My First Larium Dream

In my 8th week in Tanzania I finally got my first lariam dream. One of the side effects of lariam (a weekly pill taken to prevent getting malaria from mosquito bites) is really weird dreams. Usually, my stomach feels sick and mosquitoes tend to bite me more for a few days after I take it.

Last night (as I write this, it's Wednesday 29th August) we went out and ate at BBQ Village, now my favourite restaurant in Dar. Their spicy chips are fantastic, the shrimps and deep fried prawns are unbelievable (and I don't even like seafood) and even the chicken is top notch. Only downside is, is that the food is hotter on the way out than in. Anyway, I also had a few beers with that so maybe that helped with the weird dream. When we got home, I remembered I forgot to take my lariam on Monday so I took it before going to bed.

My dream was not the weirdest dream I've ever had but it was my first ever dream where somebody died horribly. I can't remember much, but I remember I was down in a dungeon with a guy with a beard. He was looking for something. I've no idea what. There was a window in the middle of the room but there were no walls either side, so it was basically just a window frame with glass. I looked through it and there was a huge rhino on the other side. I jumped and started to run. This seemed to startle the rhino who started running around the window. I was shouting at the bearded man to run for a door that was behind him. I ran through the door which sadly was only a lit up closet with cleaning equipment. The door didn't have a handle but only had a small thing to hold on to, to keep it closed. When I heard the bearded man coming for the door, I let it open. He came in, slammed the door but it just bounced open again. A few seconds later, the rhino came bursting through and kept ramming the man against the wall crushing him, while I stood at the side wondering if the rhino would kill me next.

Then I woke up to the sound of Muslim prayer at 5.30am. That is also strange as I usually sleep through them but I was just glad that Allah saved me from a rhino trying to kill me in a janitor's closet in an empty dungeon.

Funniest Thing I've Ever Heard

Elaine and I went for a cycle to a market in Ilala. She used to live near there for 4 years and we went to her old place and then to a juice bar. During conversation over a passion juice, I asked her what she is doing for Christmas, which evolved quickly into Christmas in Tanzania. She said they don't have Santa Claus here but they do in Zimbabwe. She asked a guy opposite us if he knew who Santa Claus was. He said no.
She then asked the guy who owned the juice bar (who Elaine knows) if he knew who Santa Claus was. He said yes, Elaine said, "really?" He then said in Swahili, "He's a footballer in Europe."

We both must have looked really rude but we just could not stop laughing at his answer. It was brilliant.

Elaine's Addiction

Tende was away on an Afri Roots trip for about 5 days. Elaine looks to me, my laptop and hard-drive in the evenings to entertain her. After watching South Park, Father Ted and films since I've arrived, something new was on the cards. About 3 weeks ago we watched 24, Season 1, episode #1 (12am-1am) but never got around to #2. We finally watched it. 2 days later, we have watched up to 4pm. That's 16 episodes. Since about 6am, in the "longest day" of Jack Bauer's life, Elaine has been the person asking if we should watch 24. It's safe to say, I've got her hooked on it.

She makes stupid predictions about who she thinks is a "bad-ie" or a spy/mole. She's wrong about most of them and continues to make stupid assumptions even after I tell her she makes stupid assumptions but I forgive her since she has given me an excuse to watch 24 all over again.

My Dar Cycle

I was given the opportunity to go on an Afri Roots Dar Cycle instead of going to work as there was a tour with only one other person. I wanted to go on one anyway so the day off work was an added bonus. Mejah was taking the tour as Tende was on Safari.

I got up at 7.30am and cycled to Shopper's Plaza for 8.30am. I met Mejah and Niall (the only customer on this tour) and Emile (Afri Roots trainee) and we went on our way. Mejah said the route was about 18km. I cycle 16km a day to and from work with a laptop on my back so I felt confident I'd be fine.

We set off around the neighbourhoods of Dar es Salaam which was really cool as I mostly only cycle on the main roads everyday. The paths were very bumpy and had some really big puddles almost covering parts of the road from the rain the weekend before. Our first stop was at a local doctor who "inherited" from his father how to treat illness. His office was a tiny dark room that had a small hole in the roof which had a beam of sun shining through when we were there.

We were shown a price list of all different illnesses he treats with a price beside each one. We were told if we had any problems in life including love that he could aid it somehow. Right after the doctor, we had to cross a bridge over a sewage river. The bridge looked as if it could drop at any stage.

