I'm never going to get there at this rate...

... but I just don't feel like blogging tonight!

I have a serious Jb-induced headache this evening. I forgot how much water it actually takes to keep me hydrated when I'm sweating from sun-up to past sun-down. And the water filter can't seem to keep up - I think it's all clogged with all the lovely minerals in our water :( I'm trying to rehydrate (which means I'll be up peeing all night... at least I have a lovely new toilet in which to pee! Have I mentioned how happy I am that I have a new toilet? I actually have a toilet seat on which to rest my bottom when I pee! We had a team of American volunteers come to do some practical handy sort of works while I was away, and one of their jobs was to install a new toilet. The old one had been here since the 1980s and had survived a civil war, sort of. But the daily plunging and the acrobatics that it took to not fall in were getting pretty tiresome. So I did the dance of joy when I saw our brand spanking new toilet!).

In fact, I'm so excited about my new toilet, I believe I shall go and photograph it, and post it's photo. I'm just a little bummed that I didn't get a photo of the old one, just to show you how truly awful it was, and how much of an improvement this one is!

Isn't she lovely? Um, just ignore that puddle of dirty water around the base of her. I'm sure that will all get sorted out in due course - in the meantime, um, well, we're just keeping a mop and a bucket of bleachy water in the bathroom...

But here's a picture of the matching sink:

I'm so excited that the roach infested counter top and cupboard are gone! Now we just have to figure out a way to make it look "finished", rather than, well, how it looks now! But it's SO nice to have a lovely shiny new sink.

Oh, generator just went off. I'd better get this posted and get to sleep. Tomorrow is another day. But first, I gotta pee...

Back Dating

Just so you know, I plan, over the course of the next few days, to blog about the rest of my trip. But I will back-date them so that they're posted relatively close to the actual date that I'm talking about. So scroll down a bit if you want to see something new! But really, I don't think they'll be all that exciting, so don't feel bad if you miss them!

I'm finally home

I landed in Jbs at about 11:30 this morning, and already, it hardly seems like I even left. I'm not sure yet if that's a good thing or not. The flight went smoothly. The taxi driver in NBI was late coming to get me, so I had a bit of a rush to do some last minute juggling of putting some stuff in the storage container and taking some things for some other people out of the container. But in the end, I made it no problem. Annamarie was also at the airport - on a different flight, which supposedly left at the same time, but actually ended up leaving after my flight and arriving about 10 minutes earlier! But it worked out nicely because we shared a ride home from the airport - I even got a proposal of marriage on the way home! Sadly, I had to refuse, as I'm not too interested in becoming a second wife. And this all took place in Arabic, I'm pleased to say! So at least I haven't forgotten everything after being away for nearly three weeks!

It took a while for Zane to realize that I'm home, but once he heard me calling him, he came a running from wherever he'd been hanging out. I was pleased to see that someone had been taking care of him - there were little dried fishies and some water in bowls by the front door for him. And he doesn't look too bad after being abandoned for the past few weeks - just a few ticks, and a bit of a lean look. He was getting too fat before I left, anyways!

He got his present already - I found a bright green plastic cat food bowl in the grocery store in Nairobi for him. It's a beautiful little bowl, and I figured it's about time the poor thing had his own plastic dishes (so far, he's been eating and drinking out of quite an assortment of dingy old containers!). He just finished his first meal from his new bowl and is curled up at my feet. I'm happy he survived the last few weeks; it takes a pretty tough cat to survive this long in this town.

Oh, but I guess you're probably more interested in some of my adventures over the past few weeks, rather than what my cat ate for dinner, eh? I'll try to give a quick rundown of the "moments" of the past few weeks. I'll try not to be too wordy, really, I will try... but no promises!

I'm not dead.

Yup, but I just haven't had good internet connections for the past few weeks. And now the bloggable moments have seriously piled up! I'm in Nairobi at the moment, but I leave this land of plenty for Jbs tomorrow. And I have the whole weekend to get back into the blogging groove. I'm not really feeling the groove at the moment (maybe that's because I'm in need of a snack... starting to feel a bit lightheaded with hunger at the moment, actually, but am not sure what to get for lunch...). I'll be back later, though, after I've had a bit of food :)

Anyways, just wanted to let all of my faithful readers know that I am alive and well, well rested, a little fattened up from some delicious food, I've got shiny swinging hair because I got it cut for the first time in 9 months, and am feeling generally pretty refreshed and relaxed. Ready to face whatever needs facing back in Jb! I think.

See you soon... I will be back!

