Busy town, busy house!
on Kev in Tanzania (Tanzania), 16/Jul/2009 08:45, 34 days ago
What a busy week!Friday 3rd JulyMpwapwa was busy today! Thad and his family flew into Mpwapwa yesterday and today I met them in the market with Matayo. Thad’s family are nice, it was his Mum, Dad and two younger brothers. They had just spent a few weeks in Kenya and were spending a couple of days in Mpwapwa seeing where Thad works and lives.We agreed to meet up later along with 2 med students, Samantha and Nicola who were spending their elective in Tanzania and where based in Peters old house.We all went for dinner and beers at Sleepy Chicken along with Matayo and Allan. It was a fun evening getting to know some more people in town, getting Thad’s dad to try the different beers!Saturday 4th JulyI met up with the med students and Matayo for lunch at Hafuns. In the afternoon we took them shopping so that they could buy some Kangas (materials) to then have made into dresses. In the afternoon I had some water delivered and did some washing (such fun!).Sunday 5th JulyPeter came back to Mpwapwa with his daughter Naomi. They were staying at my place and it was good to have the extra company. Naomi has just finished‘Woofing’ or working on organic farms (in America and New Zealand – she had some good stories and the idea of it does appeal to me. They would be here in Mpwapwa for a few days before going onto Zanzibar. In the evening Matayo and the med students came over for some wine and to have a chat.Monday 6th JulyI met Peter and Naomi for his last lunch in Hafuns. In the afternoon I played some Frisbee outside my house with Naomi, who plays ultimate Frisbee and is very good! For dinner Ben also came over and we ate some pork with sweet potatoes. During the day Kazia (Peter’s old cook/cleaner) had come over and cooked the pork which was very nice!Tuesday 7th JulyPeter and Naomi left early this morning on the Al-Sheady bus to Dar. It was a little sad to see him go but Naomi surprised me by leaving me the Frisbee (though not many people to play with but I will try to teach some local kids!)Samantha and Nicola (the med students) invited Matayo and myself over for dinner at their house. They cooked chilli with mash potatoes and it was really nice! It was good seeing Peter’s old house and the girls are doing very well in Mpwapwa, settling in well and enjoying the Mpwapwa life, it’s a shame they had to leave at the end of the week.Wednesday 8th JulyAt work I helped Lubuva to look at the Wakute (ICT TTC) website and I made him a little report on how to improve the website and how to update it using HTML and FTP.In the afternoon I made Banoffee pie, Samantha and Nicola baked a chocolate cake and we invited Matayo over before gorging ourselves on yummy treats!We played some‘sh*t head’ and the monopoly card game but we had an early night as I planned to travel to Dar on Thursday.Thursday 9th JulyGot up early and caught the bus to Dar, trip was fine and managed to sleep a little. Had lunch at Chefs Pride (where I mistook a lawyer for a waiter…) and then met up with Johanna and Andy at the YMCA. I taught them the monopoly card game before we walked down to the port to met Liz.We all walked back to the YMCA to drop off Liz’s bags and then went to the Badminton Institute for a curry. All of the regional reps were there and they discussed agenda as I had some beers.Friday 10th JulyThe regional reps (including Liz) had to go to the VSO office for the reps meeting so I had a nice lie in for a couple of hours before going down to Steers for lunch with Andy. Steers is a group of little restaurants which serve, Chinese, Indian, Burgers and Pizza– quite a nice novelty for Tanzania! I had some Chinese food as although I miss burgers was not really keen on the ones on offer.In the afternoon Andy and I went to the VSO office to meet up with the reps and the new volunteers for the July intake. We checked our mail and I walked down to Slipway for an ice cream.In the evening we all got a bus to‘Dar Alive’ which is basically the new name for Malaika. We had some sea food for dinner and were entertained by Allan’s stories and obsession with the bar maid.Saturday 11th JulyFor lunch Andy and I took Liz and Jo down to Steers for lunch. I took some photos of the sign so I could email Hannah (her surname is Steer!).We caught a Mwenge dala to the Mwenge dala stand and then 4 of us crammed into a Bajaji (like a tuk tuk!) and had a ride to the Mlimani City (a big shopping mall!). It was great wandering around and seeing all the nice things on show– there was a restaurant called Marry Brown which was amusing and I had my photo taken outside (then a security guard came up and told us off for taking pictures – think he just wanted some cash – we told him to go away!)We watched Transformers 2 at the cinema in the shopping mall which was a great treat for Nelson, Andy and myself but not sure if Jo and Liz really appreciated it! Being a Tanzanian cinema, the movie did cut out twice but it was a nice place and had the biggest screen in East Africa!We went shopping in Game and Shoprite and we bought lots of yummy food to take back to Mpwapwa. All 5 of us caught a taxi back to YMCA and we went to the Khalsa Sports club for curry dinner. We got back reasonably early as we had a bus to catch the next day. As Liz was packing I fell into a nice deep sleep!Sunday 12th JulyWe got up at 5am and caught a nice cheap cab to Ubungo, we said goodbye to Jo and Andy (who were going back to Ndande) and we caught the bus back to Mpwapwa with Liz. It was a nice trip and Liz kept falling asleep on the bus.We got in and Liz unpacked all her stuff all over my floor as she usually does! She went and bought us some beers and sorted out our water collection. For dinner we cooked a blue dragon Chinese sauce (Chilli garlic) with veg (including cauli and broc!) and rice for dinner.In the evening we told me guard he could have some holiday time and visit his family. We started to watch Roger Rabbit but fell asleep!Thats the update from last week - had Liz with me for all of this week which has been good fun!Take care