Chubbs Around Africa

The Last Post

2010-09-23T04:43:00.000-07:00

After almost six years living on this continent, the time has finally come for the Chubbs to leave Africa. In less than two weeks, we will pack our bags and fly out of Tanzania for the last time, heading for a new life in Indonesia.

Much as I’ve enjoyed writing this blog, all good things come to an end. I’m writing this last post because I think that Chubbs Around Africa deserves a more fitting end than an unexplained hiatus in posting- this is a short but sweet final bullet.

I’m glad that from the closing months of our time in Cairo and through our three years in Tanzania, I’ve been able to record some of our experiences for posterity. Like an old photo album, I’ve enjoyed looking back over some of those early posts and remembering some of the experiences we've racked up over the last few years. Hopefully I’ve given at least one perspective on life in two remarkable countries. Some comments I’m sure others will disagree with, some may just ring true.

Tanzania is a country I’ll always look back upon with affection. There is a lot wrong with the place to be sure- well run countries don’t generally spend decades in the “poorest in the world” listings as Tanzania has done. However, this remains a beautiful place with kind, friendly people and none of the admitedly fair comments about misrule and corruption at the top should ever detract from that.

Life here has been a mixture of joy, disappointment, comedy and sadness- a very intense concoction indeed. The angry crowd amassing outside the house after a car crash in 2008 was definitely a low point, as was the experience we went through when we caught our maid stealing.

However, trying to talk our fundi out of attempting dangerous electrical works with a fork or dealing with a traffic policeman who pulled me over to ask me for one of the beers I had in the car “because it is very hot sir” has added the kind of comedy value to life you’d not normally encounter back home.

It is so easy to moan at the bad sides of this country. Yes the politicians are unworthy of power, yes the chances of a fundi turning up on time are tiny, yes the traffic police are corrupt- so what?

Having the chance to see the sheer scale of the world’s largest unbroken crater at Ngorongoro, taking off in a ten seater plane over the enormous Rift Valley and seeing the lions of the Serengeti are all memories I count myself privileged to have tucked away in my head.

However it is the day to day beauty that I am most happy to have enjoyed. for three years, I've started and ended every working day driving along a coastal road, looking out over the Indian Ocean. That has been a treat that I will miss. Enjoying the crystal clear waters at the Yacht Club beach, watching the sun set over Bongoyo Island, eating the freshest fruit in the world and simply sitting on the porch with a can of Kilimanjaro, watching the world go by are all things I could never take for granted.

If work permits, I might start up another blog describing life in Jakarta- who knows? For now though, I am signing off, happy in the knowledge that the prediction made in my first ever post was pretty spectacularly wrong! To those Tanzanians who have been part of our lives for the last three years, whether for good or for bad, I say "kwaheri na asanteni sana".

Rain at Last!

2010-04-30T05:20:00.000-07:00

After a brief hiatus in my posting, I felt the urge to write about something British. Immediately two things sprang to mind so I will be happily tapping away about the two things I’ve heard about in bucketloads from every Brit I’ve spoken to in the past six months- the weather and the elections.

First of all, the weather. I guess my constant complaining about lack of rain and impending drought must have got through to somebody important as the rainy season has well and truly arrived here in Tanzania. For the past few weeks we had what amounted to a pretty decent lot of rains. Once a day, the heavens would open and we’d get a violent hour or two of monsoon. Not the constant drizzle you get in Britain, mind- more like someone opening the skies and pouring bucketloads of water on your head for an hour or so.

Since the rainfalls are so short lived, there is no significant impact on life. Things seem greener, the plants outside our house shoot up, exciting new insects seem to appear and the cars stay cleaner longer. However, over the past few days, the rains have remained as violently tropical as before but instead of stopping after an hour or so, they have continued for two days and nights. The result- total chaos!

Since our house is quite new, we’ve been saved some of the problems of leaking roofs that have affected friends and on that front only have the slightly bemusing issue of a luminous green swimming pool to contend with- not that there’s much point swimming right now!

The main problem as usual comes when you try to drive around- the commute to and from work has been a true experience. So why does everything go to pot here once you get a decent rainfall? I conducted a straw poll of colleagues and came up with the following reasons:

Firstly, only a few roads here are actually any good. It’s true that, once you get off the Peninsula, most back roads are pretty shoddy at the best of times. Unsurprisingly, these are the first to flood and to break up. Since most cars aren’t designed to drive through metre- deep flooded potholes every 20 yards or so, most drivers tend to stick to the main roads at these times. Result- much more traffic on the main roads.

Secondly, the police don’t like the rain. As I’ve said before, your average traffic policeman isn’t very well paid, relying instead on my numerous traffic offences for a decent revenue stream. Many therefore take the understandable view that they are not paid enough to get wet, vote with their feet and head rapidly towards shelter, leaving the traffic to its own devices. Now this is obviously a schoolboy error. Despite the fact that most traffic lights work perfectly well here most of the time, traffic police are still needed to deal with the fact that nobody really takes much notice of them. Within seconds of the policeman abandoning his post at the Mwenge junction on Tuesday, this busy four- way intersection resembled a multi vehicle pile up, with cars, lorries, daladalas and bajajis all fighting to make their way through. It took twenty minutes and about Tsh 20,000 (to pay a helpful passer by who cleared my way by standing in front of the cars trying to block me) to get through that particular mess! Things got a little better yesterday however- someone gave our friendly local policeman a brolly and he was right as rain!

Third on the list is the surprising one of cashflow. With Tanzania not exactly being the wealthiest country in the world, it isn’t surprising that many of its residents are a bit tight on cash. One symptom of this is the sad fact that many taxi drivers simply cannot afford to buy a whole thankful of petrol- they buy a little, and then fill up incrementally as they get revenue to do so. This works fine most of the time but, when Dar reaches gridlock and these almost empty taxis find themselves in long queues, it is not surprising to find a fair few abandoned petrol- less vehicles in the middle of the road.

Anyway, faced with a frustrating two hour journey home, battling with the worst Dar traffic has to offer, all you can do is try to stay calm, not get into a scrape- after all that might involve actually getting out of your car into the rain- and slowly make your way home!

I guess we have to be grateful here that water is the only stuff we have in the sky here. Talking with colleagues in the UK, everyone there seems to be abuzz with volcanic ash. Luckily its effect on me has been pretty minimal- no flights in that direction for a change. In facto the only concern I have regarding travel is the delay in the journey of my postal vote.

Like the good citizen I always to be, I spent a joyful afternoon online trying to sort out a postal vote back in Erith. Sure enough, this has now been achieved, with the rather worrying caveat that the voting form might not be sent out until four days prior to polling day and that any forms not received by May 6 would not be counted. So, my enfranchisement is fully dependent on a piece of paper making the round trip from Bexley Council offices to Tanzania and back in four days- here’s hoping!

Anyway, perhaps this is for the best, since I’m unusually at a loss as to who to vote for. Despite his best efforts to curry favour with me by (a) selling me some of the UK’s gold bullion at the bottom of the market a few years back and (b) abusing women from Rochdale a couple of days back, I just can’t bring myself to vote for Gordon Brown- I just can’t. Cameron just seems shifty and too much like Tony Blair and Nick Clegg hasn’t a hope of winning in Erith anyway.

This would then bring me to the minority parties. Well the chap in charge of UKIP did amuse me by saying that Belgium wasn’t a real country, but that isn’t really the basis for a broad election manifesto.

Despite my current intention not to return to live in the UK any time soon, it would be nice at least to have the option. That being the case, voting for a party like the BNP, who would try to ban my wife and kids entry is probably not too sensible either- well not unless said wife and kids started to annoy me! Besides, for an immigrant like me (“expatriate” being the posh word for “immigrant” of course), voting for an anti immigration party would be more than a little hypocritical.

So I’m stumped. I guess it all boils down to whether I do the right thing and vote for someone I think will do the best for Britain or take the unethical but fun option and assume I won’t be in the country to deal with the consequences and just vote for someone out of morbid curiosity!

Anyway, from a country in which I pay no tax and don’t live, yet still have the vote, back to Tanzania- where I live, pay taxes but don’t get a vote. We have both parliamentary and presidential elections here in October. I doubt the outcome is on such a knife edge as in the UK, however. The ruling party, the CCM, has been in power constantly since 1964 and doesn’t appear to be going anywhere soon. This doesn’t seem to be through any systematic suppression of the opposition, since other parties are very active and vocal. The perpetual one party state seems more to do with the inability of the opposition to organise itself properly- kind of like the Tories under Ian Duncan Smith, except for forty six years. The only real opposition tends to be focused over in Zanzibar and particularly on the island of Pemba, where things tend to get a little heated around election time.

Anyway, despite opinion polls stating that if elections were to be held tomorrow, 60% of MPs would lose their seats, the outcome is pretty much assured. Come Christmas, the ruling party will be the CCM and President Kikwete will have begun his second and final term of office, having managed to achieve re- election without insulting some poor little woman from Rochdale, I imagine.

So, from a Brit in Africa, who has happily engaged in the national party of talking about politics and complaining about the weather, I’ll leave you ponder the question raised by that little old lady- where have those Eastern Europeans all come from? Classic!

Five Years On!

2010-02-28T10:35:00.000-08:00

I got an email the other day. Not an uncommon occurrence in my line of work. Even the subject matter- my pension arrangements- was not something I’d normally consider blog material. However, one little fact contained in this email got me thinking and inspired this posting. The reason I need to change my pension is because the Inland Revenue only permits expatriates to make voluntary contributions if they have been resident in the UK in the past 5 years. This period has elapsed, so I need to make my arrangements offshore.

So there it is. A grey, administrative reminder of a major milestone- as of February 6th 2010, we’ve been living abroad for five years. Kieran has lived outside the UK for most of his life and poor (or lucky depending on your point of view) Rohan has only ever seen the land of his birth through the eyes of a tourist.
I thought I’d mark this occasion with a brief look at how living in two countries- both very different from the UK- has changed us. I’m sure there have been many changes and that most of them are down to age as much as anything, but here are a few that spring to mind.

Domestic Servants

One of the biggest changes for me at first was having a domestic servant working in the house six days a week. Although plenty of people in the UK employ cleaners, that relationship is far more detached and egalitarian than is the case elsewhere. Having an employee who was much more a part of the household and far more subservient than your average British cleaner ( how many of them insist on calling you “master”?) was very uncomfortable for me and took a lot of getting used to. When Regina, a lovely young lady from Bangalore, first started working for us back in early 2005, I think I was as nervous about it all as she was. A few years and six domestics later, the concerns have vanished. Whatever she wants to call me is her business- whether that be Richard, Mr Chubb, Sir or Your Lordship for that matter! Importantly, I make sure I treat them as I’d treat any subordinate in the office- no better; no worse.

Having domestic servants does create issues, however. As much as we try to keep the relationship professional, there is a degree of closeness which cannot go away. We loan money and try to help with family matters for one thing. More importantly, any long term domestic servant will build up a close relationship with the kids. This makes for a far more personal relationship and makes breaking that relationship for whatever reason very hard.

Some of our toughest experiences to date have been letting domestic servants go. Saying goodbye to Iman- the boys’ nanny in Cairo- was simply gut wrenching for all of us. She doted on the boys and they loved her dearly. She begged to be allowed to join us in Tanzania but we all knew this would be a bad move. The boys would ultimately grow up and, as hard as saying goodbye then was, having to pack her on a plane home would have been far harder. We’ve heard many horror stories here too. Imagine inviting a friend and her kids round for a playdate with your two boys only to find that the “friend” was so impressed with your nanny that she poached her with a higher salary. Thankfully this has not happened to us, but from what I hear, trying to explain to the poor boys why their nanny was now looking after their school chums instead was a bit of a parenting challenge!

Relationship with Rain

Now like anyone brought up in Britain, I have always had a hate- hate relationship with rain. For the first three decades of my life, rain was a cold, drizzly miserable phenomenon which meant days sitting indoors as a child and a cold, squelchy commute home as an adult.

I can honestly say that the past five years have ignited in me a true love of rain. I guess, this is due in part to three years with barely a drop. Although Cairo is located on the Nile, it is also situated in the middle of the Sahara- the world’s biggest desert. The narrow strip of water we happened to live next to had little effect on the climate therefore, with the exception of the odd drizzly day in February, the weather was an unbroken sequence of blue skies and blazing sun.

After three years of drought, we moved somewhere which, in theory, had a rainy season. Although we’ve had problems with low rainfall, the times that the rains do come in are spectacular. The rainfall is usually quite short in duration- a storm comes in, the rain comes down in a violent hour or so of warm big raindrops and then vanishes, giving way to blue skies once more. Since the violence of the storms means that nobody in their right mind would venture out in one, you are left either to watch it from the safety of indoors or to strip down and enjoy getting wet- i do the former, the boys the latter. I think I still hate the cold miserable drizzle that passes for rain in the UK but truly love the tropical storms we are getting on a daily basis right now!

Driving

Now driving has been a very eventful experience over the past five years. For the first three of these, the experiences were entirely second hand as we employed a driver- nobody in their right minds would drive in Cairo and I wasn’t going to. From the passenger seat of my Pajero, I was able to witness the entire range of driving offences. I still believe that, in Mohammed, we employed the best driver in Egypt- someone with practically no temper and with razor sharp reflexes that saved us both on many occasions. I remember one time driving at high speed along the main ring road, crossing the main bridge over the Nile. For no apparent reason the car in front screeched to a halt and a pile up seemed inevitable. Mohammed not only managed to steer around the car but then also steered right back into a straight line ensuring we didn’t career off the bridge to a watery fate.

Tanzania gave me the chance to drive for myself and what fun it has been. In two years I’ve only had one major accident- something I’m not keen to repeat. However I’ve also learned a more flexible approach to traffic laws. Here in Tanzania, we generally drive on the left but in practice drive wherever the potholes are shallowest. Traffic lights require local knowledge since some are obeyed and others ignored. Stopping at the wrong red is likely to result in your getting rear ended. However, there are some areas where the British culture has stayed firmly inside me. Unlike most expatriates, neither of us drink and drive. Traffic jams are also to be respected. Despite the fact that most of my fellow drivers are pushing ahead by driving up the wrong side of the road or even along the pavement, I always wait my turn- the urge to queue is just too much!

Driving is always an experience and I generally get home either thanking my lucky stars that I missed the mango cart being pulled round that blind corner on the wrong side of the road or cursing the fact that the traffic policeman decided to head off and relieve himself seconds after guiding me into a right hand turn that consequently almost killed me. However, given the chance to either watch someone else drive or to drive myself, I’d take the latter any day.

Having Lots of Mates

This final point comes after consulting with my dear wife. For Soma, the biggest chance over the past five years has been in her words “the sisterhood that I’ve managed to build up around me”. For Soma, as a stay at home Mum, this has been a true blessing. In London, despite the fact that we both worked, our friends tended to be people that I knew and had introduced Soma to. Now things are far more even and in all honesty the situation has completely reversed. Almost all our friends are people Soma has met.

Soma and I at the Dar es Salaam Burns Night Event

It seems that there is a whole community that exists once the wage earners have headed off for work each day- a whole life we know nothing about and which Soma loves. To some extent the same was the case in Maadi too. For sure I know that both Soma and I have made far more friends among the expat communities of Maadi and Dar es Salaam than we could ever had hoped for in London. Although like all close communities there is a line between close and claustrophobic, we seem to have made some great friends and to have steered clear of the politics.

I think perhaps the most important part of the last five years has been the friends we have made. We are still in touch with some great mates from Cairo- most of whom have themselves moved on. When we left Cairo I was amazed that we could have arrived knowing nobody and have managed to get so many to our leaving drinks three years later. Luckily for us, it seems that the same will happen in Dar es Salaam. We arrived knowing nobody but again have managed to accumulate a lot of good friends we’ll stay in touch with for an awfully long time. If the next five years can be as successful on the friendship front as the past five, we’ll count ourselves truly lucky!

Christmas in Malaysia

2010-01-17T06:01:00.000-08:00

I’ve said before that one of the big challenges of raising expatriate kids is instilling a sense of routine and ritual into an otherwise changeable life. Christmas is a perfect example of this. Given that we very rarely spend two Christmases in a row in the same place, it is important that a sort of family tradition be established, not so much in terms of where we are but more with regard to what we do. Well, we seem to have managed to develop some traditions- albeit not necessarily ones we had intended. For two years in a row now, Christmas Day has been celebrated on some day around 20 December, so as not to interfere with our flight plans. For the second year running, we have spent 25th December roaming around some foreign shopping mall. Last year we enjoyed a festive curry in Calcutta; this year it was dim sum and nasi goreng amid the commercialism of Kuala Lumpur! The Chubb family Christmas must now apparently be held any day other than the correct one and the real Christmas Day must be observed in a shopping mall. After five years, I am actually starting to miss Christmas in Wolverhampton and, might just try to get us all invited along for the festivities next time! Roast Turkey on December 18th followed by a trip to the Merry Hill Shopping Centre a week later anyone?

Anyway, Christmas was duly celebrated over a busy weekend around mid December, taking in a variety of parties, dinners, pantomimes and even a carol service or two. In fact one of the more imaginative parties even included a carol service as well as a treasure hunt! However, while these were fun, we were all looking forward to our trip eastwards- a family Christmas present to ourselves.

Soma organising the children's choir- Carol Service at the British High Commission, Dar es Salaam

Soon enough, the day of departure dawned and by 5pm we are sitting on an Emirate airlines flight to Dubai. Fortunately for me, who, has travelled that particular leg about once a fortnight for the past few months, Emirates had finally got round to changing the TV schedules. Kieran had no such worries and settled down to the four hours of uninterrupted viewing he would never be allowed at home!

We finally arrived in Kuala Lumpur late on Christmas Eve. Time zones being what they are, we had left Dubai mid morning and, after only six hours of flying, landed at 9.30pm. After a long wait for baggage, we carried out a last search of our bags (I personally didn’t fancy getting hanged just because someone had planted some hash in our suitcase so got a little over paranoid). All the worry was pointless since, by the time we headed out, customs was empty anyway. An hour or so later, we finally drew up to our hotel.

The Traders Hotel is a lovely place- a five star hotel at three star prices. It is located directly opposite the Petronas Towers, a truly spectacular construction which is either the fourth or fifth tallest building in the world. What was most impressive was that each night, the towers were lit up and looked like a pair of colossal jewels, sparkling away. In fact, despite the fact that it was gone midnight by the time we got to bed, Kieran sat up for some time simply gazing out of his window at the towers. I know this probably had something to do with jetlag, it being only about 7pm back in Dar, but it’s a poetic image isn’t it!

The best view from any hotel room we've ever stayed in- the Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur

We spent about a week in Kuala Lumpur in total, two short stays in between a four day trip up to Penang. We emerged from four very deep sleeps around 9.30 Christmas morning. After the usual minute or two of trying to remember where and when we were, it all came flooding back- we were in Malaysia, we were jet lagged and oh my God there’s only an hour before they close breakfast! After a rushed breakfast, we set out to explore the city.

Kuala Lumpur is a truly beautiful, almost futuristic place. It is also a place of contrast where spectacular modern buildings stand side by side with beautiful green parks and busy, crowded Chinese and Indian quarters. As a result you have a city that both looks clean and spacious, yet also has the kind of character you might find in an older place. You might not get the dusty hustle and bustle we’ve been used to in Egypt or Tanzania, but that doesn’t mean you lose the sense of possibility- the feeling that the next dozy side street might just house a really special little restaurant or shop. If London is a step above Dar es Salaam or Cairo ,then Kuala Lumpur takes things even further. It has the futuristic luxury of Dubai but in contrast has a true sense of itself- it is a proper city rather than a sprawl of impressive buildings.

Perhaps it is the ethnic makeup of the country which has made KL what it is. The majority grouping is ethnic Malay, a predominantly Muslim community, with a Catholic minority. Added to this are substantial Chinese and Indian minorities. As a result amid the big shopping centres you can also find a busy Chinatown and an Indian quarter. This made for interesting sightseeing and the kind of culinary experiences which blew my diet to bits! I asked Kieran what he enjoyed most about his holiday and food came second on the list (new toys came first naturally!) Luckily for us our stomachs have been well trained in various parts of Africa and India so, unsurprisingly, we had our first evening meal in a small restaurant somewhere in Chinatown- a meal for which even Kieran managed to use chopsticks!

Kieran tucking into dinner on Petaling Street- Kuala Lumpur. The chopsticks came out shortly afterwards!