From the beach to the town

All good things must come to an end, and so we had to leave our little beach front paradise. It was sad to say goodbye, and I had to go around taking some photos of the place before we left.

This was my bed in our room, along with the little "sitting room" area. It was a huge room, actually, which was really nicely arranged with an extra dressing room and a bathroom with a nice big, hot shower. Here's a view of the front of our room - we had our own little verandah on which to sit.

And this is where we ate our meals (we were on half-board, so got breakfast and supper there, and we normally foraged for snacks in the village for lunch).

And here's the pool, which I only went in once because it was so cold! I was really feeling sorry for all the Europeans who had come for a nice hot, tropical beach holiday - but for us, it was SO wonderful to be able to actually be in the sun and not melt into a puddle!

Anyways, we were soon on our way, hurtling down the "highway" of the island in a mini-van, freezing in the A/C! It was quite a nice van, and scenery on the way was interesting - lots of little villages and farms, and lots and lots of trees. It's a pretty lush island, let me tell you. And I know we were on the main road, so it's probably different if you get "off the beaten track", but most of the little houses and towns didn't look that bad off. I mean, even the mud huts looked to be of a higher standard than what I'm used to seeing here. The children running around in the yards were all fully clothed in relatively clean and tear-free clothes, there was lots of stuff in the shops, and fields looked like there was lots to eat in them.
Eventually, we made it to our final destination - Stone Town. We stayed in a hotel near the ferry docks, which was handy. As soon as we settled into our hotel, which was in an old building in the middle of the town, on one of those narrow alley-ways, we went next door for some lunch and a latte.
And then we just started wandering through the streets to see what we could see. It was so cool! We had a bit of an idea of which direction to head in, as we were armed with our Lonely Planet guide book (don't leave home without one!), and we stumbled upon some really amazing scenes. The winding little alley ways, complete with the stereotypical old wooden Zanzibari doors were everywhere! I kinda had in my mind that the "Zanzibar door" was a thing of legend - something that they write about in the tourist brochures to lure tourists there, but that there would only be, like, one or two in the whole town. But I was wrong! There were doors everywhere you turned! And they hadn't all been made into tourist attractions - most of them were actually just doors to people's apartment buildings or shops or whatever! I was so impressed, and my tourist cynicism was quickly put to rest. And yes, I took one or two photos of the doors. I don't know why, but I was completely fascinated by them.


We wandered around for hours, and it was just amazing to see all those old buildings, just exactly as they had been built a couple of hundred years ago, in the era of the sultans. And then, of course, to pop into a few little souvenir shops, full of beautiful clothes and batiks. So many colours and patterns - true eye candy!
But one of the real highlights was some God-given eye candy. We were treated to one of the most beautiful sunsets I've seen in a really long time. Of course, just at the right moment, a dhow sailed by, and well, I took one or two photos.

This feast for the eyes was followed by a feast for our bellies at a wonderful little Italian restaurant. I ate a giant portion of the most perfect lasagne, followed by a trilogy of the most deliciously rich desserts (don't worry, the three of us shared the dessert!). The dessert was so good, I had to take a photo of it... and what blog would be complete without a picture of my food?!

The beach

So once we arrived on the island, the next few days were spent just hanging out around the beach. It was truly beautiful. The place we stayed at had a lovely deck above the beach, and it was wonderful to sit on the deck, or lay on the hammocks, watching the change in the tides, the clouds, and the colours of the water. I had my camera at hand most of the time, so I have, um, well, one or two photos of the various incarnations of the sea. It was just so beautiful. It wasn't the palm tree lined beach like what you see in some of the photos, but I actually thought our beach had more character than that.

We took a lot of walks on the beach - you could walk for a really, really long ways in one direction and hardly see any people at all. Just beach, beach and more beach. Or you could walk the other direction and stumble upon, first, a fishing village where the local people still make dhows by hand, and then more resorts, complete with the little souvenir shops and all.


I really have way too many photos of the most amazingly aquamarine water and white sand... it's really hard to chose which ones to post (and consdering that our internet is pretty slow here, it's after 11pm and I don't have that much battery power in my computer... you'll get away with seeing only a few! Those of you know actually know who I am have seen a whole lot more of these photos on facebook :) ).
Anyway, it was amazingly beautiful, and I loved just walking along the beach and stumbling upon a few random things.
I also spent a lot of time on the deck at the resort, just like this:

It was truly a relaxing way to spend a few days! The food was mediocre, and of course, being a Muslim island, I never did get to feast on bacon, which I've been longing for. But they had great smoothies, amazing little mashed potato balls, and lovely fresh fruit juices to sip on all day. Really wonderfully relaxing. Even though it's supposedly high season, the place really wasn't very full at all. Which was nice, because you could always find a deck chair to sprawl out on, and the dining room wasn't packed at meal times. However, it also wasn't so deserted that you felt like something must be wrong, if you know what I mean. It was a good balance.

