Blogs from East, Tanzania, Africa - page 10

I feel like I’m living in a different life over here. I email and chat with the in-country staff here on a daily basis when in Baltimore, but when I’m here I’m so busy battling heat and mosquitoes; keeping a supply of clean water and edible food; and dealing with cultural differences and language barriers that I often forget that I have things like bills to pay and other emails to respond to and a life continuing along at home. And with Skype connections being so bad lately, even keeping in close contact with Ken has been a challenge. I was talking to an expat colleague who, after living in East Africa for 3 years, still feels like she’s in la-la land. I’m not sure what all of that means, but there it is. I am ... read more

Tanzania may enjoy peace throughout its communities and society in general, but within intimate partner relations, violence is abundant. Having researched and analyzed policies and programs on violence against women in this country for the past several years, I am well aware that prevalence of physical and sexual violence that women experience at the hands of their partner is quite high, at around 40 percent. But witnessing these acts of violence--as I did the other night--is quite another thing. I was out having dinner with new Tanzanian female friends in a nice neighborhood of Dar, enjoying the discussion. They were telling me that young women these days exchange sex for gifts or money so that they can buy fancy phones, clothes and cars--a phenomenon called transational sex in the HIV field--thus, driving the HIV epidemic. Still, ... read more

Finally arrived at Dar Today started out like any other day except Suitbert was up in time for breakfast - maybe that is what upset the ying yang of the day hmmmmm. We went to the Mwanza office and discussed the Fire Escape and alarm needs and we went off for our 2pm flight, when we arrived at the airport we discovered there was no 2pm flight but that we should have gone at 12.40, we were put on the 5pm. we kept ourselves busy watching others getting their flights and having drinks then Mike realised he had lost his best glasses, After almost 2 hours of looking for them phoning people and ripping bags apart I almost begged the gods for something else to go wrong before we got on the plane so that our ... read more

yes you read that right, I was informed today that if a man arrives home and finds a Masai Warriors spear on his front garden then the warrior is WITH his wife and that he is to leave and never come back ... well there you go folks... imagine that in Berkshire! Trained some of the guys today, Mike has asked me to do a section on workplace inspections so this will be short as I will be working into the evening on it, but I will leave you with a picture of a lovely bag that I received on my doorstep this morning with a newpaper in it, a recycled bag - for all those who believe me to be a green nutter - I truely love this bag and wonder if I shall get ... read more

Just started planning a road trip to Dar es Salaam, from Johannesburg, and back. It well known that the anticipation, and reminiscing has nothing to do with the reality of the African bureaucracy, heat, flies, and potholes but here I go. At this time it is early day's but the rough idea is as follows: Start +- 8th of April 2011 in Johannesburg South Africa on our faithful steeds BMW GS1200's myself and Johnnie Mayer, cross the border into Zimbabwe at Beitbridge-Mussina and make our way up through Harare to Nyamapanda / Mozambican border. This area is called the Tete Corridor and is not far from the Cahora Bassa dam wall with some excellent Tiger fishing and accommodation. From Tete the idea is to travel on the Western side of Lake Malawi and East of the ... read more