Hippos and Big Bums!

We can't believe that it has been almost 2 weeks since our last update - time is going so quickly.

Thanks for all my Birthday e-mails and texts - I had a brilliant day. My Birthday was on a National Holiday so we didn't have to work. Instead we went to a traditional African / Masai village which was fantastic - we got to look around their bomas and see how they live / work. In the evening we went out for dinner with all of the other volunteers (about 20 of us). I had an enormous chocolate Birthday cake with a normal candle wedged in the middle! All washed down with a few cold beers (60p each) and some Konyagi (a bit like gin) and tonic (45p!) - a good night was had by all!


Last Saturday Adam organised a canoe safari as a Birthday treat. We went on a short game drive on themorning and saw loads of giraffes from our truck. Then we boarded our two man canoe and set off round the lake. We saw buffalo, flamingos, giraffes and baboons on the lake shore. It was fantastic being so close to them. As we rounded a corner we heard a huge splash - there were hippos IN the lake! It was amazing - we got to canoe pretty close to them.

Our Swahili is coming along quite well. We've both mastered a few useful phrases - I can book a taxi home and ask the price of and order a cold glass of white wine and Adam has learnt how to say lower price, big bum and you must be joking! All essential phrases in everyday Tanzanian life!

School is going well. We finished reading our compulsary set text yesterday - Mabala the Farmer - about as interesting as it sounds! Now that ordeals over we'll be able to start teaching them somehting a bit more useful.

We've also started to help out at a local pre primary school. The school is run by a Tanzanian lady called Sarah. She works in a Nursery school in the morning and when that finishes she collects approx 20 children from some of the poorest neighbourhoods and takes them back to her school. She runs her school from her tiny front room. She lives with her husband and 2 year old son in part of a disused building which used to be a bar. All of the windows are smashed and her front door is made of an old beer advertisement. There is no electricity or running water. The children at her school speak fantastic English for their age - better than some of our secondary pupils. We found out last week that Sarah does not get paid for running this little school - she does it because she knows how important education is.

On a cheerier note - we had a halloween party last Tuesday. Everyone dressed up in a Tanzanian / Halloween theme. The costumes were fantastic (especially considering the lack of resources and time that went into creating them). In the fancy dress competition Adam (who was dressed as an African lady complete with taco kumbwa, big bum!) came joint first with a giant pumpkin!

This afternoon we are going swimming with children from one of our friends projects. The children live in an orphanage where they sleep 4 to a bed and conditions in general are pretty grim (1 toilet). Our friends are bringing them into town on a dalla dalla (a local mini bus that has no restrictions on the number of people it can squeeze on) which should be an experience - especially as they are all going to be extremely excited!

Hope to hear from you soon!