A home away from home!!

It was a busy past few days for us in Kampala. We found a flat for a few days so I’ll tell ye about the craic with that!…..

The title by the way “a home away from home” is the motto of almost every hotel, lodge, guesthouse and restaurant in Kampala. I don’t know if they realise this or not :)

So we got ourselves sorted with an apartment :)! Its a basic flat in the middle of the city center, but to us its like the Bellagio, compared to where we’ve stayed so far!
Its a great commodity to be able to go to a supermarket and cook for ourselves over here. Eating out takes it toll on the good old digestive system, so this change will be greatly welcomed.

We went to the tourist office here in Kampala during the week and told them our situation and that we wanted to rent an apartment for a week or ten days. So Thursday afternoon, I got a call to say come up to an estate agents office, that we were going to be showed an apartment.
So when we arrived the gentleman said that his colleague was going to come by and bring us to the apartment block. The man arrived and he was an old man of about 70+ and wore a brown suit and had a big gold cross hanging down from his neck. He was really nice and informed us that he “knows” the people who own this apartment blocks. At first we assumed that he was a priest. However, we’ve come to realise that people over here are only nice and friendly if they want something(well the 99% of people we’ve met anyways!), and that they are not always WHO they say they are either….
Anyways, as we are walking into the block of flats into the reception area, the man points up to the sign above the entrance which says “Makatumba Suites”. At reception, he introduces us to another man and informs him that we are volunteers in Kampala and asks him “does he have anything suitable for us”. I asked the man behind reception how much was the flat that he was going to show us, and he didn't respond…he just looked at the man who brought us there with an awkward glance! We both thought this was strange that he wouldn't tell us how much the flat was!
So up to the flat we go, while the old man waits at reception. The flat itself is basic and clean…which was more than we could have hoped for. While we were looking inside it the guys phone rang and he walked outside the apartment to take it. Immediately I knew what was going on!
So when he came back in two minutes later, I again asked him how much the flat was per night. $45 per night he quirked back. Our budget is $35 per night so I replied that that’s all we would pay. $40 he said was the lowest he could give it to us. So I said that we wouldn't be taking it. We returned back down to reception where the old man was waiting to see “if we got a nice flat sorted”! We told him that our budget was $35 per night and that we wouldn't pay anything over that. He asked the fella at reception would he “kindly speak with his employer” and see what could be done for us good people volunteering in his city! Nothing could be done the man replied.
So the old man said that he would try and find us something as we “are such good people”. He wrote down his telephone number and signed his name as “Dr.John Makatumba”!! Ring any bells? You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what this fella was at. He was pretending to be a little old man(which is was!) who went to church all day and had nothing else to do. But in actual fact he was the owner of this block of apartments who was trying to get as much money out of us Mzungu’s as possible. Does he really think that we are that brainless that we couldn't figure out from the big sign above the entrance gates and the reception fella not been able to give us a price while he was there and then signing his name as John Makatumba!

Anyways, to make a long story short…..I’m rambling again, we left the reception with his name and number. I told Flor that we would hear from Mr.Makatumba within 20 minutes! Sure enough ten minutes later the “doc” himself rings me and says that “he has talked the owner into giving us the apartment for $35 per night”!!!
One thing people in Africa hate is losing potential business. They will try and make a sale at any cost. So getting $35 per night was better than nothing Mr.Doc rightly calculated!
So we went back to reception and kindly thanked the little man for all his help and I also said to him to “thank the owner” for agreeing to the price!!
Hahaha….he didn't look too pleased I can tell you! He knew that we knew the story!!

So I’ve included a few photo’s below of our flat in which we’ll stay in for nine or ten days until we head off to Rwanda.
We initially had no cooker/oven, only two cooking rings(as you can see from the photo’s), but I went a asked that we have an oven….as us “volunteers need to eat”! We had one ten minutes later! :)

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Tomorrow I’ll fill ye in on the weekends craic, which included an early Paddy’s day celebration party.

Ciao!

Sanyu babies home

Here are a few photo’s from the orphanage we volunteer at here in Kampala.

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Already we have great memories of Kampala and the little one’s are a joy to be around. We really like it here in Kampala.

Comment feature added to blog!

Finally after eight weeks of trying, I've finally cracked how ye can leave comments on the blog. I had to give it a bit of a face lift though in order to do this. It was my own fault as initially when I set up the blog I messed around with the HTML code on the template. And as my buddy John MacHale would say to me "don't go playing with HTML unless you know what your at"! Good advice :)

Anyways, feel free to leave a comment, question, suggestion or sly remark on any of the entries. I'll try to answer any questions you have.

Ciao!

Our project in Kampala

“Every child has a name and a story; everyone has the right to health, learning and protection, the right to their full potential and the right to participate in the shaping of their world”

UN Press Summary, The State of the Worlds Children 2002.



So last Wednesday we got ourselves sorted with a volunteer project here in Kampala. We had two contacts arranged for volunteer work.....Sanyu babies home and compassion international(more about this later!)

Anyways we started in Sanyu babies home last Wednesday. This is an orphanage that cares for up to 50 abandoned and parent less babies. Their ages range from newborn to 4 years. The children are found in many varied places; from maternity wards, and hospitals; outside houses and, police stations; in taxis, and taxi parks; to rubbish dumps, pit latrines, and often just by the side of the road. We've seen this poor babies and children lying at the side of the roads, waiting and hoping to be picked up and fed.

When a child is brought into the orphanage, efforts are made to find their parents or extended family but in most cases this proves unsuccessful. The main objective of Sanyu Babies Home is to see the children resettled back into the community with relatives or with foster families. Some of the children at Sanyu are fostered and adopted into local and overseas families, the other children move onto other homes and orphanages as they get older.

So, volunteers are greatly welcomed by the orphanage as you can imagine. There are full time staff there who are qualified in certain areas. But you don't need to be qualified to feed, play with and wash children, so thats what we help do. Volunteers are allowed stay and help from 8am till 1pm monday to friday.

Our typical day starts with helping the staff bath and play with the 18 babies that are currently under the age of three. For a man who finds children alot of hard work, I've adapted very well over the course of the past 7 weeks. When you see a baby in a malnourished and neglected state laugh...it would melt your heart. Its tough to imagine how their life will manifest itself from this early age, with so little and no one to bear responsibility for them. They sit in the kindergarten area for a few hours every day and get fed, washed and if their are enough volunteers - played with individually. Their emancipated bones stick out like rocks on a barren hillside, but their smiles and play full happiness are amazing to witness.

After playtime, we help feed them. Their dinner is a small portion of mashed potatoes with some soup mixed through it and some sort of baby milk afterwards. They eat this at a speed that would make someone like me who eats very fast, look very slow. Their are usually alot of tantrums at this stage as a few hungry hands go robbing neighbours food when their own is finished!

When dinner is over, we help bath and change them before they are put to bed for an afternoon nap....which is around the 1pm time.