After alot more cycling we stopped at a Masaai hair salon where Masaai braid hair and their friends hang out until they have to work as security guards at night time. They did a traditional Masaai dance which I did a little jump. The masaai laughed and gave me high fives. I'm not sure if it was because I was good or terrible at jumping or was it just because a white man was doing a masaai dance. Before the dance, one of the masaai asked Mejah if he could ride one of the bikes.
We had to wait about 5 minutes after the dance for him to return.

We set off from the Masaai and our next stop was a clothes market. The market was divided up into 3 sections: African clothes, 2ND hand clothes and new cheap rip-off clothes from China. (If you saw a Puma t-shirt there, chances are it either wasn't made by Puma or it had a tiny fault and was damaged goods.) It was a big maze of a market and we lost Emile. We walked around it for a while looking for him and went back to the bikes where Emile was waiting.

Our next stop was briefly to a "movie theatre", where you can pay 100TSH to watch 5 films that they decide to show that day. They are mostly Indian movies. We walked to a room in the back where they show pornos. This is illegal apparently.

We then cycled to Magomeni and had lunch. I was starving, hadn't eaten all day. I had rice with a beef sauce and kidney beans which I didn't eat. Finally after lunch, we cycled the couple of hundred metres to the Afri Roots office which, conveniently is Tende and Elaine's house, so basically, my home. The bikes were dropped back, Niall got a taxi back to where-ever he's staying and Mejah and Emile went too.

Mzungu, take a picta.

And I was left with some children outside the gate who saw my camera and kept asking me to take a picture of them. Whenever the flash went off they would laugh, run away and laugh again when I showed them the picture on the camera.

This is not an advertisement but a strong recommendation, I would be saying this even if the company founder hadn't put me up for 2 months rent free. If you are in Dar es Salaam, staying in a nice hotel or some Mzungu friend's house, go on the Dar cycle because that is seeing Dar, where people don't hassle you because they want to sell you something. You won't see craft markets or tourist merchandise for sale because the people you see don't live off wooden elephants or ornamental knives. Dar isn't like a European city where there are monuments or famous landmarks to see but this cycle tour is seeing what Dar is.

Since it was Friday, I was playing my usual football game in Mzungu Country. I had 3 hours to rest before heading over. At the start I was tired but as the game went on, I managed to do more running than I usually can but at the end when I got home, my God, did my legs feel it. My left one cramping up occasionally.

Very enjoyable day altogether.

Squishy Face - The Irritant Continues

I mentioned in a previous post about a man I nicknamed Squishy Face as he is one of the ugliest men I have ever seen and really annoying too, so the harsh name is justified. Once every few days he sees me and will shout something which is getting really annoying. But last night, he raised another level on the annoyance scale.
I was buying phone credit and a bottle of Pepsi, as I usually do, and he came up to me and asked me to buy him a soda. I said no and walked away. I sat down nearby, where I always sit down after buying credit and a drink. He followed. He then asked for 500tsh, I said "no". He then negotiated, "Can I have just some of your soda?"
I think a bit of sick came up into my mouth when I thought about sharing a drink with him. I told him "No, seriously, go away from me".

And this is where he got weird for reasons unknown to me. He said, "OK, you've got big balls." While walking away he shouted back in a really weird tone, "See you later big balls." I have no idea what he meant. While I was still sitting down, looking through my phone or whatever, I hear him standing at a nearby shop that 2 women work in. He shouts over to me, "Baba, kaka !" (which means, "Father, Brother." Strange !!!!) "These people are calling you a woman." I looked over to make sure he was talking to me (He was shouting in English but just to be sure) and yes, he was looking over at me with his ugly squishy smile. He really is ugly. The only reason I would ever give him money is if I can take a picture of him so I can turn everybody off their food for a week.

He hovered around the area until I left. Where I sit is in a side street where not many people are so I felt I should hurry out in case he tried something. Also in my mind was that I had my wallet in my pocket because we had just gone out to dinner.
After I finished my Pepsi, I walked over to a juice shop and watched the 1st half of ENG-ER-LAND vs the Bosh in the new Wembley !!! The bosh were up 2-1 at half time and it finished that way, yaay !!



If the man in this picture had no hair, no beard, alot more simple looking, was black and about 40 years younger, he would be the image of Squishy Face.

Being One With Nature

Just a quick post about a little interaction with nature that was a first for me. Lying on the couch with the laptop on my lap, I felt something against my leg and rubbed it. I felt it again and this time, it felt alot bigger than a mosquito. I lifted my leg, looked around but there was nothing. I thought it was just a corner of one of the cushions.

