Life in Tanzania

I've gotten very used to life over here, but occasionally I will stand back and marvel at how different life can be here. And it's amazing how quickly you can get used to it.

We have free internet access here thanks to a local Internet Service Provider (Habari) who give us free access as we're a school. Thanks to the genuis work of our new IT team, we also have wireless internet which we can use in our rooms, as I am doing now. I NEVER expected this over here. It's nearly as surprising as seeing Masai men, herding their goats up the mountains, wearing only a couple light Masai shuka (blankets) as clothing, on their mobile phones!

And yet, we often have no power. In fact, were it not for our generators (THANK YOU ROTARY) we would have no power seven days a week, at least twelve hours a day.

Very frequently, we have no water coming from our boarhole or the pipe which supplies the local village. We have had to buy tanks of water so we can boil it for drinking, use it to cook with, wash etc.

There is no delivery service from restaurants/ pizza places/ Chinese restaurants. but we have our own little system! We call our local taxi driver, text him a list of what we want and he goes to the Chinese restaurant in town, orders and pays for the food adn then brings it to the school. What a thrill on a Saturday night.

There is a cinema here but it rarely works. But if you want to see a film of your own, we just bring along a DVD and they will play it.

There are no public swimming pools - they are all in hotels or schools. So if you don't mind paying for a meal or drink, you can usually swim for free!

We don't have access to TV here but we usually end up seeing the latest movies as people send them out to us (THANK YOU EVERYONE) so we're kept up to date!

On a Saturday, shops close around lunchtime and don't open again until Monday morning.

Everyone rests on a Sunday and dresses up for church. And it's not uncommon for another teacher or student to invite you to their church on a Sunday. If someone did that in Australia or Ireland you would think they were trying to get you into a cult!

If you go into a bar and you want some credit for your mobile phone, they will run to the shop and buy it for you. If you want some chips and they don't have any potatoes, they will go and buy them and make chips for you without a word of complaint.

It's such a different lifestyle here. Sometimes I miss home but I love the contrast of life here and am enjoying it while I'm living here. I doubt I will ever experience anything like this again.