Blogs from Dar es Salaam, East, Tanzania, Africa - page 7

" I am afraid we are oversold, you will have to be upgraded" such hardship especially (i want to point this out) as I give up my weekends without complaint to fly for the company I work for, this was a treat. OK it was only to World traveller plus but for me with short legs who cant touch the floor in economy that was marvellous as World traveller plus has foot rests - bliss. I sat next to a gent who was part of the British Heart Foundation Bike Challenge and has spent months painstakingly fundraising and practicing for his 300 mile bike ride across Tanzania - good luck to him - I cant see me doing that on Brad Pitt the Brompton! Three whole hours we were stranded for at heathrow, the plane was ... read more

Oh East Africa! What did I do without you and Swahili culture all of these years? Today I felt like a local rather than a mzungu on the peninsula. I had chips mayai for lunch (French fries fried with eggs into a pancake sort of thing) and spent all day at our survey contractor’s office (run exclusively by locals) to supervise a training (in Kiswahili). I spent most of the evening hanging out with a friend in his video shop in a locals’ neighborhood called Sinza, drinking coke and talking about the differences (and similarities) between Americans and Tanzanians. “Tanzanians want da cash money!” he kept telling me, including Tanzanian women, whom he claimed will tell you that you have a nice face to get with you, but once you are “broken” (broke), she will up ... read more

I feel like I’m living in a different life over here. I email and chat with the in-country staff here on a daily basis when in Baltimore, but when I’m here I’m so busy battling heat and mosquitoes; keeping a supply of clean water and edible food; and dealing with cultural differences and language barriers that I often forget that I have things like bills to pay and other emails to respond to and a life continuing along at home. And with Skype connections being so bad lately, even keeping in close contact with Ken has been a challenge. I was talking to an expat colleague who, after living in East Africa for 3 years, still feels like she’s in la-la land. I’m not sure what all of that means, but there it is. I am ... read more

Tanzania may enjoy peace throughout its communities and society in general, but within intimate partner relations, violence is abundant. Having researched and analyzed policies and programs on violence against women in this country for the past several years, I am well aware that prevalence of physical and sexual violence that women experience at the hands of their partner is quite high, at around 40 percent. But witnessing these acts of violence--as I did the other night--is quite another thing. I was out having dinner with new Tanzanian female friends in a nice neighborhood of Dar, enjoying the discussion. They were telling me that young women these days exchange sex for gifts or money so that they can buy fancy phones, clothes and cars--a phenomenon called transational sex in the HIV field--thus, driving the HIV epidemic. Still, ... read more

Finally arrived at Dar Today started out like any other day except Suitbert was up in time for breakfast - maybe that is what upset the ying yang of the day hmmmmm. We went to the Mwanza office and discussed the Fire Escape and alarm needs and we went off for our 2pm flight, when we arrived at the airport we discovered there was no 2pm flight but that we should have gone at 12.40, we were put on the 5pm. we kept ourselves busy watching others getting their flights and having drinks then Mike realised he had lost his best glasses, After almost 2 hours of looking for them phoning people and ripping bags apart I almost begged the gods for something else to go wrong before we got on the plane so that our ... read more