One of the best things about Kuala Lumpur is that there is so much to do. In our week there we managed a bus tour of the city, dinner in the revolving restaurant of the Kuala Lumpur Tower and visits to an aquarium, an amusement park, and plenty of self improving museums! Actually one museum came as a real surprise to us all. The Petrosains museum, located in the Petronas Towers, is a museum related to the oil and gas industry- not perhaps the most exciting place one might imagine. We headed there to kill an hour or so on our last day and emerged many hours later blown away by the helicopter simulations, aeroplanes, dinosaurs and Formula 1 racing cars- all somehow connected to Petronas and its business. It sounds odd, but it seems to me that engineers just know how to make good museums- get a room, fill it with cool gadgets and watch the punters come!

After four days exploring the city, we headed back to the airport, this time to the domestic terminal for the short one hour flight up to Penang. Penang is both a state and an island, located a little to the north of Kuala Lumpur, on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula. The state capital is Georgetown- the name perhaps giving a clue to exactly which imperial power spent a good while knocking around there. From what I could glean from various museum walls and a very helpful guidebook, Penang is little like Zanzibar in that it held a real strategic importance in past centuries. The Portuguese were the first western powers to take an interest in the place, naming the small island they used for water replenishment on their way to and from Goa “Pulo Pinaum”. The island was ruled for centuries by the Sultan of Kedah until the mid 18th Century when he ceded the island to the East India Company in exchange for British military assistance. The British naturally reneged on their part of the deal but retained the island nonetheless. Almost to rub it in, they agreed to pay the Sultan a small annual fee for the island- his descendants receive the princely sum of 18,000 ringgits per annum to this day!

Anyway, back to the present, or a very recent past at Kuala Lumpur airport. Although the flight was delayed (I get especially fed up and intolerant when the delay is longer than the flight itself so Soma had to placate me with a coffee!), we still managed to arrive before lunchtime. After checking into the hotel, we headed out to find some lunch and duly found it in a small restaurant which was apparently over 100 years old. Although the place had clearly seen better days, as evidenced by the combination of garden furniture and plastic stools which served as our table and chairs, the food was, as usual, magnificent. As with most of these restaurants, your table serves as your base but, other than that, you are fairly mobile. A waitress will come and take an order, but only for beer. The rest of the food is served at a number of small stalls- a little like a small food market.

Soma duly headed off to provide for her starving young and came back with a vast array of interesting dishes. We all worked our way through the dishes in that slow and considered manner that so characterises the eating habits of the Chubb male. Needless to say, two minutes later, three of us were looking at empty plates, watching poor old Soma just getting started on her lunch- we really need to start chewing our food this year!

For such a small place, there was a lot to see and do in Georgetown for the three days we were there. The first full day was devoted to sightseeing. This was a busy day in which we took in the best of the British, Chinese and Indian influences. We started our day at Fort Cornwallis, the very first British fortress built in Malaysia by its “founder” (from the British point of view at least) Sir Francis Light. The fort is pretty overgrown these days and, apart from an impressive collection of cannons had little to keep us there more than an hour. From there, we headed towards the Indian quarter, via my first Buddhist temple of the holiday, the Kuan Yin, Goddess of Mercy Temple. This is a small but very old temple, dating back to the 1800s and is dedicated to a daughter of a king who so wanted to become a Buddhist nun, she defied her father and was ultimately executed for her defiance. At her execution she prayed so as to take the mortal sin of the axeman onto herself and thus descended into Hell. She was so good in Hell that she transformed the place into another heaven. She was taken out of Hell so as to return the place to its previous state, providing the justice required for wrongdoers.

Some of the biggest incense sticks we'd ever seen- outside the Goddess of Mercy Temple, Georgetown, Penang

Although old, the temple is still very popular. Outside was a proliferation of traders and some of the largest incense sticks any of us had ever seen. We bought some smaller ones and made a few offerings- Kieran in particular got very Buddhist all of a sudden!

A one hour bus ride out of Georgetown, to the base of Penang Hill, took us to an altogether different temple. As with the Goddess of Mercy Temple, the Kek Lok Si temple is also devoted to Kuan Yin. This temple, however, is one of the largest in South East Asia, and, although it was started back in 1890, is still partly in construction. Interestingly, this is a temple that absorbs both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, with imagery from both Burma and China found there. Most spectacular, though, was the 30 metre high statue of Kuan Yin who looks out over the island in a way reminiscent of Christ the Redeemer in Rio.

Kek Lok Si Temple

The newly completed status of Kuan Yin at Kek Lok Si temple, Penang

A couple of days later found us back at the base of Penang Hill, this time for a try at getting on the funicular railway to the top. We’d actually tried the previous day but upon getting there at 1.30pm, found that the first available tickets were not until 5.30pm. This time we were there just before 8am. We got tickets and boarded an almost empty funicular. Apparently, the problems only start at about 9am when the hoards of tourists from the cruise liners make it ashore and block book the rest of the day. Fortunately we were at the top of the hill before they’d even woken up! Sadly, our hopes of getting a panoramic view of the island were dashed by the equally beautiful morning mist. The top of the hill, seemed like a little world of its own with a small village, a little Hindu temple and a few curious monkeys all we really had for company. However, nice as it was to escape the heat and humidity, we had to get back on the car and down to civilisation. One of the most important aspects of civilisation being breakfast, we walked over to a nearby street cafe and tucked into a few plates of dimsum.

A rare sight- three Brits happy to see snow this winter. Soma and the boys at the snow park in Dubai

From that moment on, our direction was really homewards. We had a fine few days back in Kuala Lumpur- shopping for luxury items such as Rolexes, Breitlings and Patek Philippe watches, all at $20 each. After a further few days in Dubai, it was with a surprisingly heavy heart that we headed back to Dar es Salaam and a parallel world of power cuts, cockroaches, heat and dust. Actually, we’ve been back a week or so now and after a tough few days battling the cockroaches, we’re happy again. However, the world of possibility and excitement offered up by Malaysia remains a happy memory fixed in all of our minds.

Domestic Peace and Tranquility

2009-12-11T00:42:00.000-08:00

After a brief hiatus, here is perhaps the last posting of the year. I’ll make sure a good account of December gets written but, since the end of our year is scheduled to happen in Malaysia, I’m pretty sure the write up will get posted in January.

It’s been a while since my last posting- made just after our trip to Zanzibar, but life on the domestic front has not been without incident. For a start, the power crisis that seemed to be rumbling ominously towards us, well and truly kicked in through much of November. This was bad enough for everyone, with newspapers full of the latest views on the shortages.

For us, things took an even more annoying turn when the cable connecting our house to the main compound substation finally gave up the ghost. We lost all but a single phase on the Wednesday and sure enough the emergency response team came as fast as they could, arriving Saturday morning. After much digging around, they located the frayed underground cable and set about fixing it. The first unpromising signs of action came when one of the workmen poked his head round the door and asked for a knife. Soma asked what this was for and he explained that he was going to cut a cable. Anywhere else in the world, a set of cutters would be used by the crack team of electricians, but this isn’t anywhere else in the world so a carving knife would be perfect thank you. Sadly the knife was not perfect- aware as he obviously was of health and safety requirements, the workman pointed out that he needed a knife with a rubber handle. At this point the minimal understanding of electricity gained from a decade in the industry kicked in and the ears pricked up.

“You have checked that the cable is disconnected haven’t you?” I asked.

Long pause.

“Go and disconnect the cable then you can use whatever you like” I suggested.

Off he went.

After another half hour, the cable was well and truly cut- hurrah. For a worrying but presumably short period of time, our single phase had reduced to nothing. Five minutes later a sheepish workman informs us that he’d left a crucial part at the office and that he’d need to pick it up. Sadly the office was closed until Monday. At this point my normally serene wife hit the roof and came out with all sorts of exciting new words of Kiswahili!

Fast forward a couple of days. The first working day of the week has just finished and I’m pulling up to the compound gate in my car. The place seems a hive of activity- good sign. I park the car and notice that (a) the family is swimming in the pool and that (b) there appears to be rather a lot of water round the back of our house. Interesting, I think and go off to see what has gone on. Kieran comes running up to me and explains very excitedly:

“Daddy, one of the men was fixing the electricity with an axe and he made a hole in a pipe and lots of water has come out”!

How exciting. After one day of work we managed to reduce power from a single phase to nothing. After a far more productive second day of work we’ve escaped the bounds of a single key utility and managed to deprive us of both electricity and water…….and the back garden is a lake!

Fortunately, that is as bad as it got. Somehow after much screaming in various languages, both utilities returned and order was restored.

Since then, what else has happened here? Well it seems as if the country as a whole is getting some rain. Sadly, the predicted El Nino effect has occurred. In the village of Same, close to the Lushoto area we visited earlier in the year, the rains came as a very violent flash rainfall- a bit like those experienced in the UK last month. Tragically, the rains lasted for four days and, caused a major landslide killing scores of villagers. In a fatal combination of rain and drought, the rains had fallen on soil now devoid of any vegetation, resulting in pretty much nothing being there to bind the soil together, Not surprisingly this resulted in a mudslide.

Elsewhere, rainfall has been sporadic. There seems to have been some rain in the important regions, resulting in the dams filling up a little. In fact, on a couple of occasions we’ve even had rains here in Dar. Yesterday morning was especially nice as Kieran and I enjoyed a mid week morning (Independence Day here) sitting out watching a rare thunderstorm come down in front of us!

So it looks like problems of power supply have receded for the time being- they will return some time though- I’d bet my life on it!

We’ve had other domestic tribulations too, this time of the less amusing kind- not the sort of thing you laugh about later on, sadly. Anyone who has stayed with us will have met our very quiet and hardworking maid. Over the past two years she has worked hard and been quietly heroic keeping up with the mess created by two small boys. Sadly, we noticed some cash going missing- not a fortune but, at up to Tsh 50,000 a go, enough to get worried about. Not wanting to go the way of many expats and simply fire someone based on a hunch, we set about getting more evidence. Sadly, our fears were confirmed today with conclusive webcam evidence. Firing people is never much fun, even when they really deserve it. To have to get rid of someone who otherwise has been so good is really tough though. However, if you can’t feel secure in your own home then what kind of home is it. Sadly, we paid her some money and watched her head off on her way.

So, things have been fun on the domestic front these last few weeks. The priceless beauty of watching a tropical storm bringing much needed rain to the mango and papaya trees. No power, no electricity, a bunch of workmen hell bent on killing themselves and finally a trusted maid turn thief. However, I guess that beauty, comedy and sadness do come in plentiful supply in this part of the world. I’m not sure where the final posts of 2010 will be written from but for sheer emotional extremes, you just can’t match this bloody country!

A Weekend in Zanzibar

2009-10-29T21:50:00.000-07:00

After a whole two weeks of not going anywhere, it was high time to get travelling again. Actually, to be fair, the recent itchiness of foot has been mine alone; the rest of the family has stayed firmly put in Dar es Salaam. This fact, along with the increasingly frequent power outages, made Soma’s keenness to escape all the more understandable.

We didn’t go far afield, mind. After almost two years, we felt it was high time to make the short flight over the water to Zanzibar. Apart from the obvious attractions of white sandy beaches, we were guaranteed a few days of electricity- for some reason known to nobody, Zanzibar has absolute first priority when it comes to power supply. Tanesco produces most of the electricity and then “sells” it to Zanzibar. I added the inverted comments deliberately. As far as I know, although the island happily receives this electricity, it never gets round to paying the bills. It would appear that one part of the union does the producing, while the other part does the taking- similar to another union of proud neighbouring countries I know of!

Anyway, that’s enough politics for now! Last Saturday morning we were up bright and early and before we could even think, found ourselves at the tiny domestic terminal at Dar Airport. With minimal security and (for obvious reasons) no passport control, getting from entrance to departure gate took seconds and before long we were walking towards the plane. As usual we had booked with Coastal who, despite an often annoying disregard of customer service on its commercial side does actually have the best and safest planes. Kieran’s dreams came true when he got the plum seat next to the pilot. I told him to keep his hands on his knees and he did exactly that for the entire 20 minute flight.

Kieran occupying the best seat on the plane- note hands firmly on knees, despite the obviously tempting second steering wheel!

Surprisingly enough we descended from clear blue skies to find a somewhat sodden Zanzibar. Sodden became torrential on the drive down to Kizimkazi, causing me to regret my previous wishes for rain- okay we badly need rain but why did we get the downpour seconds into our holiday? The rains were shortlived however, and, by the time arrived at the hotel, normal blue sky service had resumed.

Unlike our previous visit to the island, we decided to base ourselves in the southern village of Kizimkazi. We had briefly visited the place in 2007 when we went looking for dolphins. This time we were after a simple couple of days by the sea, with perhaps a little local pottering to break things up.

The hotel we stayed in deserves a special mention I think. We’d sent Phil and his friends there when they visited us a few months back and they had returned with mixed but generally positive thoughts on it. It seemed that it was generally good but, having only recently opened, had a few issues to iron out. Well, I can honestly say, that all ironing is now complete- the place was brilliant.

The hotel beach- luckily for us, the skies cleared soon afterwards but the beach stayed just as empty!

First of all the setup of the hotel was brilliant. For $150 per night we got a huge 3 bedroom villa complete with large upstairs living room and balcony and exclusive pool. The beach, shared pool and all other facilities were first rate and the food excellent. However, on Zanzibar, excellent facilities are not uncommon- what made this place really stand out was the quality of service. Now, when compared to a top hotel in the UK or Europe, the service here was about the level you’d expect- although the staff here were probably more attentive and definitely friendlier. I guess you have to come to Zanzibar to understand just how special and exceptional, that level of service actually is.

Just one small example of what I mean. We went into breakfast and the waitress asked me whether I’d like tea or coffee. I asked for coffee and got a freshly filtered coffee with milk on the side a few minutes later. Well “whoopee doo” you might say! Well, I would say exactly that except without the dripping sarcasm when I recall the efforts I went to at the Zanzibar Beach Resort to get the same simple request fulfilled. After three attempts over half an hour to get a disinterested waiter to get me some milk for my coffee I ended up in the F&B Manager’s office begging for some milk. A further twenty minutes later I got a jug of chocolate milk.

I know the manager at the Dolphin Paradise Beach Resort, Benjamin Bayo, has established top class standards well beyond anything that our previous hotel could ever aspire to, but after my earlier experiences, I set the bar much lower and was more than happy with what I got. In short, I’d recommend this hotel for a holiday without a second’s hesitation.

Our first and only full day started with a brisk walk to explore some of the surrounding visits. Our guide for the morning way Olly, a young maasai whose sidelines also included modelling.

Olly, our Maasai guide, with the boys

Olly took us to the nearest village, Mkongoni and explained its history. The name comes from the Kiswahili word for almonds, due to the fact that there used to be a lot of almond trees in the area. These have largely vanished now, though a few remained. It did have an interesting history, however, and was linked to the slave trade. The village lies directly east from Bagamoyo, the main gateway out of Africa for slaves. Mkongoni was the first settlement at which the slave vessels reached on Zanzibar and was therefore the site for a slave market. Little evidence of old settlement remains but, given the climate in the area, this is not a surprise. In fact the main attraction of the village was not a building at all, but a large baobab tree. These trees grow all over the continent and, as you can see, get very large indeed. According to Olly, local residents used the tree as a lookout post, scattering into the forest when they saw approaching ships. I’m not sure how this tallied with his earlier claims about the slave market though. I guess a slave market where the population scattered when anyone came close can’t have been very long lived!

The Baobab tree at Mkongoni

From there, we moved on to the next village, which goes by the name Dimbani. This village contained a cavern which led down to a fresh water spring. It is this spring that kept the surrounding areas supplied with fresh water.

Apparently there is a belief that you should never utter the name of someone while that person is inside the cave. According to local legend, two women, rivals for the affections of the same man, went into the cave to draw water. One woman left the cave and uttered the name of the other. The poor woman left inside turned into stone. There is indeed a block of stone resembling a (very short) woman right next to the spring. Who knows, it could be true- although given that in my experience, every single big block of stone through history seems to have been caused by some poor soul being petrified, I’m a little suspicious. All the same, I tried the theory by calling Kieran’s name but sadly he re- emerged some seconds later!

Soma, Olly and the boys walking along the beach

Before we’d come to Zanzibar, there had been a slight difference of opinion between Soma and myself over how active we should be on this holiday. Having engaged in plenty of “activity” over the past few months, I was more than happy to lay down on a beach for two days. Soma, on the other hand was far more gung ho and wanted to fill the holiday with adventure. Her original plan, which I’d reluctantly gone along with was to spend a full day on a dhow exploring small islands and going snorkelling (actually that sounds much better now I think about it- what was I thinking?). After witnessing the tropical storm upon arrival, Soma promptly changed her mind and cancelled that expedition. Instead, we were to enjoy a two hour sunset cruise in the waters around Kizimkazi on a traditional Zanzibari dhow- much more like it!

Traditional Zanzibari Dhow and crew

Sadly for Soma, in her thirst for adventure, she forgot that she is highly prone to motion sickness. A cruise on marble- like flat waters is fine, but at the first sign of waves, we’re in trouble! Sadly, the laws of physics do require some wind for a boat propelled by sails. Well, there were, tootling along very nicely indeed, thoroughly enjoying the sea spray and small waves when I noticed that my normally brown wife had turned a funny shade of green. Minutes later our poor Maasai companion, Olly, was very bemused to see this mzungu family scene consisting of a lady bent double over the side of the dhow, a confused younger son and a highly unsympathetic older son in hysterics of laughter at his stricken mother. The scene was rounded off by an older male trying to suppress his own giggles while telling off his elder son for being unsympathetic!

Sadly, we discovered that Rohan too was prone to seasickness and before long the family was split in two. Two of us were thoroughly enjoying what was becoming a fairly rough ride, while two others were holding each other in a strangely combined foetal position. Eventually sympathy took over and we asked the dhow crew to turn for home!

We’re back in Dar es Salaam now, having thoroughly enjoyed our short trip. I hope we’ll find time to come back here again. However, having made this short trip, I realised just how long it had been since our last domestic holiday. I hope that next year, if it is to be our last full year in Tanzania, will give us the opportunity to see a few more places- perhaps the Selous or maybe somewhere more adventurous out west!

No water, no electricity, but plenty of politics!

2009-10-15T07:35:00.000-07:00

We’re now entering mid October and the cool winter months are slowly but surely coming to an end. The weather is gradually warming up and before too long I think we’ll be turning the AC back on at night.

Over recent weeks however, this potential use of the AC has been a bit of a moot point. The multi year drought that has affected East Africa is finally impacting us here in Dar es Salaam. For sure, the impact is nothing compared to those poor souls elsewhere in the region who are now relying on Oxfam and the UN for food. What I saw in Lushoto earlier this year was bad enough- things can only have got worse since then. The relatively affluent communities of Dar es Salaam are nowhere close to starving and are unlikely ever to reach such a point. However, when you have such adverse conditions across the region, nobody escapes entirely.

For us lucky expatriates, the impact has been mainly to do with access to electricity. The vast majority of the country’s generation comes from hydroelectric facilities, located across the country. When the rains fail, the water levels drop. The poor short rains in late 2008 and the almost entirely dry rainy season this spring means that no prolonged rainfall has been experienced since mid 2008- the rivers are now low and the dams would appear to be more or less dry. As a result, severe power rationing is now in force. We have now got used to having power cuts between 6pm and 11pm most nights. Yesterday was even worse, with no power at all between 9am and 7pm, followed by a further cut in the middle of the night.

This situation brought to mind a Tanzanian newspaper cartoon drawn in response to a UN sponsored initiative to turn off the lights across the world for a single hour to mark World Environment Day:

Them: “We shall shut down power for one whole hour to demonstrate our commitment to the environment.”

Us: “That’s just child’s play. We have started rationing power, and we will be implementing the shortage across the whole country for a whole year!”

Anyway, it would seem that we’re all now reducing our carbon footprint here, whether we like it or not. We do have diesel generators but given the extent to which we’ll be relying on them over the next few months, it makes sense to minimize their usage. These contraptions are generally on their last legs, make a load of noise and cost a fortune to fill up.

One silver lining to all this has been the extent to which you become aware of how your household depends on power and the areas of it which suck up the most. I’d never realised, for example, that using the microwave and cooker could use such phenomenal amounts of power- sometimes creating so much load as to take the generator offline. Given that the current situation is bound to create a huge run on diesel, making it both a rare and expensive commodity, it doesn’t hurt to figure out how to minimize usage. We’ve managed to go from using a full tank on an evening to barely using a quarter.