We also went on a sunset cruise and snorkling trip. However, there were so many clouds that day that the snorkling wasn't the best, and there wasn't actually a sunset. Well, I mean, there was a sunset, but you know what I mean! Even though the snorkling wasn't the best experience I've had (me in my vast experience of it - this was the third time I've gone!), it was still awe-inspiring to feel like I was swimming inside an aquarium! I still get absolutely amazed at the variety and assortment and colours of all those creatures under the sea. There really isn't anything like it (ok, well, maybe diving would be even cooler, but I don't actually know if I'd be brave enough to try diving - not to mention the fact that it costs about a bizzilion dollars!). Here's me after my under the sea trip:

Cute, aren't I? It took a few hours for the face-mask imprint to disappear...

Anyways, I could tell so many more stories, as it was a truly unforgettable time - though in a good way. Nothing seriously bad happened at all. It was really lovely and relaxing, and after four days, they really did have to drag us away from the beach, on to the next adventure in Stone Town.

The ferry to the Island

While we were hanging out in Bagamoyo, Annamarie was jetting into Dar. After quite a mix up with the taxi driver (there were rather a lot of mix ups with logistics, food orders and other seemingly straight-forward things on this particular trip!), Annamarie arrived at the guesthouse and met me there.

Early the next morning, we were picked up by a taxi (thankfully there were no mix ups this time!) and made our way to the ferry dock. It was a great trip there, as Jackie was harking back to her roots, remembering a few things from when she lived there as a child. I just liked driving through the city in the early morning traffic. That is, there was no traffic! But it was just so nice to be on paved roads, obeying traffic lights, admiring all the shops and assorted billboards and buildings... I'm such a city girl at heart! We stopped on the way to take a photo of the harbour, which was pretty cool.

We finally arrived at the ferry docking place where you fight through the crowds and buy yourself a ticket. It wasn't that difficult, since we were rather early for the ferry. I think we were the first ones to buy our tickets for the day! Anyway, after securing our tickets, there was no where to go except into the waiting area. Where we sat. And sat. And sat. Like I said, we were pretty early. After a while, the place started filling up - local folks going over with just a handbag, folks going over with a ton of luggage, and lots and lots of tourists. I actually love sitting in places like that and watching people. Especially tourists. They can be so entertaining. Funny thing was, I was exactly like most of them on that trip - I was about as touristy as they come - though I didn't have my camera hung around my neck!

The best part of the gathering ferry crowd was the group of Maasi who were waiting for the ferry. They were decked out in their finery, man. Red blankets, big hair, jingling shiny things and beads hanging off everything... really fascinating. I was totally trying to act non-chalant and non-touristy about the whole thing, I mean, I've been in villages before where people wear their traditional clothes. And I've seen people running around the streets of my city here in beads and traditional things. But there was just something about seeing such a large group of them together, close up, in such incongruous surroundings that had me gaping like a tourist fresh off the plane. It was all I could do to not take their pictures!

Here's a photo that I just quickly found on the internet, in case you're not familiar with the Masai:


The best part about them was the fact that they all had cell phones and wrap around sunglasses. Some of them were even listening to their MP3 players while they stood in line waiting to get on the ferry! I just loved it. It just boggles my mind that these guys can live in such different worlds at the same time!

Anyway, the ferry ride itself was kinda fun. For a while I sat outside and watched the harbour go past.

It was great to see such a mix of little homemade canoes, plus bit tankers floating around in the same sea together.

Once again, one of the best parts of the trip was watching the people on the boat. We were sitting nearby the Masai crowd, which was kinda fun. Annamarie and our friend Barbara were also quite a laugh as they were watching the in-sail movie "Home Alone 3".

But I was also watching a poor old Muslim guy try to ignore a young tourist next to him. There was a young woman (probably in her early 20s) sitting outside next to a Muslim family. Since the sun was out (though it really wasn't that warm!), the girl was wearing a pretty small tank-top and had rolled up her trousers above her knees. Coming from where I come from, it all looked a bit bare. And there she was, completely hanging over this poor Muslim fellow as she leaned over to try to get the best view from the side of the boat. I really felt bad for the guy, as it must have put him in a horrible situation to have this half-naked girl in his space!

