Pictures from Zanzibar

Back in Muheza

This is the after shot of my first major wipeout on the bike. As Sefu called that I am now black. Many major cuts all over my body. I feel I got away un scathed and I was laughing 5 minutes later. Sefu lately has been riding with us and taking some enjoyment of it. We have our usual loop that he has done 5-6 times and on the occasion we will do our long loop which involves a 10 minute no peadleing segment which he and I love to race.
Julliette was booged down with cloths from our 8 day Zanzibar trip. The laundry basket was overflowing. Having left the flash drive in the pockets of my shorts I realized that that was now in the wash. Quick moements saved the fob and all the documents on it. It didn’t quite get fully water drenched so it was easily savable and was then tested on the big computer at the hospital because if any computer here is going to need some reason for replacement it is that one.
We have now become somewhat into Turkey and Bike Trip planning. With the help of google maps we got down some distances and starting to give others who might join us some idea of where we are going to be. The route is slowly taking shape and google maps may tell us that the highway is fastest but that is not really what we are looking for.
Zanzibar finished with a bang. A 2 and a half hour truck/daladala ride with at least 30 people meant that there was some amount of money being handed over at the police stops. The classic moment was when our little truck licenced to carry 20 drove past a larger bus licencedto carry 30 when we had 30 oursleves. Met some Solvakian volunteers who were just finishing there time in Uganda doing teaching about “good” agriculture with the aspects of composting, no deforestation and land consevation. They were saying a lot of the same stuff about time that we say in the sense of they were there for 6 months and it took 3 months to get the compost up and running. First just apile of waste, then a hole with garbage and yard waste and so on. We got there email and wl contact them again.
We are back to our usual routine of Math, and English. Brain needs a refresher from not doing it for a week. Nice to be back in Muheza. Will post again soon
G

Merry Merry From Zanzibar

It is seeming that a lot of my blogs are starting with ``it has been a long time since I have posted'' which it has. We are in Zanzibar for Christmas on a postcard perfect sandy beach. Yes the postcards dont lie. Lately the weather has been overcast here on Zanzibar but a couple of days it has been in the high 30s to low 40s. Dad and Mom found Stone Town a little to "lonely planetyyy" for them and I aggree it was alittle over the top. With people hassling you almost every time you step out the door it got a little much. It took until the thrid day to figure out the meal thing with us paying 40 the first night, 22 the second night and 8 the last night. Mom and Dad have satified there coffee need with two latte's from the Zanzibar Coffee House and a expresso from on the street. Our hotel was the Flamingo in which was a little our from tourist ville and had tons of tiny streets near to go exploring. We found that there was one alley that was the true tourist hot spot with all the gifts and souviners at your finger tips. We rode a converted truck out to the beach. It is like a small pick-up truck are staying with a roof and bench seets. We are staying at the Red-Monkey Bungalows which is true to his name with enough Monkeys for it to be able to be a consevation site for the Red Monkey which is endangered. It is quite nice with a massive sand bar and swimming. The tide is the only problem beacuase whzen it goes out it goes out and it is only in for a short period of time. We have found ways around that with us walking out on the sand bar before diving in. Tons of creatures to see and just today I saw a mini squid shot out black ink beacuse i spooked him.
Muheza seemed ok when we left. We took the worlds fastest Daladala out to the airüpport which left almost immediatly which is very unusual. The pilot of the plane was from sidney. Yes sidney BC and he reconiced my Canucks Tshirt. He said he remembered Tanners Book Shop and all that. That was quite funny. The Amos family (Ben and Sally) had all come down with a cold just after there safari in the serengetti which brought back many great stories from Maxee (4) and Zacha (7). Now that we have left it looks like Alex has cuaght the cold to so we left at a very good time. Sunday night Catan carrys on as usual with the medical students. Now that we have just recieved Seafarers(another extension) we will be even more popular. I have just started to work and give my input on the Teule website and school is already going to be back in 2 weeks. ahh. Mom is back from Canada which as you all know happened a while ago but I am just that slow on the posts. Another AT news will be sent to rose soon and a christmas special plus pics whn i get around to it. I will hopefully write again soon. Merry Merry again and Happy New Year. Love to all. G

