so Tanzania then!

Hey everybody!

so the next bit of travelling has begun, I've arrived in Tanzania. I arrived two weeks ago actually but its been a bit busy. So I got into Dar es Salaam, the capital on friday at about 5am. Dar is pretty nuts, the same as any large African city to be honest. The pavements and roads blur into each other, the cars drive where ever they can fit overtaking and undertaking at any opportunity. There are people lining every street pedalling wares that vary from torches that project Obamas face on walls to BBQ'd cassava.

I stayed in the very concrete YMCA. functional and certainly not the worst place I have stayed. I managed to make a local friend, one of the things that I have learnt to do is to differentiate between people who want to speak to you for your money and people who want to speak to you because you are likely to be interesting. the latter is often great fun and almost always very useful. Via this new friend, TicaTaca, I managed to get some sandals at a local price rather than a mazungu price and I located a decent bar/eatery. I phoned people, wrote stuff down, battled with officials and generally worked all day. It was very strangely like coming home. I rather like being in African cities now.

So then I headed off to Mafia Island. This is a little island off the coast, about half an hours flight away. I have spent the last two weeks rebuilding the camp out here basically. I managed to get a couple of dives in too, I swam with a turtle which was very exciting. I finished building a Banda yesterday, which is a local house. I am currently eminating exceedingly large amounts of pride over that one.

So I am going to stay here until Sunday and then I will head back over to Dar. there I will sort out a bunch of stuff before heading off to the Kilombero valley where I will start my real work, sorting out a management plan.