Jambo everyone!
As you probably already know, I got home on Wednesday (16th of June - meant to post this a while back but in true Christine style I left it for AGES) so this will be my last blog :( Hope you all enjoyed reading about my crazy stories...trying to adjust back into the real world now it's all over. Even though I've been back around 5 days, I'm still getting used to having hot showers, constant internet access (been hooked on facebook!) and clean clothes! Somehow though, I miss my cold bucket showers and doing my washing outside and the chickens having fun dressing up in my clean (well relatively clean) clothes. Literally all I can think about is Tanzania and how laid back and friendly it is over there...will miss it so much - especially all the people we've met and kids running up to you in the street or waving as you go past in the car :) I'll even miss being woken up at 5am every morning by the cockerel! I won't miss being woken up by the phantom bug though that was in our bedroom in Dar, underneath the lino. It liked to start screeching in the middle of the night and we wouldn't have a clue where it was coming from! 5 sleepless nights later we found it and Jimmy, in real Maasai warrior style, wacked it with a shoe for us :)
Back to my last few weeks now. After Don Bosco, we went to Bethsaida Girls School where we were making new window frames to replace those that weren't strong enough to hold the glass. To make the frames we went to a wood workshop (known to us as the shack) down the road from our house, where Esther and me had great fun pretending to be real carpenters, much to the amusement of the actual experts (one of whom liked to wear a rather dashing pair of Donald Duck shorts...very manly). Worst 3 days of my life, not helped by Esther constantly referring to me as Malaria girl - I couldn't help that my nose was dripping everywhere and that I looked like someone had thrown a bucket of water over me from the amount I was sweating! After Bethsaida we visited St Felisters Primary School and planted around 400 trees so the kids can have a bit more shade from the heat. Hoeing in 35 degree heat is really not fun! And I'm yet to be convinced that the trees will survive either with no rain and constant sun! The kids at St Felisters were so cute! When we arrived they were all chanting "Mzungu, mzungu, mzungu!" from their classrooms and after lessons finished they would all run out in swarms to come and see us. At one point I had around 20 kids on top of me trying to play with my hair! They were also all queueing up to have me spin them round and round until they were verrrrrry dizzy :D
I seem to have managed to get myself a new nickname - Mama Maasai or Mama Baraka. The security guard for Mama Helen's house is a Maasai warrior called Baraka and we've all taken quite a liking to him - he is the first good looking Maasai we've seen! Though I have voiced it more than others and Lucas seems to think I want to be his wife. I think in Tanzania there isn't much of a difference between just liking someone and actually getting married. Oh I wish I had never said anything...he has 2 wives already anyway and I'm not so sure about sharing!
Bad news...Baraka had to leave and go back to Tanga because of some family problems :( We now have a new Maasai warrior called Moses who doesn't know how old he is (he claims to be 15) and already has a wife and is looking to have 10 in total and 50 kids! Not asking much...
Moses doesn't know much Swahili or English because he's never been to school so conversation is quite limited...mostly it consists of him blabbering away in Maasai and me speaking a strange mixture of Swahili and English - Swenglish. He seems to be happy doing that though so I just go along with it :) Most nights we just sit outside the kitchen - me, Kira, Moses, Lucas and Fidel - drinking Savannah (cider) and dressing up as Maasai warriors, trying to jump as high as Moses. Probably shouldn't be sitting outside in case I get bitten by mosquitos (84 bites on your legs = very itchy) and get malaria again but hey - hakuna matata.
Recently we have taken to having regular trips to our local pub - Stazia - owned by a crazy man called Steve...better known as Mr Steven. At 25p a bottle, we've been drinking far too many sodas...though not enough to rival the amount that Tanzanians drink. Lucas drinks probably around 5 a day followed by a couple of Tuskers (beer) and he wonders why he always has a sore head! He found the concept of drinking water rather odd and was surprised to find that it made his headaches go away. Only took 28 years for him to realise this....
There's been a bit of romance in the air recently - Fidel has taken a fancy to Felista who owns the shop across the road where we get our laundry soap from and other random things. Most days we find him sitting outside her shop drinking soda and then later, he denies he was ever there, not knowing we saw him! Mama Helen has already planned his wedding for him and we've all been invited to come back in September for it. Poor Fidel - it's all got a bit out of control! What was just a joke has gone perhaps a little too far. Now for another romance. Esther has taken a liking to the carpenter who we've been working with to make the windows for Bethsaida. He's called Leonard, though we all call him by his nickname - expert (because he's our expert carpenter). There's always a lot of excitement when he comes to the house on Mama Expert's (Esther's) part...it's all a bit of a joke though and nothing serious. The other day when we were coming back from town we wanted to get a photo of Leonard's workshop just for Esther so we got Jimmy to pull over. There was a stupid motorcyclist though who decided to undertake us just at that moment and he was knocked off the road, much to Jimmy's shock. He was okay but we all felt so bad because if we hadn't wanted to take that photo it wouldn't have happened :S What can I say, Tanzanian drivers are a bit reckless.