That was just the beginning of a few moments where I felt quite sorry for the Muslim inhabitants of a tropical island paradise. When your village and beach are suddenly open for tourism, you suddenly have to deal with all sorts of holiday-seekers who are more interested in working on their tans than respecting the local norms of modesty. Now I have quite strong feelings about modesty (some in my own culture have accused me of being TOO modest), so I tend to notice such things more than others sometimes. The best part was the sign the we saw when we got off the beach near our resort and into the little town near where we were staying. Thankfully, my friends and I were at least trying to respect the local sensibilities!

Anyways, after a couple of hours on the ferry, we finally docked at the island of Zanzibar. Surprisingly enough, we had to go through immigration again. They actually stamp your passport, and you have to fill in one of those official cards when you enter or exit! We also had to wait a little while for our people to come and fetch us from the ferry dock, after which we had to walk several blocks with our luggage to where we were going to wait for our other friend to join us from the airport. It was a bit of a fiasco, but anyway, we made it, and I got to try a cool refreshing glass of tamarind juice, a huge plate of chicken biriyani and a cup of tea whilst waiting for Carrie to arrive.

Finally, we were all together, complete with another passenger who was going to the same place (an interesting American woman who, when told that we live in the country that we live in, loudly exclaimed, "You mean people can live there?!".). And we starting cruising along the tarmac up to the northern part of the Island, where we stayed at a resort in a town called Nungwi.

And thus the relaxation begins.

Bagamoyo

The day after the conference was "officially" over, we took a group tour to a little town a little ways up the coast from Dar called Bagamoyo. It was a pretty small group, but there were some interesting folks along, and we ended up having a good time all together!

Bagamoyo is an old port on the coast which served as a shipping point for slaves coming from the African interior, as well as a starting off point for missionaries going into the interior. It was also the place where all of those colonial explorers started (and ended) their journeys into the deepest heart of Africa. Speke, Livingston, Burton, they all passed through Bagamoyo on their journeys.

Besides being quite an interesting old town, there's a few museums detailing all the history of the place - of which there is a lot! Being a bit of a museum geek, it was wonderful to spend the better part of the day in museums - not something I see much of around these parts!


One of the museums had a lot about the slave trade that was the backbone of the economy back in the 1800s and early 1900s. Slaves were taken from the interior of Africa, sent to the market on Zanzibar, and then from there mostly to the Gulf countries. The church and people like Dr. Livingstone were instrumental in putting an end to the slave trade, though it continued underground for quite some time (and, in fact, continues today in various parts of the world, albeit in a slightly different format - but let me not make too many controversial statements in this travelogue!). Anyway, this section of the museum was pretty sobering.

Because Livingstone spent so much time here, after he died in Zambia (or was it Namibia? Um, I love those museums, but some of the details don't exactly stick...), his heart was buried in Zambia (or Namibia?!), while the rest of his body was left out to dry in the sun for 14 days (a sort of mummification!). His body was then wrapped up in a little package like this one below, and brought by foot to Bagamoyo. His porters rested for a day at the church here, before sending him by ship to Zanzibar and then on to the UK.

The church was quite stunning, and by now, I'm sure you all know what a sucker I am for lovely architecture, especially in churches. So yes, I took one or two photos of it. Again, the details are already kinda hazy, but this is something like the first Anglican church built in East Africa... or something. Anyways, it's old and historic. And is a pretty cool looking building. I just loved the combination of the tropical flowers and the old stone European style church!


There was also a little bit in the museum about this missionary linguist type guy who studied kiSwahili, the local language, and wrote a dictionary and prayer books and other literature. There was a photo of the guy in his office, and I had to take a picture of the picture because it reminded me so much of some of the present day linguist types that I know :)

We also saw some more ancient history while we were in the area. There's an area called the Kaole Ruins, which used to be a mosque and a bit of a royal city back in the 13th - 15th century. Once again, I'm a sucker for old ruins, and had a great time taking pictures of some of the crumbling walls, and trying to imagine what they would have been like back in the day, at the height of this royal kingdom.

There's a tomb there in which a direct descendant of the prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) is buried. People still go there and offer their prayers with a bit of burning frankincense.