Anyway, although it’s not fun, this situation is, thankfully, not really down to my company, meaning that I can generally keep my head held high around the Peninsula without risking it being knocked off by some angry expat wife. Although things may improve a bit, the born pessimist in me can see power cuts happening for some time to come. It’s a nuisance to be sure but I know there are a lot of people who have never enjoyed access to electricity in their lives who are being affected in far more profound and painful ways than any of us are- another time to thank our lucky stars I think.

So what else is going on here in Tanzania? Well apart from power rationing, which, after all is really only annoying the minority who ever had access to power in the first place, we are entering some interesting times, with the elections only a year away.

Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the death of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania and a man remembered as fundamentally decent and honest. Many people, myself included, would view his policies as hugely misguided, but very few would ever question his motives. Between 1950 and 1990, the continent of Africa had over 150 different leaders in total. Of these, only 3 left power voluntarily. Nyerere was one of the three. We had a national holiday to mark the occasion and today the papers were naturally full of articles and commentaries covering the event.

Most of the commentaries were very nostalgic in tone, hearkening back to a selfless, decent leader and wondering whether the present generation of leaders has lived up those ideals. Although it is painfully obvious that the welcome development of the country has been accompanied by a growing gulf between the poor majority and a wealthy elite, surprisingly little attention is given to the merits of past and present policies. After years of grand corruption, what people really want to see is a ruling class which regardless of belief is at least trying its best to improve life for the people. I guess people will forgive wrong policy and mistaken ideas a lot more readily than they forgive corruption. I guess in that regard Tanzanians aren’t that different to anyone else.

Back in Tanzania, then back to Britain again

2009-09-28T21:53:00.000-07:00

I hope this posting comes across as little more than a desperate attempt to keep to my “once a month” promise- although blatantly that is what it is!

We’ve had a few interesting goings on during the month, but since I’ve been travelling back and forth between here and the UK like some sort of homesick kid, I’ve not necessarily been there to see much of it. I’ve certainly been busy travelling in the past weeks- no sooner had we arrived back here from a month in Britain than I booked my tickets to fly back for a seminar in Warwick. I spent 10 days being very studious and businesslike before flying back to Tanzania and immediately booking my ticket for a course in London next week. There are good and bad sides to this state of affairs of course. On the bad side, the travel is rather tiring. I’m getting bored of the now familiar (but still quite scary) flightpath of Kenya, Somalia, Yemen, Oman, Dubai, then onto Iraq before hitting the more stable parts of Turkey and Central Europe. Most importantly, all the movies are the same- being stuck on a cumulative 12 hours of flying, watching the same movies and the same four episodes of The Simpsons gets a bit dull! On the bright side, however, I’ve made rapid progress through the various tiers of the Emirates loyalty programme and, according to my calculations should get my Gold membership around Christmas when we fly to Japan- free business lounges for the next year- cool!

Life in Tanzania is surprisingly good. The main bugbears of life seem to have receded temporarily. We’ve had very few power cuts this month- a situation I know can only revert to normal in time. This is a relief, since our generator is truly on its last legs and takes about ten attempts and some emotional begging and coaxing to get running these days. The traffic seems to be better too. Before we left, traffic was not too bad- mainly due to the budget session being held in Dodoma. However the first weeks of September the combined effects of budget being over, school starting and Ramadan happening meant that the roads were a nightmare. Ramadan is now over so we don’t have the mad rush to get home to eat (odd though that sundown isn’t until 6.30 and so many guys are heading home around 4pm- surely they haven’t all become paragons of gender equality and in fact are rushing home to cook?) For now, the roads are not too bad and I get home if not with a smile on my face then at least without the usual potty mouth!

The weather is still not too bad. We’re certainly seeing the end of winter however, and the temperatures are starting to rise. We can still sleep with open windows and a fan but I’d give it till mid October until the night time AC comes back on. Then we await the rainy season. Unlike earlier this year, where the rains never really came, we’re expecting some pretty severe weather this year. There have been several warnings that this year is El Nino year and that we are likely to get major rainfalls along the coastal regions, possibly hitting Dar es Salaam quite hard. I’m not sure what to expect really- the monsoons we had in 2008 were wet enough. This should be an interesting experience I guess.

I guess the main event of our month was the visit of our old friends from Cairo, Daniel and Janice. It was really good to see them after almost two years and, as with all good friends, the time lag seemed to make no difference. I do mean this, and am not just writing this because Daniel reads this blog!! We had a few days showing them our main haunts on the Peninsula- the Yacht Club, The Seacliffe, the George and Dragon and various other places. I was just getting used to having them around when I had to head off to Warwick, worst luck. Anyway, I think they had a nice time- well I hope they did.

For anyone else thinking of paying us a visit, there is still time. I’m very conscious of the fact that we’re about a month short of having been here for two years and equally conscious that three years is my normal attention span in a job- that’s better than my attention span in any sort of conversation which, as Soma often bemoans, is woeful.

Having talked with my boss, I can say that I’m pretty sure to be sticking around for the whole of 2010. Towards the end of next year it will have been three years and another country will seem tempting. I’ll also be more or less done with the MBA by then so a move in early 2011 seems likely. I guess in business as in life nothing is ever certain but, for now, I think we’ll stick around for a little while yet- the next destination is on the horizon but quite a way off as of now.

Anyway, I’ve nothing more to add and need to start looking for a good Central London hotel so will sign off now.

Addendum- A Pompous and Self Absorbed Posting on my Thoughts about Britain!

2009-08-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

Right, I’m on a roll now- after writing the longest posting so far (well it felt like it anyway), I’m now onto the next posting, inspired in fact by my grandfather who thought it would be a good idea to post my thoughts on returning to the UK. This isn’t such a bad idea but comes dangerously close to the self indulgent philosophising that many bloggers seem to come out with. Who cares- I’m doing it anyway!

It’s difficult to work out how many of these observations are actually changes in Britain which have occurred in my absence and how many are due to my viewing the place through fresh eyes. Some are good, some are not. This of course lends itself to the clichéd journalistic structure of a list of good and bad points. It’s getting late and I’ve written loads so a bit of tired cliché is what we’ll go with.

Good Points

Friendly Londoners. As mentioned before, people are actually friendly if you make the effort. Londoners have the reputation of being aloof but in fact this is undeserved. On the occasions I took the trouble to say hello to people or to initiate conversation, people were very keen to talk.

Stuff Works. After time spent in Tanzania and Egypt, it is simply impossible to understate the sheer joy of having things work. We have enjoyed a month without power cuts and I still cannot get used to drinking water directly from a tap- a true luxury!

People can Drive. Driving is actually a lot easier when things are predictable. In the UK you can count on most people driving pretty sensibly most of the time. The few occasions someone has done something odd, I’ve been more than prepared. Being cut up is far less traumatic than having a mango cart appear around a blind corner on the wrong side of a road.

Bad Points

Constant Henpecking. Walking around London, I noticed a great number of signs. Almost all of these were telling me in one way or another, what I could or, more often, could not do. This was reinforced by the road signs across the UK, but especially in Scotland advising me to “Drive Slowly”, “Drive with Consideration”, “Don’t Drink and Drive” or “Keep Space between Vehicles”. Not to understate the importance of all of these, but surely I deserve to be treated as an adult. It strikes me that society here has become increasingly proscriptive and people are increasingly being treated like children. There may be a lot wrong with Tanzania but at least with regard to daily life you are allowed to hang yourself with as much rope as you like.

Childish Attitudes to Grown up Matters. The infantilisation of the country seems to have worked to some extent. In looking at the public response to recession, people seem to have abdicated all responsibility for their role in all this. The bankers and politicians have taken it in the neck- not undeservedly. However, the main reason for the state the country is in is that too many people frivolously borrowed amounts they couldn’t afford to buy stuff they didn’t need. The fact that the public is now bemoaning banks for making borrowing harder shows that people really haven’t truly understood the reasons for this recession and would prefer to scapegoat others instead- not a terribly adult approach. Another case of childishness is the sheer double standard I’ve seen in terms of morality. On one hand, the public has reacted with visceral disgust to MPs expense excesses. A recent survey, however, shows that 66% of the same self righteous public thinks that illegal downloading (ie stealing from musicians) is morally acceptable. Download if you like but surely this makes the sanctimonious outcry we saw more than a little hypocritical.

Vanishing Shops. Walking through the Wolverhampton town centre, I became aware of the sheer number of empty shop spaces. I have kept up to date with the closures of various companies in the past year, but only when walking through a shopping centre do you see the cumulative impact. Woolworths is gone, as is Our Price, Zavvi, Barratts and a host of other places. This is perhaps the most visible impact of recession- hopefully coming back in a few years will reveal a whole new set of shops replacing those lost this time round.

As I said at the start of this short posting, these are simply the things I have noticed on this particular visit. Of course there are other changes which have also happened over the past five years. Some of these, such as the obsession with reality TV programmes are things I’ve noticed before and have bored people senseless about in the past. Others have simply not impressed upon me. The only explanation for this is that sometimes the things people living here focus on are not the same as the things noticed by the outsider. I guess these being the personal impressions of someone returning from abroad, you could say that what I’ve missed is as important as what I’ve noticed.

Anyway, for what they are worth, those are my thoughts- I kept them brief so I guess that’s me done for this trip to the UK- more postings from Africa next month.

Chubbs Around Britain

2009-08-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

“What are we doing here?” was the heartfelt complaint the bloke next to me came out with. No, we weren’t at some philosopher’s convention somewhere in Greece, but standing outside a bright yellow building which according to all our respective offspring, belonged to a certain Ms. Josie Jump.

Just over a fortnight after landing in London, we’d finally reached the furthest point of our travels in the UK- a remote place of pilgrimage for any child under the age of six. From this point on, everywhere we went would be to some extent part of the process of returning- to England, to Wolverhampton, then finally back to Tanzania.

We arrived in London at midday on the first Saturday in August, fresh from a pretty uneventful flight. To be honest, the boys have done so much travel now, flying with them is no longer an issue. They just sit down and patiently enjoy the hours of television denied to them anywhere else!

Our home for the next two weeks was a small, one bedroom apartment in St Katherines Dock, a beautiful marina just to the east of the Tower of London. The block was an ex council block- a bit basic and in terms of size it was “compact and bijou” but it was pleasant enough. I guess that is my view based on eight years of London living. The view of another family member, used to larger and more salubrious accommodation was a little less charitable. Kieran was distinctly unimpressed at first. I just wish he hadn’t referred to the house as “a ruin” in front of the landlord!

However, I remember jogging through the area years ago, when we lived in Wapping wishing that one day we could be lucky (or rich) enough to live there. Finally we were living the dream- the apartment may have been small but the location ticked the box well enough.

The view from our balcony in St Katherine's Dock, London

The two weeks followed a fairly set pattern. I set off for work bright and early- in the office by 7am to coincide with Tanzanian working hours. Soma would head off with the boys at about 9am for Rohan’s morning therapy session. The afternoon would entail either a second session or various tourist activities- seemingly focused on the many parks in London.

Being part of the working population of London once more was an interesting experience. Although I’ve been back several times since we left in early 2005, the visits have only been fleeting. This time it was a solid fortnight among the capuccino drinkeratti! It was an experience which challenged a lot of preconceptions. I noticed that although Londoners seem quite aloof, it doesn’t take a lot to break the ice. From the Tesco delivery man to the taxi driver who took us to the airport most people were only too happy to chat once conversation had been initiated. Rohan managed in fact to work a minor miracle- getting strangers to engage with him on the Tube. Sadly for Soma, this involved Rohan announcing very loudly that he had farted. A few previously dour faces betrayed hints of smiles until some people opposite actually began to talk to him. A conversation on the Tube- whatever next?

I’m not sure why but this time London made me a bit more aware of my age. Quite simply everyone seemed so much younger. Walking into work, I noticed that pretty much everyone accompanying me on the South Bank was jogging or speed walking. London seems full of young people determined to stay young for as long as possible

We all enjoyed our time in London. The evenings sitting on our balcony drinking wine and looking out over Tower Bridge were great. However, the overwhelming feeling was that although this was a great place to visit, I’d never want to live there again. The main reason was claustrophobia. The one thing we have in Tanzania is plenty of space- the house is big, roads are mainly clear, even the town centre isn’t overly crowded. In contrast, the twice daily scrimmages to get over Tower Bridge made me feel way too hemmed in for my liking.

Time seemed to fly in London and after two most enjoyable weeks we found ourselves in a taxi heading up the motorway to Luton Airport, ready for the short flight to Edinburgh.

In the 30 or so years I’d lived in the UK, I’d never actually visited Edinburgh- in fact a short excursion into Glasgow had been the only experience of a major Scottish city of any sort. Circling over the Firth of Forth as our plane approached the airport, I realised just how beautiful a city Edinburgh is. For those who have never been, it is a city of grey stone buildings- architecture quite similar to places like Bath. On one side the city touches on the sea and on the others it is surrounded by a number of small mountains, the most famous of which is King Arthur’s Seat. Being so far north there was a definite change in temperature- when the pilot told us that the weather was “just like London” he was clearly lying! We got out to icy blasts of wind and loud protestations from Kieran that he wanted to go back to Africa immediately!

We spent four full days in the city, staying with Soma’s brother and sister in law. Their house is a great place, backing onto King Arthur’s Seat- a decently sized hill which we walked up the day after our arrival. Looking down over the city, we could see that the locals had a city to be proud of. Frankly, Rajat and Angela were the only reason for visiting Derby- Edinburgh we’ll visit regardless of who lives there!

In our short visit I think we managed to tick all the necessary boxes. We took in a number of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe. We started with a German comedy show which was marginally funny- probably because having spent the money we were determined to laugh! We also encountered a street juggler who was more concerned with keeping his audience in the right place than with actually juggling (I think he had OCD or something since he kept stopping his act to tell people to move around so he had a complete circle!). He announced at the end that he felt he was worth a fiver and that we had a moral obligation to pay him- I diplomatically restrained my elder son from giving him a 5p coin! Our final experience was a circus show given by a group of well intentioned but inexperienced kids on the top of a windy hill. Sadly, the wind meant that we were freezing and the performers kept falling off whatever they were meant to be on- stilts, unicycles, big balls- you name it, they fell off it! After one girl hit her head on concrete we realised that our continued presence only encouraged them, this engendering further risk to their health and we headed home.

At the other cultural extreme, we visited Rosslyn Chapel, a small but very famous templar chapel a few miles outside of the city. This chapel has been famous for centuries and is extremely ornate both inside and outside. In recent years, the publication of a certain Dan Brown novel has sent visitor numbers through the roof- from about 9,000 per year in the 1990s to over 120,000 last year. The guide seemed quite phlegmatic about it all- increased visitor numbers are good for local business after all. However, she did also poke fun at the conspiracy theories, pointing out that if all of them were true then the small vault below was home to the Holy Grail, Excalibur, the wizard Merlin, the true Throne of Scone, the Ark of the Covenant and myriad other relics up to and including Elvis Presley! The chapel certainly attracts attention- having said that my count of tourists walking around clutching copies of the Da Vinci Code was very disappointing- single figures only I’m afraid!

During our time in Edinburgh we picked up our rental car- the crucial ingredient for the following few days as we found our way out of Edinburgh through the West of Scotland, then down to Wolverhampton via the Lake District. The prospect of driving in the UK after a hiatus of almost five years was not something I was looking forward to wholeheartedly. Although the move to Tanzania enabled me to resume driving, this may have been more of a hindrance than a help with regard to UK driving. While the past few years have improved my defensive driving skills, the Tanzanian roads are centres of excellence for new skills such as cutting traffic lights, jumping queues and driving on the pavements. I have done my best to preserve my integrity but was genuinely worried at my ability to stick to a strict 30mph limit! In fact, all went well- no police lights flashing ominously in the rear view mirror and a solid record of safe and sensible driving- even Soma thought I was good!

The serious driving started one Thursday morning as we pulled away from our hosts in Edinburgh. After a frustrating hour or so trying to get out of the city, made all the more fun by Kieran asking “are we there yet” for the billionth time we finally found the motorway and headed off into the Highlands. Before long we were well into open countryside, making our way through winding roads heading slowly but surely towards Oban.

Early afternoon found us approaching Oban. Our final approach was a steep winding road which gave us a beautiful panoramic view of a small town full of beautiful buildings, a typical grey coloured distillery and a busy port. We checked into the Kilchrenan Hotel, a small family run establishment on the esplanade- a fabulous find and one I’d recommend to anyone. We spent the afternoon looking around the town- not a major undertaking given the size of the place and the fact that the main tourist attraction is the distillery, not a great priority for either of our two boys. After an early dinner, we settled down to an early night.

The port at Oban

The next day was the big one for the boys. New experience number one for all of us was getting the car onto the ferry. Having stowed the car away, we headed onto the top deck to watch the ferry pull out of the harbour. For me at least, this experience was a mortal conflict. On the one hand was the urge to stay and watch the beautiful scenery of the coastal town fading into the distance and the distant Isle of Mull coming into view amid the mist and driving rain. On the other hand there was the very real urge of a man who had come from Tanzania with nothing more than T shirts to get out of the cold and to get a coffee below deck. Ultimately warmth prevailed and we spent the second half of the journey in a warm bar.

The Calmac Ferry which took us from Oban to Craignuire and back

We pulled out of the port onto a pretty empty road. I’d been warned that driving on the Isle of Mull was a different challenge- most of the roads are single track and there is a very specific etiquette for use of the numerous Passing Places. Well, we managed easily enough and after half an hour, the colourful town of Tobermory came into sight.

Tobermory was really the highlight of the boys’ holiday. Again, this was not a factor of the ubiquitous grey stone distillery; it was not even the picturesque port. It was only partly a factor of the colourful houses lining the sea front. The truth is that the town was used several years ago to film the popular children’s series Balamory. Our children, like many others are keen viewers of this show, and the chance to see some of the houses was a huge thrill for them.

The seafront at Tobermory

We were given a map of the key locations and looked through it. Sadly, it seemed that most of the houses had been repainted, making viewing pretty pointless. A couple of houses remained and these attracted a steady queue of hopeful children. Standing outside the bright yellow house of Josie Jump- now in fact a small hotel whose owners must surely be sick to death of children being photographed outside it-we met several other families all containing excited kids and fed up Dads! We dutifully took our photos and headed off for lunch- at the place formerly known as Edie Macreadie’s shop. This shop sold nothing but chocolate so in true glamorous style, lunch was taken sitting outside the local Spar- bet they didn’t have that in Balamory.

Kieran "jumping" outside the Park Lodge, aka Josie Jump's house- only the millionth time some family had taken that particular photo!

Leaving Tobermory was a bit odd- a bit like the beginning of the end. From this point onwards, everything would be a kind of heading home. We went to Craignuire- the main port of Mull- for the night. The next morning we headed back to Oban and, after a short breakfast we began the long journey back to England. The stopover in the Lake District was a good break- the caravan was a welcome novelty for the boys at least. However, the stay was curtailed by the driving rain so common to the British summer. We had a visit to a local animal farm- including everything from rabbits to some rather miserable zebras. In a sense, we understood very well why they were miserable. The zebras were not the only entities who had come from the African plains to be placed in the driving rain of the Lake District. Despite Kieran’s best efforts to cheer up the zebras by singing Jambo Bwana to them (apparently to stop them being homesick), they remained resolutely miserable.

We’re in Wolverhampton now. In a few days we’ll fly back to Tanzania to resume our normal lives. If I’m completely honest, I looked ahead to this holiday with something less than complete excitement. I much prefer to discover new places, and the UK is not exactly a new destination. However, in spending time in London, I was able to see an old haunt with fresh eyes. In visiting Edinburgh and the Western Isles, we were all able to discover new places, and to see places as worthy of visiting as anywhere else in the world I’ve been- the haggis was pretty good too!

Getting Ready For Holidays

2009-07-27T02:51:00.000-07:00

No matter where we seem to be, July always seems to have a bit of an odd feeling about it. Whether in Egypt or in Tanzania, in July, the international schools finish for the year and families head off to their countries of origin for a summer break. In Egypt, this made perfect sense- temperatures in Cairo averaged in the 40s Celsius and sometimes spiked above 50 in mid August. Cairo in July and August emptied itself not only of expatriates but also of Egyptians, all of whom seemed to decamp to the north coast for a couple of months to avoid the heat.