Its hard to imagine, but we do be mentally wrecked come time to go. We can only imagine how difficult it must be for the full timers who are there around the clock. Its emotional stuff to be honest and it takes alot out of you both physically and mentally. We have saturdays and sundays to ourselves.

We are staying in Kampala for three weeks in total and then we will move to Kigali in Rwanda to volunteer there.

Helping out at an orphanage like this is not only rewarding, but a real life experience. To see life through the eyes of an abandoned child is truly humbling and life affirming.

Regarding the other organisation that we had a contact for....Compassion international. This seemingly is a big enough worldwide group, although I never heard of them before or either did Florence. Needless to say, after our meeting with one of their representatives, I had heartburn in my ears!

We went and met with one of their officers at the Kampala office last Tuesday(day before we started in Sanyu babies home).

We told the man, who was called Jackson about what we wanted to do and and what we had done already in Tanzania. He said that they are a Christian organisation and that they run different projects throughout Kampala as well as the rest of Uganda.

To be "allowed" to participate as volunteers however, we had to answer a few personal questions....if we didn't mind!! We said fire ahead.

First question: what religion are we? Catholic I promptly answered.

Second question: Whats the name of your church? St.Josephs church....obviously not the answer he was looking for, as he looked at me suspiciously! Maybe the correct answer was the Roman Catholic church...I don't know.

Third question: Are we a couple? Yes I replied.

Fourth question: Are we married? No I said as I smiled politely. Obviously another incorrect answer as Jackson looked very displeased at this response.

End of Interrogation!

We were told that we would be contacted the next day.......a phone call that we still haven't received, and do not wish to receive.

What a load of crap! We both knew exactly what this guy wanted to know. He wanted to make sure that we were of Christian/Catholic beliefs and hoping that we were married...before we would be considered to help out in any of their projects! I don't know if this has happened before, or is part of their policy over here, but its a complete disgrace.

So in order to give a helping hand to poor children and babies you MUST be a Christian believer?? It would be appropriate to also be married, because we are man and woman.....a couple...we must therefore be married? Ridiculous. 100% absolutely garbage. This man looked down at us because we were not married. Its not just me thinking this...Florence was there as well.

And also because I said St.Josephs church, which I don't think was the answer he was looking for, he probably thought that we were not Catholics...and just making it up because we wanted to help volunteer with them.

An absolute disgrace this is.

Sanyu babies home is also a Christian organisation. But were we interrogated when we arrived? No, we were welcomed with open arms and all that was expected of us was to sign in and out every day and give the babies as much help at we can...pure and simple. No questions about religion or marital status whatsoever!

And that's the way it should be full stop. I'm really baffled at the way we were treated, considering that we are volunteers, asking for no payment, and wanting to lend a helping hand in some of their projects. Maybe I should return to Jackson's office and demand why we were not contacted as promised by him.

Naturally religion should not come in the way of helping children out in third world countries. I'm not saying that this is the way in which "Compassion international" operate their business(well I hope not), but this man definitely did not entertain us after he found out we were not married, and he probably suspected wrongfully that we were not Catholics....which should be not big deal either. We were there to help and instead got interrogated. Good luck to that I say.

So I got that rant off my chest :)!

No other news really. We are going to head to a little town on saturday, which is about two hours away. Its called Jinja. Its more of an adventure town and is the source of the river Nile! So there's white water rafting, bungee jumps and quad biking trips all to be had there. The quad bikes are definitely getting a good doing. I love them. We went for a quad bike safari through the Sinai desert in Egypt two years ago and it was the brilliant craic. So looking forward to that.

Have a few funny observations about African life that I'll give its own update sometime soon.

So hope everyone is keeping well and thanks for everyone so far for the texts messages and words or support and wisdom :)

Chat with ye in a few days again.

Ciao!

A local tradition

I had this entry typed up from a few weeks ago while I was in Tanzania, but for some reason I forgot to publish it........

Its been said that if you get invited to the home of an Tanzanian(or indeed any African) that its both a great honour and experience to you and your host.We have been lucky enough to have gotten four different invites to such an occasion. We did our research and were prepared for the local traditions that awaited us.

Basically when you are lucky enough to get invited to spend an evening at someones home, its bad manners to refuse...especially if your a foreigner like us. The Locals take great pride in inviting you to their home and unless you've got a pretty darn good reason not to go...you accept and be happy about it.
Taking small gifts for the family is in order. Men like tobacco or other such items, while women prefer anything that keeps down their household expenses, be it sugar, coffee, soap or a few loaves of bread! Kids of course love sweets, but you give them to the mother or else you'll end up getting mauled in the stampede that follows.
Make sure you leave a big hole in your stomach before you arrive at the house, as the hosts will more than likely make a big play out of the fact that your not eating enough, even though you probably have eaten twice as much as they have.
Before eating, one of the women of the house appears with a bowl, soap and jug of hot water to wash your hands with. Food is eaten by hand from a communal bowl or plate...though you may be presented with a plate and cutlery, its best if you try and eat with your hands as the gesture will be valued!
When eating, you ONLY use your right hand! Eating with the left hand as we found out is bad manners and this is because the left hand is seen as a "dirty" hand...associated with going to the bathroom and the likes :)

Ugali is the local staple. It is generally made from maize and water which give it a porridge like consistency, or a dough like substance. Vegetables or meat is usually also served with it.
The traditional method of eating ugali as a main course (and the most common in the rural areas) is to roll a lump into a ball, and then dip it into a sauce or stew of vegetables or meat. Making a depression with the thumb allows the ugali to be used to scoop, and to wrap around pieces of meat to pick them up in the same way that flat bread is used in other cultures. Ugali can also be eaten with a spoon or a knife and fork....although as I said already this is frowned upon.

So we have had this experience four times so far in the five weeks we've been in Tanzania. The first time was in a little village outside Nairobi with Beatrice(see early post). When the Ugali was presented to us and we had washed our hands with the provided bowl of water we picked up the knife and fork and started to dig in! The host started laughing and she kindly informed us that we have to eat the food with our hands! I looked at Florence and we both thought the same thing....."good old paddy's from Ireland"!!
Anyways, we survived our first taste of Africa.

The other three invites came from the three female teachers at our school, who were more than eager to invite us to their house. When I say house I mean its a single shed about 8 foot square located somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Cooking was done outside on small little charcoal fires along with the washing. Inside the room, they have their bed, a small knee high table and two/three stools for guests/visitors. Clothes were in a ball at the end of the bed..presumably a makeshift wardrobe. And another table held everything and anything from food, butter, jam, hair brushes, pictures and other personal items. At first we were saddened that the conditions that they lived in were so basic in contrast to what we've been accustomed to in western society, but after a while we forgot about it and saw that they couldn't miss what they never had.
We have been very fortunate to have experienced such hospitality. I've heard from people who have been living and working in Tanzania for months, that they've never gotten invited to a locals house to eat. Even Tanzanian co-workers haven't invited them over to their house(yet).
We hope that we get many more invites before we go home as its a nice alternative to spending the evening at the hostel squatting mosquito's on the porch.