All that history was pretty cool, but I have to admit, one of the highlights of that little ruins stop was the fact that we had a picnic lunch! I know it sounds a bit strange, but I've actually been longing for a picnic for quite some time now. There's no where nice in Jb to go and have a good old fashioned picnic. So I thoroughly enjoyed my little packed lunch (provided by the tour company, so it was a pretty pathetic little thing - sandwich consisting of white bread, a centimeter of Blue Band margarine and a tiny little piece of undefinable lunch meat, an orange which was very difficult to peel and a bottle of water). But I was eating in the great outdoors, out of a bag! So noteworthy, in fact, that Jackie took a photo of me with my lunch:

It did satisfy my longing for a picnic, so it felt like a real treat, for some odd reason!
While I was picnic-ing, none other than the famous Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o happened by with his three children! Some of the folks in our group went and asked him for photos and for autographs, but I felt a bit shy for that. Actually, his son was the one I would have liked to get a photo with and autograph from! A better looking family I have not seen in a while, let me tell you... But I did surreptitiously take one snapshot of Ngugi and his son as they waited for the rest of their group to catch up! This photo is for you, Jonathan!

We also visited the beach for a little while. It was too cold to actually swim, but it was fun to go and put our feet in the water and look at some of the little creatures playing in the tide pools. For one of my African colleagues who came along with us, it was the first time he'd ever seen the ocean! We coaxed him into taking off his shoes and socks, and it was great fun searching for shells with him, and showing him the little crabs and hermit crabs on the beach. I think I freaked him out when I freaked out over a little tiny fish that got stuck between my toes, but we all got over that trauma fairly quickly!

We also watched some of the working dhows and fishermen as they got ready to go out for the evening, and did the necessary maintenance on their boats.

We weren't the only ones out gazing at the sea. I quite like this photo, actually, though it's just some random people on the beach from behind, but gives you an idea of the type of locals who we were rubbing elbows with.

It wasn't cloudy and cool the whole day. We also got a few views of the sort of white sand, palm lined beach that you see in travel brochures.


And we also saw a beautifully carved cross, right on the beach, which said, in kiSwahili, "God Bless Africa". It was beautiful, but didn't really show up very well in the pictures.

It was a pretty full day, and we were all pretty exhausted by the time we got back to our little abodes in Dar es Salaam, but we had to stay up long enough to pack for the next leg of our voyage - the ferry to Zanzibar on Saturday morning! But that's a story for another day.

It's all over

The "official" bits of the conference ended today and tomorrow we go touring. I'm going off to Bagamoyo, which has some historical things, as well as a lovely beach or something. I'm actually not all that certain what we're doing there - I'm just going to get on the bus and follow the tour group - organized by the conference folks, of course. However, hopefully the tour will be better organized than the conference was!

Yup, the conference was rather disorganized, and I must admit I was a little disappointed with the keynote speakers and plenary sessions. One of the guys, a famous Kenyan author Ngugi... (I completely haven't a clue how to spell his second name!) was quite good. He had some brilliant things to say - I was scribbling down all sorts of quotes in my notebook during his talks. But he certainly wasn't what I would call a dynamic speaker. But he did have some really interesting thoughts - so many that I actually went and bought his new book! I'm looking forward to reading it, as he had so many wonderful things to say about the use of African languages for literacy, for learning, for creative writing and expression and art.

But there was a keynote speaker today who simply read a paper in a very monotone voice. And to tell you the honest truth, I have no idea what the paper was about! The monotony of his voice lost me in the first few minutes of the paper, and I just never quite figured out what he was talking about in the end.

But that being said, some of the other parallel sessions that I went to were really good - inspiring, in fact. I came away from most of those sessions wanting to go out and teach. I wanted to get my hands on some books, or on some people who can write, and start getting them to write some books so we could go out and teach some folks how to read! I think in my next life I'm going to be a primary school teacher so I can do reading activities all day long ('cause I know fun reading games is the whole job of a primary school teacher :) ).

Today I went to a session led by some South Africans who lead writer's workshops and publish easy reading stories for adults. It was so inspiring to listen to them describe how they do their writer's workshops, and I got some great ideas for how we can improve the workshops we do for our writers. So many of their ideas can transfer to folks we know who are learning to write in their own languages (not just learning basic literacy, but who are learning to write stories and books).

Once again I realized how priviliged I am to be able to do the job that I have! While some situations are far from ideal, for the most part, my job consists of enabling people to become teachers and writers. I love to write, and I've always wanted to write my own books, and now, in my job, I get to help people write their own books. And the sessions that I went to today gave me a much bigger picture and some great ideas of how to do that better, and what it all involves in the actual small-scale publishing "industry". Which is what we're doing, actually, though I have absolutely no previous training in the whole field of publications! So I feel a bit more enabled myself and a bit more energized and inspired and ready to get back to work!

