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Published: December 9th 2009
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 evening!
The following day (Tuesday) we headed to Ubungo bus station (my favourite place in Dar - sense the sarcasm) to get a bus to Tanga. We were told the journey would be perhaps 4 hours, but 7 hours later and not even a toilet stop we arrive in Tanga with still half out journey to go to get to Ushongo - the small village in which we’d be staying. Luckily we got the last bus from Tanga to Pangani, a lovely rickety 1 hour journey, then we took a small ferry across the river. By now it was getting dark and we still had about 15km to the village. We hitched a ride with a lorry driver, who could only take us half way so we ended up in this village (now 8km away and pitch black) where the lorry driver talked to a villager about taking us to our destination. Up until now I was very calm, but then when this guy took us down a pitch black road with only tree surrounding us I’ll admit I started to freak a bit. I’ve never been so happy to see a sign indicating we had arrived in my life - 5 modes of transport later!
Beach Crab Resort where we were staying was lovely - we had a little tent and the food was AMAZING. Especially to someone who has lived on carbs and mostly rice at that for 7 months. 3 course meals and everything! The next day was cloudy so we just went for a walk along the beach and lazed around. But on Thursday we went with 3 villagers on their little fishing boat to a sand bank probably about 10m squared in size in the middle of the ocean. It was surreal. Then we went snorkelling - saw loads of beautiful fish and sea turtles and a fair few jellyfish too! The following morning we chilled on the beach and decided to go to Tanga to stay the night to break up the long journey back to Dar. In Tanga we got storked by a guy who called himself ‘Shortie’ - he literally kept turning up at our hostel and knocking at all hours and even found the restaurant we were eating in, still really not sure how! It was pretty annoying and one of those ‘I hate being white’ moments. But all in all we had a really lovely break and was just what I needed.
Emily left for Dodoma on the Sunday morning and I went into slight panic mode again about where I was going to live, when Jones (the friend who is now in Equitorial Guniea) sent me an email saying he would like me to live in his flat in Dar rent free in exchange for sorting stuff out there for him. Was completely over the moon - the flat is 3 bedroom with a balcony and everything and is in a really lovely, safe and cheap Tanzanian neighbourhood. Still can’t really believe my luck in only having to pay bills either! However, there really is a lot to sort out. The flat was filthy, the water tank had holes in it and the pump didn’t really work properly so it was quite literally like filling a bucket with holes in it any wasting a load of electricity at the same time! Furthermore, one of the bedroom ceilings had fallen down due to the tank on the roof leaking and making everything damp. And to add to everything, there are major powercuts and water shortages in Dar at the moment - I had no water at all for 8 days which meant no clothes washing, no washing up, no ‘me’ washing and worse of all no toilet flushing. Yay! So spent a lot of my time having to visit other people’s places to have a bucket bath.
Then there is the job situation - basically found out it is going to be near impossible for me to get paid work here after all. A lady at the British Council was rather brutally honest with me and told me that there is no work in development right now, that even if there was, organisations are only allowed to employ maximum 20% ex-pac individuals and they are usually saved for high up positions, that I haven’t really got any skill that Tanzanians don’t have and finally that people will have to really really want me to be willing to pay for my work permit (found out mine isn’t valid for paid work, doh). So left feeling pretty depressed. However, she did say I can teach English privately without a work permit because it is cash in hand, so maybe I could do this to get enough money to survive and then volunteer to get some more experience. I am still exploring this option but honestly am pretty freaked out by teaching English, bearing in mind I barely know the difference between an adjective and a verb. Eek. But will keep you posted on that.