Here in Dar, the exodus seems a bit unfortunately timed. The rainy season, for what it was worth this year, has passed and we are now officially in mid winter. What this actually means is that we have daytime temperatures in the low to mid 20s Celsius and night time temperatures low enough that the AC can be switched off and a combination of open windows and a fan is enough for a good night’s sleep. Sadly, the schools are out, so this is really the only chance for a long trip overseas- the best weather of the year has to be left for the Tanzanians to enjoy largely alone.

Knowing that we’ll be leaving for a while fairly soon, the social side of life has picked up- a last chance to catch up with friends we won’t be seeing for a month or so. Last week, we managed a visit to the cinema, a barbecue, two birthday parties and a dinner party! Next week is going to be far quieter as we start the preparations for the trip home.

So, what are the worries about such a long trip home? Well my first worry is always about the house- will something terrible happen while we’re away? Will we return to a smouldering crater where a house once stood? While this may be a little over the top, these worries do have a certain foundation in experience. A couple of days after Rohan’s birth, we received a phone call in the early hours of the morning from our driver Mohammed. Wondering why he was calling at such an odd hour, I picked up the phone. Apparently, a pipe had burst and the whole apartment was under several inches of water. Fortunately, Mohammed had been called by the bawaab and had taken charge- by the time we got back, a slightly musty smell was all we noticed about the incident. Will we be so lucky next time? Fortunately on this occasion, we have some very good friends of ours staying for the duration we’re away. We need housesitters, they need a place to stay- the perfect marriage of convenience!

My other main worry is about driving. Our plan is to spend a couple of weeks in London, then to fly up to Edinburgh to stay with Soma’s brother a few days. We’ll then drive slowly down to Wolverhampton via the Lake District. Sounds marvellous and I’m sure it will be. The only worry I have about this whole scenario is that my driving experience for the past two years has been limited solely to Africa. While I think my standards of driving are way better than average here in Tanzania, I’ve had to adapt to the local conditions- a well behaved UK driver is not going to get far here! This general change (or perhaps more accurately “degeneration”) in my driving was confirmed by my brother on a recent visit, who compared my driving to that of a dodgy London cabby. I’m now desperately trying to remind myself of the stricter conditions in the UK. A red traffic light means “stop”. It doesn’t mean “slow down, look left and right and cut the light if the coast is clear”. It definitely means “stop”. If I get caught speeding in the UK, you definitely mustn’t give the policeman a sly look and ask him “can we be friends?” while waving a ten pound note out of the side window. Forcing a gap at a right turn junction by pulling out and blocking the other side of the road is likely to be very unpopular in the UK as is trying to get to the head of a queue by driving along the pavement (okay, I’ve never actually done that one- I promise!!- , though many people here do). I’ll do my best, but I’m still pretty sure I’m going to get less than a mile before the first points find their way onto my licence- maybe I’ll just hire a driver!

The one thing we’re not too worried about is Swine Flu. We’re hearing all sorts of stuff here about its spread in the UK. It does seem to be getting quite commonplace but equally it seems that very few people who don’t have an underlying condition are dying of it. The reported figures of 100,000 cases are also a little fishy. In the days after diagnosis passes from a qualified doctor to a website, the number of diagnoses goes through the roof. My favourite website, The Daily Mash, perhaps sums up my suspicions best- when the government launches an online method of getting a copper bottomed excuse for a fortnight’s sick leave, it’s not surprising that the number of “cases” has rocketed!

For sure, we’ll be taking precautions and, perhaps, will bring along a stock of Tamiflu just in case. However, we need to remember to keep the risks in perspective. We’re living our daily lives in a place where Malaria is endemic and other nasties such as Dengue Fever, Sleeping Sickness, Yellow Fever, Cholera and Typhoid are known to exist, and have survived just fine so far. We don’t spend our lives fretting about getting some nasty illness (though I did have a bad dream about Ebola once). We’ll take precautions for sure, but will not be losing much sleep over it.

Soma has just pointed out that having written the rather smug paragraph above, I guess I’ve now just pretty much guaranteed I’m going to get Swine Flu and, in fact most people reading this will now be hoping I do get it! If I do then, to quote one Facebook contributor, I’ll “get well soon or die trying”!

Coming and Going

2009-06-26T07:01:00.000-07:00

We’re hitting the middle of another year and things have got rather busy. To be honest, what with the tasks piling up at work and the MBA needing ever more attention, I’m surprised Soma hasn’t walked in to our room and found me gibbering away in the foetal position. There’s still time, mind- July isn’t looking promising, so a dribbling Chubb is still a very real prospect!

There have been quite a few comings and goings in the past month. I’ve done both, with a trip to Kenya followed by a short visit to the UK for an MBA course. I do like coming back to the UK every so often, if nothing more than to see what is going on- the BBC news website only gives a glimpse of what is going on at home.

So what is going on? Well first of all it seems that a new law has been introduced requiring every TV programme to consist of a group of morons stuck together trying not to get voted off the show at the end. Switching on the TV, the first few programmes that came up were as follows:

The Apprentice- a group of people I wouldn’t let past any first round interview all trying to learn about business from the chap who did such a great job with Tottenham Hotspur all those years ago
Britain’s Got Talent- some form of 21st Century bear baiting where you find out that plain looking people can sing competently and that if you put enough pressure on kids they cry on stage
Some weird programme about socially inept people sharing a coach tour of Europe trying not to get slung off.

I hate to disparage UK telly, but I think I got more in depth entertainment from my newly purchased tongue scraper.

So what else? Well politically, everyone was going mad over MP expenses. Enough said about that one- when you get (not entirely serious) Tanzanian newspaper columnists suggesting that they should send anti corruption officials to help educate UK MPs on ethics, you know something is up! To be honest, people here view the whole issue with amazement and admiration, for the sheer outrage over what over here is viewed as fairly petty offences. In this part of the world, people are not likely to overstate a plane fare- more likely they’ll claim for a plane instead!

Anyway, the week in the UK passed uneventfully enough and I found myself back home pretty quickly, followed in short order by Phil and Daniella. It’s always good to have visitors, especially those who have never been here before. I do my best with this blog but unless someone visits us, there’s really no hope of getting them to understand exactly where and how we’re living.

They have just departed now having had what seemed to be a good time. They managed a few days in the Selous followed by a quick trip over to Zanzibar. Phil managed to strike gold by getting what seemed to be a nasty insect bite. When it was still pretty livid a few days later, we paid a bit more attention to it. Apart from getting some treatment at the pharmacist we discovered the truth that the nasty insect concerned was actually a nasty arachnid. It would seem that Phil has managed to secure bragging rights at all future parties by getting himself bitten by a tarantula!

Otherwise, life here has got easier as of late, especially in terms of commuting. The main reason for this is the start of the annual budget season. In fact the top level budget was released this week to general consternation. Two features jumped out at us. Firstly, there seems to be about $45m of revenue the source of which nobody has a clue about. Secondly, a staggering $3.9m has been allocated specifically for the provision of biscuits at meetings. Bet they don’t have a budget for moat cleaning though!

There are other consequences to the budget process. Every year around this time, the mass exodus of the public sector is accompanied by a huge reduction in traffic. Coincidentally enough, a substantial drop in the number of ladies of the night plying their trade along Ghuba Road has been noticed too. I try to look for the best in everyone but I’m sure the same happened this time last year! Work may not relent but at least I’m happy in the knowledge that the drive there and back work is going to be pretty easy from now until September. As for the Ghuba Road situation this of course is entirely moot for me- honest, Soma!

Another exodus, this time on a sadder note, was the departure of our neighbours Koji and Kasuko. This Japanese couple have been good friends to us in the time we’ve lived here. Equally importantly, their two young girls- Mimi and Migumi- have been good friends and excellent role models to our two boys. They had been hoping for another year here but, sadly, Koji’s employer decided to redeploy him back to Tokyo. I hope we’ll see them again soon- we’ve a trip to Japan in mind for sure.

Anyway, no house stays empty for long here and, sure enough, we met Koji’s replacement a week or so ago. Watanabe came up to introduce himself to us while Phil, Dirk and I were loitering over a braai. He seems like a nice chap- we’ll have to make sure he stays entertained ahead of his wife coming out to join him in August.

We’ve had a lot of ins and outs these past few weeks. We’ve enjoyed them all I think. Having said that, I think a short period of calm won’t hurt anyone!

Exploding Ordinance

2009-05-27T04:31:00.000-07:00

A month on and I need to post to make sure I stay on target for at least one New Year resolution. It’s not easy really, since we’ve not been doing much travelling or exploring this month. By and large it’s been a month of domestic normality for us here in Dar es Salaam. That doesn’t mean there has been nothing happening here in Tanzania. Fortunately for us, however, the main event of May only gave us a glancing blow.

One morning I was working at or office in the centre of town when we heard a distant bang and felt the office shake. This in itself was nothing new- the building next door had been under construction for some time and we’d got used to a more or less constant rhythm of thudding as the pile- driving needed to create deep foundations proceeded.

A short while later, however, we realised that this was nothing normal. We started to hear rumours of explosions and, worryingly, the noise and damage seemed to be greater back on the Peninsula. Fortunately for my personal peace of mind, we found out quite quickly that whatever had happened had not happened there- nearest and dearest were safe at least.

News gradually filtered through, but, just like the bomb attacks we experienced in Cairo, the news was sketchy, adulterated by rumour and was generally trumped by the distant but more accurate reports of the international press. At first we found out that a major explosion had occurred at the Mbagalo barracks on the other side of town- about 25km from the centre. This made sense- the peninsula is on the other side of a bay from Mbagalo- the wave from the explosion would have passed uninterrupted over the water and hit Msasani quite loudly- hence the number of broken windows and frightened people over there.

We heard news on the radio that the government had advised all town centre offices to evacuate, so this we did straight away, heading to a smaller office we have on the Peninsula. From there, we finally found out what had happened, the BBC World Service doing us proud. The first question everyone wanted an answer to was what had caused the explosion. Although Tanzania is not exactly public enemy number one either to the West or to Al Qaeda, this has not conferred immunity from attack- the 1998 embassy bombing here was brought back into public consciousness for much of the day. If this was a deliberate attack, then the whole complexion of our lives here would change. Fortunately, we found out that the explosion was caused by a tragic accident. An army unit had been moving missiles ahead of deployment to Darfur apparently. Two missiles had knocked together and exploded, setting off other missiles into surrounding buildings.

Final numbers of affected people have not been issued. However, at least count the toll was something around 30 dead, 350 injured and over 4,000 rendered homeless- a pretty awful outcome.

Things have calmed down now. Inquiries are ongoing and we, like most companies in Dar have done our best to contribute to the efforts of the many agencies helping the poor people who have either lost family and friends or seen their homes vanish in smoke.

Life has returned to normal now. To be honest, with not much else happening over the past few weeks, we’ve been keeping an eye on events back in the UK. The expenses scandal has been the cause of much mirth in the office, with Tanzanian colleagues now gloating that their politicians are not as corrupt as ours. A couple of the Tanzanian papers have even started offering advice to Gordon Brown on dealing with political corruption! To be honest, I’m beginning to realise that politicians across the world are much of a muchness- you get to a position of power, you use it as much as you can it seems. It makes you appreciate those few politicians who do actually try to work for something greater than their own enrichment. I will always believe that the socialist policies of Tanzania’s first president, Julius Nyerere, were misguided and simply wrong. However, his refusal to accept the lavish trappings of power throughout his presidency set an ethical standard some of our so called “honourable members” might learn from. His ducks, sadly had to forego the level of housing that those fortunate enough to belong to a British MP enjoy.

It does seem a bit odd the way news travels only in one direction in the world. You get a few MPs playing the system in the UK, or a bunch of non celebrities decide to join the thousands who climb Kilimanjaro each year and the (non) news is pasted ad nauseam all over UK and Tanzanian press alike. We experience a huge explosion killing scores, injuring hundreds and rendering thousands homeless and nobody in the UK really notices!

What we did in April

2009-04-27T02:10:00.000-07:00

Right, we’re getting close to the end of a month and once more I’m perilously close to breaking my target of at least one posting a month. Given that we’re all stuck indoors on a rainy day, now seems like as good a time as any to look back over April. The single most exciting thing we did this month was to pay a visit to Lushoto, a small town in the hills about seven hours drive north of here.

When we first arrived in Tanzania, almost a year and a half ago, Soma and I made a promise to ourselves that we would not make the same mistake that we’d made in Egypt. In the three years we spent in Cairo, we really did very little in the way of exploring the country. In part this was due to the fact that I’d already been to Egypt as a student. In part it was due to the arrival of Rohan and the upheavals of his first years of life. However, a large factor was undeniably our own inertia. By the time we found out we were leaving, it was too late- I was too busy selling off the business to go on holidays much so we were restricted to a few visits to Ain Sukhna and that memorable visit to the desert.

Not this time! We decided from the beginning to assume that our stay here could end without warning and to make sure that if that were to be the case, that we’d visited as much of Tanzania as we could. I guess we could still do better but so far we’ve not done too badly. Last year we managed Mikumi, Zanzibar, Ngorongoro (twice) and the Serengeti- a fine start. The famous stuff now behind us, we’ve decided to use 2009 to explore the lesser known, but equally beautiful areas of Tanzania- to stray a little further from the beaten track.

View of the Usambara Mountains- taken from the waterfalls at Soni

The town of Lushoto is the largest settlement in the Usambara Mountains, a range of mountains which, along with the Udzungwas and the Ulugurus form the Eastern Arc Mountain Range. To get there takes a long but relatively simple drive. Heading west out of Dar, you drive about 100km to a small village called Chalinze. From there you drive north for another few hours to a small town called Segera. At that point, hopefully by then full of the excellent goat meat soup they do there, you head west along the main road connecting Tanga to the cities of Moshi and Arusha. A right turn at the small village of Mombo takes you up into the mountains and another hour or so of steep winding roads finally gets you to Lushoto. All in all, it’s a long but pleasant drive.

The Usambara region and its people have an interesting history, and in many ways served as inspiration for the Disney movie “The Lion King”.

The local Sambaa people have traditionally been farmers, not herders like their more famous Maasai counterparts. The Sambaa were for some time a fairly disparate group, until they were unified in the 18th century by a chief known as Mbega. Mgega holds a special place in the hearts of the local people- an improved version of Robin Hood who managed to give to the poor without stealing from the rich. Cheated of his rightful place as chief, he became a famous and respected hunter. At some point, the Sambaa experienced problems with an infestation of wild pigs and asked Mbega to help. Mbega came back and hunted down the pigs. This meant that farmers could farm once more but also resulted in huge amounts of pork being distributed by Mbega to the hungry local people.

Mbega was respected both as a huntsman and as a diplomat and soon took a leadership position. During his reign, Mbega managed to unify the various Sambaa clans into a large and powerful tribe. By this achievement, Mbega became known as Simbawene- the Lion King. Sadly, the fortunes of the Sambaa did not last. By the mid 19th century they had been supplanted by other tribes. The title Simbawene remains to this day however, and is given to the direct descendents of Mbega. The current Simbawene has no formal power but is respected by the Sambaa- a people’s prince in effect.

By the early 20th century, the area had been pacified the occupying power of the time- Germany. Its cool, refreshing climate meant that it rapidly became a favoured place of recuperation for the occupying powers and was even mooted as possible location for a new capital. Soma has pointed out that in many ways, Lushoto was to the Germans what her home town of Pune was to the British- a place in the mountains to escape the heat of the rest of the country. A lot of the buildings there have a strong German influence- although all of Tanganyika was in fact ruled by Germany, you don’t really get the same feel in places such as Dar.

We spent a morning driving up from Dar and, shortly after midday arrived at our hotel, the beautiful but utterly out of place Muller Lodge. I say out of place because the lodge truly belongs in the Alps or the Black Forest- seeing it in the middle of Tanzania was simply odd!

The Muller Lodge at Lushoto

We spent the afternoon close by the lodge, walking through some of the neighbouring villages, enjoying the cool air and the rain.

The boys and I in the forests close to Lushoto

With it only being a long weekend away, we only had one full day, Sunday, in Lushoto. We were up and out bright and early to visit the famous market. Sadly the market was a shadow of its usual self. The lack of rains apparently have resulted in very poor crop yields this year so there is very little produce on sale- the farmers are using almost all their crops to feed themselves leaving very little else. As with everyone else in the country, the people of Lushoto are praying for rain- lets just hope the recent rainy days here in Dar are shared elsewhere in the country and can last a decent while. It seems odd for a Brit to be banging on for post after post hoping for rain (rather than moaning about it as would be traditional) but when the sunny days mean people go without food and power, a little rain is welcome.

The market at Lushoto

We moved on from Lushoto to a small settlement called Irente. Apart from a hotel and a few farms, there is not much in Irente. Not much apart from some beautiful countryside and the famous Viewpoint. The Viewpoint is a rocky outcrop marking the point at which the Usambara Mountains very abruptly give way to the spectacular flat plains of the Rift Valley. Walking close to the edge (which in very un- British style was not cordoned off by fences or railings) gave me both vertigo and a serious parental need to hold the boys very close indeed! The view was spectacular and was heightened by the knowledge that falling off the ledge would result in a straight drop of about a mile! Apparently the Viewpoint was the inspiration for Pride Rock as shown in the Lion King. Anyone (parents of small kids are a sure bet) who has seen the film can look at the photo below and make up their own minds!

The Viewpoint at Irente

We had lunch at a nearby farm- dark bread, cheese and local fruit jam (still getting that German feel!) before heading back in the early afternoon. I spent the afternoon teaching Kieran how to fish- he very proudly notched up six catches- before settling in for the evening.

The Maasai Valley- picture taken from up in the clouds at the Irente Viewpoint.

We all really enjoyed the short break- a real change from Dar for sure. The drive is a bit long but when you go through some spectacular scenery, it doesn’t seem quite so tough! I’m not sure where in Tanzania we’ll go next- one of the farms at Iringa or Mufindi perhaps- time will tell.

April is almost done with, then. Soma and Rohan have been to and come back from the UK. Kieran and I got to spend a happy week together discovering both each other and in Kieran’s case, the joys of Star Wars.

We more or less ended the month the other night with the annual St George’s Ball. Having been expat for several years now, we’re getting a bit blasé about these balls- a good four or so each year regardless of where we live! We had a great time as usual- though the head is still a little fragile as I write. I did manage to achieve one New Year’s resolution though- after hours of frustration and rage, I finally figured out how to tie my own bow tie. I have finally become a man of the world!

The Meaning of Bongo

2009-03-20T00:13:00.000-07:00

What does “Bongo” mean? This is a question that has been nagging me for a while now. Before coming to Tanzania, I understood “Bongo Bongo Land” to be a perjorative term for some generic African country. It confused me, therefore, to see the word used pretty freely here. In Tanzania, “Bongo” is a slang term for the city of Dar es Salaam- there is a local kind of hiphop music called “Bongo Flava” and a local radio station called Bongo Radio. Just like Cairenes always refer to Cairo as Misr (“Egypt”), the people here don’t live in Dar, they live in Bongo!

I asked a Tanzanian colleague where the word came from. Apparently “Bongo” is a slang word close to the English “nous”. If someone has bongo, it means they are streetwise and smart. Apparently when economic conditions reached a major low in the 1980s, jobs were hard to come by and many were penniless. To survive in these conditions, you needed that little bit extra- you got by on your wits. Dar es Salaam became the city of wits and has been called Bongo ever since!

You can still see that entrepreneurial spirit here. Although business conditions for large investors are challenging to say the least, I know plenty of people who have their own small businesses and swear blind that this place is a goldmine for the smart entrepreneur. Not that this always means that the business is either legal or ethical. One example of bongo I suppose is the thriving pirate DVD business. This is not illegal as far as I know, and traders seem to operate openly all over the place. For less than $5 you can get a reasonable quality compilation DVD with every James Bond film from Dr No to Quantum of Solace on it. I can honestly say that the day after its release in London I was watching a reasonable quality version of Slumdog Millionaire (cost $2.50) here in Dar. In fact the larger distributors of the DVDs have now convinced themselves of their respectability to the extent that they are even copying the attempts of the genuine producers to counter dodgy copies. The last DVD I got featured an earnest warning by the counterfeiter to only buy copies with a branded logo- any other pirate DVD would be substandard and would result in a poorer viewing experience! You've got to admire the chutzpah if nothing else!