I got some lovely photo's our our visits to each house and I look forward to putting them up online when I get a decent connection again that won't take hours to upload a small file.

ciao

First impressions of Kampala

Small fragile fingers, skinny malnourished bodies and cries of "please give sir". This is the harsh reality that's commonplace in most African countries, but its one that we have witnessed for ourselves first hand here in Kampala.

Kampala lies in stark contrast to everywhere else we've been to in Kenya and Tanzania. First off, its alot more modern. When I say modern I mean that it has shopping malls, cinemas, loads of restaurants, fancy gadget shops and all the other amenities that one would find in any typical European city.

And secondly, it has alot more street poverty. You may think that this is a contraction when I said that its modern. But the fact is that the streets of Kampala are filled with thousands of homeless kids. In Tanzania there was a level of poverty that didn't go below a certain stage of begging. But here in Kampala, when you witness men, women and children walking down some streets with not a stitch of clothing on them then you'll realise how much of a contrast Uganda already is compared to Tanzania. Such is the level of poverty here.

Its hard to describe in pictorial detail what conditions are like here for those who live on the streets. Kids as young as only a few months are sitting on the pavements with their hands cupped over their heads looking for money. There are others who are a little older and they come running up to every second person on the street begging for a few coins. This is hard to take. Its even harder to accept that you can't give them anything. Why? Because they would be in alot worse condition if they got money from someone as thugs and even some police officers would take the money off the kids. Some bent cops even beat the kids into giving them the money. Another harsh reality that even more difficult to understand.

When Idi Amin(Ugandan president) destroyed the country back in the 70's and 80's he left his mark. A mark that is still visible today on the streets in Uganda. The butcher of Uganda, as he was known ordered his followers to torture and murder anyone who opposed his leadership. Men, women and children who were unlucky to be captured for no apparent reason had one of two options: "Short sleeves or long sleeves"!
If they choose short sleeves then they would have their hands butchered off at the elbow, while the long sleeve option got them their hands chopped off at the wrist. The same scenario went for the "shorts or 3/4 lengths"...meaning chopped at the knee's or the ankles.
So on the streets, we've seen hundreds of poor people who are mutilated and deformed if you like as a result of that war back in Amin's period. These people would have been like they are today for the past 30 years or so. Resigned to begging from an early age because of the atrocities of their back then president.
It really is stomach turning to see these poor human beings with disfigured remains of arms and legs. It will no doubt be alot worse in Rwanda, with the genocide just a decade and a half ago.

So apart from the poverty, Kampala is really a nice place. The local mode of public transport is boda boda's, which are motorbikes. So we fly around the city on the back of these bikes and its not for the faint hearted. They are lunatics for drivers. But the reason why we use these instead of dala dala's(small mini buses like what they have in Tanzania) is because the traffic in Kampala is grid lock 24/7. So as you can imagine, two wheels are alot faster, cheaper but more dangerous than four wheels. Its like Beijing with bicycles...motorbikes are in their thousands here on the streets. Very funny to watch as there is no system on the streets for driving. Its everyone for themselves.

So over the weekend I'll post an update about the project that we are involved with.

Ciao

Uganda at long last!

Finally after 5 days of travel we reached Kampala in Uganda. The journey was one that would shatter the very foundations of one's religious beliefs! It was without a doubt a fascinating and laborious journey, and one that will have me NEVER again complain about public transport back home :)!

Here was our route from Arusha(Tanzania) to Kampala;

• Arusha to Dar es Salaam (10 hours by bus)
• Dar es Salaam to Dodoma (7 hours by bus)
• Dodoma to Mwanza (13 hours by bus)
• Mwanza to Bukoba (13 hours by overnight ferry)
• Bukoba to Kampala (7 hours by bus)

We left Arusha last Thursday morning after departing two hours late, and boarded what turned out to be a sauna of a bus. We were presently surprised when we saw that there was a toilet facility on the bus as we didn't know whether we'd be stopping many times for breaks along the way. This journey was heaven compared to the rest of the trip to be honest, and if anything we got our hopes up wayyyy to early regarding travel in Africa! We arrived into Dar es Salaam around 9pm Thursday night sticky, smelly but in otherwise high spirits! We had to catch the train the following day which would take us directly to Mwanza, taking a total of 40 hours (not including breakdowns!)
Well so we thought anyways! So we went straight to the station to get our tickets for the following mornings departure, but was told by the shed master...I mean station master...that the 1st class and 2nd class cabins were all sold out and that the only alternative option was to go in 3rd class or wait until Wednesday for the next train! Now, 1st and 2nd class cabins meant that you'd have your own private space with 1st class having just 2 beds and 2nd class having 6 beds. So what exactly was 3rd class I asked?! It was just sitting on the floor along with hundreds of others for 40+ hours! NO THANK YOU! We opted to bite the bullet and make the journey in stages by bus.
We later found out that the central line train from Dar es Salaam to Mwanza isn't exactly the best form of transport in Tanzania. We were told by one man who made a similar journey in a 1st class cabin that he had rats and a nest of cockroaches to contend with in his cabin for the whole journey!! He said that the rats eat a whole loaf of bread during the night on him(remember you had to bring your own food for the trip as it takes about two whole days if your lucky) and that he was more pissed off with that than anything else!!! He hit a rat with a shoe though on the second day and he didn't see it for the rest of the journey....not soooooo bad then! :)
He also told us that the train regularly breaks down along the way and that he was stopped in the middle of nowhere from 6pm one evening till 11am the following morning! The entire journey took him 61 hours!!! arrrrahhgggg!!!
So that made us wonder what exactly would 3rd class comfort have been like if we were insane enough to have gone for it?

Anyways, we ended up getting a bus(or what resembled a bus) from Dar to Dodoma the following morning. The journey was 7 hours and the bus had no toilet facility. It made one stop for food and a few stops for the toilet along the way. When I say toilet stops, I mean that the bus pulls over to the side of the dirt track and men go one direction and women the other....you get my drift!!
We got into Dodoma Friday evening and booked our ticket to Mwanza for the following morning. Mwanza was still another 12/13 hours away the shed master informed us and the bus was departing at 1oam.