So I'm really glad I came, and it was definitely a worthwhile few days here.

And now that the conference is over, I can start thinking about the beach! Ah, the beach. But now that I'm all inspired and encouraged, I feel like I want to get back to work! But first, the beach. Then the work. Beach, then work.

We are the World

Remember the Live Aid song, written by Micheal Jackson, and sung by a whole host of characters, including Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, and your favourite and mine, Kenny Rogers. Well, one of the presenters in the plenary session had everyone in the conference stand up and sing "We are the World" together. Now, this would have been a better idea had she not been speaking to a room full of mostly Africans who have never in their lives heard the song, and if she had made the font of the lyrics on her powerpoint bigger than 12 point, Times New Roman. Needless to say, she didn't get much of a group karoke session happening.

Too bad, since I've had the chorus to the song in my head for the last day and a half! And now, for those of you who know the song, you can sing right along with me! We are the world, we are the children, we are the ones who make a brigher day, so let's start giving...

Home sweet home, in Dar es Salaam

I thought this day would never come, since I was so crazy busy for the past few weeks in Jb. But here I am, sitting on my little bed in a beautiful A/C room, enjoying the electricity and wireless internet, shining clean tiles, beautiful wooden furniture and the peace and quiet of a lovely compound. Where I come from, you'd pay at least $100 per night to stay somewhere like this. I'm paying significantly less than that!

We arrived with no problems at all. The flights all went really well to get here. We hung out in the Nairobi airport for several hours, which wasn't bad at all. When we landed in Nairobi, and had to walk off the plane to the airport, it was 18C outside! And this was at, like, noon! Brrrrr! I was freezing, but it felt so good!

During the rest of our stay in the airport, I just wandered around the shops, and we made a booth at the Java House our little base for the day. I had a bagel with cream cheese for lunch, plus a Latte Frostie (sorta like a frappacino). It was absolutely amazing. So different from Jb. And so what I needed.

The whole way along, we were coaching our African colleague on how airports work. He'd never been on a plane before, and he has to travel back from TZ on his own (since me and Jackie are going on holidays!), so we were trying to give him as much advice and information on how airports work so that he could find his way back without ending up in Nigeria or something.

One of the best parts of the day was when I saw a big group of folks, obviously travelling together, getting lessons on how to get off the escalator. I mean, think about it, if you've lived your whole life in a place where they rarely even have electricity, you've probably never seen an escalator before. And in the Naiorobi airport, when you come in through immigration to the departures area, you have to go up the escalator - no stairs at all. So people are all carrying all their carry-on hand luggage (and believe me, folks here know how to do carry-on!), and then trying to navigate the escalator for the first time ever. This group was great because they were all cheering each other on, and making sure everyone was ready when they got to the top step. You could really see the concentration on the faces of the people who were approaching the top, getting ready to leap off onto solid ground again! I could totally understand how they felt, though, as I remember being a little kid and being really quite anxious about getting to the top of the escalator!

Anyways, it just struck me again at how many things in international travel that I just take for granted now. I know that you can't lose your boarding pass. I know that your luggage is going to come out on a belt after you go through immigration, I know that you have to fill out forms at immigration, I know that you have to go through various security checks and that you have to take off your belt and cell phone to go through them... so travelling internationally with someone who had never even been to an airport before was a pretty eye-opening experience!

But we made it!

I was deposited at the guesthouse by the taxi who was sent to meet us, and I met up with a friend from Kenya, with whom I'm sharing a room. I had a good winge to her about how tired I was and how much there is to do in Jb, then I had an amazing hot shower, turned on the A/C in our room, and basically just went to bed. The pillow on my bed is terrible; I'm going to have to do something about it tonight, but otherwise, things are pretty nice. It was a bit hard to get to sleep, as I didn't have the breeze from my "brick tent" whispering against my mosquitoe net, or the sounds of Celine wafting through the air, or the "crunch crunch" of the rats chewing through the styrofoam insulation... but I was cool and refreshed when I woke up!

Which was good, because today was a bit of a long day at the conference! The venue itself is at the University, which is quite a beautiful campus. Lots of trees and green growing things everywhere. The weather was deliciously cool, sunny, but a nice cool breeze blowing all day. And there were lots of folks from other parts of Africa who I know from previous conferences and work, so it was good to meet up with them, too.