Now before the pitchforks come out and I get accused of undermining young aspiring producers, I have to say in principle those accusations are totally right. I would always prefer to buy the genuine article; the problem is that after more than a year of scouring the city, I’ve not yet found an outlet here selling genuine DVDs. The most respectable shop I’ve found- in a highly respected upmarket expat mall on the Peninsula- sells the same Chinese copies as the guy I see in the car park outside- only with more of a markup for overhead.

I try my best to salve my conscience by making sure we load up on genuine DVDs any time we travel- the sad fact of life, however, is that the DVD market here seems to be benefiting Chinese GDP way more than that of Hollywood, Bollywood or even Nollywood.

Now we can’t assume, however, that everyone here is smart. As with anywhere else in the world, you always have the public sector to provide an antidote to any sense of wit and common sense.

The main story in today’s paper covers another loss from the Bank of Tanzania. Unlike previous losses, however, this does not seem to be a case of embezzlement or complex fraud. Quite simply, a major consignment of 10,000 shilling notes (total value somewhere in the billions) was delivered from the printers in Germany. Upon arrival at Dar es Salaam airport, you’d expect perhaps that the notes would be kept under armed guard, cleared and then taken under strictest security to the Bank of Tanzania. Right? Wrong!

Sadly, the notes arrived quite late on an evening- the evening before the Prophet’s birthday, a public holiday here. This being the case, the notes were left at the airport while everyone headed off for a day’s holiday. When they came back to pick up the notes a day or so later, they noticed that there seemed to be, well, not quite as many of them as they’d left. The image of some confused official saying “well they were there when I left them” would be pretty funny if it wasn’t for the case that this is a country that needs every penny it can get. Leaving billions of shillings unattended at an airport for a day is not what an impoverished country ought to be doing- not so much bongo as dumbo!

So, with one example of “Bongo” and one of “Dumbo” it seems pretty appropriate to finish with a story from another colleague of an example of both combined. Apparently there was a story that did the rounds in Tanzania a few years ago of a guy who managed to buy a pretty hefty amount of gold using fake money. He was very pleased with his achievement until he tried to sell the gold and found that it was fake gold- that surely has to be a good analogy for something going on around these parts!

Anyway, for good or bad, life here continues in its own way. We’re still waiting with baited breath to see what kind of rainy season we’re going to get this time. There are still ructions in the power industry but one thing everyone seems to agree on is that Tanzania is not in any state to cope with the power crunch that will inevitably accompany poor rains. Amid the recriminations flying around between parliamentarians, TANESCO and the Ministry, I guess everyone in bongo and beyond is fervently praying for good rains this year.

Phil and Daniella Get Married

2009-03-18T03:17:00.000-07:00

“I want to go back home to Africa” were the encouraging words from Kieran as we started our first stroll around Cambridge. Surprisingly, this was not an expression of the intense disappointment of the first love of his life marrying his uncle Phil. He’d taken that quite well, the pain eased perhaps by the fact that Daniella has now been replaced by a new girlfriend. No- this was all about the cold weather.

To be fair, the flight from Tanzania to the UK had resulted in a drop in temperature of something close to thirty degrees so perhaps he had a right to complain. Having said that, he was wrapped up in ski jackets, hat and gloves and had attached himself to me in such a way as to get both hands inside my coat. He was being, perhaps, ever so slightly feeble.

Thus it was that last month we headed back to a slightly above zero UK for the wedding of my brother Phil, the second of our generation (after me, of course) to manage inexplicably to convince a woman way out of his league to spend the rest of her days with him.

We arrived on the Thursday, well in time for the Saturday wedding, having experimented with flying SwissAir for the first time. The usual long flight out of Africa (prehistoric man would have managed it faster) followed by a stressy dash through Zurich airport to make the half hour connection. Before long though, we were making our final approach into City Airport, flying over our old house in Erith- a nostalgic experience enhanced by the relief in seeing that the place was still truly a bombsite and selling up had been a masterstroke after all.

A short drive later and there we were, in Cambridge- in temperature, architecture, in fact in all respects a world away from the hot and sticky African city we’d left the previous day. Thursday passed quite quickly- shopping, eating and drinking, before we met up with Daniella’s father, Mike, and his wife for a few drinks. Fortunately we’d booked a mini apartment so were able to keep on partying well after the boys were in bed. We stayed up into the wee small hours with Mike, Daniella’s brother Eric and a number of the bridesmaids, steadily working our way through the bottle of whisky I’d bought as a greeting present. Hours later, with Daniella’s father fast asleep in a chair and the bottle more or less drained, it was clear that this manifestation of the Chubb- Rossi combo had got off to a pretty promising start and we all headed off to bed.

Anyway, rather than going through this on an hour by hour basis, let’s just stick to the important bits. We’ll take it as read that there were lots of enjoyable chats with friends and family in varying states of sobriety, punctuated by shopping expeditions to find the millionth thing “we didn’t have but absolutely couldn’t do without”.

Friday afternoon saw us at the wedding rehearsal. There we met the vicar for the first time- a pretty cool combination of biker and priest who, had either of us been Christian, would have been most welcome to officiate at my and Soma’s wedding. We had prolonged polite negotiations over which order the procession should enter in, before deciding that the American way was best and that the first couple up the aisle would be myself and a young lady called Sarah. I have to say, going up the aisle with a tall blonde lady was a bit of a change, being married as I am to a short Indian.

The procession and the rehearsal went very well indeed. Kieran behaved himself impeccably and listened quietly to all that was going on, unlike his grandfather who was told off by our biker vicar for talking in class!

A day later we were doing it for real. Kieran, Jake, Eric and myself were there nice and early ready to hand out programmes and welcome guests into the Girton College chapel. All of us were dressed in our finery, including Kieran, who was possibly as smart as he’s ever been in his life. He felt very important indeed in his dual role of usher and doorstop (we couldn’t keep the chapel door from closing violently so we wedged Kieran against it). On the whole he did very well indeed. One slight failure came about when he stepped away from the door and almost succeeded in braining his Great- Great Aunt Lorna, but even she took it all in good humour. After the inevitable delay, bride and bridesmaids turned up looking sensational and the fun began.

As with most weddings, the ceremony was both poignant and brief- not brief enough for Rohan who, delighting in the noise made by turning the digital camera on and off was escorted from the chapel by his mother. Before long, though, the new husband and wife and their assorted guests were in an adjoining room sipping champagne. The reception was fun too- although the college itself is obviously quite an austere place, some of the formality had been taken away by naming all the tables after planets from Star Wars. We were lucky enough to be placed on the Death Star- an improvement for me in terms of Star Wars locations. The last I’d visited was Tatooine (not just a planet but a small town in Tunisia) about 14 years ago and I had my shorts stolen by a dodgy hotel owner!

The speeches were good, since both Mike and Jake understood that defining quality of a good speech is brevity. I guess the toughest speech is always the best man’s speech since so much expectation is attached to it. Jake did a really good effort and managed to walk that tightrope of trying to be funny without offending too many people. At least I now realise just what a good choice of wife Phil made; anyone who is happy to send porn magazines to soldiers on active duty in Afghanistan clearly understands a man’s true needs and is fine by me!

After much eating, drinking and dodgy folk dancing we headed off, happy in the knowledge that Phil was now a proper grown up, Daniella had been made an honest woman of, and that we’d met a great bunch of new friends. Although people always seem to leave weddings assuming they’ll meet up with the “other side” again sometime, I really hope that we do so this time. Mike travels a fair bit anyway, so I’m looking forward to seeing him and his wife come to East Africa sometime- apart from anything, there’s another bottle of scotch needing finishing off.

Anyway, we’re now back in Tanzania, with the wedding a happy memory. The photos Daniella and Phil had made are great too, taken by a genius photographer called Mark Wallis- check him out online at www.markwallisphoto.com if you’re getting married. Okay, some of the pictures of me show the unavoidable truth that I now have a bald patch the size of the hole in the ozone layer, but who is ever happy at photos of themselves anyway? Way more importantly, the pictures show a day in which two super people, thoughtful enough to send hardcore porn to Afghanistan, finally tied the knot. Congratulations both and see you here soon!

Immigration, Aid and Condoms

2009-02-10T04:29:00.000-08:00

I promised myself I’d write once more before our quick trip to England. I promised this last week and now we’re only a day away from travelling, so I guess it’s time to get typing.

As I write, the sky outside is pretty grey and overcast. Not as foreboding as it seems to be in the UK, mind- snow is a pretty unlikely phenomenon anywhere in Tanzania other than the top few hundred metres of Kilimanjaro. However, we do seem to be getting a rare spot of rain.

The weather here this year has been a bit strange. As I’ve written before, we normally get a short rainy season followed a few months later by the main rains. This year, however, the short rains appear to have almost entirely failed. We’ve had a few major rainfalls- generally an hour or so of monsoon like rains- but then nothing. I’m not sure what that means for the main rains- if they fail however then things really get tough- severe power shortages for a start, given that most electricity comes from the dams across the country.

The weather here hasn’t been as bad as the UK though. Every time I check the BBC or call home it seems as if the world is coming to a snowy, icy end. I’m quite looking forward to the novelty of feeling cold- I’ve not felt anything below 20 degrees Celsius in years. We’re painfully aware, however, that the weather is cold and that simply wearing longer shorts and thicker T Shirts probably won’t cut the mustard. Soma has been running round her friends trying to find winter clothing- for obvious reasons not something readily available in the shops here!

Life in the UK seems pretty miserable right now- from reading the news, people seem to be pretty down on more or less everything and everyone. Bankers seem to have a pretty bad press these days and, more relevant to me, so do foreign workers.

The recent protests in the UK have certainly not gone unnoticed over here and make rather uncomfortable reading for expatriate Britons. “British Jobs for British People” seems to be all the rage, but the obvious flipside appears to have escaped many people. I am also a fan of “British Jobs for British People” but, in at least one instance, I am a far bigger fan of “Tanzanian Jobs for British People”. If heavy restrictions were to be placed globally on foreign workers, then clearly a lot of Britons will be heading home.

Recent figures point to there being about 2.3 million foreign workers currently in the UK. Losing them would logically create the same number of vacancies. However, given that even back in 2006, the total estimated UK expatriate population exceeded 5.5 million, competition for these new vacancies might be a little tight should all of us expats flood back home!

Anyway, life in Tanzania moves on. We have our own issues here, not least the perennial issues of development aid and corruption. I’m not going to talk much about corruption other than that it definitely exists here, there is a major drive against it and that it permeates society.

What is sad, however, is when corruption mixes with development aid. Development funding is always emotional since you are dealing with one group of people giving to another. When that process is undermined, you upset those who have given and you ignore those who were meant to receive.

One common example came a few weeks ago, when Soma was shopping in Kariakoo- in Dar city centre. Now the background to this was that a year or so ago, we were lucky enough to receive a state visit from the then President George W Bush. Unlike most parts of the world, the former president was largely popular here- his policies on Africa are recognised by and large to be positive as far as I know. Anyway, one result of the visit was the donation of 1 million free mosquito nets for the poor of Tanzania. Given the fact that malaria is both endemic and highly potent here, it is not surprising that this donation was very loudly praised here.

Anyway, was the donation used well? Who knows? One clue may be that Soma was approached by a street vendor offering prime mosquito nets marked as “ Donated to Tanzania by the people of the USA” for $10 a pop. Wonder how many of these freebies ever found their way to the intended recipients!

Corruption apart, I guess it’s not surprising that there is a huge disparity between the expectations of a donor and reality on the ground. The recipient community may be poor but they are human like anyone else and have unpredictable human reactions too- not always be in line with the mental image painted by the donor. We may like to think that our donations are life changing and are received by an enraptured community but, unsurprisingly, reality isn’t always that way. Whose problem is that, one might ask.

Perhaps a lot of these instances derive from our need as donors to feel good about giving- a very natural human need. People who donate to Soma’s deaf school like to know what their cash is being used for so always donate to a specific project, rather than to the less glamorous “general kitty” set aside for expenses such as unclogging the school toilets. All donations are admirable, and this is not meant to disparage anyone who gives to anyone else. However, human nature being what it is, sometimes the offers of help meet with unexpected responses- sometimes funny, sometimes a bit deflating.

I’ve certainly received a few reality checks here. I’ll sign off with one recent instance that comes to mind and brings to light the mismatch between this particular donor’s expectation and the actual response to a donation. We’ve been actively promoting an HIV/ AIDS awareness campaign on the island for some months now. Training has been held and the next step was to bring in masses of low cost (high quality mind!) condoms. I thought that, with condoms being both rare and expensive on the island, that this donation would be very well received indeed. One day in the office my assistant got a call from the island. He came to me looking a little embarrassed.

“It’s one of the villagers” he said “He’s asking about the condoms”

“What does he want?” I asked. “Is he happy?”

“Kind of” came the reply “He just had a small request though”

“Okay- what does he want?”

“Next time, could we make sure the condoms are ribbed or flavoured instead?”

I don’t think I’ve been that lost for words in a while. After much thought, I came up with the only addition I could think of to this intercultural exchange.

“What flavour do they want?”

Back in Tanzania

2009-02-01T20:50:00.000-08:00

Our short holiday in India could not have come at a better time. Despite the fact that we travel a fair bit and have not stuck religiously to Tanzania since we arrived, I for one was getting a little stir crazy if truth be told. The minor annoyances that permeate life here were taking their toll and the many joys of life here were being taken for granted. As with a showbiz marriage entering that vital second week, Tanzania and I needed a short break from each other.

Coming back to blue skies, sunshine and clean air I felt a renewed appreciation for life here. Driving back from my first day at work I smiled my way through the inevitable traffic jams and even kept my new found calm when being queue jumped in the traffic jam by the millionth daladala- Dar’s charms were well and truly back in the ascendant and nothing was going to change that.

Looking back several weeks on, those feelings still haven’t changed. This is, however a minor miracle given the phenomenal efforts of Tanzanian life to convince me otherwise! I think most people here would agree that in terms of hassle, January has been a true Tanzanian vintage!

The fun started off innocuously enough with an empty tank of petrol. I asked Abubakar our company driver to go fill the car as usual. He came back hours later looking decidedly fed up and flustered claiming that he’d been to every petrol station he knew and could not find any petrol. Incredulously, I made a few inquiries and took a look out of the office window at the BP station opposite. Sure enough there was a scene of complete and utter chaos. The forecourt was filled with cars with the resultant “queue” (term used very loosely here) stretching back up the road as far as the eye could see. Added to this were literally hundreds of people all milling around holding jerry cans in the hope of getting some petrol.

Fabulous- in a world of plummeting oil and petrol prices, in which OPEC is talking about cutting production due to the overabundance of petrol, Tanzania had managed to engineer itself a fuel crisis. Sure enough, for the rest of the week getting fuel was a game of cat and mouse- rumours come out of a garage getting a delivery and you get there before anyone else- great in theory but a real challenge when thousands are doing the same!

The shortage appears to have been due to arguments between the oil importers and the government over pricing- it caused much excitement, provoked much impotent outrage from politicians then abruptly ended a day or two later- the car pooling could end and I was back behind the wheel.

The fuel crisis went away and was promptly replaced by a mini power crisis. These are always fun for me- in addition to the blackouts and noisy generators, I get to feel the collective wrath of anyone who knows I work for the power company- best to just stay in bed to be honest! The first episode of the crisis was nothing too abnormal- a day or so of periodic load shedding (power industry euphemism for cutting people off). This while annoying was manageable since there were only a few hours of shutdown, enough to keep the generator running without it running out of fuel.

The second blow however came when some sort of fault at a local substation cut power to the whole peninsula for almost two days. This was in an entirely different league and came at a time when the water pump had packed in and the gas cylinder had run out. One happy day I came home to no electricity, no gas, no water and one very unhappy wife. We briefly explored the notion of abandoning house and going to a hotel in the town centre. In the end we stuck it out- water was drawn from the waterhole (our tank is basically a hole) and we slept with windows open. Actually, despite the fact that we’re in the middle of summer, sleeping without AC wasn’t too bad. We get a good throughput of air in our room so it wasn’t too hot. The bed was crowded with the addition of two small boys who, scared either of the dark or of the croaking bullfrogs decided to sleep with us. No power, a ramshackle house with nothing working and four to a bed- it was just like the Waltons!

The power is back now and life is good once more. Now we’re more or less done with January I think we can safely say that the short rainy season isn’t going to amount to much this time. There have been a couple of downpours- a big one this morning in fact, but no prolonged period of rain. This doesn’t bode too well for rains later in the year. Since most power here is hydroelectric, that means loads more power cuts- we’ve stocked up on serious amounts of diesel. It is pretty hot here right now and we generally stay indoors between noon and four if we can help it. Evenings are nice though and much of our social life involves sitting outside drinking something alcoholic in the evening sun. Friday nights everyone seems to head to the Dar Yacht Club for an end of week glass- the kids head off to the playground and we enjoy a glass of wine watching the sun set over the bay- a very civilised end to the week.

Last weekend was Burns Night. Last year we went to the event at the Yacht Club and ended up home by 9pm as the event (held outdoors) was hit by a flash storm which practically blew us home. No such problems this time- the event was held in the gardens of the British High Commissioner’s residence and in any case the short rainy season, usually a couple of weeks in December or January, appears to have forgotten to happen this time.

This Burns night was a special one since it was the 250th anniversary of his birth. The usual traditions were in place- lots of speeches trying to convince us that Burns was any good (he’s fooling nobody!) interspersed with haggis, neeps and tatties and copious amounts of scotch. An event like this would be fun anywhere- the Scottish have perfected the art of drinking themselves into oblivion so are great fun to party with. However, the weirdness of doing this in Tanzania added to the fun. I spent lots of time explaining to our Indian neighbour Praveena exactly what a haggis is made of, what the woman was saying when she gave the Selkirk Grace and why the English and Scots have been punching seven bells out of each other for millennia. Being Indian, she totally connected with the scotch however. The Scots are well and truly matched in their love of single malt by the Indians- my father in law is proof of that! I sit here writing this with the last remnants of a sore head working their way out of my body. I will feel fine tomorrow but will never split a bottle of scotch with Praveena again- mind you I said that last time and the time before!

Our table at Burns Night- l-r Praveena, me, Soma and Dirk

So, life in Tanzania seems to be the usual fun and games. Lots of power cuts, water shortages, breakdowns of various bits of the house along with the huge consolation of a cracking bunch of friends in a profoundly beautiful part of the world. There are lots of negatives and positives- as soon as the former outweighs the latter we’ll be on our way. Right here right now, that day seems quite a long way off.

Two Weeks in India Part 2- The Andaman Islands

2009-01-18T20:35:00.001-08:00

Although spending time in Calcutta was pleasant enough, there is no hiding the fact that the part of the visit I was most looking forward to was without doubt the trip we were due to make to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India’s most remote state. After a few days in the smog of Calcutta, we were all pining for some fresh air and sunshine- this place had both in piles.

When we’d been asked about what our plans were for Christmas, we’d said we were going to visit the Andaman Islands. In most cases this was greeted with consistently blank expressions. I’m assuming from this that (as with me before the idea of visiting had been mooted) most people don’t have a clue where on earth the Andamans actually are. This being the case, it probably makes sense to give a brief introduction to them.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands as seen from Google Earth

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a long string of islands (over 200 in all) located at the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal. The top most tip (the very fashionably named Coco Channel) is more or less on the same latitude as Bangkok with the southernmost point of the Nicobar Islands almost touching Singapore. The southern part of the archipelago (the Nicobar Islands) are almost entirely off limits to foreigners. Our stay was limited to two main islands- South Andaman, home to the capital, Port Blair, and the smaller and less developed Havelock Island.

View from South Andaman

The islands have a long history and have been mentioned by famous travellers such as Ptolemy and Marco Polo. Until relatively recently, the population consisted entirely of a number of tribes with ethnic characteristics close to both Africa and Asia. One theory has it that in fact these islands were a stopping off point on man’s original migration out of Africa- not sure if that is right but if they did decide to stop off for a multi millennia break, then stopping here wasn’t a bad move on their part.

Apart from the occasional traveller, the indigenous population seems to have been left in peace until relatively recently. A few pirates may have used the islands as a hideout and spread the rumour that the area was populated by savage man eating monsters. This may not have been true but it was a mighty good way to protect their loot!