Things in and around Muheza

In the case of the punch buggy I got everyone on no punch backs. Simon was to busy taking photos of the car so I have to give him credit for the photo and Mom and Dad just don’t have the cat like reflexes like I do but I have to admit we are were a little late to start having not done it in a while.
We are just returning from a day in Tanga where Mom and Dad were on rounds at Bombo so Sy and I were off to our usual Mkonge rotation of Breakfast, Soka on TV and Schoolwork. We for the first time got to watch a Champions League game from start to finish. The first one was Lyon vs. Berlin in the champion’s league and arsenal vs. fc Porto also a champion’s league game.
As you can tell Mom is now back Jet lagged see was but is now getting back into the sort of routine. We had a 4-day weekend because of a Muslim holiday and Independence Day so that came a t a perfect time. She has brought back tons of reading material so none of us have been talking to each other at all over the last week.
I hate to tell yah this but I am already bored of being out of school. It was just starting to get to be a part of my daily routine when it ended. I will just put it out there that it is not fun with a bugging brother, relatively easy but sometimes challenging math, heat and 6 weeks with no summer camps. I now it sounds fun but I found that after the first week or so I was deadly bored. I know I know it sounds unreal but it is true.
Mangoes and Plums are now ripe and it looks like carrots and cucumbers are going out of season. Bananas are still going strong as I like to say as well as tomatoes, onions etc.
For all of you corresponding with L and A we are having serious problems with the downloading of emails. And no we have not just fallen off the map. I am trying very hard to fix it all as it is very slow and Ben is away in the Serengeti so there is no real computer technician to speed it up. We are really bummed about this and we will try to stay in touch.
There seems to be water rationing going on in Muheza as we cant tell but from the schedule, which is in Swahili, we either have water on Tues. and thurs or no water on those days and just to throw in another problem our water pump was on its last days and choose the best time to give out so we even f we had water had no water which caused great hassle and the using of the dreaded shower bag just to keep cool. Thankfully the fixing process took less then 30 min when we finally had someone go out and buy the new pump but all together it could have been a lot longer.
We are now starting to get a steady stream of letters and snail mail and now just before Christmas Parcels. Keep up the good work on the mailing front. It looks like most things from NA are about 2 weeks.
Anyway that pretty much summed up what we have been doing lately. Christmas is coming and you wouldn’t know it here. Ha-ha
g

A.T. News

Fun in the Sun in Dar

With us just back from a great weekend in Dar and Alex and Emily cleaning and fixing up there new house things were a little crazed when we got home. We had a wonderful time in Dar and the match was great with Tanzania winning 3-1 over Sudan. There was a great atmosphere when they scored but when Sudan scored you wouldn’t have known only that the ref brought the ball back to center. The crowd just did nothing. Not even a boo. Dad says his meetings in Dar were worthwhile but we might need to go back later with Mom but he received all the necessary emails and numbers to get at least an application in to get morphine at Bombo (Tanga’s Main Hospital). We had a couple brutal cab rides especially the one back a forth from the TFDA (Tanzania Food and Drug Agency) which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere and was a half and hour drive or more both ways. We tipped heavily on that ride. We had some very good meals and then some not so good meals. We found this amazing restaurant just around the corner from out hotel that had rice, chicken, mutton, samosa and sodas fro lunch and chicken and chips with some pastries for dinner. It had a little bit of every thing that would please us all. The dinner at the hotel was good but expensive so we only ate there on the first night when we were exhausted and didn’t want to walk around. The breakfast was a minute omelet, 2 slices of toast, a banana (on good days) and your choice of jam or blue band from the tiny selection that is scraped on to your plate that when spread very well could not cover more than a quarter of the toast. Our room had 3 single beds a bathroom, AC and a fan, which was really, all we needed accept my Dad really wanted a TV, which we didn’t have.
With school out for six weeks we are going to get very bored thinking of all you back at home struggling through a day of school while we lounge around. I don’t think it is going to be like that for us. We will be doing our home school package that we brought so don’t worry about us not having something to do and no, J7asper we don’t need some of your homework.
Our internet has been own so I don’t know when I will get this finally up but hopefully soon and I will post again soon.
G

A Walk in The Woods

The mosquitoes may have been bad but with what we saw it was well worth the the bug dope. The sights were amazing on the “chameleon walk” with us seeing massive grasshoppers the size of our hands and little tree frogs hidden so well beneath the leaves but best of all was the chameleons!! They came in all shapes and sizes with the colors sadly staying the same but people say that it takes a good while for the color to change.
A group of us meet at the Amani headquarters at about 8:30. Dad , Sy and I. Alex , Emily and the two Irish girls who had just finished teaching at Holy Family Primary School. The seven of us had high hopes for this walk and we were ready to see sights that made the $30 entry fee worth while (We only had to pay 5000 shillings or $5 because of our residence permits but the Irish girls had to pay full). We meet our two guides who know this stuff like the back of there and which makes us all walk a little easier. All of us “Americanized” folk with our 6 bulb super LED lamp and them with a light hardly right at all and they are the ones who can find these magical beasts.
We, sorry The Guides, spot the first Chameleon. A pigmy chameleon standing very still on a branch. We found out that once something a whole lot bigger then them approaches them their only tactic for survival si to stand very still and not move. This one was very small and its eyes ooo it eyes were very cool. They are almost a little eye on the end of a funnel they are very neat to look in close at.
With these creatures standing amazingly still it made it quite easy to get in close and “check them out.” The guides would even break off the stick that they were on to bring it close for us to see and then out it back very gently. It was very good we had these guides because first of all we would not have known our way and wouldn’t have had a clue what to look for and these guys knew.
Now it is back to the campsite for a nice long sleep because I can tell we are all so tired but again it was well worth it.
g

Internet

The hospital is having major internet problems
Right Now i am up at a internet cafe
no idea when it will be back up
they are doing a complete refitting
g