I then felt something crawl up the back of my leg, inside my shorts. I didn't realise it was inside my shorts and again, tried brushing it away. It moved again and I realised for certain it was not a mosquito and it was in my shorts making sudden uncomfortable advances North, to where no man has ever gone before. I jumped, reached up the leg of my shorts, moved my hand rapidly around while quietly praying and loudly cursing.

I stopped for a moment and felt nothing. The light was off so I used the light from the laptop screen to look around. Sure enough, there it was, on my lower leg. All that panic was just over a baby lizard.

But on the other hand, I think any man would act the same if a lizard was going to their neather regions.

The Novelty of Being the Only Mzungu in the Village

In Tanzania, it is common for the kids to say to me, whatever time of day it is, "Good morning". This is because in school they are taught to say good morning, in the morning. I guess the education system failed to tell them what "morning" translates to Swahili.
It is also usual for Elaine to be called Mama or Mama Ndogu (Basically, younger sister of my mama) or Mama Mkubwa (older sister of Mama). It's a well respected thing for someone to be old and for women to be fat. Sign of wealth and wisedom I guess. Anyway, the kids usually call Elaine whatever they feel suitable by putting her in same age bracket of their family. What isn't usual for me to be called Baba(father). Rarely but sometimes, older guys call me Kaka (brother) but usually the kids simply say Mzungu.

While making a routine 5,000tsh phone call to Kristin, there were 4 children nearby giggling anytime I looked at them and a (delirious looking) child of about 2 years (possibly the one who pissed itself right on front of me before) walked over to me.
It (no way of telling if it was a he or she so it's an it to me) stopped basically 15cm from my knees and looked up and stared at me.
(Under Kristin's orders, I was not to kick the baby ! It was only a suggestion.)
One of the giggling children came over and picked her up to bring her away at the same time an old man passing by, told them something and made hand gestures to which a Mzungu would take as "Leave the Mzungu alone and go away".

After I was finished on the phone and with all the children nearby, I finished my bottle of Pepsi as the children proceeded to say "Good morning Father".
I thought this was hilarious and replied politely "Good morning" (at 7.30pm). This seemed to encourage them to shout after me as I walked away "Good morning Father".

While in a souvaneir shop in Slipway (the white man/tourist's area to hang out), I told the woman I'd be back since I'm here for 2 months. She asked what I was doing here, blah blah blah, but when she asked me where am I staying, I said Magomeni, she said "No you don't." I said I did and eventually she believed me when I said spefically where. "It's a very local Tanzanian area and some people don't like it there" was the responce to why she didn't believe me. Telling her the dala dala route I took to Slipway also suprised her but convinced her I do live in Magomeni.
She was suprised I take a dala dala. I asked the price of a chair, "25,000" she said. "20,000" I replied. "23,000" she negotiated. "I live in Magomeni, 20,000".
She accepted and then said that Magomeni isn't that bad.

Recently while at one of the many local chippers, a guy came up to me. He had a squashed up face like the man in the Irish bar sign but on a young black man. To make it easy, I shall call him Squishy Face. So anyway, Squishy Face asked me for 1,000tsh. I said no. 500tsh. No. 100tsh. No! "Ok my friend, 1,000tsh" and it went down to 100tsh again. After making some joke about me in Swahili to another guy, he said "Ok my friend, I will try again tomorrow". Fantastic I thought. 2 days later, at the same chipper, Squishy Face was talking to a man in a suit who was making excuses why he didn't have money (in English for some reason). The man saw me and being a kind soul, told the Squishy Face to practise his English on the Mzungu. I looked at the man in the suit and said no. Then Squishy Face looked at me and shouted with delight, "Aaah, my friend !!" I loudly told the man in the suit I'm not talking to Squishy Face and thankfully I think Squishy Face heard me and left me alone.

Being the only Mzungu in the village does have some benefits. The entire group of taxi men that are near where I play football all know they are dropping me to Fundakira in Magomeni for 7,000tsh. No negotiation needed. I hated negotiating prices here.
The guy I buy phone credit off knows that mostly I want 5,000tsh Zantel. I've even asked for 1,000tsh and he won't understand my Swahili and produce 5,000tsh. He allows me to walk off with a bottle of Coke and knows I will return the bottle.
I've had some really stupid times where I had to stand outside the shop and finish it. I'm not the only Mzungu at the University but probably the only one who eats in the cafe in the basement. They know what I eat for breckfast and lunch.
I don't even know what they are called. They also know I don't speak Swahili and make fun sometimes, fun fun !