So Carlo and Florence arrive bright and early at the station at 9pm.....better to be early than late is my motto! How wrong that motto is in Africa! The bus arrives at the station at 12am...a whole 2 freckin hours late. I wouldn't mind if the bus came from another destination or something but it was starting its journey from Dodoma!! No excuse or apology from anyone to us "patient" clients! So we found ourselves at the very back of another sauna bus. The following trip was a 13 hour bone breaking journey across the barren midlands of Tanzania, where there was no roads for about half of the trip....just dirt tracks. For the rest of the time the roads had 3 sets of speed ramps at every mile. And you would think that this would cause the driver to slow down abit....not at all! If anything he drove faster over them. So even if we desperately wanted some shut eye the chances of getting any were zero. We stopped once for food at a so called food station....which was closed. Luckily there was an opportunist type of guy who had ready cooked chips and chicken....stone cold and stuff into small bag plastic bags. We didn't care as we were so hungry. We dosed it with salt to try and mask abit of the taste :)
We arrived in Mwanza a little after 1am that night.....very cranky as well as cremated. We stepped off the bus and was immediately grabbed by about seven different taxi men, all wanting our business. It got a little hostile at one stage as they started fighting among themselves over "who saw us first". So we hoped into a taxi and told him to bring us to the lake view hotel, which we had booked in advance. The driver told us that he had to change a flat tyre first though! We red faces and steam escaping from our ears we patiently waited 15 minutes until he found the tools and changed the tyre.
When we arrive at the hotel, the whole place goes into darkness. Another power cut....which happens every second day without fail in Tanzania. So we had the option we were told for a room without a light for Tsh20000($10) or a room with a light for Tsh30000($15). We I asked how could they have lights when there was a power cut he promptly enlightened me that they had candles!! Candles that was gona cost us Tsh10000 for the privilege! No thanks....we had our torches and they did the job. The power did come back on half an hour later :)

The following day(Sunday) we went and booked our 1st class cabin ticket for the ferry, which would take us across lake Victoria to Bukoba. This journey would take 12 hours and it left at 8pm Sunday night. Interestingly, Lake Victoria is Africa's biggest freshwater lake and the second biggest in the world. It has an area of over 70,000km square which is roughly the same size as Ireland.....huge bloody lake.
We boarded the Mv Victoria ferry and were presently surprised that the cabin was clean, and had a sink with running water and lights that worked. Great....we'd be able to sleep through the journey we thought! WRONG again we were. The pressure cooking heat was immense and it got to the point where we thought we were in a steam room. That combined with the roar of the ships engines which were directly beneath us made sure we were getting no sleep. Apart from that the ferry trip was great and it served nice dinners and had soda's etc to buy....which was a nice surprise. But we had our own food as well just in case. We arrived into bukoba just as the sun was rising, and I got some amazing sunrise photo's. It was the typical Africa sunrise, a huge round ball of sun climbing slowly up the horizon. The trip had taken 13 hours but it was fine. At least we were able to leave our cabin and get fresh air anytime we wanted.

So then we had the final leg of our journey.....Bukoba to Kampala(crossing the border from Tanzania into Uganda). We decided to get the bus that day(Monday) rather than wait until the next day. The bus left Bukoba on time at 11am and we had seats right at the front of the bus.....sharing the third seat beside us was two live roosters who had been tied at the ankles by some farmer and thrown on the bus....obviously going somewhere to be killed. It actually went the whole way to Kampala with us. The roosters were also wrapped in plastic bags and after a while the poor things were wet with perspiration. We were dripping wet so I can only imagine how the roosters must have felt....wasn't nice to be honest. But no one batted an eyelid.
After 7 hours we finally arrived at Kampala bus station to the same situation as Mwanza....minus the flat tyre episode!

So here we are in Uganda after 5 long days of African travel. It was a surreal journey to be honest and while we are glad we did it...we ain't looking forward to the return journey!! Our flight home is from Dar es Salaam on the east coast of Tanzania end of April!

However, we heard a little saying; that if you can manage and survive travel in Africa then you can master travel anywhere else in the world. I'm inclined to think that this would make perfect sense.

So I'll post another update tomorrow or the day after with all the news from Kampala, along with details and photo's(hoping Internet connection allows me) of our new project.

Ciao.

Off to volunteer in Uganda and Rwanda!

Well in a quick turn of events we've decided due to our visa problems(reasons can be read in my last post entry), to travel to Uganda and volunteer there with a similar organisation/setup as here in Arusha. We've contacted two orphanages in Kampala, Uganda and will visit them when we arrive. We initially said that we would spend a max of six weeks in the one spot and thats what we've done so far.

Yesterday was our last day in the school and with the friends that we've become very close to over the past few weeks. It was tough saying goodbye to the wee ones. As it was our last day we had arranged a special little party at the last minute. So we went and got some goodies for each child, like pencils, erasers, crayons, juice drinks, candy sticks, biscuits etc...and put them into a little bag for them. They loved the surprise and the smiles on their faces was amazing to see.
We really learned an awful lot from both the teachers and the kids that we had the pleasure of getting to know. The simple things in life that we take for granted on a daily basis, like water for instance, is such a commodity here! If it does'nt rain, alot of people, especially the poorer ones do not get water...its that simple.

We have been lucky to experience what it means to have no water. When I say "lucky", I mean that its made me appreciate how fortunate we are to have an endless supply of water back home. A couple of weeks ago, there was a huge shortage of water in Arusha and at our hostel there was no water(clean or dirty) in which to wash. This meant that we went without a shower for almost a week! Under normal circumstances, this may not have been too bad, but with the contstant heat and unbearable humidity it was excruiciating. One can only imagine how it must be like for people here who have to go through that feeling on a regular basis.

All in all, we had a very enjoyable six weeks in Arusha.


Getting back to the road ahead. We are getting a bus later today from Arusha to Dar es Salaam which is a 11 hour journey away. From there we will get the Central line train to Mwanza(which is on the south of Lake Victoria) and is a rotten 40 hour journey in itself! However, they have sleeper cabins so it may not be too bad.
From Mwanza we then have a 12 hour ferry trip across lake victoria to another small fishing port called Bukoba. From here its another 9 hour bus journey into Kampala!

Thats the plan of action anyways. We have been informed that travel in Africa is'nt like travel anywhere else in the world so we won't get our hopes up that things will go smoothly. Long delays and breakdowns, combined with horrendous roads seem to be the norm.

All I know is that so far the drivers on the roads are crazy, and safety seems to be no concern of theirs. So as long as we get from A to B in one piece then we'll be thankful.

For anyone who's wondering wheather its safe in Uganda and Rwanda, it is at the moment. There is some rebel activity in northern Uganda but we are only going as far as Kampala which the embassy imformed us was very safe and secure for tourists.
Regarding Rwanda, we aim to go to the capital Kigali, as we have a few sound contact details for there. Again there is some militery activity at the Rwandan/Congo border which is'nt safe, but Kigali is very safe.

So my next post will be from the land of Idi Amin(for anyone who saw the "last king of Scotland"!)

We've about a 2000km overland trip to get through until we reach Uganda :(

Ciao

Rwandan genocide, a haircut and more corrupton!

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)is an international court established in November 1994 by the United Nations Security Council in order to judge those people responsible for the Rwandan genocide and other serious violations of the international law performed in the territory of Rwanda, or by Rwandan citizens in nearby states, between 1 January and 31 December 1994....Quote from good old Wikipedia :)

So today we decided that we'd head for the courtreoom after school and witness the tribunal for our own eyes. We were told by loads of people that its well worth going to and is very interesting to see how a murder trial is carried out.