The peace and quiet was broken forever towards the end of the 18th century by the British. A certain Lieutenant Blair arrived on what is now called South Andaman and decided that this would be a perfect place to site a penal colony. He founded a capital city, modestly named it Port Blair. After long attempts to pacify the islanders, the British were finally able to build a jail there in the 1850s

The Cellular Jail is probably the one feature of the Andamans known to all Indians. For the best part of a century, this jail, known as the Indian Bastille was home to all sorts of political prisoners. The name comes from the fact that the jail consisted solely of cells- each prisoner was kept in solitary confinement under pretty awful conditions. Accounts I’ve heard of the conditions are shameful- prisoners were only allowed to go to the toilet at four preset times during the day and were subject to physical punishment for daring to need to go at any other time. Almost half the original prison population died. The rate of attrition for the thousands who followed was not much better.

I was fortunate enough to meet an uncle of Soma’s a year or so before he died. An ardent communist, he was sent to this prison at the age of thirteen. He came out of there fifteen years later a broken man. It was plain to see decades later that although his convictions remain strong and his arguments coherent, he had been a physical mess for a long time.

We rightly spend much time praising the bravery and nobility of our ancestors at places such as Dunkirk and Normandy. However, we must not forget that at the same time these people were fighting for our freedom, some of their colleagues were beating young boys to death for the crime of wanting to go the toilet at the wrong time. Some of our ancestors we should be proud of- others perhaps less so.

The Cellular Jail- not Britain's finest achievement

The beginning of the end of this jail came in 1942 when the islands were occupied by the Japanese. In many ways this was a case of “out of the frying pan into the fire”. Previously the vicious treatment was directed only towards prisoners. The Japanese, however, considered all islanders potential spies. Stories abound of shiploads of civilians being towed out to sea and drowned. Fortunately the occupation was short lived. The British returned very briefly until India gained independence in 1947 and the jail was closed.

Understandably, the islands are seen by India as a symbol of the struggle for independence. It is no coincidence that the Indian flag was first raised on these islands before statehood was announced elsewhere in 1947.

In the intervening years, the islands became the destination of choice for refugees- Bengalis from Bangladesh and Tamils from Sri Lanka make up much of the islands population now, dwarfing the original inhabitants.

All continued peacefully until 2004 when the islands were hit by the Tsunami. In a few minutes catastrophic destruction hit the islands and 35,000 people were killed. The evidence of this is still there to see five years on.

So it was to these islands that the Air India flight carrying four Chubbs and a number of Maliks landed one December morning. Sadly one of the Chubbs (me) was doubled up in pain having drunk a dodgy coffee at Calcutta Airport- my painful but thankfully brief and solitary encounter with stomach complaints in India so far.

We made it to our hotel without problem and Soma and the boys headed to the beach, leaving me doubled up in bed. By lunchtime all was apparently well and we headed into Port Blair for a spot of sightseeing. However, by the time we got to the Cellular Jail I was showing signs of dehydration and was promptly sent back, passing out several times in the car! The first day was entirely forgettable and, thanks to a severe lack of electrolytes I did in fact manage to forget much of the afternoon!

The next day we were scheduled to go island hopping. I was much better but wisely thought that remote islands were not the place to be should I take another bad turn. I let the others go off and arranged to meet them for lunch on a neighbouring island. I was to be met at ten and a car would take me sightseeing before heading on to lunch.

Typical street scene- centre of Port Blair

Predictably, ten o’clock came and went- no car. Half past ten- no car. Not wanting to waste more of my holiday I headed down to the road and flagged down an autorickshaw. After a quick argument over fare, I was speeding off into Port Blair- freedom at last! The Cellular Jail continued its jinx over me- that day was the one day of the week it was closed. Never mind- I walked on into town to see what was there. Not an awful lot to be honest but in any case wandering through the markets and seeing the general hustle and bustle of a small island town is fun in itself. There was small memorial to the soldiers fallen in the Great War of 1914- 1920- the memorial was obviously built before they’d figured when the War actually ended so it must have been a pretty early memorial. After an hour or so I got bored of walking around so headed to the small stadium where a cricket match was in full flow. I’d never seen an Indian cricket match before so it was quite fun watching this one. It was only a low level match- the Andamans aren’t really known as a hotbed of cricket- but even so, the supporters seemed pretty involved. I didn’t understand what they were saying but I think it’s fair to say that “hard luck chap” wasn’t one of the phrases being hurled from the crowd when some unfortunate was bowled out!

My first Indian cricket match- Port Blair

After an hour or so I figured it was time to go meet the others for lunch on Mount Harriet. First step- where is it? After asking a local shopkeeper, I found out that I needed to take a rickshaw to Chatham Saw Mill, a few miles away, catch a ferry to a place called Bamboo Flats, then take another rickshaw to the top of Mount Harriet- no problem right? All was going well enough- the rickshaw took about 15 minutes and I got a ticket for the shortly departing ferry- magic. I was just taking in the view when I got a tap on the shoulder- behind me was a very hot and flustered tour driver- the guy who had been meant to take me around all morning. Apparently he’d been working with his company all morning to track down the missing Brit. As a last bet he’d waited at the ferry station, thinking I’d have to come here to make my appointment- spot on. “Where were you?” he asked. I asked the same of him- where was he at ten this morning? “I was only an hour late” was his response! Suddenly I felt much less guilty about leading him on a wild goose chase all morning. We made the crossing together and he drove me up to the meeting spot- lucky since I’d have had no chance of finding everyone had I been alone- Bamboo Flats would have been the end of my quest.

Anyway, all was uneventful the rest of our time on South Andaman. The hotel was nice but basic- still being rebuilt after 2004. Seeing how close it was to the coast it must surely have been more or less entirely washed away.

A few days later we found ourselves on Havelock Island, a four hour ferry ride away. This island is both less developed and far more beautiful than South Andaman. On many occasions we found it just like Zanzibar- beautiful but totally unfamiliar with how to cater for tourists. Inconvenient it may be but is this lack of tourist focus really such a bad thing?

For the first of our two nights on the island we found ourselves in a different hotel to the others. We headed off to a mystery hotel filled with trepidation as to what lay ahead. In fact, what lay in store was perhaps the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. We were booked into an eco lodge at a remote beach called Radhanagar. The accommodation was basic- a single fibreglass dome with a bed and bathroom. However, the front door was less than 100 metres from the beach- what a place to spend New Year’s Eve. We spent an afternoon playing on the beach and riding elephants before going to a local Dabha (small local café) for dinner. Dinner took the form of a vegetable thali each, which all of us demolished happily. The best bit for me at least was that the waitress was on hand to dole out seconds and even thirds- totally stuffed for about a dollar each!

An Ecolodge at Radhanagar Beach- our home for New Years Eve

We’d arranged with our driver that he’d come and watch over the kids for an hour or so in the evening so we could spend a bit of time at a beach party. He never turned up sadly, so Soma and I had the normal parental experience of New Year at home. Actually I was pretty wiped so didn’t mind too much. The explanation we’d got the next day was that he’d broken down in the middle of the island and had to walk hours through the dark to get back. A more cynical person might think that he’d been sidetracked by a party and gotten blasted- I’ll go with his explanation though!

New Year’s morning was a very peaceful experience. I woke up at about 5.30 (exactly midnight in the UK by coincidence) and went for a walk on the beach. I had the whole place to myself, with the exception of a few wild dogs. I watched the sunrise then headed back. We all came out for a walk at about 8. We still had the beach to ourselves. Surely this was the stuff dreams were made of- the beach voted the best in Asia apparently was stretching out for the best part of a mile each way and there was not a soul apart from us on it. We walked a little more then headed off to Rahul’s dabha for breakfast.

Kieran on the beach New Year's Day with all the other tourists

Two boys poking piles of elephant dung on Radhanagar Beach- lovely!

We loved this place so much that we called and cancelled our meet- up with the others- let them do their island hopping; we were staying here! We spent the morning lapping up Radhanagar before taking a rickshaw across the green island interior to the next hotel.

From this moment onwards it was all about heading back. We spent a final night on Havelock before taking the ferry back to Port Blair. One more night at Port Blair and we were off to the airport- back to Calcutta.

The first sunrise of 2009- taken at 5.30am 1/1/09 on Radhanagar Beach

It is clear from any sort of reading up on the area that these islands combine phenomenal beauty with the kind of tragedy you wouldn’t wish on any population. Over the centuries, the original inhabitants have been marginalized by newcomers; prisoners have been subjected to the most appalling brutality by people claiming to be civilised; islanders have been persecuted by the Japanese and finally decimated by one of the most damaging natural disasters of recent times. However, despite the obvious scars, the island retains a true beauty. We travelled a lot and live in a place which is home to some of the most stunning beaches anywhere on earth. However, both of us agree that we have yet to find a place more jaw-droppingly beautiful than the beach the four of us were lucky enough to spend a solitary family morning on at the start of 2009.

Two Weeks in India Part 1- Calcutta

2009-01-13T00:59:00.000-08:00

“What the hell are we thinking coming here again” was the thought going through both of my and Soma’s heads as we started our descent into Calcutta airport. We’d been married in this hellhole of a city six years ago and both swore never to return. As far as I remembered, the people here were great to be sure but this was the filthiest, smelliest city on the planet. Anyway, like it or not, here we were, at the start of two weeks in India- experiencing perhaps the best and worst of this wonderful country.

This posting is going to cover the time spent in and around Calcutta. I could refer to it by its official name, but Soma would probably ban me from going near my blog again. In common with a number of cities, Calcutta changed its name a few years ago- Calcutta, Bombay and Madras became Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai. In at least two cases this was to reflect the proper pronunciation. Soma is not a fan of these new names- in her view we may as well change UK city names to Lahndan and Burmingum by the same logic. As a proud Bombayite, she has no truck with a BJP party political gimmick and insists on the original spelling- it is Bollywood, not Mullywood after all and I’ve not yet heard of a dish called Chicken Chennai! Anyway, given the choice between annoying the BJP or my wife, I’ve made my decision and in this blog at least, it’s Calcutta we went to!

Our time spent in Calcutta came at the beginning and end of our holiday, either side of a week in the Andaman Islands, and actually was not as bad as we’d feared. My main motivation for coming back was heritage. For a child brought up as an expatriate or to parents of differing cultures, understanding where you come from takes on additional significance. If, like me, you were born and brought up in the Midlands, then there is not much issue- sure, the North East and South West of Britain have claims on me but I have a pretty good idea of where I come from- why else would I go through the emotional agony of supporting Wolves? For the boys however, the question of where they come from is far more complex. Both were born in the UK but Kieran has lived there little more than a year and Rohan has never officially lived there at all. Their Dad is English but their Mum is Indian. Their lives have been split so far between Egypt and Tanzania. The fact that at the ages of five and three respectively, both boys need to get new passports shows just how nomadic an existence they lead. This kind of life has its rewards for sure but one challenge facing us is to make sure they know where they come from- to provide them with the sense of identity that I took for granted as a kid.

Kieran getting a haircut on the roof, care of the local barber

We come back to the UK quite often but try also to visit India as much as we can. However, half of the boys’ background is not really just Indian but Bengali. This side of their family history is rooted firmly in and around Calcutta. To make sure they understand this, and to get the boys to meet a large part of their extended family, a visit to Calcutta was needed- thus we went.

Getting used to Calcutta was tough. We spent our time at Soma’s parents’ flat- they spend a few months each year in the city so have a small but usefully located place to stay in. Admittedly it was a little too small for six of us, but we just made sure to spend time out and about to avoid any sense of claustrophobia. A sense of the challenges that living here would bring up came on our first night. We were warned in advance that it would be a little noisy. Apparently the lady living on the ground floor has a habit of starting very loud domestic arguments first thing in the morning. She’d been warned off by our rather assertive and scary maid Jharna. Apparently she’d told the lady that she should remember she was living in a nice area, not the slums and should act accordingly. If she acted up while we were there, Jharna was going to beat her up!

Sensibly (you’ve not seen Jharna in a mood!), this lady was as good as gold our entire stay. However, in the middle of our first night, I was awoken by a series of whistles. I’m not talking about someone whistling on the way home from the pub but a long series of loud “football referee” type whistles- enough to wake the dead, and me (though not the kids or Soma).

I mentioned it the next morning, assuming that some drunken reveller had been a bit naughty. Apparently this was not the case. Each locality has a security guard assigned to it. His job is to make night patrols to ensure everyone is safe. The people have insisted apparently that he whistle to prove he is not sleeping but is really patrolling. I pointed out the failings in this plan- while proving he wasn’t asleep he was ensuring nobody else was either. He was also very brilliantly giving constant giveaways as to his locations for the benefit of anyone planning a mugging or a break in. The people living here seem to have great intentions but joined up thinking appears to have done a runner, along with all the burglars. I spent most of my nights thinking of painful things to do to the security guard with his whistle.

How to describe Calcutta? In terms of architecture I guess it is little different to other Indian cities. There is huge traffic congestion- a mixture of cars, buses, auto- rickshaws and cycle- rickshaws all competing for space. This is a landscape I enjoy a lot- very vibrant, full of life and of possibilities. However, despite all this, the one overwhelmingly bad thing that just dominates the city is its pollution

I have travelled to many different places, in many of the poorest and least developed areas of the world. However, I have never in all my years encountered a filthier city than this. The smell hits you the second you leave the airport and doesn’t leave until you’re back on the plane. Imagine putting your nose up against a running car exhaust and that’s pretty much the standard air quality you get. In the time we spent in Calcutta I don’t think I ever saw blue sky- in fact the only sky was the grim, grey haze that permeates the place.

View of Calcutta on a clear day!

I remember feeling like this last time we were here. However, for some reason things seemed worse this time. Was it because we were coming from a country of clean fresh air and zero pollution? Was it just the general deterioration over the past six years? I don’t know but to be blunt, the city is one carcinogenic health hazard and, for the sake of the people who live there, it has to clean up its act.

Anyway, enough about the dirt. In terms of the people we met and the stuff we did, we had a great time. Christmas Day was spent in a manner that would shock traditionalists. We headed off to the South City Mall- a huge shopping complex that would put its British contemporaries to shame. In a welcome indulgence of sheer commercialisation, we walked around familiar shops such as Next, Marks and Spencer and Body Shop listening to piped Christmas music- brilliant. Okay, some might disagree but when you spend your time shopping at roadside stalls most days a big shopping mall is a welcome treat. To hammer home the point we had Christmas lunch at the mall’s food court- my parents would be so proud!

Soma and Rohan waiting for Christmas lunch at the South City Mall

Actually, we were both taken aback slightly by just how developed India has become- the malls were exceptionally well run and, unlike the odd mall found in Egypt and Tanzania, they are well populated. They are not simply a haven for the expatriate and local elites, the Indian middle class is well and truly mobilised and is spending serious cash- the West be warned!

We did our best to even the balance with regards spending however. Taking advantage of the shopping, we splashed out on lots of books, DVDs and music- Soma was on a mission to buy more or less every film released in living memory and I was happier than a pig in pooh browsing the book shops.

So apart from shopping, what else did we do in Calcutta? For the most part we visited people or got visited by people. Before heading to the Andamans we paid a visit to Soma’s cousin Raka, returning to the house I spent my last night before marrying Soma. Although I have very strong feelings about Calcutta, I have to say that the balcony room they have in that house is one of the most profoundly peaceful places I’ve seen anywhere- a haven of peace in a mad city! The next day we were visited in turn by family. The “compact and bijou” nature of the apartment made for a tight squeeze but somehow the barely contained chaos of ten adults and five kids all trying to coexist was quite fun!

Perhaps the highlight of our time there was the one trip we made out of the city. This came a few days before we left but, for me, made our time in Calcutta really worthwhile. The car came to pick us up just after nine, for the planned “nine sharp” departure. In true Bengali style, we departed “on time” just before ten. In addition to the four of us, we packed into the car Soma’s two parents, a cousin, his wife, his mother and his daughter- squished in like sardines.

After a couple of hours of driving, first of all through the smog of Calcutta then through increasingly clearer air as we headed out of the city, we arrived in the small village of Sheoraphuli. This is the village that Soma’s father comes from. Born the fifth of eleven children, he started out from this modest village. While you’d respect anyone getting a Phd from a British university, the achievement in this case is all the more when you see where the journey began.

Lunch on the roof at Sheoraphuli

We arrived to a very warm welcome from a number of family members. The reunion was apparently for close family members only- the surviving brothers and sisters and their descendents only. The final attendance was a very modest 47. We had lots of fun sitting in a small bedroom trying to talk with a myriad of family members. They had all heard of me and the boys but we knew nobody. However, despite the language barrier, we all became firm friends by the end of the afternoon. By all accounts their view on me was that I was “jamai khub bhalo”- a very good son in law! I have to say that although these people were clearly much poorer than us, their generosity was humbling. Almost everyone brought a gift for the boys- it was another Christmas in all but name for them. Our meagre offerings of some Tanzanian novelty pencils looked pretty lame by comparison! After a large slap up meal on the roof terrace, it was soon time to head back- a short stay that simply flew by. If we’d wanted to show the boys where they were from, then the home of the Mitras was a pretty good place to bring them. A quarter of their blood comes from Geordieland, a quarter from Cornwall. They are well acquainted with the middle class Ghosh part of their background from Calcutta. These kind, warm people from this small village form a very welcome part of their background too. I’m glad we all finally got to meet them.

Kieran with some of his newly acquired cousins

Calcutta is an odd place for me. On the one hand it is squalid and dirty. There is nothing so calculated as to make your heart sink than to make a pre dawn drive to the airport when smog brings visibility to a few metres. At times like this, Calcutta looks like a city designed by Dante as an additional circle of hell. However, on an emotional level it is a lovely place. Apart from anything, we got married here six years ago. During the week or so we were here my own family and friends were, without exception, treated like royalty by their Bengali counterparts. As with all family they can frustrate at times, but the people who live here, from the Kars, Maliks and Ghoshes in Calcutta to the Mitras in Sheoraphuli, are some of the warmest people I’ve known. Kieran and Rohan should be proud to call them family- I know I am.

Final Posting of 2008- honest!

2008-12-22T07:51:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know I said that my previous posting would be the last for 2008 but I thought it would be nice to make one final posting.

I’m writing this on December 22nd, but, oddly enough, am looking back on a lovely Christmas Day. I’ve already explained the reasons for this change of date but I have to say it went pretty well. Having spent pretty much all of their lives as expatriate kids, the boys have accepted a degree of flexibility when it comes to Christmas. I look back on lots of very happy childhood Christmases and they all followed a fairly similar pattern. They all were spent at home with family and friends; home was somewhere very wintry in the UK- either in the Midlands with Mum, Dad and Phil or spent visiting Grandparents. In any case, the whole atmosphere of Christmas which is indelibly etched in my memory is one of a dark wintry day with nobody outside- the reason being that literally everyone was inside doing more or less the same thing. The ritual of Christmas was fairly fixed anyway but the pattern was reinforced by the fact that everyone else was doing the same.

One thing we’ve had to accept living first in Egypt and second in Tanzania is that these patterns are different. This can be tough for many people. We have a friend who has felt terribly homesick (if you’re not homesick at this time of year when will you be?) She has really missed the traditional Western Christmas- turkey, Christmas trees and the suchlike, living in a culture where trees and decorations are minimal, carols are in Swahili and have little to do with King Wenceslas or Three Kings from the Orient and Christmas dinner is more likely to feature goat meat and rice than turkey and cranberry sauce.

Soma wearing her Christmas pressie- the latest fashion item in Tanzania; a Barack Obama kanga

Being a family, we don’t seem to feel quite so homesick. However, I do sometimes get a slight pang and a desire for slightly colder climes! The first Christmas we spent abroad was Christmas 2005 in Cairo. That time we had some of Soma’s relatives visiting us so Christmas Day was more or less its usual exciting self. We started off awoken by three small boys and a little baby (Rohan was only five months old at the time) and spent the morning opening presents and munching on (incredibly expensive) imported Quality Street. We had Christmas lunch as usual- turkey with all the trimmings. However, in true Cairo style the whole thing was ordered from the Marriott Hotel and was delivered right in time for lunch!!

