the road had been recently repaired - however in the rains it can become pretty ticky, so I’ve that to look forward to.

I drove up with a VSO volunteer called Kenna, who filled me in on the situation here. It seems that things are not quite as I imagined, but I’ll need to see. The school is nice enough, and the people really friendly. Tomorrow I will begin working out exactly what is needed from me out here, and hopefully start actually doing it. I have mainly been occupying my time sorting out the house I’m living in and trying to get it a bit more liveable in.

So, I’m here safe and sound. I’ll let you all know what I get up to as it happens. Bye.

So I got the bus to Dar, then a boat to Zanzibar. The bus journey was nice and easy, with stunning views of Killimanjaro and north Tanzania. Its all very green, again, and looks a brilliant place to spend a bit of time.

Dar was Ok, I really just tried to find internet, and that wasn’t easy, but I managed in the end. Things seem to shut fairly early here, and in Zanzibar.

In Zanzibar, I have been diving several times, and just had a bit of a look round sStone Town (the main town). Its nice here, pretty relaxed and stuff, though its pretty hot!

So, I’m going to stay here until Tuesday morning then leave for Dar, then on Wednesday I leave for Kiteto to start work. Is come round so quickly, but I’m really looking forward to it.

How do. I’m writing this from possibly the slowest internet connection in the world, in Arusha in Tanzania. Its New years day and most places are shut, presumably all the places with fast internet too.

So, its been an interesting time since I last wrote. So let me take you through it day by day.

On Sunday (23rd) I went to Church with the family I’m staying with in Kajiado, their family home (they have a house there on a farm owned by the family). It was interesting, all in Swahilli, and with lots of gospel singing. Very fun. As this was a fair way away, we stopped on the way back for some food. This was meat. A lot of meat. A massive goat’s ribcage and leg. They cut it into small pieces on the table and you eat it with ugali (a stodgy millet thing). Certainly a protene based meal.

On Monday we went shopping to a supermarket, which appeared to have absoutly everything in English.

On Tuesday (Christmas day) we went to the cathedral in Nairobi, and heard the Archbishop of Kenya talk about the upcoming election and how it should be peaceful. The main opposition candidate was in the congrigation.

In the afternoon we also went to a family Christmas thing for Salome’s (the mother) family Christmas. THis was about 50 Kenyans and me. Most people who know me know I’ve a really small family - so it was a bit mental having so many people around. The order of things was:

• food (lots of meat)
• evey family head introducting their family
• a sermon; a sing song of hymns
• talking to my family on my mobile
• then a BBQ for more meat and some Moritanu (honey based local beer equivilent)
• Soup made from Aloe vera that tasted like soap
• Drunk family membes trying to teach me a massai chant (the family are Massai, but don’t wear the clothes and arn’t nomadic anymore)

Then we went home. Apparently the meat all came froma cow that was slaughtered for the event.

Then on the Thursday there was the election. There had been some expectations of trouble, but it went peasfully. On Friday the votes started comeing in, very slowly, then on Saturday things still seemed OK, until someone noticed irregularities in the incumbent president’s main supporting contingencies. This sparked some minor rioting. On Sunday, though, they declaired the current guy the president, despite international observers, members of the election comittee and the opposition calling for recaounts and investigations. Sunday night neant riots everywhere.

The family I was with left pretty sharpish (though with a well practiced air) back to Kajiado and holed up there (in a house that has no running water or electricity).

We decided, after speaking to the bishop of Kitale (who I was supposed to be going to stay with) that it would be best for me to leave to Tanzania. The bishop was effectively under siege and could hear gunshots from his house. The main busses wern’t running, so I had to take a short one to Arusha, so I’m to Dar tomorrow, then I’m going to have a couple of days on Zanzibar diving instead.

Hujambo!

I’m in Kenya - just one border away from Tanzania, where I’ll be spending most of next year. I am also over the equator for the first time, so I guess I’m upside down now.
My last couple of days in Cairo were interesting, it was the end of the Muslim Hajj and everyone was in party mood. It was even busier and noisier than before. I did, however, get to go and see a big bunch of coptic churches that had a fair few flions in them, which was good.

So I flew out on Kenya Airlines. They were pretty good, the food was reasonable and I would definatly recommend them for anyone wanting to come to Kenya or Tanzani (ie to see me, because I’m great). The flight did, however, stop off in Sudan (though I didn’t have to change) so I have now visited Sudan too. Though I only was it out of a window.

In Kenya I am staying with a friend of my mum’s that she knows through the Monthers’ Union. They are a very nice family and have treated me really well. They rent a house just outside Nairobi and have their family house further into the countryside. They are opposite anetional park and apparently I might be woken up at night my lions roaring. We saw a monkey coming out of it today.

So my first impression of Kenya is that its a lot greener than I thought, and it certainly does not seem any poorer than some parts of Cambodia.

Yesterday I went out on an errand with Job and we had to wait in a fairly poor part for a while and a big bunch of children cane up to me facinated, and slightly scared, by me. The all enjoyed touching my hair and wanted me to tell them a story, even though they could not really understand it. That was fun. And unlike Cambodia, they didn’t want money off me.

So, I’m having fun. Its going to be a very different Christmas, but it should be fun.

I have also managed to upload all my photos. Sorry about the lag. Might even get round to titling and tagging them at some point.

Hello, one and all. I’m in Egypt. I’ve seen Cairo and the pyramids, Aswan, Luxor and the valley of the kings and now I’m in Dahab.

Egypt is a funny country - pretty much all of the people live in Cairo, and all the towns are pretty much straight down the Nile. There is a lot of tourism here, unsurprisingly, but the country does still seem very Arab - its not that rare to see people setting up a prayer mat wherever they are for their daily prayer, or on a Friday from having entire side streets and half the train station being filled with massive prayer mats.

The pyramids were pretty impressive, I’d put them on a par with the great wall, really, and the other stuff was all really interesting (we went to a tomb in the valley of the kings that was hidden away so you had to climb and stuff to get there, which was fun). I wanted to take a felucca up the Nile for a few days, but there really wasn’t time.

Dahab is different, though, it feels a lot more western - its pretty much a town for relaxing and diving, and its a lot quieter than the other places in Egypt I’ve been.

Anyway, having lots of fun - the Egyptians are all complaining that its winter here and really cold and wearing sheepskin jackets - it probably gets to about 15 degrees centigrade at night! I’m heading up Mount Sinai tonight to see the sunrise tomorrow, then heading back to Cairo on Tuesday, then to Nairobi on Thursday night for a Kenyan Christmas. Looking forward to it all.