So we went along to the evening session which lasted 3 hours. The defendant was Hormisdas Nsengimana, a catholic priest who was formerly Rector of Christ-Roi College in Nyanza, which is located outside Kigali(capital of Rwanda). Nsengimana is charged with genocide, murder and extermination as crimes against humanity.
Nsengimana is alleged to have been among the organisers of the killing of Tutsis in Nyanza, Butare in 1994. He is accused of playing a leading role in a group of killers called Les Dragons (The Dragons) or Escadrons de la Mort (Death Squad). He is also alleged to have been instrumental in the killing of 3 Tutsi priests from his college.

Indeed the events in the 3 hour period were interesting. The prosecutor was going over some testimony that witness's gave over the past few weeks that seemed to be rock solid against the priest. The defence team then took the stand and basically tried to find "technical" faults with the prosecution witness's testimony...saying that such and such a testimony did'nt meet the specific requirements that was needed in such a court. Basically, from what we gathered was that the priest was beyond guilty and had'nt a hope...only a "technical get out clause" if his defence lawyers could find him one.

The priest sat there behind his defence with a smug smirk on his face...I wish I could have'nt taken a photo but we were unable to bring anything photo or electronic equipment into the court for obvious reasons.

There was no jury, only a presiding judge and other other judges...I don't know the jargon for all the different positions.

What I would like to know is this; do the defence team actually believe that their client is innocent in all this?? I know the whole "innocent until proven guilty" scenario comes into play, but the evidence against the priest from what we heard and were informed both before and after the session, that its only a matter of legal formality until he's convicted. So far over 80 criminals from the genocide have been found guilty by the court with a few getting away as a result of evidence been tampered with by the defence!!

Anyways, enough about that!

Other news of interest: Went a got head shaved again yesterday. The barber shop is like a butcher shop gone bad with the only devices there to cut hair been an electric razor. It figures as much since everyone has the same skint head look...including me :)!
I'm sure anyone out here could be a barber...all thats required is shaving heads! Nothing else...just shaving heads! He proceeds to shave mine with what I thought was a machette. This fellow was about 25 years old and could speak fluent swahili,english,italian,french and arabic!! But yet he could'nt take it easy on my sunburnt head with the razor. After the operation was finished he then starts shaving my face with the same razor...and before I know it I've only my two eyebrow's left....not a thing else. I thought at once stage that he was going to try and pluck some nose hair.
Just before he finishes, he dabs some talc powder around my burning neck and face before splashing BOILING water all over my head,face and butchered neck. I had to restrain myself from hopping up and giving him the peoples elbow from the top rope!
But it was an experience and one that I'll find hard to want to partake in again without a dose of ponston at the ready :)


We have to go up to the immergraton office either tomorrow or Monday to find out about our Visa problem. The hostel we are staying at arranged out visa's for us before we left Ireland, but the date of issue was Oct 28th - Jan 28th! Which meant that when we arrived in Tanzania we had only one week left on our visa which was meant to be a 3 month visa. The owner of the hostel made a mistake an got the office to issue our visa's back in Oct...instead of leaving it until Jan! So we then had to go and get another visa sorted(we did'nt have to pay the hostel for the first one obviously)....$100 each plus $20 compulsory bride! So we get our new visa's a few days later but find that instead of the dates been jan 30th - April 30th, its stamped Jan 30th - March 30th! Another problem and mistake, since we don't leave until middle April!
What this means is that we will be unable to get a "third" visa permit unless we leave and re-enter the country. This is a trick that we found out has happened quiet alot in these parts of the world where corruption is rampant!

When we went back to complain to the office we were gently informed that the matter can be "resolved" easily....this was said by a brute of a lady sitting behind her desk in her office, while discretely making the money sign with her index and thump fingers!! The "corruption free zone" sign on the wall above her head was another thing that I would have loved to have taken a photo of!

$200 a piece and we could have a new visa sorted for us she informed us. With that we both walked out of the office with steam coming from our red ears.

What a joke of a system they've got going down here. Needless to say we have no intentions of paying the bribe. We will just have to re-enter the country.

Anways, we'll try our arm again either tomorrow or monday and I'll see what the story is then.

I'm off for some corn on the cob, cooked over a bbq by local women, and about 5 bottles of sprite.

Ciao!

Corruption, extortion, discrimination and the MZUNGU!

Mzungu - Slang for "white person/man". Its what the locals here call us white people. To put it mildly, its the African equivalent of the term "Nigger" in western society.

So we've been living for a month exactly in Tanzania and over that period of time we've come accustomed to the various cultural differences and nuances that has come our way. We've adjusted well and we both love it here.

However we've made some observations over the past few weeks relating to the way the local people view Mzungu's! The main one been their blatant use of the word Mzungu at any given chance around you and when they see you coming. Could you imagine what would happen if we went around calling black people the "N" word when you meet them on the street? There would be a revolt. Well its the equivalent here...but without the prospect of a revolt. Its viewed as no big deal and its the only way to describe a white person apparently!
Initially, when we found out what this word that everyone was calling us meant we felt really offended and shocked that even grown adults shout it from across the road and start laughing among themselves. It did cause a few incidents of increased blood pressure but I had to bite the tongue more times than I care to remember. The one thing we did realize from the off is that getting aggressive towards locals could spark alot of trouble. Gangs are prevalent in these parts of the world more than I ever thought....hell even the dogs walk around in gangs!! Speaking of dogs...I'm convinced that they're racist as well as they always seem to want to attack us when we walk by :)

So after getting used to the label Mzungu, we were faced with another harsh reality! The reality that there is one price for African's and another price for "non-residents" aka Mzungu's!! Now we know that tourist's are the main income for most people here...but then why try and rip us off?! A simple example would be the taxi fares. A short taxi ride costs TSH 2000(which is about 1euro) and a longer one costs TSH 4000(2euro). But thats the African price! The Mzungu price can start from anywhere from TSH 5000 for short rides and TSH 10000 for the longer ones. It's beyond a joke though what they think they can get away with. As soon and you walk away from their initial quote and refuse to listen to them...you'll get the proper price. So if we are getting a taxi we just say we don't want the Mzungu price. Extortion is'nt the word though.
Another example of the rampant discrimination that goes on in this country is bus fares. Ok so we want to go to Moshi for a day trip. The sign reads "residents - TSH 5000, non-residents $10"!! Thats the polite way of saying "African's TSH 5000 and Mzungu's $10! I can assure you that if a Nigerian person walked into the bus station and asked for a ticket he would'nt have to produce his passport to verify that he was Tanzanian. It's a case of the colour of your skin and that's it...end of story.

Its a sad fact though as there's so much in the media about racism in western society towards black people, but to be honest its equally as bad here towards white people.Its the only country I've been to where I've felt racially intimidated. I can just imagine how it must feel like to those who are subjected to worse conditions and situations of it.

Anyways, I just wanted to make an entry on this subject as it strikes us as both funny and intimidating. For some reason they think that because we are white we are very naive and easily fooled. But I can guarantee you that they misjudged the wrong two people :)

Apart from that we have no news. We're having trouble with our visa's....very long story and not our fault! That will get its own blog entry later on!

We've been making great progress with our project in the school and I'm proud to say that I taught my class how to multiply by using the visual aid of dots! A simple technique that I was shown, but a very effective one when there's the language barrier to overcome as well!

