Chips in my eye!

After six weeks living in Tegeta, a rural community on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania I am moving on. The volunteer work has not been all I expected and so tomorrow I move to Arusha in the North of Tanzania where hopefully I'll be kept busy and the volunteer experience will improve.

So, for a little bit of fun and to give a glimpse of life in this part of the world the following are a series of my personal observations over the last six weeks. Some you may think are a little harsh, but they are observations nothing more!

1) Blue band is the only butter, it doesn't live in the fridge and no matter how hot it gets it just doesn't melt. What's in it??!

2) Mama and Max the two crazy dogs that insist on walking with us everywhere. Who's taking who for a walk in this relationship?

3) The constant cries of "Muzungo Muzungo" i.e. white person white person....so annoying I miss being anonymous.

4) Chipsy Mei Ei (and when ordered sounds like you are saying "Chips in my eye" a strange food obsession sold in every restaurant and on every street corner. Basically throw a load of chips in a frying pan, crack an egg over the top and cook like an omelet!

5) Kids who just come running up to you in the street and say "Give me money" and the day it happened once to often and I told the young boy to "F**k off" really not my finest hour! Patience is a virtue :-)

6) How come Tanzanians (and Africans generally from what I've encountered before)have perfect whites even though they wash them in cold, often dirty water?

7) The mother and child I saw collecting water with a bucket from a muddy puddle which had gathered in the middle of the road due partly to the rain and partly to the burst water pipe which nobody has tried to fix.

8) Why to people on bikes always cycle towards you giving you no space to get out of the way?

9) The lack of customer service as we know it! Shop keepers, bar staff and waiters so often look at you as if they are doing you a favour.

10) How no shop, bar, restaurant, hotel ever has any change.

11) So often being charged "Muzungo price" i.e. being ripped off

12) The restaurants all around Dar es Salaam who don't have menus because they all serve the same; chipsy mei ei, fish, kuku, rice...the only thing that varies is the price and then not only from restaurant to restaurant but from day to day and sometimes from person to person eating together!

13) The common phrase you hear so often in bars and restaurants after you have ordered "xxxx is finished" and always so much of the menu is "finished" it really would be easier if they just told you on arrival what they actually have.

14) Not being able to tell where agricultural land starts and stops.

15) Nobody and nothing is ever on time. People are always late for meetings, events always start late and not just a few minutes often hours. And the phrase which always accompanies their arrival if you dare mention the lateness "This is Africa poly poly (slowly slowly) relax"

16) Power cuts happen nearly ever other day - where did I put the candles again?

17) People wearing T-Shirts with the most random words. One lady a few weeks ago was wearing a Thames Valley University T-shirt, others are from American colleges, football teams from around the world, phrases such as "you can have my sister", from fun runs completed in 1998 and new years parties from 2000. Its like watching the last ten years of history walking around on the backs of Tanzania's poorest. I often wonder if they know the significance the T-shirt might once have had to its previous owner? I'd love to track the life of the T-shirts; from raw materials to production to initial sales and then to their current owner. Maybe a website should be launched: T-shirt-tracker.com

18) The longest yet most friendly greeting on earth. "Jambo" Jambo "Mambo Vipi" Poa "Habari" Nsuri. And all that you've established is that you are both OK. Some days it wears you out and other days it reminds you just what a laid back friendly place Tanzania really is.