The oddness of Christmas only really struck home when we got round to the post Christmas lunch venture outside. In the UK we’d do this fairly often- a trip to Cannock Chase or just a walk around the block; anything to burn off the calories really. In Cairo, we decided to take a felucca trip- a quick hour of boating on the Nile and watching the world go by. As we stepped outside two things struck me (obvious in retrospect but seemed to hit home on a more visceral level). Firstly, it was not a dark, cold Christmas Day but was a hot, sunny afternoon with only a couple of wispy clouds in an otherwise blue sky. The second and more profound thing was that this was just another normal day in Cairo- everyone was just going on with their business with us creating this Christmassy bubble in our house. This seems pretty obvious- how many non Muslims outside of the Arab World would take much notice of Eid for example? Not surprisingly, a 95% Muslim society paid scant attention to Christmas Day. In fact, even the 4% Copts were oblivious to the festival, as their Christmas would come much later, on the 7th of January. The sheer normality of outside life made perfect logical sense but jarred nonetheless.

Last Christmas took us by surprise a bit. We’d only arrived in Tanzania at the start of November so were still battling with getting a house, getting kids into school, starting work, making friends etc. Because Tanzania is not really a commercialised society, we didn’t have the usual warnings (Slade blasting away in the shops from October onwards for example) that you get in Britain. We did manage an enjoyable morning of opening presents and had a lovely traditional lunch at the George and Dragon. Still, coming out of the Christmas bubble and driving back along a hot dusty African road for a late afternoon swim also brought a bit of perspective to things!

Rohan working through a box of Quality Street- little so and so nicked all the hard centres!

This Christmas, we’ve taken things a step further. Because we’ll be in India we decided to celebrate Christmas early- 20th December to be precise. I have to say we had a lovely day. We started off being awoken at first light by Kieran who came in to announce that he’d found his stocking and had opened his presents. He’d been hoping for a knight’s costume but only found a small water pistol and some books in his stocking. He thought that those were the sum total of his presents. Rather than having a tantrum like many boys his age he announced very sportingly that his presents “weren’t exactly what I’d hoped for but the water pistol is very nice”. We took the little chap and his brother downstairs where they found the rest of their presents, including a very convincing knight’s costume!

I spent the morning making Christmas lunch- traditional in all respects except for the meat being chicken rather than turkey. This was nothing to do with expat life- turkey here is apparently great- and more to do with the rather small stomachs of two of our family members. Rohan did put the lie to this assumption however by demolishing more chicken than all of us put together! We spent the afternoon with our neighbour Dirk and his two boys, Jessie and Joshua before heading off to the High Commissioner’s Residence for carols in the evening. Sitting in the front room with his family and numerous other guests felt very seasonal- even Kieran had a go at singing although Rohan fell fast asleep from the first song!

Carol Singing at the High Commissioner's Residence

Since we left England in early 2005, we’ve spent every intervening Christmas abroad. 2005 was spent with Devika, Stephane and their boys in a Cairo largely oblivious to the occasion. 2006 found us in Switzerland for our only white Christmas so far, though the warm winter meant that the “snow” was mostly artificial. 2007 came just after we’d arrived in Tanzania and was spent largely in the swimming pool and the 2008 Christmas was also celebrated under the hot African sun but on the wrong date!

Sir Kieran in his newly acquired knights costume (along with his noble page Rohan)

With the possible exception of 2006, none of these could be considered to be close to the traditional Christmases of my childhood. However, we’ve honestly enjoyed every single one. I guess that, as with all expats, we’ve had to take a slightly looser view of what Christmas should be. However, we’ve tried our hardest to ensure the important stuff remains. No matter where we are, we spend the day together as a family. We make an effort to decorate the house and put up a tree. The boys get their stockings and we all open our presents together. The Cairo Christmas being the honourable exception to the rule, I generally have my traditional stress-fest and put together a lunch which everyone claims to enjoy (although Soma has to try hard to disguise her true feelings about my bread sauce)! Most importantly, we have a real sense of occasion. We start to look forward to Christmas from 1st December, when (home-made) advent calendars appear, dodgy Christmas songs get played and we just get very excited about it all. In doing this, I like to think we’ve managed to make sure that no matter where we may be, the most important parts of Christmas remain with us. I truly hope that when the boys grow up, they will look back on their Christmases as happily as I do mine.

We’re looking back on Christmas now in fact but from us to everyone still looking forward to the big day, a very Merry Christmas from the four of us.

School's Out!

2008-12-17T02:55:00.000-08:00

So, we’re more than half way through December so I figured I’d better get my blog post in before we get into the madness of Christmas.

It’s been a very busy month so far. First and foremost, I’ve been working like a particularly industrious dog revising for and then sitting my first lot of MBA exams. Although the course is run by Warwick Business School, I was able to sit the exams right here in Dar es Salaam. This was a considerable improvement on the original plan to travel to Warwick- Britain in July was miserable enough; having to come back in the middle of winter, to a Britain more consciously fed up with life than ever before for the purpose of sitting exams might just have forced me to jump off a bridge somewhere! I’d actually managed to negotiate an exam venue in Arusha, a short flight north of here. However, when the other candidate pulled out, they agreed to get the British Council here in Dar to host my exam.

Thus it was that after weeks of study (I’m now heartily sick of Market Analysis and Operations Management) I made the short walk down to the British Council on Samora Avenue to sit the exams. I have to say, this was a world away from the Camden Town Hall, where I’d sat my last exams many years ago- for a start, it was only me, an invigilator and about ten power cuts to keep me company. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I am free of study for now, am proudly sporting my first exam writing callous (I’ve forgotten how hard it is to do handwriting- wouldn’t imagine I won the handwriting prize in primary school!) in years and am looking forward to Christmas with a vengeance!

The Christmas season is now well underway here. It does seem a bit odd to be honest- the hallway is the proud venue for our large tree, imported from Cairo and all the neighbours kids seem to like it. However, we’re also at the height of summer- outside it’s absolutely blazing hot with the sun beating down from a cloudless blue sky. It’s meant to be rainy season right now, but, a couple of cloudbursts notwithstanding, it’s about as rainy right now as Cairo was in August. Trying to get in the Christmas mood is a battle of wills in the Chubb household- shut the curtains, get Slade or Wizzard blasting away on the hifi and crank up the AC to try and get a wintry feel! So far we’re fooling nobody but having a lot of fun trying!

We hosted a small Christmas party on Sunday- just a few friends round for drinks and minced pies (and my attempt at pigs in blankets- very nice!) Kieran wanted to stay up late but I sent him packing after he insisted on sitting in the middle of the party and playing his bongo drums! The mulled wine went down pretty well- took a lot of practice and tasting that one! The mulled wine was a bit of an Anglo Tanzania trade off- the spices are brilliant here so it tastes great. However, as I mentioned, we’re not really having mulled wine weather right now. Call me Mr Picky but I’m not exactly desperate to sip a hot glass of the stuff in the front of a roaring fire!

Anyway, the social events keep coming along. Last Saturday we took the boys to the circus of all places. This exciting event was put on by Mama Africa and took place in a traditional big top just up the road next to the Seacliffe Hotel. This was an animal free circus- no need to be seeing lions and elephants here I guess (though the ones we saw in the Serengeti weren’t swinging on trapezes so it could have been interesting I suppose. Anyway, we were certainly not disappointed. The acrobats- a mixture of Tanzanians and South Africans- were out of this world. From the graceful young lady doing the trapeze act to the skinny contortionist climbing through a tennis racket, these people were just phenomenally talented. The look on Kieran’s face was priceless- sheer wonder at what he was seeing. Lucky him- he gets to see the show again later this week! Sadly for us we had to finish at half time- Rohan was getting bored. We left Kieran with a friend of his and got the full report of the second act from a very excited little boy!

So, what is left to do? I’ve got the last few days of work this week and then Saturday is our rescheduled Christmas Day. We decided to change Christmas this year because of our trip to India. I’ve told Kieran that we need to change the day because Santa might get confused if he tries to deliver presents to Tanzania and finds we’re in India. In reality I just don’t want to lug a load of presents all the way to India and back- the boys are buying my explanation though so I’m sticking to it!

So, Christmas Day is 20th December this year- presents in the morning, Christmas lunch as soon as I finish my annual punch up with the turkey and then on to the British High Commission for a carol service- can’t wait.

I guess this will be my last posting of 2008- we’re off to India soon so I’ll not be writing any more till we get back. It’s been a good year, this first full year in Tanzania. We’ve found a great place to live, met some wonderful friends, found good schools for the boys, travelled a bit and (in my case at least) managed to do some work too!

There’s a lot to look forward to in 2009. I’ve got more MBA stuff to do- may be almost there by this time next year! We’ve got some more trips lined up- me to Mozambique and the UK for work and study, all of us to the UK for Phil’s wedding, possible visit to Florida in summer and somewhere nice (don’t know where yet!) later in the year. We’re hoping to receive some more guests in the year- Phil and Daniella have promised to come as have a few other friends. By the way, any friend or relative feeling like some sun is welcome to come on over here

On a final optimistic and aspirational note, I’ll also have another two chances (in July and December) to remember our wedding anniversary for the first time ever (sorry Soma!) Getting congratulatory phone calls from my in laws first thing in the morning is very nice but it does mean I get it in the neck!

Back blogging again!

2008-11-13T04:53:00.000-08:00

So, I’m back at last. I know I’ve not written for months- what can I say? Dog ate my laptop? I don’t know what happened really. One second I’m getting ready to head off to Amsterdam ahead of some summer holidays, the next I’m back in Dar in the middle of November- time flies!

Anyway, it’s probably best if I gloss over the last few months. Nothing particularly bad happened but it is all fading into the past now and, anyway, much of the news involved either people visiting us from home or us going to the UK. Either way much of our summer has probably found its way safely onto the grapevine.

Life here is its usual self. I really can’t believe that a week ago we actually marked our first year here. A whole year ago since we packed up the Maadi apartment, got into the Pajero one last time and bid Mohammed a sad farewell. A whole year since Kieran discovered the Emirates Mall in Dubai, whose combined attractions of Magic Planet and the Middle East’s largest indoor ski slope make it his idea of heaven!

So, a year on and what is life like? In short, not too bad. Sure we’re a little further from Britain- the ten hour flights there and back made that point very well- but the Msasani Peninsula has really become home to us. We really get the best of all worlds here. The Peninsula is certainly not as enclosed as Maadi was. Maadi was to all intents and purposes an expat compound- the ring of soldiers checking cars after dark around the suburb’s perimeter made that crystal clear. Here, it is a little less rarified- not much mind you!

The expat community seems to divide itself into two areas. The Indian community (some of whom are expat some of whom are Tanzanian) seems to concentrate itself in Upanga- a small suburb closer to the centre of Dar. The houses are big and nicely built but it all seems a little crowded- also you’re a little further from the sea. All the other expats tend to concentrate on the Peninsula.

The Peninsula is home to a wide variety of nationalities. Firstly, of course you have the wealthier Tanzanians- either those wealthy enough to buy a house at what is basically London prices or those forward thinking enough to have built here twenty years ago when the whole area was wild and land was being given away. There is a very strong British community here- several hundred strong, perhaps even a thousand people. This is unsurprising I suppose, given the historic links between the UK and Tanzania. The community is well catered for, not least in terms of pubs. The English tend to go to the George and Dragon- a small pub run by a couple from Nottingham. The Irish go to O Willies- a slightly rougher establishment with a killer karaoke night. The Scots, Aussies, South Africans, French and myriad other nationalities meet up at either pub- I’ve no clue what the Americans do though! In short however, the expat community here is both varied and quite large- making for a lot of interesting friends.

Last weekend we celebrated bonfire night. Although this was organised by the St Georges Society (an organisation whose main aim is to celebrate English culture and to annoy the Caledonian Society), it was attended by a wide cross section of society. It was held on the grounds of the Police Officers Mess- a fairly spacious field just up the road from our house overlooking the sea. In keeping with tradition there was a bonfire, a best dressed guy competition, fireworks and even toffee apples. I spend a good while trying to explain the event to a French friend of mine. The best I could come up with was that we were celebrating the life of the only Englishman to go into parliament wanting to do something for the good of the nation- he understood straight away, indicating that some things really do transcend nationality!

Anyway, bonfire night is over and the next big event must therefore be…..Christmas! Actually I have a few odds and ends to sort out beforehand. I’m off to Mozambique at the end of the month for a few days- the furthest south I’ve ever been in the world! Early December I fly up to Arusha to sit my MBA exams (sitting them at the foot of Kilimanjaro in an African summer has got to be better than doing them in Warwick in the depths of winter!) Once that is done we’re off to India- a week in Calcutta to see family followed by a week in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands- can’t wait.

Another thing- I hope you like the new picture at the top. Unlike the previous one, shamelessly pinched from the net, this one was taken here in Tanzania by my mum-good isn’t it!

A long Weekend in the Serengeti

2008-07-15T23:06:00.000-07:00

We’re now well into July and finally I have found peace. This is not to say I’ve found some tranquil Eastern religion- I’ve already done that! No, after a mad few weeks of flying around, attending conferences and entertaining my in laws, I find myself alone. Soma, the boys and the in laws are, as we speak about an hour into their flight from Dubai to Birmingham and I have some rare peace and quiet!

So what of the past few weeks? Well, although very busy they have also been a lot of fun. The travels kicked off at the start of the month with a visit to Nice to attend the Africa Energy Forum. Not much to report on that in this blog except to say that it was useful but also very wearing- when you spend two full days travelling to and from a two day conference it takes it out of you! Sorry for the very unoriginal pun but the conference and the venue were both very…. Nice.

Anyway, having spent a full day (left hotel at 4am, got through front door at 11pm) getting back to Dar, head had barely hit pillow when I was up again- seconds away round two of the travel saga, a four day trip to see some more animals!

The trip had come at the request of Soma’s father really. Having become aware that he was going to be coming to Tanzania, he wanted, understandably to see a bit of the country. The only bit he’d heard of, I think was “the Tarangatti” which we took to mean the Serengeti. This worked well for us too. After the rushed end to our time in Egypt, we are taking the attitude that our time here could end equally fast and want to make sure we see as many of the main attractions as possible. While I’d never be so arrogant as to presume that we could ever “do Tanzania”, I wanted to make sure that we could go away at least having ticked the main boxes. Well we’d visited Zanzibar and Ngorongoro so the only big one left was the Serengeti, so the trip was duly booked.

By 9am we were getting onto a Coastal Aviation Cessner, Kieran in floods of tears after an inadvertent boot to the face from his careless father getting onto the plane ahead of him (despite profuse apologies, he refused to talk with me for the entire flight up to Arusha). After an uneventful flight (sadly the cloud cover was too great this time for the usual fun of looking out at the land below), we landed at Arusha, spending lunch there before catching a connecting flight north to the small airstrip of Seronera.

After flying into places such as Manyara and Seronera, even Kieran has grasped the difference between airport and airstrip. This was a long strip of reasonably mowed (or perhaps “chewed”, judging by the herd of impala we narrowly missed crashing into at the end of the runway) with a small café and about four safari vehicles close by. It was clearly well into the category of “airstrip”!

Once out of the plane and with luggage in hand we climbed into the jeep and began our safari. As we began, I had a few worries going through my head- would my parents in law see the animals they had been hoping for? Would the boys finally get bored at their third safari and play up the whole time? Would my father in law’s famously atomic sized bladder result in his getting eaten by a lion? Only time would tell.

Well the first worry had vanished within a few minutes as we drove up to a hippo pool with more hippos in a single place than any of us had seen before. We must have counted at least 20 hippos- the next day we’d find another 65, but this first lot was impressive enough.

Some hippos doing very little

Now I’m not going to go into detail about the various animals we’ve seen- I did that on our trip to Mikumi then again after Ngorongoro- you’re bored of reading about it and I’m bored of writing about them. However, what was different about the Serengeti? What was it that kept us so interested the whole time? Well actually for me it was only partly to do with the animals.

Serengeti derives from the Maasai word “siringitu”, meaning to extend. It translates approximately to “endless plain”. Looking out of the jeep it was clear where the name came from. Stretching out in all directions were miles and miles of open grassland. As we drove around you just had this fantastic sense of open space- although there were crowded areas, especially around certain pools, there was at least one period of about four hours where we saw nobody else. I think you really need to have been there to really figure out what I’m on about. A photo can show a big grassy plain but it doesn’t show the fact that you’ve just driven a good 50km seeing the same kind of open plain- the size is mind boggling!

The "endless plain" of the Serengeti

However mind boggling the size is however, long stretches of grassy plain have less of an impact on two small boys and two in laws impatient to see some animals. Thankfully, this was not a problem. On this, our third safari in less than a year, we were unlikely to see anything totally new- of the “big 5” (lion, rhino, elephant, water buffalo and leopard) we’ve just the final one to see and to be honest it’s going to take a huge chunk of luck to do that! For us though, it wasn’t about new sights, but about scale. We’d seen a few hippos from a distance before but not a huge group of them close up. The big animal experience however was all about lions. Again, we saw maybe five or so in Mikumi and a few more in Ngorongoro. The lions of the Serengeti are well known, however, and did not disappoint. Within half an hour of arrival we’d seen a small group of maybe five, lying yards from the roadside. The next morning we’d see a full pride in close up. We saw no new animals I guess but that did not mean we saw nothing new.

One of the many lions we saw- Kieran was convinced this one was "Scar" from the Lion King!

We stayed in the Serengeti for two days and two nights. In that time we managed a very early drive (starting at 6) which made it possible to see the big cats do something other than sleep- a pair of cheetahs stalking impala for example. An early start also means breakfast in the Serengeti at dawn. Watching the sun come up over the plain was one thing. However, for all of us, breakfast was an experience. Our guide found a safe (well relatively speaking in a reserve full of dangerous animals considerably more expert at hunting us than we are at evading them) place and we had breakfast sitting on the jeep bonnet.

Picnic breakfast on the jeep. On this occasion we were eating breakfast rather than being breakfast!

It is good to go out at different times of the day. The kids stayed back with Soma while we went on an evening drive- we were going to the same places but it was at the same time quite different. Most fun for me (still affected by years in sunny and dry Egypt) was the drive back in pouring rain. As the cool of night sets in there is pretty much always a short violent storm- very wet but only half an hour or so. Standing up in the open topped jeep as we sped back to the hotel, I got soaked- my in laws thought I was mad but it was fun!

From the Serengeti, we drove a few hours south back to Nogorongo Crater, location of our last safari. We made a short detour en rout to a place called Olduvai. This famous for two things. First of all, it is home to a rather impressive volcano, which we flew over on the way to Seronera. More importantly, however, the adjoining gorge has been the location for considerable archaeological work and some major finds providing much information about early humankind. Not for nothing is place known as the “Cradle of Mankind”.

View of the Olduvai volcano crater taken from flight from Arusha to Seronera

To be honest, I was a bit disappointed. The museum was pretty small and not very well organised- perhaps appropriate for the scene of some minor finds but not for the place where some very early hominid bones have been found. We looked; we left.

An hour or so later, we were once again descending into the crater. I have to say that even though this was the second time, I was just as blown away by the geography of this place- the largest unbroken crater in the world is just impressive.

We only had time for the one drive- basically lunch in the crater than a few hours inside. However, a couple of things became apparent. Firstly, on the positive side, it was easier to see animals here. I guess being in a crater means that everything is more packed here. Rather than seeing a herd of zebra off in the distance, you see thousands of them by the roadside! The animals were less impressive here (huge prides of lions hadn’t simply been airlifted in over the past couple of months surprise, surprise!) but they were closer to us and therefore interesting in a different way.

Wildebeest and Zebra in Ngorongoro- zebras in a bit of an odd position to share the load of keeping a lookout ofr predators

The second thing becoming apparent was that Kieran had obviously had something dodgy to eat. He started to complain that he needed the toilet and within seconds we were faced with the choice of getting out of the car (never advised- just don’t!) and a major accident inside the car. As the wise father I took the decision….. to get out and let him do his business.

Kieran, being very aware of what was out there, managed to finish his business in record time. However, holding him up with my back to whatever predator might be out there must have counted as the longest and scariest few seconds of both of our lives! We climbed back inside and Soma made the wise decision to offer Kieran one of Rohan’s nappies- I for sure was not getting out of the car again! I'm not sure what it is about this Crater and my offspring. If it's not one who can't get it out it's the other who can't keep a plug in it!

The rest of the afternoon was uneventful and by dusk we were back in the Sopa Lodge, able to take advantage of a babysitting mother in law to have a way more leisurely dinner than we’d ever had before!

After a few minor blowouts with Coastal on the way back, we found ourselves back at home in Dar es Salaam by the following evening- tired but happy.

