There is a strange custom in place, not just in Tanzania, but in many other countries of the developing world - per diems (nine years of studying Latin enabled me at least to translate this, it simply means ‘per day’). But it has a much bigger meaning for the people, who receive it: The ‘per day’ thing is money and it is a fixed amount, one gets for not being in their usual workplace and doing their job. In the original sense it was meant to cover people’s expenses when travelling or attending a workshop or conference. But as these are [View Full Entry]

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As it was the first time in Stonetown for all of us and the festival doesn’t kick off until the late afternoon, we took the opportunity to expore the city, starting off with the market. Once we found it (got lost so many times until finally a nice Zanzibari woman guided us out of the little side streets), we were quite disappointed. The smell from fish and meat was revolting. I also had pictured spice stalls like on Middle Eastern markets. Zanzibar is called the ‘Spice Island’ and it produces large amounts of clove, lemongrass and so on. But that was [View Full Entry]

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It started to get a little embarrassing, I’ve been in Tanzania for 4½ months and I hadn’t been to Zanzibar yet - at least it felt like it, as whenever it came up in conversation, I had to say no. It is not like that it is difficult or expensive (at least as a Tanzanian resident) to get there and I hadn’t just been anywhere in Tanzania, but on the gateway to the island. Dar is connected with several ferries and flights a day, but somehow there just hadn’t been time yet. Now there was no excuse, as the ‘Sauti za [View Full Entry]

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There is a serious shortage of places to go outside Dar, that are less than at least four hours drive, if you discount the beaches. I know, it’s a great privilege to have some amazing beaches right outside the city. But with being in a different country for a limited time, you want to go and explore places and it gets a little boring just going to the beach every weekend. The various guide books mentioned the nearby Pugu Hills as a destination for some hikes and a nice place to hang out. It didn’t sound amazing, but as we couldn’t [View Full Entry]

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This months wasn’t less busy than the last. After the TV workshop the next event followed suit, the annual Femina Youth Conference. Femina encourages the formation of in-school clubs to read and discuss the topics from the quarterly Fema magazine, over 400 of these clubs have registered across Tanzania. A few representatives from every region were given the chance to come to Dar and attend this conference. It was at Silversands Hotel on the North Beach, but as I probably was only to go to be there for the first day I wasn’t staying overnight. Not such a bad thing, as [View Full Entry]

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Time to write something about my placement again! Like the print editorial team, the TV team has an annual two day workshop to reflect on the previous year and to plan for the next. While they had an outside facilitator the previous year, this time it was up to me to set-up and conduct it. I’ve taken part in countless workshops before, but I never conducted one myself before, so this was my chance to put the facilitation techniques we practiced at the VSO training back in Harbourne Hall into action. I invited about 15 people - the TV team, the [View Full Entry]

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After a leisurely breakfast we got ready to drive back. So it was going to be the two-hour track again to the main road. But on the way down, we hadn’t noticed there was a turn on the way (Many parts of Tanzania are so sparsely populated that there is only one little dirt track for hours and nothing else, no crossings, nothing). Well, so went straight without noticing, as it was in the middle of a village and no signs in this direction. But when the track became more and more overgrown, we thought this can’t be right. We could [View Full Entry]

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With the usual 24-hour entry rule we planned for a game drive in the early morning and a second one in the late afternoon. With the camp only 10min from the gate, we didn’t have far to go to get started. But our joyful mood was dented, when we bumped into Katie and Kenny, who were scanning the forest with other people for dead animals - it turned out the monkeys we saw the previous evening weren’t drunk, they had been poisoned! We offered to help them search, but Katie assured us, they had enough people, so we were not needed. [View Full Entry]

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Another Bank Holiday weekend - so we couldn’t really stay in Dar! This time the decision fell on Selous Game Reserve, the biggest game reserve in Africa. It’s about the size of Switzerland! But only the North-Eastern part is open for photo safaris, the South is for game hunting with rich Arabs and Westerners going there. We - that were my housemates Ellen and Sara, Rita and myself - chose Selous for it’s vicinity to Dar, it’s only 250km to the South. The first part is tarmac and even less frequented than the roads to the West and North from Dar, [View Full Entry]

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The last few days before Christmas the office and Dar altogether started getting more and more quiet. Christian or not, as Christmas means public holidays Tanzanians and expats alike take the opportunity to leave the city. I found it hard to get into Christmas mood, it had been getting continuously hotter and more unbearably humid, so Christmas was really the last thing that crossed my mind. I keep on forgetting it’s winter in the Northern half of the world and wonder when watching the news why people in London or Rome are dressed in thick coats, then it hits me again… [View Full Entry]

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