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.
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