Some prospective VSO volunteers have been mailing me about, if it is possible to live on the VSO allowance, so I thought I might as well, publish something here about it. Currently the allowance works out at as about TZS 10,000 per day, that is about £5. If you consider the minimum wage is TZS 80,000 per month and whole families have to live of that and that half of Tanzanians have to survive on less than $1 a day. But nevertheless Dar Es Salaam is significantly more expensive than the country side, in addition there is more on offer and [View Full Entry]

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The next morning we were up before dusk to go on our first self-drive game drive. I had asked our driver to the boat safari the evening before, where it’s best to go and with a map and corresponding numbers on all crossroads in the park it wasn’t difficult to find our way. We were surprisingly good at spotting the animals as well and I managed to juggle between steering wheel and photo camera. I absolutely loved it, we were the only car around, so we had the park all to ourselves. We didn’t spot any lions, but it was much [View Full Entry]

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After one day back in the office for me (the vols from outside Dar got the Friday off for travelling back), it was weekend and Kevin and Sandra stayed in town, so it was perfect opportunity for a weekend trip. Rita was up for going as well, so with four people we had a perfect sized group. Our choice fell on Saadani National Park, as it was one of the closest places around - some 3 - 4 hours North of Dar. It’s one of the smallest parks, but it’s the only one bordering the sea, so it has got a [View Full Entry]

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Having just finished the Femina workshop, I was to head off to another one - the annual VSO volunteer conference: A three day event for which all VSO volunteers from all parts of Tanzania and the VSO in-country staff come together. While some of the other volunteers had a whole day’s journey to get to the conference, so many of them arrived at least the evening the day before (or like Sandra and Kev before the weekend to inhale some city life), for us Dar vols it was just a half hour drive to reach Beachcomber Hotel on the North Beach. [View Full Entry]

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Kev and Sandra had come to stay with us until the VSO conference next week. After working on Saturday another good reason, to venture somewhere on Sunday! We decided to explore Mbuya island just off the coast North of Dar. We drove to the North beach and took a small boat from Whitesands Hotel to the island. It wasn’t quite as beautiful as Bongoyo Island, where we went a few weekends ago (that really did look like Paradise), but not bad either. At low tide the coral reefs were a little annoying to swim around (I knocked my knee on one [View Full Entry]

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This was going to be a rather short weekend - we had a two day planning retreat at Femina on Friday and Saturday. In the previous years Femina used to go out of town for this with the whole team and spend a couple of days at a conference hotel. With too much work to do, it was going to be in Dar, only the management team present and one of the days being a Saturday without time off in lieu… We had it at least at a nice hotel, Coral Beach, on the peninsula, but only went there during the [View Full Entry]

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We didn’t just want to drive straight back to Dar. As it was mainly downhill from here on, we didn’t have to worry about delays with overheating of the car. So we went for a detour to a place our hiking guide Francis had recommended, Sakarani Farm on the way down to the valley. Unfortunately it wasn’t just next to the road, but up another mountain, so we had to take some involuntary breaks again to give the engine time to cool down. Sakarani is run by German Benedictine monks and produces wine, macadamia nuts and carpentry works. The head monk [View Full Entry]

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From climbing two peaks we were quite exhausted. So the next day we were all aching and unanimously voted to walk less and relax more. We drove to Irente Farm and walked to the Irente viewpoint (We could have driven there as well, like the big Indian families that came in coaches - one coach per family). I’ve read in the guide book about the view being good, but this was really amazing: We were standing right at the edge of the mountain range looking down at the wide plains far below with the Dar - Arusha road. After a soda [View Full Entry]

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We decided to hire a guide for the following day, as we didn’t want to have to rely on the manual again and there are no way markings anywhere. After breakfast we met Francis, a tiny 70 year old man, who was going to be our guide. Despite his age and small statue, he was like mountain goat, climbing faster than any of us young ones. The scenery was breathtakingly beautiful, we hiked through the Magamba rain forest up to Hakwelwa viewpoint (1850m), where we had a nice picnic lunch with amazing views. In the afternoon we drove to another village, [View Full Entry]

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With the car finally on the road, it was more than time to go on a road trip. Fortunately there was a Bank Holiday weekend conveniently scheduled at the beginning of December. So we tried to round up some people and find a destination. First contestant was Ellen, my second new housemate. She is a Norwegian nurse, who was a friend of someone Sara had VSO pre-departure training with and who was looking for a place to stay, so we took her into the Femina flat. Through Ellen some other Norwegians were supposed to be part of the group as well, [View Full Entry]

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