Blogs from East, Tanzania, Africa - page 56

went to the beach on sunday with the three swedish people...they are really nice and good to hang out with....to get to the beach which i could not find you take: the daladala (20 cents) followed by a ferry to the other side of the bay (12 cents) followed by either another daladala (20 cents) or taxi ride ($3 divided by the number of people so four)....then you pay for a little hut/shelter thing ($2) and then you have a nearly deserted beach on the indian ocean....warm was warm but still nice....came back and watched the finnish-swedish hockey game...maria, one of the swedes, was very excited the other two not a big deal. on monday started teaching english. they just threw me into a class of about 12 with another "teacher" to translate into swahili. days ... read more

1. Teachers can hit students. They normally use a stick (and carry it around with them) of some sort but I've also seen a ruler. They also grap the ears of the students. 2. There is no power between 7 am - 7 pm because the country is in the middle of a drought (although not as bad as western Kenya) 3. No tvs, very few computers. I guess it doesnt make sense to have computers when you don't have electricity. 4. Students have to pay for school. Fees range between $10-$100 a year for grades 1-8 and more for high school. 5. Students need to bring their own supplies. 6. No gym. 7. No cafeteria. Students either buy some cheap fruit or meet their mothers for a meal. They get about an hour break. 8. ... read more

lets all clap our hands, I recovered the pictures. It turns out, that the pictures are still on my memeory card, it seems to be broken. I bought a new one in Arusha, and am taking the old one back as is to canada in hopes that someone there will be able to extract the missing pics. but, never the less, paul and i decided to make the trek back to Dar to check and see if the pics are here. THEY ARE!!!!!!!!!!! I burned a cd (which cost me a bloody fortune $9) and right now the only ones missing are the ones from zanzibar and olduvai gorge. The safari was excellent, that has been covered... lets see.... on monday we stayed an extra day in arusha to visit the un tribual on the rwandan ... read more

made it safe. the flight was real long but real cool flying over africa. hit the nile in sudan followed that for awhile. then just about over mt. kenya and Kilimanjaro (but it was dark by that point). landed in Kenya for about 45 min then on to dar. by that point the plane was real empty. Swissair is pretty good but virgin has a much better movie selection and options. they fed us a lot though. i got off the plane and noticed the heat and a smell right away. no problems getting into the country. got ripped off on the taxi ride over. they charged me $25. some guy came right up to me. i just said yea, lets go. little bit of trouble getting into the ms house (the lady forgot to put ... read more

Loshoto to Dar Es Salaam - Thursday After a greasy omelet breakfast we left St. Benedicts to catch a bus to Mombo. We had heard that we could take a dalla dalla (Toyota van) to Mombo for 1,000 TSh (about 90¢) then catch an express bus to Dar. We found one near the front of the queue and hopped in. We knew that the dalla dalla wouldn’t leave until it filled up so after ten minutes or so of waiting Marie hopped out and started soliciting fares. Mombo, Mombo! she would shout, gesturing her arms toward the van. The driver, conductor and two assistant conductors howled in laughter, but they egged her on. Soon we had our load … ten fares and four busmen, so off we went. About 300 yards from the bus depot ... read more