I am sitting at the Ethiopian Airlines office on Ohio Street across the way from the golf course here in Dar es Salaam at about 10am. I have come back from Zanzibar early this morning to book a flight out to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for later today. Originally I had thought I could travel through Kenya and then up through the border to Ethiopia, but as things go I decide to skip Kenya out of lack of interest, and furthermore decide against traveling overland as North Kenya seems to be really dangerous and dodgy with bandits and god knows what else [View Full Entry]

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We spent 5 days in Zanzibar, a night in Dar and then started our 40 hour train journey to Zambia. The train was much better than we expected, it didn't have a mad, drunk driver and had a surprisingly good buffet car. [View Full Entry]

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No, there wasn't an ending to the last post but of course even the most hellish situation always somehow works itself out in Africa. Because it has to. I end up almost hitching with a few lorries (or "truckers" as we know them in America) that pass by all too eager to bring a little Asian girl onto their vehicles for the day, only that I realize trucks actually drive ridiculously slow and on these roads probably at snail pace. Which would in effect make the already unbearable remaining 15 hours to Dar something like 30 hours to Dar which I [View Full Entry]

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Tag #16 Dar Es Salaam, was übersetzt "Hafen des Friedens" bedeutet, hat mich bei der Ankunft überhaupt nicht überzeugt. Bei meiner Ankunft war alles verregnet und die Strassen voller Pfützen. Oder besser gesagt, aus den Pfützen sah man ab und zu noch ein Teil der Strasse oder Dreck. Am nächsten Tag scheint die Sonne und alles sieht schon besser aus. Es gibt fast keine Pfützen mehr und es ist schön warm... Mit meiner "Personal Guide" Edi mache ich eine City Tour, welche bei der Samora Avenue startet. Hier ist das City Center mit Banken, Geschäften, usw. Weiter geht es zur St. [View Full Entry]

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Today we had a long drive ahead of us to get to Dar Es Salaam before it gets dark. I am not sure if I have mentioned this before but we tend to have very early starts on long drive days (5:00am usually) as it is absolutely impossible and very dangerous to drive in Africa after dark. As the sunsets at 6:00pm this means we have to be at our next campsite for this time. We left at 5:00am this morning and had breakfast on the truck. We were all excited about going to Dar Es Salaam, or 'Dar' as most [View Full Entry]

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Having heard from another volunteer who went out to Kenya a month before, that they were picked up by a cab and left to their own devices at a hotel for 2 days, I was prepared for a similar kind of welcome. But we were pleasantly surprised; a group of serving volunteers welcomed us nicely and took us straight to the VSO office. All a little tired and jet-lagged (Tanzania is only 2 hours ahead of UK time, but one doesn’t get the best sleep on an overnight flight). After a welcome note from the country director, some general information and [View Full Entry]

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Saa naaede vi til Dar efter en lang flyvetur. Men vores bagage var der med det samme saa det var top dollar:) Alex hentede os i lufthavnen som aftalt og har passet godt paa os lige siden. Vi har set Dar down town, hvor bliver centrum mon af - saadan ser her bare ud hehe... Vi har jagtet en forretning der ville tage imod gamle dollars, de mener nemlig hernede at dollar fra foer 2006 ikke er saa meget vaerd hehe. Efter 5 forretninger begyndte presset at stige lidt isaer da alex jo ogsaa skulle have dollars og var interesseret i [View Full Entry]

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So here we are, the day before leaving. I have to say I really don’t want to - I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone back in England, but I also don’t want to leave here at all. The people, the weather, the location of our house, it’s all amazing. I don’t even mind that we never ever have running water any more! Also I feel like my projects are only just starting to kick off properly - the kids are making headway on the things I’ve been teaching, and we’re right in the middle of filming the HIV documentary. Ideally [View Full Entry]

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After safely arriving back in Dar on July 16, I've slowly been getting back into the swing of things. I had a few relaxing weeks, bonding with Kibo, hitting the gym, and sunbathing poolside, before work started up again in the beginning of August. We had a week of teacher in-service, and then the kids arrived! I have an absolutely lovely class this year. We added a fourth Grade 5 in the last minute, so I went from having a full class of 24 to a smaller class of 19 students. I have several new to English students, and other varying [View Full Entry]

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I am now back from safari in the serengeti, Lake Manyara and Ngorogoro crater. It was spectacular - the group who went a couple of weeks before us had loads of problems but ours went swimmingly. We spent the first night in the volunteer house in Arusha, up in the north of Tanzania. The 10 hour bus journey was pretty good; it was an air conditioned coach and they made a stop for lunch, which meant I could happily enjoy the gorgeous scenery the rest of the time. On Friday we drove first to the campsite near Lake Manyara, then on [View Full Entry]

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