We've been basically just going to and from school, eating and then hitting the sack around 9pm every night. The heat makes us so tired and with a 6:30am start every morning you definitely need the rest.

Ciao!

More photos!

Here are a few more photo's from our volunteer project in Arusha.

A few photo's from our trip so far!

Serengeti report!

The Serengeti is Africa’s most famous game reserve, renowned for its dense predator population and annual wildebeest migration. The Serengeti is so vast and barren that it covers an area of over 15,000km2.…which is the approx size of Northern Ireland! To put it mildly, its huge!!

Ok so we set off at 8am Saturday morning for our four day safari. In the end there were only three of us on the trip, along with our driver/guide and our cook. The other person was another volunteer who is also staying in the same hostel as us. There were meant to be four of us going but the safari company couldn’t find us a fourth member to join us….happy days! More food for us J

Our first night was spent in a camp site at a lake called Manyara. Its also a national park and we had our first game drive here. We saw loads of blue monkeys(they star in the film “outbrake”), elephants, lions, giraffes, rhinos, hippos and all the rest of the classic gang.

The monkeys were really interesting to sit and watch. Their behaviour and mannerisms are hilarious. I took at least 150 photo’s of just monkeys there.

We had our dinner at 7pm that evening at our camp, before retiring to bed at 9pm. We had a very early start the next morning…with a 7 hour trek on dirt roads into the heart of the Serengeti. This drive was combined with a game drive when we entered the Serengeti. Seeing the vast amount of animals on entering the Serengeti is hard to describe. Wildebeests and zebra’s dot the scenery for miles and miles, with Thompson and grant Gazelles running about like rabbits. To be honest, I’m not big into the wild life scene and only really had eyes for the “big game 5”, but after seeing the different species that the Serengeti had to offer really made me appreciate wild life a little bit more.

We got up close and personal with three female lions who must have just have eaten their dinner as they had blood stains around there mouths! The three of them came right up to the jeep and sat down panting on the edge of the grass….literally 4 feet away from us. Got some very cool photo’s. Even the guide was quite anxious for the lions not to come any closer as they could easily have torn the jeep to bits if they felt like it. Luckily I had my “bear grylls” knife on stand by….just in case. That would’ve been to slice my own neck rather than get mauled to bits!

Anyways we returned to our campsite which we had set up on arrival in the Serengeti and had a beautifully prepared western style dinner in the middle of the biggest craziest thunder and lightening storm I’ve ever witnessed. It rained constantly for an hour while the fork lightening lit up the evening sky.

Before we hit the sack we were gently informed by our guide, that due to the camp been unguarded and its location that we should expect some company around the camp during the night! So that night about 10pm we were suddenly awakened by some animal sniffing my head through the tent canvas. It was pitch black inside the tent and we were both terrified due to been suddenly awakened and also because there was some wild animal roaming around our tent making growling noises that can only be described as something you’d hear off a horror movie. Luckily enough I managed to get some audio of it wit my camcorder.
So anyways, we didn’t know what the animal was at the time and we probably didn’t want to know. Needless to say we didn’t sleep a wink for the rest of the night. And we had to be up at 5.30am for our game drive!

We found out in the morning that the noises were those of a herd of Buffaloes that had come into the camp to inspect what was going on. Also hyena’s were heard around our guides tent and a Lion’s roar was heard around the camp as well….which we def heard but again didn’t know what it was. Good job as well to be honest!!

So our game drive in the Serengeti last a good few hours both in the morning and the evening time. We saw almost all there was to see except for leopards or cheetahs.

We spent the third night in the Ngorongoro crater which is a huge flat plain that has every animal imaginable in it. The views from the top of this crater were savage and it was definitely a great end to the safari.

All in all, four days was enough for us. Unless you’re really big into the wildlife then a few weeks would be the only job. For me the highlight was seeing the migration of wildebeests and Zebra’s just as we were heading out of the Serengeti. As far as the eye could see it was just saturated with animals. Really amazing sight, and worth the trip alone just to witness it.

I would do another safari but next time I’d have a better lens for my SLR as some of the animals were that bit too far away to get really great photo’s. Plus the weather was very overcast so a lot of colour was mission from the photo’s.

But I would definitely recommend a safari into the Serengeti. If you came all the way to Tanzania and didn’t go on one then it would be a shame in my opinion.

Ciao

Long weekend = Serengiti!!

Well we've been informed that we don't have to teach monday or tuesday next week due some local tribe celebrations so we decided that instead of scratching ourselves for four days, that we'd go ahead and book a four day safari into the serengiti! So we will be sleeping under that stars along with all the wild africa has to offer come Saturday.

Our teaching project has been coming along nicely. We have our own separate makeshift classrooms and teach math and english to the different groups, based on their ability level. Nothing fancy, just simple addition, substraction and this week I started multiplication! Not as difficult as I thought it would be, as they seemed to get the hang of it very quickly indeed. We both love it there and the kids are really great.

Our second project that we had organized in Moshi through a local hostel has fallen through...due to lack of independent funding by the owners of the orphanage. So thats left us with the job of finding a suitable NGO(Non-governmental organization) that provides volunteer projects to guys like us. Yes we will stay where we are if we don't get another one sorted somewhere else...but we know that staying in the one place for 3 months would be very tough come the time to say goodbye arrives. You do get attached to these little kids knowing that they've got so little and yet have so much life in them. So a month will be fine, unless we don't get something else sorted before we leave....which is Feb 12th.

Ok so I'll update this wedensday or thursday next week with the Serengiti news and reviews :)

Ciao

Settling in!

Friday 23rd Jan. Well we have finished our first full week of volunteer work. We are positioned and a pre-primary school called Meru view. It got its name as its located at the foot of Mt Meru, which is the fifth largest mountain in Africa.
The school is very basic. It was set up by a local man called Ba Ba Juma four years ago, who decided that enough was enough. He wanted somewhere for the little orphans who were been looked after by various friends and relatives in the village to have somewhere to go to learn basic English and creative skills. So with this goal in mind he went about and built a basic three classroom school along side his house.
Funds for this project were limited for him since he way paying for it himself and the government didn’t want to hear from him. But at the moment he has three local women who act as teachers. They have good basic English grammer and they get the job done. Currently there are 26 kids at the school, ranging from 3 to 7 years of age.
Most of them are orphans with the exception of one or two.

So that’s where myself and Florence have and will be positioned for the month we’ll be in Arusha. We are in the process of teaching them simple English grammer. The classes are segregated according to their ability so as to allow each child the chance to learn at the correct level. Most of them however know a lot of grammer already, which shows that the system there, however basic, is in fact successful.

So with half of the money in which we raised before we left Ireland, we will be able to really make a big difference to this little school. We aim to buy them better materials for the school, learning aids, footballs, and maybe some new clothes for each child there.
The owner, Ba Ba Juma is a really good man. In a country where corruption is saturated everywhere, its good to see that there are men who like Ba Ba Juma are not money orientated. He has done everything there himself and has provided a safe heaven for hundreds of children over the past four years. We are delighted to be working alongside someone who has done so much for so little in return.


