Carlish
Carly Joined: June 11th 2009
Logged in: May 6th 2010
Logged in: May 6th 2010
Travel Blog Posts
April 30th 2010
Me cupping coffee in the office
Yesterday (becasue the internet was down all day so I couldn’t send this!) marks one year exactly since I arrived in Tanzania, weary but excited at 6am in the morning! Wow. I marked my 1 year anniversary in style. I got a top made out of the local fabric called ‘kitenge’ and was wearing it for the first time yesterday (this was actually more coincidence, but still fitting I feel!). Furthermore I received my Tanzanian Driving License and finally Thangale my boss took me out to lunch at a local ‘nyama choma’ bar where in true Tanzanian style we drank soda and ate chips and barbecued meat. Perhaps it would be fitting to reflect on how this past year has been a life changing experience for me. About how seeing the lives some people lead here ... read more
Me helping 'train' farmers
Dear all, So, I’m in Kigoma! - a busy town situated on the eastern shores of Lake Tanganyika, far west Tanzania - a lake which is also bordered by the Congo to the west and Burundi to the north, both countries of which you can see from Tanzania, and particularly well from my house, on a clear day. I arrived in Kigoma now just under three weeks ago, laden with everything I brought with me from England plus a bit more! Arrivals consisted of a small room and ‘luggage collection’ of two men wheeling the luggage directly from the plane to a small wooden table, somewhat (refreshingly) different to Heathrow. I was greeted by Thangale, my new ‘boss’ and adopted father-figure who gathered my luggage from me and off we went to the guest house in ... read more
Hello all, Oh my GOD things have been so crazy since my last entry. I can barely process things myself! Firstly, the plumber came and replaced our pump, woohoo - Merete and I had a mini party which involved much too much boxed wine and resulted in me having to sit threw a three hour supposedly ‘informal’ interview (more on that later) feeling less than wonderful. However, 4 days later when we tried to pump water it didn’t work. We went downstairs and low and behold someone had stolen our brand new 70 quid pump and replaced it with a stone!!!! We were so so gutted but we couldn’t mope about for long. All we could do was buy another pump. It was definately an inside job though in one way or another - there were ... read more
Dear all, Firstly, I hope everyone is well and that you have all survived the snow. I find it quite amusing that the only part of the whole trauma I have experienced is a video caption on the BBC channel which I watched whilst sprawled on my sofa fanning myself in an attempt to stop sweating! I am currently sat in my little flat waiting for the plumber to turn up for the umpteenth time since I arrived here. Me and Merete (my new house mate who is absolutely lovely) have finally decided to replace the pump - or rather it decided it just wasn’t up to the job anymore and very kindly went on strike again last week, thus we have been waterless since. I’m so excited about the arrival of our new pressure pump, ... read more
Hey everyone! Just a quick email to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I couldn't feel less christmassy - it's very strange! And actually tomorrow I will be spending 8 hours on a bus to Moshi so will definately be a Christmas to remember! It's soooo hot here, I can't contemplate it being so snowy where you are (if indeed you are in England) - it's even on tanzanian news! Anyway, that's all for now. Thinking of you all, Carly xxx... read more
Only left it one month this time! And should be a reasonably short entry, just wanting to let you know I’m all alive and have not been thrown onto the streets of Dar... First things first - my mini-break with Emily. The first day of arrival I was just way too over excited and wanted everybody’s news. My hyper activeness was heightened by the fact that Emily made me a coffee and walnut cake and managed to get it through customs. I’ve never tasted anything so good - it felt very much like Christmas Day to me - that feeling where you know if you eat any more you are going to be sick but you just can’t seem to stop yourself. We devoured the whole cake (with a bit of outside help) by that ... read more
Hello people - hope everyone is well! So two months have passed again. Dar is now hot hot hot - it’s pretty unbearable even for someone who loves the heat because it is so humid. Even the 10 minute walk from the house to the office leaves me drenched - taking a shower (or rather bucket bath) almost seems a pointless activity because within 2 minutes you feel dirty again. On the plus side, having no hot water is no longer a burden - I always welcome a bucket of cold water to cover myself with at the end of the day! What is also weird about the heat too is that I keep forgetting what time of the year it is. It was really weird thinking about Halloween and bonfire night and everyone in England ... read more
Mambo marafiki wangu! (Some homework for you all…) Ok, so apologies again for taking so long to write this, I have no doubt whatsoever that my travel blog is the highlight of your days/weeks/months and therefore that I have failed you all with my lack of reporting, I am most sorry! So what’s been happening on this side of the ‘pond’? Let’s start with work! So strangely much of my time now seems to be filled teaching - not something I predicted I’d be doing at all but I’m actually really enjoying it! I’ve been doing sessions in 3 main secondary schools about various environmental/health issues such as Waste Management and Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Trees and the Water Cycle, Conserving the Environment and Climate Change and Human Health. It’s very strange having to teach myself half ... read more
Dar Es Salaam
Dear all, Massive apologies for the lack of contact! Things have been go go go here and it is so difficult to find a couple of hours when you can actually sit down and type! Anyway, it means you’ll get a nice big fat juicy update now…I’ll try and make it reasonably entertaining to keep you alert! So what have I been up to in the last month?! Firstly lets talk work! So at the beginning of June the schools broke up for vacation for a whole month and since my main job here is working with kids it has meant the last month has been quite quiet. I’ve been spending quite a lot of time in the office doing research etc and getting some ideas together for when the kids returned last week. The head ... read more
View from my balcony
Hey everyone, So I have no idea what happened with the other website I was using but I've tried everything and I can't log back onto it, so hopefully this site will be better. Also, I can upload photos so my entries should be a bit prettier :) I'm just going to put the 3 entries I've made so far onto this one page so they are all in one place rather than scattered across facebook/apparently now none-existent sites! And I'm going to try and add some pictures...wish me luck... MAY 1st So I'm here :) arrived safe and well, admittedly having only got 1 hour sleep on the plane, but wasn't too distraught because the film selection was pretty impressive! Went straight from the airport to the house which is really sweet, can't see any ... read more