Now that isn't the end of the romances...Mr Steven from Stazia has taken a liking for Esther. I mean who couldn't love a man who is vertically challenged, drowned by a yellow tshirt and has a fetish for wearing caps?! I think he's been telling the whole neighbourhood that we go to his pub and they all flock in to see the "wazungu"...we're used to it now though and I'm sure it does a lot for his business!
There's so much else that's happened but I just don't have enough time to write it all down. Just one thing though - we decided to go to the internet one day so Lucas walked us into Mbezi to find an internet cafe. Now this was a Sunday so we didn't think it was going to be open, but Lucas was adamant. Also, that may get a bit tedious so I'll just skip to our Graduation Party. I'm writing this 3 weeks after I got back so my recollection may not be great...
All of us had dresses made for us by a tailor when we got to Dar so they'd be ready by our graduation. We all got a go of trying to sew Tanzanian style, pretty much like home, and Beth had great fun getting herself tied in nots. The material we were using is this horrible mossy green colour with a strange pattern on it made up of little pictures of keys (I think) - bit like the curtains used for the kids clothes in the Sound of Music. Very tribal indeed. When our dresses came and we all tried them on we looked like the Von Trapp family singers...gave us a good laugh and at least we all looked as stupid as each other! One thing that was good though was that the dresses were quite roomy so we could eat as much food as we liked in the evening, which was just as well because Lucas and Fidel had been cooking all day in the kitchen. We helped out a bit by sorting out the rice and getting rid of all the bad bits...that's one thing that is good about home - pre-packaged, sorted through rice! Being my messy self, I'm not sure if more rice ended up in the pan or on the floor :S
After dinner, we all got our Graduation certificates (like being back at school!) and had lots of speeches and photos and such. Theeeeeen...we had some Konyagi time :) As usual, we ended up at Stazia with Mr Steven, who later tried to get off with Esther and decided to recruit Nat as a barmaid. All in all, a good night!
On Tuesday, Kira and Beth went home...it was rather weird only having 4 of us in the car on the way home :( As much as I tried to keep my composure, the old water works came out too leaving me looking even redder than I normally do in the heat. On a funnier note, we got stuck in a gigantic traffic jam so instead of wasting time waiting in the car, Fidel and Lucas decided to jump out and do a bit of shopping at the market by the side of the road. You can get anything you need at one of these markets - underwear, belts, shoes, chairs etc. You don't even have to get out of the car in Dar to go shopping because salesmen walk in between the cars trying to sell anything from tea towels to electric mosquito swatters. Just normal behaviour in your average day in Tanzania....
We got up really early (4am!) the next morning to avoid the traffic jams so we'd get to our ferry to Zanzibar on time. We ended up arriving around half 5 which was an hour and a half before our ferry left! At least we arrived though seeing as our taxi driver took us to the fishing port instead of the ferry port to begin with :S I don't think any of us were in a terribly good mood that morning having been dumped on the doorstep of a closed ferry port in the dark, with all our possessions and loads of scary men trying to talk to us. Looking back now though, the men were probably just being friendly and the whole experience was actually quite funny! All worth it to get to Zanzibar though :)
Our rooms at the hostel in Zanzibar were quite basic, though nothing we weren't used to. I was actually quite upset about having a shower with running water - I had my heart set on one last bucket shower! It was amaaaazing being able to just walk about 20 seconds and find yourself at the sea already. Our end of the beach was really cute as well because all the big hotels were further along, more near Nungwi beach where there's been a lot of development. All the locals hung out down at our end, making fishing boats during the day and in the evening, sitting outside on our veranda. In the morning, at low tide, you'd see loads of people out on the sand flats where the water would normally be really deep...not exactly sure what they were doing, but I think it may have been seaweed farming.
We managed to make quite a few friends within a few hours of arriving, including this hilarious Maasai warrior who rushed away to change into his surfer shorts (yes, you hear right) when he saw we were swimming. He seemed to develop a habit of speaking in a really high pitched voice over the time we were there! Within a few hours, we had also learnt some Zanzibari phrases like "kachezi kama ndezi" which means "crazy like a banana" and a little rhyme (like Rafiki in the Lion King...I was so happy to hear they actually say this!) which went "Asante sana, squashed banana, don't say hapana!".