Today was just the registration and opening ceremony day; tomorrow the conference starts with a vengeance. There was a great choir from the university singing at the opening. They were accompanied by drums, which were amazing! They were also accompanied by a trumpet, a trombone and two clarinets, which were not so amazing. sometimes I shake my head because some of the whole colonial thing has really stuck in certain domains in these parts - and bits of the good old brass band, along with some really terrible music from the 1940s has stuck. The "western" instruments put a real damper on the gorgeous African style singing and drumming!

Our lunch was also pretty late in coming. Leila, my friend from Kenya, is diabetic, and took her insulin when she thought the lunch was coming. But it was rather delayed. So she took matters into her own hands and went and got the folks in the kitchen to get her a plate of food. Then one of our other colleagues decided she was tired of waiting, so she went and lined up, and those two things nearly caused a stampede of people to the food line! At least I was near the front of the line :) I'm not one to shy away from a food line, after all.

Here's a photo of Jackie and Leila before we got too grumpy while waiting for lunch:

I promise I'll try to take some more interesting photos tomorrow, so I have something better to post...

I'm so outta here!

I'm almost packed. Just a few bits to put into the bag - things like the toothbrush and soap. I think I have everything else. The nice thing about going somewhere warm for holidays is that you don't need to pack many bulky clothes! I think I've got enough to wear to look smart at the conference, and yet still have enough "play clothes" for the beach. I think. I don't really know what someone wears on the beach, as I'm not really used to having beach vacations! Anyways, I'm not taking much 'cause I need room to bring some stuff back to Jbs.

But I consulted my fashion consultant this evening as I was packing, and got her approval for the outfits. So I should be well-covered. If not, then I'll blame my consultant :)

And now, I'd better go and throw a few more things in the bag... gotta remember the sunglasses, phone chargers... but my earbuds broke last night :( I use them every night to listen to BBC and my music, so I'm a little sad about that. I'm bringing my MP3 player anyways, and just hoping that I can find some new earbuds in duty free in the Nairobi airport during my 4 hour layover tomorrow!

Gotta go. Ciao for now, and maybe the next time you hear from me, I'll have been to the beach and back :)

Oh, right, and the conference. Can't forget to go to the conference. Conference. Then beach. First the conference.

So close!

Yup, I'm SO close to getting out of Jb. Not that it's that bad here. Really, it's not. I mean, this evening, we had a great meal with friends, along with rip-roaring laughter. We had conversation so good and funny that my stomach was starting to hurt from laughing so hard! Really, a very good time. I was invited to eat with a couple from a different NGO - he's Canadian, and she's American, but have both grown up in East Africa. They're wonderful people, and I get along so well with them. So it was really great to spend some time with them. It's just such a blessing to have good people around who you can really "click" with and laugh with. Almost makes me think I might start to miss some of my friends here after being away for three weeks!

But then my mind goes to Zanzibar... the beach. A hot shower. Fruit juice. Reading a book while the ocean breezes flutter through my hair... yup, I'm already there.

I just have a few (!) things to do tomorrow, plus a bit of packing and organizing and sorting (I have to rat proof my room!), and then I take off on Sunday morning! We'll fly direct (hopefully!) - with a layover in Nairobi. We'll see how it all works, but hopefully we'll manage to make it to our flight from Nairobi to Dar with no problems. And I've already arranged for a taxi to fetch us from the airport to bring us to the guesthouse where we're staying.

By Sunday night, I'll be clean and showered and enjoying sharing a room with a dear friend from Nairobi! I can't wait! Not sure how much internet access I'll have, though, so it might be a bit quiet...

Not for the squeamish

I'm sorry, but I just can't resist posting this photo, because it's just so durn disgusting!

This is my toothbrush holder which I THOUGHT was completely out of harm's way, suctioned to the bathroom mirror, high above the counter top. I guess I was wrong.



Do ya think my dentist could send me a few new toothbrushes?!

Almost there...

Sorry, I didn't mean to neglect my posting this week, but it's been a bit hectic! I mean, more so than usual, if you can believe that! But it's been a good hectic, for the most part!

Our workshop ended on Tuesday. It actually ended really well - it was amazing to see those guys working together, getting all excited about their literacy programs! It got me all excited again, too, which is quite a feat, since I've been so ready for my little trip out of Jb for quite a few weeks already!

The closing ceremony rocked, because we had people share songs and dances from their language communities. There was some spectacular dancing and singing from those teams! The best was one of the teams which was made up of 4 young-ish guys, and one old man. They gave the old man an old purple plastic bucket, a chair and a stick. And he started beating that old bucket like there was no tomorrow, and the other four danced in circles around him! These folks come from a cattle keeping tribe, so it all comes back to... yup, you guessed it, the cows! So the dances mainly consist of raising your arms in a stately cow-horn-like fashion, and prancing around with your friends, who also have their arms raised in stately cow-horn-like fashion.