The other news during the week was the huge fatal accident on the outskirts of the town on wedensday afternoon. A four vehicle collision saw over 20, yes 20 people killed! It happened on the road in which we travel daily to the school. From what we heard, a bus full with passengers hit a truck in which the breaks had failed on a bridge. Another two cars were involved and resulted in all four vehicles smashing over the barriers on the bridge and down the 50+ foot drop onto the rocks beneath. It was horrific to see the bus after it had been lifted up by a crane. It was crushed to half its size. 20 were definitely confirmed dead as a result and many more critically injured.
As I already said, its mayhem on the roads in Tanzania. In the week and a half that we’ve been here, we’ve already come across three accidents! Seemingly they are so frequent that its become second nature around these parts.

We’ve started to pick up bits and pieces of Swahili!! Swahili is the first language in Tanzania, followed by English. So one of the teachers at the school has been giving us basis Swahili phrases which is a big help when trying to explain to the kids something we want them to learn in class. It would be nice after the three months to have the ability to converse in Swahili for a minute or two, but I’m not holding my breath!

We have the weekends to ourselves, so that will give us the chance to do a bit of sightseeing, tours etc.. We’ve nothing planned for this weekend as of yet so maybe tomorrow(Saturday) we’ll go into town and organize a tour for Sunday.

So until the next update folks….

Ciao

Tanzania at last

Its 7pm on Friday and I’m here writing this at our hostel in Arusha. We arrived yesterday from Nairobi after 8 hours of a pure and utter hell of a bus journey. The main road from Nairobi to Arusha is nothing more than a dirt road. Imagine 8 hours of constant jumping around, been thrown about in your seat while the seat your in stinks of sweat and is almost damp and you’ll get the picture. Apart from this slight inconvience the trip itself was very scenic with the Serengeti spanning out to our right as we entered Tanzania. Along the way we passed dozens of little towns which are home to the Maasai people.
The Maasai today remain the most familiar of African people to outsiders. Instantly identifiable, Maasai men drape themselves in toga-like red blankets, carry long wooden poles, and often dye their hair with a red pigment and style it in a manner that has been compared to a roman helmet. And while the women dress similarly to many other Tanzanian women, their extensive use of beaded jewellery is highly distinctive too.

When we arrived in Arusha we were met a crowd of flycatchers who beg you to go on safari with their company. And since Arusha is the safari capital of Africa you could only expect this to happen. While initially intimidating, they left us alone once I informed them that we were not rich tourists but merely volunteers. They still chance their arm none the less.

Our hostel is basic enough and although we expected that, we didn’t expect the toilets to be build into the floor or for their to be a severe lack of water both hot and cold. I don’t know how they expect people to feel comfortable sitting on the ground while on the toilet with cockroaches the size of apples(no joke) frequently visiting your side. Not very hygienic to say the least but we’ll deal with it. Another discomfort that we expected is the lack of fresh air. With temperatures in the early 30’s the rooms can get very, very sticky and I know this will cause many sleepness nights until we adapt to the environment!
I unfortunately got very sick last night with classic food poisoning. We traced it back to the liver I eat(flor didn’t eat it!) while in Nairobi. Beatrice had got liver from the local Butchers that would make a dump look like heaven. Since she didn’t have a fridge, the liver was left out all night and served to us the next day as breakfast! Now, If I had any common sense about me I would have realised that the meat was not refrigerated during the night and I would have politely declined the poison. But no, me and my hungry mouth had to go and sample the dose.
Needless to say I paid for it dearly from 5am this morning and all today. Luckily enough we brought the required medicine and so finally after 12 hours of diarrhoea, stomach cramps and dizziness I’m coming around 
Although try sitting on one of those toilets with a bad dose of the runs and you’ll quickly understand the meaning of a quick evacuation!

Any who, I’m off to sleep and hopefully tomorrow will be a healthier day!

Ciao.

Nairobi, Kenya

So finally I get a chance to update this! Since I’ve brought my mini laptop for the trip I can type out my blog whenever and then transfer it here when I get the a café.

Well, where to start! We arrived in Nairobi at 8am Tuesday morning, where we were met by our contact or “fixer” if you like. We choose to get one of these fixers simply because of the fact that Nairobi is such a dangerous city. Beatrice was our guides name and she was going to put us up in her house for the two nights we were there. Her house was located about 1 hours drive from Nairobi so she arranged for a friend to come and drive us there.
Along the way, we saw shanty town after shanty town. Conditions for living that could only be described as below basic. These houses were made from bits of wood, metal and any other material that could make walls etc…

When we arrived at the community when Beatrice lived we discovered that not only were myself and Florence the only white people there, but that most of the people there never saw a white person before! So you can imagine the looks and stars we were getting.

Our accommodation was in the form of a flat, which had no fridge, shower, kettle or oven. “Welcome to Africa” I muttered to myself. At least she had a toilet, as no toilet would have been very tricky for Florence to work through.

Anyways, cutting to the chase, that evening we visited a christian apolostic mass, in which Beatrice was a prominent member of. The mass was one of those you see on films where from start to finish its preachers shouting the word of God, singing his praises etc. It lasted a full two hours and in that time we were standing up while there was not one break in the mass. People were running around the shed(church) waving their arms in babbling to themselves. It was hysterical to be honest. We enjoyed it something shocking. I was told that I could take photo’s and videos if I wanted to I immediately went into Christy Regan mood and snapped away happily for the next 30 minutes.

The next day, we went to visit the Nairobi slum, which is one of the largest slums in the world. Its also home to the “glue kids”of Nairobi, for any of ye that saw Ross Kemps documentary called Gangs.

Conditions in these slums is hard to imagine unless you actually witness it. Words couldn’t describe what it felt like to be there and seeing all this poverty and lack of basic hygiene. While the slum isn’t a safe place by any means, we had Beatrice at our side who told us what to do and not do. Again with not a single white person for miles and miles we felt very intimated by the constant verbal abuse and gibes that was thrown our way. But sure they know no better.

Before we left for Tanzania, Beatrice had arranged a visit to a local orphanage where the kids were told about us and they were looking forward to seeing us. So when we entered the makeshift house, we were greeted with roars and screams from the little boys and girls there. There must have been about 40 of them ranging from 3 years to 11 or 12 years of age. Again, they had never seen a white man before so they were touching our skin and having a really good laugh at myself and Flor….but in a good way. So this was our first introduction to what we’ll be doing for the next three months. The kids were so full of life despite the conditions in which they find themselves subject to.

Before we left them, we had to take a load of photos of them. They never saw a camera before either so seeing themselves on camera was another first for them. Heartbreaking stuff to witness but we’ve somehow got to develop thick skin if we are to get through the 3 months here.

Anyway, I’m writing this as I lay on my bed here outside Nairobi. Its 7pm Wedensday evening and we’ve a very early start at 4.30am to get a local bus which will take us on the 8 hour trip across the border and into Arusha in Tanzania.

