The Definition of Luxury

There are 3 factors that go into defining the term Luxury, all 3 need to be present for it to be complete luxury otherwise you're only getting a slightly sweet deal, these are:

Electricity, mains and 24 hour
Hot water from a tap
A flushing toilet, not dug into the floor

And right now, I have all 3!! :D happy joe!

I have left the Twiga Beach Lodge (TBL) and I didn't look back :) We completed the survey there on Monday 21st and left on the 22nd to spend a day in Mwanza town (Mwanza also being the region I am in now) and sleep at the Isimilo lodge for the 3rd time - a very nice place that does a super curry that sorts you right out! We then travelled to the new site location today. I am staying at a very nice place in a town called Nzega, south of Mwanza, that goes by the name of the Forest Inn. Unfortunately when I arrived they had only one room available, it was a full suite with lounge, large bedroom and ensuite, so I just had to have it as there was no choice! :) It is a nice step up from the TBL.

Thankyou again for your comments, they make me smile and it's nice to know you're all doing well. I think perhaps though I may have painted a slightly skewed picture with my last blog so I will try and shed a bit of light on the smaller things such as food.

At the previous site, the Twiga Beach Lodge was situated in the town of Katoro, along a main road from the busy mining town of Gaiter. It was the location of the actual Magnetic work that was very remote, not the lodge itself. The town was based around this one main tar road, which TBL was on, and was very busy at every time of day. There were shops selling almost everything you needed. Don't get me wrong, there were no supermarkets, just very rustic small shops that specialised in what they sold. For lunch we would buy fresh fruit, raw sugar cane and nuts the day before and take it into the field with us. We bought eggs for breakfast and cooked them ourselves in the kettle we had bought, the same kettle that made our tea and coffee and made our hot water to shower in!

- one time I was boiling the eggs, one was rotten and broke in the kettle, turned the whole thing into an omlette! It stank, had to be cleaned and then I had to use the same thing to boil water to wash in!:) T.I.A. -

In the evenings we would take a short walk down the road to the Tusker Bar for some drinks and some food. The food actually came from a street vendor next door but they served it in the bar. Good food too, ususally chicken or beef with rice or chips and some fried bananas. Not bananas as you're thinking of though - green bananas, they're not sweet and when fried are like huge chips, good stuff! Dirt cheap too, unfortunately with the emphasis on dirt - the meat would be sitting out all day, probably fresh that day, but still...

And the rice! My the rice is good!! As fresh as it could possibly get. During the day they're processing it in the sheds along the road and it's lying out on tarpaulins next to the road to dry, in the evenings you're eating it and it's got such a flavour! No salt, but it's so tasty! If I can I will bring back some sugar cane for you to try, also a fantastic experience, like chewing on very moist sweet wood! :)

So yes, the work site was remote, but the lodge was not so, they still did my laundry :) in fact I havn't had to use my travel wash once yet! And now i'm at this Forest Inn in Nzega and it's pretty lush so i'm quite pleased, also i'm running solo now too. By that I mean that i'm no longer working with Robert, he flew back to S.A. today, and I have been left to manage the Mag. work for the next two sites. Which, all in all, I'm quite pleased to be doing. If you had asked me 6 weeks ago if I felt I could've coped with managing a magnetic survey in Tanzania I would have laughed, now it seems fine :) Yesterday I was holding 1.5 million Tanzanian shillings - works out to be a whole lot of notes! - as I had to distribute money between myself, Abdallah (the geologist I have helping me) and Francis the driver, it's nice to be trusted and to have a bit of responsibility. So yeah, all in all, things are looking good for the rest of my time in Tanz. (probably a week or so and then back to SA).

Yes I did enjoy my day off, I have been reading my book (it's very good - thanks mum), and my chess set is coming on nicely. I have all the pieces of wood and have made 10 pawns! Had to invest in my own bush knife as Robert has taken the one I was using with him back to SA. So with any luck I might even get a game in before I get back to England!

...bliss, this laptop has some music on it, I really have missed music!

I hope you are all well,
Love to all,

Joe.

Ps. I only saved this entry before, I didn't realise it didn't publish it if I did, so now you're gonna get two entries for the price of one!

---

---