After having divided ourselves in groups of 4 or 5 the previous evening, we were to start our first day of Swahili lessons. Somehow I felt transported back in time to my school days. The youngest ones of us, that was Kevin, Sandra, Sara, Mathew (the 12 year old son of a volunteer couple) and myself formed the group ‘Ndizi chisi’. We had to give ourselves the name of a fruit in Swahili, so we went for ‘Crazy bananas’. Learning a language in 2 weeks seems a quite daunting mission in any case, so the set-up of small groups and 6 [View Full Entry]

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When we arrived the previous night it was so dark, that we couldn’t really get an idea of the landscape. But when I woke up just after sunrise at about 6am - Not having been much of a morning person back home in the UK, I strangely enough seem to become an early bird out here! - I saw this beautiful mountain range just outside our bedroom window: with striking colours due to the red soil in this region. Breakfast was served by an overly chirpy nun with the cassette player on full blast some church choir whaling away - stale [View Full Entry]

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I have to go back a little bit in time now, a couple of months before my departure to be precise. We were originally told that we had 23kg luggage allowance on our flight to Tanzania - not a lot when you are not just going on holiday, but going to live somewhere. So I enquired about the cost of shipping boxes out here and couldn’t find anything below £250 for a box. Then I also thought about buying a car once I get to Tanzania to be able to travel more freely round the country. On my research I found [View Full Entry]

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After a week it was for us to say goodbye to life at the Econolodge and Dar es Salaam. From now on we were under the care of Benjy the rep from our language school, who we were briefly introduced to at the dinner on Thursday night. Benjy had hired 2 big Dalas to get us first to the VSO office. One Dala was simply taken up by all our luggage! After depositing half of it and all valuables at the VSO office we went to Ubungo Bus Station, Dar’s traffic hub with connections into every corner of the country. From [View Full Entry]

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After having had barely a few minutes without training or some other organised activity since we had arrived in Tanzania, Friday was going to be our first day off! First, there were indeed a few hours of unplanned activity, so I took the opportunity to start exploring Dar by myself. After almost a week I really felt the need to explore the centre beyond the few walks to the DalaDala station and our dinner places. Dar has got some nice colonial architecture, but it shockingly enough does not seem to have any protection for this heritage: On my walk I had [View Full Entry]

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The first part of our in-country training was drawing to a close. A few more sessions including a light-hearted introduction to Tanzanian particularities in the work place, child protection policy and an insight into the 3 programme areas VSO Tanzania is working in. Each programme office chooses 3 areas, it wants to focus on. In case of Tanzania these are HIV/AIDS, Education and Secure Livelihoods. The volunteers are recruited to work under one of these - in my case this is HIV/AIDS. Finally in good VSO tradition there were some more forms and the all-obligatory evaluation form to complete. B [View Full Entry]

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After a very long day of training with lots of information being thrown at us, Wednesday was supposed to be a bit lighter again. Our first challenge was getting to the VSO office, while we could rely on the hired coach the first few days, it was going to be ‘Dala-Dalas’ from now on. This is the preferred mode of public transport in many African countries, just with a different name for it depending on where you are. The system in Dar is actually quite well developed with colour coded routes and the destinations clearly written at the front and back [View Full Entry]

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Our second day of training started with a visit at the IST Clinic - a shiny new practice run by a Dutch couple only a stone-throw from the VSO office. IST is contracted to care for all volunteers in Tanzania, being based close to it, seemed very reassuring! Later in the morning the doctor gave us a talk about all common incidences vols seem to encounter. Having had received a very generic health & safety briefing pre-departure in the UK this was a really good summary of what actually might be relevant here in Tanzania. On the one hand quite reassuring [View Full Entry]

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Bright and early (life starts early in this part of the world and not just by London TV standards) we welcomed the day with a quite small breakfast at 7 AM at the ‘Econolodge’ and made our way to the VSO office on the peninsula, where we were to spend the next week getting some in-depth briefings about VSO in Tanzania, our placements, development in Tanzania, Tanzanian history and current politics and all sorts of practical information from Visa and work permits to getting mobile phone SIM cards and a bank account… After the first short session covering some general informa [View Full Entry]

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Having heard from another volunteer who went out to Kenya a month before, that they were picked up by a cab and left to their own devices at a hotel for 2 days, I was prepared for a similar kind of welcome. But we were pleasantly surprised; a group of serving volunteers welcomed us nicely and took us straight to the VSO office. All a little tired and jet-lagged (Tanzania is only 2 hours ahead of UK time, but one doesn’t get the best sleep on an overnight flight). After a welcome note from the country director, some general information and [View Full Entry]

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