So until then,

Ciao

hi

I've already typed out two updates for this but I did so on my mini laptop so I'm just trying to find a internet cafe that has the facilities to allow me to hook up my memory stick to it and copy and paste it here! Simple you may think, but I can assure you that in Tanzania nothing is as simple as you may think! It just saves me emailing everyone individually and all that :)

Off on Monday!

Well the time has finally arrived for us to depart to East Africa! It only took a whole 11 months to get here!

First of all, I would like to thank everyone on behalf of Florence and myself for all the kind words of advice, donations, and general help with the planning of this trip. It means alot to us to be able to arrive at the orphanages with €2500(fundraised) to donate to those poor orphans who need aid fast.
I won't go naming this or that one as I don't want to leave anyone out, but THANK YOU for all the help and advice.

We start our journey Monday. We fly to Heathrow, then its a 10 hour flight to Nairobi in Kenya, where we'll stay for 2 days and get acquainted with the African culture before we cross the border into Tanzania by local bus(which we were advised is much safer...but longer....7 hours :(

I only hope that there's a decent internet connection in the internet cafes so that I can update this blog and do emails etc. I reckon I could live for three months without food, but not without the internet!!

I am also going to be shaving 30 years of hair growth tomorrow as part of a deal I made with myself about going volunteering. I said that I'll shave my head before I go, so no way of getting out of it now :)

Anyways, cherrio folks and next time I post we shall be in Tanzania and have received our welcome dance by the locals.....video here!

Ciao!

Vaccinations and anti malaria drugs!

Got our second lot of vaccinations yesterday in the TMB down in Sligo. Only one more sessions of needles and we're good to go :)!
For this trip we were advised to get the following vaccines:

• Yellow fever(which is compulsory with travel to most tropical countries nowadays)
• Polio
• Tetanus
• Typhoid
• Hep A
• Hep B
• Rabies

And obviously we need to take some form of anti-malaria drug. Its this decision that's causing me the most concern as there are three main types of anti-malaria drugs available each with their own advantages and disadvantages.
Maloron is the best drug because it has less side effects then the other two.
Doxycycline is the one used by most people and is the cheapest. But its not meant to be as effective as Maloron :0
And lastly there's LARIAM(mefloquine), which I've found out from a little research is also called the "demon drug, satan's tablet and the insane pill! I won't go into the details of its possible side effects or the dangers associated with taking Lariam, but you can have a look at this video to get an idea of how potentially dangerous taking it could be!!

Anyways, the funny thing is that our doc in the TMB where we're getting our jabs has recommended Larium as the best drug to use (apart from maloron). The only downside with maloron is its cost. Works out at about €500 for the 13 weeks protection that we'll need. If the doc does'nt recommend we take doxycycline then we'll have no choice but to take Maloron. I aint getting Malaria and getting the side effects from taking lariam has been described as worse then malaria itself...so thats a no go either! Now, I know friends who taking Larium while travelling and has no side effects whatsoever. But i've heard alot of stories as well where the person on it would start hallucinating and going demented.

Anyone who's been travelling has probably been through this exact same procedure as me, so if you have and your reading this, then I'd appreciate your comments on which one you took and what effects if any you had.

I won't be getting the anti-malaria tablets for another three weeks so I've got time to do abit more digging.

ciao

Three month volunteer trip to Tanzania!

I've been asked by a few people to do a blog about my fortcoming trip to Tanzania. Since this is my first attempt at a blog, I can't say how readable it will be and also how often I'll be able to update it when I'm in Tanzania.

Basically myself and Florence decided a year ago that we wanted to go and do some volunteer work abroad in a devoloping country. Its something that I personally have always wanted to do and Florence feels the same. So we set about planning our trip just over 8 months ago way back in April. We both agreed from the start that if we are going to do this, then two conditions must be met;

1. It would have to be a period of time in which would allow us to actually make a difference to the lifes of those in which we'll be helping. Therefore we decided on 3 months been sufficient!

2. We would pay for the cost of the trip ourselves, therefore not going through any organisation as such.

We are raising funds though so that when we arrive, we can donate them directly to the orphanage. We hope to raise €1500. Been able to donate this sum of money to the orphanage will mean alot not only to us, but also to the orphanage itself. They don't expect us to arrive with a donation, so this will be a great addition to them we hope.

The first fundraising project is a raffle in which you can buy a line for €5 or five lines for €20! 1st prize: €400, 2nd prize: €100, 3rd prize: Digital photo frame, and 4th prize: Mp3 player. The draw will take place on Monday 22nd Dec at the Boyle Chamber of Commerce lotto draw!
All proceeds will be donated to the Hope for Children orphanage.

The Second Fundraiser is a poker one(Surprise!). It will take place on Tuesday 6th Jan(holy day) in the Moylurg Inn, Boyle at 7pm sharp!. Entry fee is €30 and there will be €10 rebuys for 90 mins. I'm guaranteeing €1,000 for 1st place. 30% of the prizepool will be withheld and donated to the other orphanages that we'll be working in. I'm hoping to raise a minimum of €700 on this night so please come and support. And don't worry if you don't know how to play Texas Hold'em poker, its very easy to learn...I'll teach you in 5 mins :)

Although most volunteers go through organisations, we feel that going independently will give us the freedom to move around different towns/villages volunteering. It also means that a hugh chunk of the money that "needs" to be raised in order to go with one of these organisations will not be lost to the middle man in the equation.

So what exactly will we be doing out there? Well, first off we both wanted to work in orphanages. We'll be looking after and caring for kids between the ages 3 - 14, who have lost their parents through AIDS and other common diseases that are prevalent in Africa. In alot of cases the orphans will themselves have the AIDS virus and therefore we were told to make sure we get the Rabies vaccine along with all the other required vaccinations before we go(which we've started getting today).
We will try and help the children develop intellectually and creatively as best we can, as well as care for their daily needs as required, such as washing, cooking and feeding etc..

For the first month we will be working in a small orphanage outside Arusha called "Hope for Children". This is a relatively small orphanage with about 12 kids. Its located about a 45 min bus ride away from the hostel where we'll be staying....which is abit of a nuance, but can't be helped.

For the second month we aim to move to Moshi which is a small little city at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro and work in another orphanage there. We got these work placements through local hostels who run projects for orphanages and in return you stay in the hostel for the duration of your placement.

The third month has no set itinery yet, but as soon as we get out there and get settled we'll sort out the details.

The road ahead will be a very tough challenge both mentally and physically for us and I hope that by the end, I'll have come home with an unforgetable experience and the knowledge that one person can really make a difference to the quality of life of those who are less fortunate in life than us.

I will also be uploading photo's of the trip both here and on my flickr account(hope that I can get a decent internet connection) which can be found here.

Feel free to post your comments both here and on my flickr site.

Anyways, thats just the bare bones of the trip. I'll be updating this as the days come closer to departure.

Oh and for those who reckon I won't shave my head.....its happening the day before I leave :)!!

Ciao!