Ah well, it's all fun and games down here in the Southern hemisphere.... depending on my mood which is why I hate the guys that shout Mzungu at me when I'm cycling in to work. Cycling home I don't care.

Congrats Rico, You Did It !!!

Just a quick congrats to a very good buddy of mine Eric "the Walrus" Wahlrab, who did his Erasmus in Budapest and has just finished cycling home. 1,300km or just under 1,000 miles. His blog is here (and on my side menu ---> )
He took time out to visit Linz but due to exhaustion and alot of rain, he didn't do alot there but the fact he stopped in my home away from home was nice. His tactics to force himself to do it were quite clever, in a way. He told so many people he would do it, so that he couldn't back out after telling everyone. Congrats again Rico, I honestly didn't think you would do it when you mentioned it to me outside DCU library during repeat exam season 2006.

Isn't he gorgeous in his cycling gears ladies !!!!

Day at the Goat Races

Saturday morning, I went to Slipway to get a haircut. I had been informed that I could get a white man haircut there. After the haircut I went to get breakfast in a pub named "The Pub". It was fantastic, fried eggs, toast, sausages, rashers, french toast and coffee.

I got a taxi to the goat races and was meant to be meeting Elaine there. She didn't turn up for hours but thankfully, after 2 lonely beers, some of Elaine's friends spotted me. The purpose of the goat races is to raise money for charity. Sadly, it's a once a year thing and not (as I had assumed) a typical African past-time.
There are shops, stalls and a hell of alot of drink. The day isn't actually about the goat races, that's just the excuse.

Out of the 6 races, I saw 4 and bet on 2 (didn't win anything). Elaine won one 5000tsh bet and got back 15,000tsh (€9). All goats have the same odds as it is all very random. The owners of the winning goats got about 1,000,000tsh (€600,000) but of course they all donated it back to charity. Couldn't see myself doing that.
Apparently last year, someone didn't and it was........ a topic of conversation.

The race track is about 50 metres and the goats do 2 laps while the owners and their family/friends stand in the middle. The "jockeys" run behind the goats and 2 guys run with a big bar to make sure the goats go. They usually stayed all together but on the long stretches, sometimes one would sprint away. The jockeys didn't actually do anything. If I was out there, I would have smacked/kicked my goat up the arse to get it moving, on the last stretch anyway. The last race was at 4.50pm and most people seemed quite tanked at that stage. The heat of the sun helped people too.

After the races finished, we went to a house to watch the Liverpool v Villa game and planned to order food in but sadly it wasn't on an available channel so we went to the Garden Bistro for dinner. The day ended at about 11pm and a really crappy night sleep followed.

I woke up at about 3am because next door were having a party and were blasting traditional Eastern African music. I fell back asleep at 5am but apparently the music was still on when Elaine was getting up. My hand sticking out of the mosquito net, allowing a feast for the mozzies, unfortunately didn't aid my getting back to sleep.

Bite me once, shame on you, bite me a few hundred times, shame on me. I'm still Lord of the Flies.

Fowl Play !!!!!

The chickens have run away !!!!

(Do you like the title of this post? I'm so proud !)

Sunday morning (5th August), exactly one week after buying the hens, I untied Fruhstuck (white hen). After I untied her, she still stayed in the yard. If I walked across them, Abendessen would usually hop up and climb out the fence but would always come back. Fruhstuck hadn't figured out how to escape yet.

Wednesday morning, 10.38am, public holiday, Nane nane (8th of the 8th), they were gone. I didn't think too much of it since Abendessen always jumped through the fence and always came back. Wednesday afternoon, 1.48pm, I was going to town, walked down the road, I think I saw them back at their old home. I wasn't going to run after 2 hens to find out they weren't mine after all. Plus, I still thought they might come back.

Wednesday night, 8.58pm, I put an alert out for 2 ungrateful hens on the run...... well, I told Elaine they had gone. Oh well, she said. Oh well, I agreed.
Thursday morning, 8.18am, I have accepted that the hens have gone forever.

I have decided that, they have until midnight tonight (Thursday night/Friday morning) to come back and things will be like they used to be, we will laugh, we will play and ..... well, no, they will just get fed properly but if they don't come back and I see them again before I leave, it's the frying pan for them.

Fruhstuck, You're Free !!!

I felt that, after one week of being tied to a car wheel and being restricted to a radius of about 5 feet, that it was time to free Fruhstuck. Abendessen seems to realise that this is her home and doesn't stray far at all so I presumed Fruhstuck would do the same.