Emily came back to Dar for one night two weeks after heading to Dodoma and we went for a nice meal at the Ethiopian restaurant. She left early Sunday morning to head back to England and the week after this (basically up until this last weekend) I had a bit of a homesick week. I missed everyone at home, I missed electricity, I missed water, I missed feeling clean, I missed English food and I even missed the weather (I know, I know - I hate the cold but seriously it is so hot here it’s hard to remember how horrible it is right now!). I also felt like everything was slow progress. I couldn’t clean because there was no water. I couldn’t go to internet cafes to apply for jobs because there was no electricity across the city. I couldn’t leave the house easily because I had people coming to work on the tank and the ceiling everyday and living alone I have to be the one that is here for when they come - which is usually 2 hours late if at all! So yeah, I felt a little bit poo. Furthermore I had a bout of illness which never helps - just when I really felt like a glass of wine would be a blessing I get put on bloody antibiotics!
However, as if by magic I pulled myself out of it and suddenly everything seemed kind of funny (we’ll see how long that lasts!) The thing about Dar is you just can’t afford to get stressed because no electricity/no water/huge traffic jams when it rains etc are just life here. It is just a life that is a little hard to adapt to when you come from England and a powercut perhaps occurs once a year for 2 seconds and one doesn’t have to pump water - it just magically appears from the tap everyday pretty much without fail!
What has also helped is that the couple who live below me are completely amazing. They help me find people to fix the house, yesterday they found someone to come in a truck to fill my water tank for me (one tank has got to last me until January but still, I’m so grateful even to wash my hands!) and this morning they gave me sausages (Oh My God I hadn’t eaten a sausage for 7 months, it was sooooooo good) and then drove me to the local hospital and paid the small fee for me to register there. I actually love them. And they really are a huge comfort to me, I’d be pretty lost without their advice...and the borrowing of their kitchen utensils and buckets for that matter - don’t think Jones ever washed or cooked! When I get more settled Dianna really wants me to teach her how to cook ‘English Traditional Dishes’ (do we really have any?!) and she said she’d teach me how to cook Tanzanian food too. Please people send me recipes - you know I can even burn pasta, I need some help here!
So that is pretty much me up until now. I have a couple of meetings this week, have applied for another job and have some possible volunteer experience set up - just a case of try try try I guess. But I’m still pretty convinced I’d be no better off at home right now, even if there are aspects I miss a million! For one, I’m not missing the ‘crap-its-christams-again-and-yet-again-i-have-no-money-with-which-to-buy-presents-and-no-time-to-go-shopping’ feeling. Christmas is completely ignored here. In fact the first I really heard of it (beyond the out-out-place decorations in the only shopping mall in the city) was on Friday night when I was in a bar having a drink and suddenly out comes the Christmas CD. It felt so incredibly weird hearing music I associate with cold, snow, warm fires and Christmas trees in a country that is boiling hot and has but palm trees everywhere! Still not sure what I’m doing on Christmas Day by I should think it’ll be very low key and very much like any other day. I tried to find mince meat so I could make mince pies and at least feel a little bit festive but alas not even the shopping mall has it. Maybe I’ll attempt to roast a chicken...ahem...
That’s all Folks. I’m writing this in a jolly mood since I am sat in a watered, electicitified,and nearly mended house and tomorrow is Independence Day here so weather dependent I’m heading to the beach for a Beach Day (We don’t whisper the B Day out loud anymore because the Rain Gods always hear us - despite raining very little in Dar compared to the rest of Tanzania, it never fails to rain on a planned ‘B Day’). Also, on Friday I’ve been invited to this girl’s house who I met last week who is half German and half Tanzanian and apparently her mum is preparing a lunch of sandwiches, salad and plum pie- I’m actually salivating just thinking about it!
Love to all
From a Revitalised Carly xxxxxxxx
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Amanda Duncan
non-member comment
food
Dear Carly, what an ordeal you've been through-a true adventure. I am in complete denial about Christmas too- no time no money!! Can you or do you know how to make shepherds pie? That is so trad english but from what you've said diffficult getting ingredients? Its also easy-taught my youngest James and he can make it. Hope you get some employment -soon. be thinking of you on Xmas day. Been bloody wet and windy here. I'd rather it was cold and crisp. Doe sit ever get cold where you are? amanda xx