One day we decided to go on a snorkelling trip to Mnemba Island and met this reallllly arrogant guy called "Tiger" who thought he was the most hilarious person in the world and made some awful attempts at poetry. The snorkelling was amazing though and I saw a Dory fish like in Finding Nemo! It took around 2 hours to get to the reef and it was really rocky so I felt very sick and just lay on the deck sunbathing (or rather burning to a crisp). The island that the reef was next to is apparently $1200 to stay on a night and there's a $300 fine if you dare step on the beach...EEK. The place is so beautiful though and the water couldn't be any bluer or clearer than it was. Another friend of ours, Jimmy-hukuhuku-dukuduku-something or other (otherwise known as Mohammed), told us that Will Smith, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bill Gates have all stayed there at some point.
Most days we just lazed around on the beach and ate lots of yummy seafood - funnily enough, I thought I was fed up of rice but ended up having it nearly every day because I've found I actually do really like it. There were 2 really nice restaurants up in the village that did cheaper food than on the beach (though the beach restaurants were cheap in comparison to the UK). One restaurant, which didn't have a name, did a full main course of fish and rice for 3000Tsh which is only £2! Down on the beach, the water was soooo warm and clear and there was even hardly any jellyfish! Even if you do come across one they're not that big compared to ones here and thankfully, there's also no sharks either which is always a good thing. Apparently in 2002 or something there were a series of shark attacks off the coast of Dar, which I'd rather I hadn't known!
Best part of the few days we were there was the beach party at Kendwa Rocks - not full moon annoyingly but it was still a crazy night. Basically, by the end of the night it was just us and all the locals dancing to lots of obscure Tanzanian music! Then when we went back to the hostel there were some guys following us so I ran into Esther's and my room and locked the door really quickly, forgetting that Esther was still outside. I then fell asleep so Esther just slept in Libby and Nat's room until she got fed up and started banging our door down. She was there for like 30 mins until I finally woke up! Being my stupid self, I forgot where I put the room key so had to start winding up my headtorch to find it, not realising we actually had a light I could have turned on!
After 5 days at Kendwa, we went off to Stone Town to do all our souvenir shopping. Typical me leaving it till the last day to get all my presents! Shopping in Stone Town is soooo stressful because of all the people trying to sell you things. Also, it's so much more expensive than the mainland and people tried to rip us off a lot, not realising that we knew better. Generally if you go to the shops in the lesser known streets and make an effort with your Swahili, you can get everything pretty cheap. That evening we went down to Forodhani gardens on the seafront where there's a food market held every night and stuffed ourselves silly with lobster, naan bread stuff, lots of different types of fish, samosas...you name it. There was also a man making sugar cane and ginger juice which was so yummy. To make it he squeezed the juice out of the sugar cane using a big mangle type thing, like you use to wring out clothes. The best thing we had though was this amazing chocolate nutella and mango pancake, which is not like a pancake as you know it. It was all crispy and gooey and so cheap as well at less than a pound.
Next morning, we desperately ran around the shops looking for last minute souvenirs...I even did a bit of shopping on my way to the ferry port with my big backpack on my back! I think I nearly died having to carry my heavy bag through the narrow winding streets in over 30 degree heat with too many clothes on (you have to cover up because Zanzibar is primarily Muslim).
Now for the fun we had a Dar airport! I don't think the guy who checked us in had a clue what he was doing because he put Esther's bag through on the conveyor belt before it had even been tagged. If we hadn't noticed, her bag could have ended up in Timbuktu or something for all we knew! I took great pleasure in being able to join the resident queue (because of our permits) to have our passports checked, even if no one else was there!
All in all the journey home was AWFUL because we had to get the ferry to Dar, a taxi to Dar airport, a flight to Nairobi (waited there a few hours), a flight to Heathrow and then I had to wait 8 hours for a flight back to Glasgow. I think if I had been in a competition to see how many modes of transport you can use in a day, I would have won first prize. Luckily Kira met me at Heathrow and we went to Hyde Park and ate cake...as you do. London couldn't have been more different than Tanzania with all the fancy stone buildings, people riding on horseback through the park and the deafening silence on the tube...it was sooooo weird...not forgetting the contrasting freezing temperatures! I knew you could get culture shock, but not in reverse! When we were landing in London, everything looked so grey and regimented, with all the houses neatly laid out and such. All I wanted was to go back to Tanzania at that point! It was really funny being nervous about going back to the UK, I hate to think what it would have been like if we had been away for a year or more.
Well, I have no more to tell now and even if this entry was rather late (a month and a half to be exact...OOPS) I hope you enjoyed reading about my adventures and I didn't bore you too much! Off to the French Riviera tomorrow to start work with Canvas Holidays on a campsite...time to work on that tan.
For the last time, Kwaheri xxxxxxx