I was untying her in a fit of laughter as when I stood on the rope and she was trying to run away, she jumped on a flower pot, tried to jump off the other side but the rope wasn't long enough and her face ended up slamming on the ground. It was something you would see in a cartoon. Once her face was on the ground and her legs and arse pointing to the sky and resting on the flower pot, she didn't move. Maybe out of shock, fear or maybe out of embarrassment.

So anyway, she is now free, has been for a few days now and hasn't disappeared. I haven't seen her outside the yard yet so I honestly don't know if she knows how to get out. I don't know why she doesn't follow Abendessen. Anyway, I'm sure she will get it.

While on a dala dala, I was sitting in the front and I saw a goat run out onto the road with what looked like broken rope tied to it's neck and soon after, a young guy sprinting after it. The goat kept running in the middle of the road, almost getting hit by another dala dala. When the dala dala stopped, a car obviously thought it was stopping to let people get out, so it pulled out to pass it, quite fast. The goat was still running and almost ran face first into the front of the car but the car stopped just in time and the goat turned and ran down another street. By this time, the guy was wrecked and was shouting at other people, I'm presuming to try catch the goat. Sadly I didn't see the end of this as my dala dala drove on.

But, seeing this made me feel alot less stupid about when my hens first escaped about 10 minutes after I bought them. I wonder if he ever got the goat back.

My New Past-Time

I now play football every Monday and Friday and possibly every Wednesday too but that could be annoying and expensive to get to every week. We play in an Mzungu compound (like a guarded estate of houses). We play on a small pitch but is plenty big enough for up to 8 a side. We usually get about 5 or 6 a side. There is grass is some places but its mostly red clay which gets in my nose and throat and can be annoying by the end. And after each session, my legs are covered in this red clay that they look like a 20 year old Irish girls face on a Saturday night. (Fake tan jibe there for anyone who didn't get that !!)

I'm definitely the youngest Mzungu there and usually there are 1 or 2 Tanzanians but I'd say they are a bit younger than me but I could be very wrong. I'm about average on the ability scale. There are a few guys alot better than me, most noticeably Joey (Irish) and Erick (Norwegian). It is mostly Irish, some English and 2 guys from some Latino South American country. Some other countries too. Oh, and obviously the Tanzanians are better than me because they can be annoyingly skillful, most of them.

Not only does it benefit my fitness and social aspects of life, it also is an excuse to leave work early ! I leave work at 3.30pm and cycle home. When I get home, I only change my t-shirt and put football shorts in a bag. I have designated a pair of socks to play in as they are already completely destroyed. I play in my runners which can be annoying as most of the guys have boots and I skid a bit more than they do, but I get by. I get the dala dala to Msasani and a taxi to Valhalla compound which I just say 2,000tsh(€1.20) and they always accept. Considering it costs about €4 to put your bum in a Dublin taxi, I don't have an issue with haggling the price down. I always get him to stop at a shop near the compound to buy water.

After the football, I walk down to the shop and buy a Pepsi and a small bottle of water to cool down and walk to the taxis that are always at this certain tree. One will always come up to me saying "Taxi". I use Swahili so they will not overcharge me (contradicting above point but by this stage, I'm tired, before I'm just excited to play football) but these guys seem fair anyway. I say "Mambo vipi, naenda Magomeni, elfu sita", which means, "What's up, I'm going to Magomeni, 6,000". They reply 7,000(€4.20) and I say "sawa sawa" (cool cool). I would say 7,000 but the Swahili for 7 & 9 have a hard time staying in my head. But at this stage, I think they know me because when I say Magomeni, they sometimes say "Fundakira?" which is where we live exactly and one taxi driver asked me whats days I play football on. I then get driven home while I try and sit forward, due to common curtsy, I don't want to layer his seat with sweat. When I get home, I wash the red out of my hair, off my face, arms and legs and pretend I'm in a murder film.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the new thing to pass my time in Dar es Salaam.

An Update on Life and Beyond !!!

As their is nothing worth dedicating a whole blog post to, I'll just give a brief update on life and beyond.

Life in Tanzania is still going good, but missing life in Dublin and Linz is really getting to me. People from Linz meeting up and the boys going to the Shamrock Bowl in Limerick at the weekend. I attended my first online Mensafest last night. (People from Linz having a conference chat on skype) Was a good laugh.