Another team sang a song in their language about how everyone should wake up and go to school in the morning when they hear the doves singing (all I could think about was the Prince song, "When doves cry..."). It was a great song about not being lazy and actually going out to get an education! It was really a good time to laugh and sing and dance together (not that I did much dancing, but I really enjoyed watching everyone else do their dances :) ).

It was a good group of participants, and I'm already looking forward to the second round of "Literacy Specialist" workshops! We really did have some fun with them - learned how to teach, using the mother tongue, with few printed resources. We looked at how to do "learner generated material" (i.e., writing stories together with the class), how to write simple sentence stories, how to do shared reading, and how to plan a literacy program. It was a lot of material to cover in 10 days, but we managed it, even with a surprise holiday thrown in the middle of it all!

Here's the whole group of us (though the photo isn't the best quality :( ). At least you can see my lovely dress - it's my "peacock dress", since it reminds me of peacock feathers. I love it, and I've been wearing it to quite a few closing ceremonies these days! For the closings, it's all about the outfit - sorta the local version of the Oscars or something.


Anyways, now that the workshop is over, I've been working to do a bunch of other bits and pieces that got shoved to the side during the workshop. I'm so thankful that the normal guesthouse and site managers are back tomorrow from the US. I'm so ready to give over all the administrative bits I've been dealing with. Plus, stuff (like toilets) keeps breaking, and it will be nice to have someone around again who knows a little bit about how to fix it all!

And then I can fully concentrate on getting ready for my trip! I'm off on Sunday to Dar es Salaam for a literacy conference for 5 days, then it's off to Zanzibar for a few more days. Then Annamarie and I are going up to Arusha by bus, then on to Nairobi, and then back here by 29 August. At least, I think that's how it might all end up working out! I booked my return ticket a few weeks ago, and just got news yesterday that the flight was cancelled... see what happens when you plan too far in advance?

Anyways, I have already given my suitcases the all important pre-travel baths. They are clean and relatively shiny again. I'm still a bit up in the air as to how much to pack, and what to take... don't want to take too much stuff and end up carting it all over Tanzania, plus, I need some space to bring some stuff back from Nairobi (like apples and coffee!), but at the same time, I want to make sure to bring enough stuff so I'll be comfortable in a few different climates on holidays. Sigh, decisions, decisions. Oh, and I still need to make sure I look relatively "smart" at the conference. Don't want to look like a missionary who just walked out of the bush, after-all. Though my clothes are all looking rather worn - doesn't take long around here for stuff to get old, and things that I thought looked pretty decent in Jb, certainly don't look the same when I get back to "civilization"!

But it's only Thursday night (though quickly coming up on Friday morning!) so I have a few days to think about it all still.

In the meantime, we've set the rat traps again to see if we can catch the pesky little guy who's been eating our potatoes at night. I'm afraid that if we leave the house without catching this one first, we're not going to have much left in the house to come back to! He's a tenacious little guy. Well, he might not be all that little, considering how many potatoes and bananas he's eaten in the past few days...

Zane, on the other hand, has caught two big rats in the past few days! I'm so proud of the little guy! Our rat, however, lives in our ceiling, and only comes down when it's safe. He's a smart one, and Zane, of course, can't climb the walls to get to him. Tonight, though, Zane is outside, and the trap is set. No action yet, though :(

Still going..

Some days I feel like the energizer bunny... but not quite running on full steam :)

Things are going well with the workshop. There are a lot of little bits and pieces in my brain which I'm trying to keep straight. And lots of little bits and pieces in my brain relating to my trip next week which I'm trying to keep at bay, and yet keep them in my brain, ready and waiting for when I have a bit of space to deal with them!

And now the rain is coming. So I best get a move on. I've been in the office all evening preparing for tomorrow's lessons on "The Basis of Multilingual Education" as well as "Literacy Games and Activities". These are two of my favorite topics, and I LOVE facilitating sessions on them. I love it, love it, love it! And I think I've even got all my games and handouts ready. So now it's off to bed - hopefully I'll beat the rain back to my house so I don't get soaked in my long commute (it's like, a whole 45 seconds, door to door... though might take longer tonight as the frogs are out in full force. They can be a bit slippery, especially when you're wearing flip flops!