I woke up a few days ago with a small back ache, cycled to work and it got worse. I think it's my bed as every morning, it's worse than how it felt the night before. I played football on Wednesday hoping it would loosen up but it stayed the same, I just played worse than I usually do. It's TFI Friday (3rd August) as I write this and I am meant to be playing football after work but I think I'll give it a miss. Tomorrow, I will look around for a massage parlour or something. Hopefully somewhere that doesn't have mzungu prices. I asked Tende if he knew where I could get a massage for non-mzungu prices, he laughed and replied, in most of the bars and clubs at night time.

Work is also getting more interesting as I am actually making progress on Tende's Afri Roots flash multimedia CD. The most interesting part is that I haven't bothered touching the project I'm doing for the company I'm working in and I'm sticking to the more interesting one. I haven't written about what I'm doing at work as it's not very interesting.

A Brief Rant !
To get a taxi, you must know exactly where you are going because if it's off the beaten track, the taxi driver won't know but he will tell you he does, just to get your taxi fare. IDIOTS !! I was meant to be playing football on Wednesday at 5pm at someones house but my taxi driver was such a tool that I didn't get there until 5.30pm. Anyway, it's good to talk !

Inflation in Dar is terrible: Dala dalas have gone up a massive 50tsh. Do they think we are made of money? I mean, that's a massive 3 cent to the common European. Shocking stuff altogether. Speaking of dala dalas, I have forgotten to mention a very strange yet common occurrence. It's not unusual to see guys in Rollerblades holding to the back of the dala dalas hitching a free ride. They are going along a main road at about 50mph when a single bump in the road could make them fall and kill them. Rollerblading seems quite popular in Dar. Each man to himself !

A Strange Occurrence
Sitting outside a shop last night, drinking a Coke, talking to Kristin on the phone, a child, maybe 2 years old came over to me and stared until the mother pulled it away. Just as my credit on the phone went, the child sat down on the ground opposite me, still staring with it's mouth open and tongue edging over it's lips, I said mambo and strangely enough, it began to piss it's pants. Some rasta standing nearby thought it was quite funny. I'm guessing 'it' was my reaction and not the situation of the child pissing itself.

I will untie Fruhstuck from her ball and chain on Sunday, as I think a level of trust has developed, as much as a level of trust between a man and 2 hens can develop.

Nature around my daily life
At home, we have small lizards, mosquitoes and my personal addition of hens. I found a dead but twitching cockroach in my shower, Elaine was man enough to remove it for me. At the University where I work, there are a group of baboons that are around the place. I've only noticed these recently. When closing the door of my shower/pit-toilet at work, a cockroach dropped past my head. They are the most disgusting looking things I have ever seen. I thank God that they do not exist in Ireland, maybe Saint Patrick got rid of those too, like he did the snakes. My most strange sighting though was when I was walking up the stairs to the office, out the window, I saw a lizard walking around that must have been 3 feet long and probably .75 of a foot high. Those numbers mightn't sound impressive but it was MASSIVE !!!

I think I've written about every strange and wonderful observation in Dar es Salaam which means that new entries in the blog will be very rare unless something strange happens worth telling, eg. A stunned looking child soiling itself. I'm trying to keep it interesting and not boring day to day stuff. And by the way, putting my pictures online is a slow process and most of the time, randomly, the Internet at work can't put them up.

Chicken Update

Well, the chickens are still with me. Abendessen has not run away but is still untied. I'm afraid that if I chase her, she will get scared and disappear.
Since she is still around, no harm leaving her untied. On Saturday, I must go to a farm shop and buy something called Tetra-something-something.
It kills diseases in chickens and Fruhstuck is kind of looking a bit sad. I'll get it for both of them but I don't know if Fruhstuck is getting sick
or is just jealous that her sister is running free and she still has a bit of rope attached to her leg.
I'm keeping her tied up because I think if Fruhstuck is kept in the yard, Abendessen won't go off anywhere on her own.

There is not too much information on the Internet about what they eat and what is on the Internet, is not in Tanzania. I bought them rice but had the feeling I heard somewhere that it could make them explode but Elaine, being all wise said, no, it won't. I also bought them, what I think is flour. Tende said they eat that. Anyway, all the rice is gone from the ground.

I was later talking to my good friend Nigel Alley who lived on a farm as a young nipper and chickens used to chase him for his biscuits. And he informed me that I should soak or cook the rice in water as it expands and if it expands in their stomach, it can kill them.

So anyway, the chickens are doing fine. They have provided competition for all the small lizards in the yard in eating all the insects. I wonder do they eat small lizards????