I’m very glad we visited the Serengeti and also glad we got another chance to see Ngororongoro. My father in law thought the former was definitely best. Although I loved the sheer space of the Serengeti, I had to disagree. Ngorongoro Crater for me will always be may favourite bit of the north.

I’m not sure if we’ll go there again. Apart from anything the northern circuit really does cost a small fortune to visit. In any case, further trips round Tanzania are off the agenda for now. Next week I’ll be back in Amsterdam, one year on from the meeting that originally set in motion the process of moving us all from Cairo to Dar.

After that, I’m back to the UK for the first time in almost a year. Now this little fact really did get me thinking. This has to be the longest period I’ve been outside the UK. Even back in Syria I only just about scraped a calendar year. In the fourteen months I’ve been gone a lot has changed too. When we left the UK last in late May 2007 so much was different. Tony Blair was still PM, England were still rugby world champions, some people still thought Steve MacLaren was a good football manager, Northern Rock was a dynamic, forward thinking bank, the term “credit crunch” was unknown and house prices were still rising. I’ll be interested to see how things are back in the UK- I guess you only really notice change when you’ve been gone a little while.

We get back here in late August but then I’m back to the UK few weeks later for an MBA course. Straight afterwards, I’m probably in Mozambique for a week. All quiet in October and November before MBA exams in the UK in early December followed by a (not yet booked) Christmas in some (as yet undecided) part of India. Anyway, one thing at a time- can’t wait for Amsterdam!

Happy Birthday Ma'am

2008-06-22T21:54:00.000-07:00

Well we’re in mid June now and thoughts are turning to coming back to the UK before long. In a couple of weeks, Soma’s parents will arrive from India for their short stay. True to tradition (seems to happen every time my in laws arrive), I’ll be heading off for a week long conference in Nice. Almost as soon as I get back, we’re all getting on a plane and flying up north for a few days in the Serengeti. A week later, all except me will fly to the UK, leaving me to follow a week later via a few days of meetings in Amsterdam. It really doesn’t seem that long since we were all last in the UK but, counting up, it seems that almost 14 months will have elapsed.

We do keep in touch with the UK- apart from regular calls home, the BBC website and the World Service keeps me up to date. However, a lot of the stuff mentioned, especially the TV stuff means little to me. What the heck is “The Apprentice” when it’s at home? As far as I can make out, it’s about Alan Sugar showing some young people how to do business his way. Why anyone would want to emulate the bloke responsible for today’s Amstrad and the Tottenham Hotspur of the 1990s is beyond me but each to his own I guess. And Big Brother? By the time we left the UK we’d had a few series but it was getting tired even then- now I hear they are on to series 9- doesn’t anyone have anything better to do?

Before I forget too, I came across an absolutely brilliant website satirising UK news. Trouble for me is I need to do a bit of research to figure out what is being satirised but the stuff I understand is great. A warning though- some of the language can be a bit strong but it’s basically well intended. Below is a link to The Daily Mash- enjoy!

www.thedailymash.co.uk

Another, more enjoyable, way of maintaining a relationship with the UK arose a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to Soma’s position on some committee or other, we both got invited to the UK High Commissioner’s official residence for a reception to mark the Queen’s Birthday. Conveniently enough, this was only 5 minutes’ drive from home and, even better, Soma offered to be the designated driver!

Duly suited and booted- Soma in a very fetching sari and me in a tie for only about the third time since we arrived in Tanzania- we turned up at the Residence. After shaking numerous hands belonging to various dignitaries on the reception line, we made our way to a bunch of familiar faces. Beers, wines and canapés were duly served up and we enjoyed a great evening under the stars and, for the first time in over a year on what is officially at least, British territory. One of the good things about the British Empire is the fact that everywhere in the world, the British Embassy/ High Commission and the official Residence are always very posh. The Russian Embassy over the road is functional but rather dull. This Residence is palatial since, like in most other countries, we got there first and chose the nicest place!

Standing in the grounds of the Residence, it was easy to imagine what life must have been like for the British foreign service a century ago. On the one hand we were under an African sky, with exotic trees, bushes and plants surrounding us and with variegated noises of nature emanating from pretty much everywhere (a bullfrog’s mating croak really can rival Tom Jones for volume!). However the perfectly manicured lawns, waiters carrying various food and drink and of course the hundred or so suited guests made it pretty obvious that we were not so much in the depths of Africa as in the lap of luxury!

About halfway through proceedings, the High Commissioner toasted President Kikwete (the Queen was toasted and duly wished a happy birthday by a nearby Tanzanian MP) and gave a short speech. I have to say he made some very interesting points and came up with a statistic which speaks volumes about the difference between rich countries and poor ones: The total budget for the entire country (defence, health, schools- the lot) is a third of the total amount spent in the UK on DVDs

This got me thinking about two things in particular. The first thing was a question- why is Tanzania this poor? When your entire budget is so small, and 40% of this figure is actually donated by other nations, then you’re a seriously poor country. When I first arrived here I just assumed that Tanzania was poor because it was African. Being of a generation where Band Aid was one of my first memories of pop music, I just figured Tanzania = Africa = poor. However, after a few months here, I just can’t accept that this is a given. This is not a country particularly ravaged by empire or slavery. Both certainly existed here but nothing like on the same scale as in West Africa. Look around and you will find that social structures and civil society are very strong. Tribes are numerous and provide another useful base for identity without ever competing with the state for loyalty. No significant conflict has emerged either between tribes or between a tribe and the state. Tanzania has not been stripped of minerals- it is still full to bursting with gas, coal, gold, copper, uranium and numerous other minerals. It has fertile land and, in the Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Zanzibar, has a tourist resource to die for.

Why, in a country that has all this to offer, is the budget a fraction of the UK’s spend on DVDs? Better people than I could give a decent answer I’m sure but at least one contributing factor is linked to the second thing that struck me- the sheer amount of public money that is wasted here.

I can give an example with this question (remember this for future pub quizzes): What is the capital of Tanzania? If you answered Dar es Salaam then you’re wrong. Sure, it’s the largest city by miles, all the businesses are located here and all the civil servants and politicians (President and PM included) live here. However, the capital and seat of government is a nondescript town in the centre of the country called Dodoma. According to some of my Tanzanian friends, it was decided that this would be the capital some decades ago to ensure a focus was given on the centre of the country. However, when people realised that this “capital” had no real infrastructure- poor schools, poor hospitals, poor provision of water, electricity etc- then they all refused to move.

With budget season now in full swing, we are faced with the weekly migration of politicians, commissioners and permanent secretaries- basically the entire upper echelons of the ruling class of Tanzania. At the start of each week, they head up (and you can forget car sharing for a start- each commuter has his own car and driver) to Dodoma. They then spend a week working there before the Friday journey back to Dar. This pointless weekly mass migration, which seems to rival that of the Serengeti, continues for the best part of three months. The irony is that the purpose of this is to discuss the scarce financial resources available! Well if you add up the fuel cost of the weekly ten hour round journey taken by literally hundreds if not thousands of vehicles, the hotel bills incurred by both the participants and their secretaries, drivers and myriad other helpers and the per diem claims, then you have a clue of how at least part of the scarce resource is being spent. I have no idea how much this annual trek costs but I’m sure you could buy a fair few DVDs with the cash.

This is perhaps a more benign example of profligacy- one that has arisen from poor planning and inertia, but which is costing the country billions each year. However, more worrying is the level of corruption found here. In the seven months since I’ve arrived, two major corruption scandals have come to light here and have truly gripped the country. The first of these, the Richmond affair is one close to my heart, since it involved the power sector. Basically, it seems that back in 2006, there was a power crisis that resulted in long blackouts It was decided that an emergency power facility would be brought in and a tender process kicked into action. This was hijacked by senior government members and a scandalously generous contract awarded to Richmond Power- an unknown entity. The facility arrived so late that the crisis had passed by the time a megawatt was generated. Incredibly though, the initial contract was then extended. An inquiry revealed that Richmond Power was a shell company owned by senior members of the ruling party. The PM was implicated and forced to resign.

The second involved the Bank of Tanzania. I know less about this one but it seems that questions began to be asked about a large hole in the bank’s accounts and specifically about payments of many millions of dollars being made by the bank to certain mysterious companies. The (now deceased) Governor went AWOL and eventually resurfaced in the USA. Nobody knows where the funds now are but I think anyone who imagines that the Tanzanian public will ever see their funds again is being pretty optimistic.

So, we’re in a country where every penny of public money truly counts. However, those charged with guarding and using these funds see a major power crisis plunging the country into darkness less as a challenge to be overcome, rather as an opportunity for personal enrichment; they see a central bank not so much as the repository of public funds as much as a personal piggy bank. Finally they see no contradiction in using public funds to finance three months of commuting and living in five star hotels when they are discussing the use of scarce resources in a budget!

My colleagues remind me that at independence, Tanzania and Malaysia were economically on a par with each other. A few decades later Malaysia, with far fewer natural resources, is enjoying first world status while Tanzania continues to languish. I know very little about Malaysia’s leaders but wonder whether they have historically been quite so profligate with their nation’s money.

Thinking further, I wonder whether the likes of Bob Geldof and Bono have really got it right. I can’t doubt their intention- they have worked very hard for Africa. However, when they talk about more aid is this really what Africa needs? Sorting out simple governance and corruption will achieve so much more and allow most public money to benefit the people rather than the tiny fraction that seems to trickle down at the moment.

This is something the people of the West should also think about. There are lots of ways to help Africa- creating a level playing field for trade would be a great first step and would be appreciated by Tanzanians an awful lot more than well intentioned charity. However, if we simply try to solve these problems through boosting aid then all we’ll achieve is more shiny new cars for those at the top. An economist once described aid to Africa as being “the best way to transfer money from poor people in Britain to rich people in Africa”. Let’s think a bit more about what this money is being used for before we make this quote a self fulfilling prophecy.

Why didn't I just keep my big mouth shut?!!

2008-06-10T03:35:00.000-07:00

The next time I start thinking that life here is plain sailing, please just hit me! Thankfully all is fine now, but the last few days have shown me that expat life can show its dark side pretty quickly when the opportunity arises.

People often come out with statements such as “Africa isn’t for wimps” and “things turn sour very fast here”, but to be honest, I’d not given those statements much thought. Now, I can kind of see what they are getting at although still reckon they are a bit overdramatised.

The hassle I’ve gone through over the past few days all happened as a result of that most common and predictable African occurrence, a car crash. Saturday evening found Soma, the boys and me in our car heading back home from the shops. As I made the right turn into our road (having checked mirrors, slowed down and indicated before anyone asks!) a motorbike hit the side of the car and then ploughed into a wall on the other side of the road. To be honest, we’ve had near misses plenty of times before- cars coming at speed on the wrong side of the road, people pulling out of junctions just ahead of me. A biker without a helmet attempting a crazy overtake manoeuver on a blind bend was entirely normal- only this time he hit us.

After a split second of shock, the emergency training that my company has drilled into all expatriates kicked in. Looking around, I could see a mob forming (as normally happens here) so moved the car into our compound, just fifty metres away. Bad enough that this guy hits my car- no reason to put me or the family in danger of a mob attack. Predictably enough, an angry mob formed outside our compound gates. While I stayed with the security guard to try to reason with them, Soma called our security agency, Ultimate Security to get help.

For anyone not familiar with life in Africa, it is fairly standard practice for all expatriates to be connected to a security firm. These people act more or less as police force, breakdown support and emergency ambulance service all rolled into one. If anything happens, the advice is always to get to a place of safety then call them to deal with the incident- that is what we did.

The mob was claiming that the biker was about to die and that I had to drive him to hospital urgently. With my limited Swahili (and with a lot of help from a security guard) I told them that moving him would be dangerous and in any case an ambulance was on its way and would give faster, better help than anything. My neighbour, Steve- a Health and Safety Manager for one of the largest mine companies here- decided to head out and see how badly hurt the guy actually was. He returned a few minutes later with the very welcome news that not only was the guy not dead, but that there was very little wrong with him. The mob were not really interested in him at all- they just wanted to extort some cash out of me and knew they couldn’t do anything so long as a huge gate, thick wall and electric fence divided us. The biker was well enough to come up to our gate and claim he was injured. Thankfully for him, he did not speak enough English to understand the barrage of expletives I unloaded towards him! The relief at his not being dead had subsided and was replaced by a lot of anger at how his reckless driving then shameless playacting had put all of us at risk. I told him that Ultimate were on their way and that we’d called the police. As soon as he heard that final word (“polisi” in Swahili) he was on his bike and away.

As a precaution, I went, along with an Ultimate Security guard and a couple of colleagues, to the local traffic police station to file an incident report. We quickly met up with the officer assigned to our case and took him back to the scene of the accident. He took one look at the scene and the car and concluded that the biker had been in the wrong- you’re not allowed to overtake there so it’s kind of black and white. We invited him home where we drew up a formal statement and off he headed.

All seemed well for a couple of days until, like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, the issue reared its head again on Monday. I got a call from our people at Ultimate Security saying that a police officer had seen my statement and wanted to go through it with me the next day. Not sure what he wanted and why, I spent a nervous night contemplating the notion of life in an African jail cell!

Tuesday morning, I met up with a colleague, who took me along to the police station. The station is not really much like you’d see in England- it’s more a compound surrounded by a collection of ramshackle outhouses. After a long wait, the officer came to see us. From my basic Swahili, I understood that he wanted to talk with me alone and go through my statement. Much to his disappointment, my colleague told him that she would be staying with me and we headed off together to an office. Frankly given that his English was as bad as my Swahili, any interview between us would have been pretty laughable anyway!

I spent half an hour rewriting my statement after which the officer told us to head to the accountant and pay for the insurance report- why I needed to write the statement again I’m not sure- although I was given a clue on the way back!

We headed up some musty stairs to the accountant, carefully sidestepping a pile of thirty or so rifles, (carefully kept on the floor to give any escaping prisoner a sporting chance, presumably) and paid our cash. We then got the insurance report and headed off- a lot of worry about nothing.

I was pretty confused at this point and asked my colleague what had happened. She calmly explained that in all likelihood, the original statement had been submitted Saturday night and then spotted by another officer. He saw the mzungu name on the statement and figured there was one last chance for a bribe. He wanted to talk with me alone to try to get cash out of me but saw his chance disappear when it was made clear to him that a very legally aware Tanzanian colleague would be with me. He asked for another statement to save face then gave up!

I’ve learned a lot (or at least had a lot of stuff I’ve been told now hammered well and truly into my head)

Firstly and most importantly, the scene of any traffic accident in Africa is very dangerous- although it seems heartless to leave someone at the scene you simply have to do this to avoid a lynching by a mob who themselves care more about pilfering stuff from all concerned than actually offering any help. The advice given by our security people to just get somewhere safe was invaluable and meant that not only did we stay safe but we were able to offer real help.

Secondly, a lot of people are just after money. The biker who chose to carry out a lunatic manoeuvre without a helmet on a blind corner probably hurt a bit. However, he made the most of his ultimately superficial injuries to try to get some cash out of me. Once I started demanding cash from him for my car and mentioned the police, he couldn’t get back on his bike fast enough! The mob outside my gate were claiming he was dying, to try to get me outside and get cash from me. They were still claiming he was going to die as he ran back his bike and drove off! The second he had gone, they all left too- except the one bloke who tried to sell me a painting!

Finally you need to go into the legal system prepared. My visits to the police were always with a colleague who knew what was going on. It is also important to get there as quickly as is reasonably possible- especially if you don’t stick around at the scene. The personal safety justification only works if you make sure you get to the station at the first available opportunity. Here, perceptions matter. Generally, the first party to make a statement is believed- the other guy is always going to be on the back foot afterwards. Getting to a station and putting in your complaint is always going to be better than waiting for the other chap to give his side of the story then being dragged off in handcuffs! However, the police are basically fair here. The first chap was keen to get to the bottom of what had happened and, once he’d seen the scene of the accident and the car itself he drew a fair conclusion. The other officer was clearly out for a bribe but backed off pretty quickly once he saw nothing was going to happen- he could have made life hard but didn’t.

Anyway, as my boss told me, it is experiences such as these that make life here interesting. However, if the next few months are slightly boring I don’t think I’ll complain so much again!

The token May post

2008-05-29T22:01:00.000-07:00

Phew- just made it! A very brief posting on almost the last day of the month to ensure that May 2008 does not go entirely unforgotten.

Today is quite a significant day for us in fact. Yesterday was mum’s birthday- a fact duly recognised by an e- card and a phone call. Obviously, this means that a year ago yesterday was also mum’s birthday (sharp eh!). The significance of this, is that last year we came to the UK to celebrate said birthday, returning to Egypt a day later. Today, therefore marks the one- year anniversary of our last visit to England!

Actually, I was talking with an old friend in England on Skype the other day about our travel plans and our decision to live in Africa. He was amazed, exclaiming “What on earth are you thinking of? You’ve got small children to consider…there are power shortages, a complete breakdown in law and order, runaway inflation, insurmountable gaps between rich and poor and ruling parties in power for way longer than is good. Why the blazes are you thinking of coming back to England this summer?”

Hopefully, the situation back in England isn’t quite as dire as my friend (and the International Mail on Sunday, tragically the only UK paper regularly on sale here) are making out. However, the obvious downturn in the general public mood in the UK has not escaped the attention of the Tanzanian media, though they also recognise a lot of these trends (especially the oil and food prices bit) as being part of a wider global trend (if that makes you feel any better!). In any case, the local press is much more focused on the more immediate issue of how Tanzanian citizens are being treated in South Africa. To put things in a nutshell, people here seem outraged at what they see as a very unAfrican lack of gratitude. Black South Africans got a lot of support during the apartheid era from their neighbours- in cases such as Zambia they even endured SA airforce raids for their pains. It would seem that the black SA community has a pretty poor name across the rest of Africa now.

Anyway, back to the point- we’ve got tickets booked and are looking forward to coming back to the UK for a few weeks this summer- anyone up for an extortionately expensive warm beer?

Anyway, life here in the southern hemisphere is still good. We’re patiently awaiting the end of the rainy season- the real rains ended weeks ago, but we’re still getting the occasional downpour as we head slowly into winter. It is still a bit too cold for the swimming pool (the water temperature plummets with each downpour) and, for some reason- negligent poolboy the most likely suspect, the pool is a worryingly luminous green. This would not normally be an issue but Kieran was hoping to get training for his upcoming swimming gala and has thus been thwarted. To help, I have been given him intensive training on the art of losing gracefully (not to cry or try to steal the trophy).

This is really the calm before the storm- life has taken on a pleasant regularity right now. Soma’s parents will be visiting at the end of June and we’ll be taking them up to the Serengeti. After that, we have a myriad of entries and exits- me off to Nice, followed by Soma and folks to the UK, followed by me to Amsterdam then UK, followed by my folks and the four of us back home- at least I’ll have something to write about again!

And did those feet, in ancient times.......

2008-05-04T21:46:00.000-07:00

As the last blog posting I made subtly pointed out, it’s been raining a bit recently. As a result of the sporadic but biblical downpours of rain, our travels have once more been put on the backburner. However, we’ve still had time to do a fair bit of stuff- just not involving trips in cars to see elephants, that’s all. With the chance to travel curtailed, we’ve involved ourselves in the local expat social scene a bit- not something I particularly want to do all the time but a nice interlude none the less.

So what have we been doing lately? Well the two most appropriate nouns are “parties” and “football”. First of all the football I guess. Now those who know me well (and given that nobody other than my family and some of my most sympathetic friends are likely to spend much time reading my blogs that would constitute most people reading this) will be aware that from earliest childhood, I’ve had a thing for the Beautiful Game- even if most of the games I watched at Wolves were anything but.

A few weeks ago, we’d invited a couple we knew from our time in Cairo- Brett and Michelle- over for dinner. Like all good scousers, Brett is a football fan too and before long we were philosophising on matters as diverse as whether Andy Gray was evil because he left Wolves in their direst hour of need or whether it was because he played for Everton. More importantly, Brett revealed that he ran a local football team, loosely affiliated to the local English pub- the George and Dragon. They were about to start training for an upcoming match against fierce local rivals, “Ireland”. A combination of African heat and lack of fitness meant that they needed a squad of at least thirty and he wondered whether I was up for playing. As far as I was concerned, the pub bit could always be glossed over later- I was going to play for England against Ireland- I was in!

At the third attempt (the first two sessions cancelled due to social pressures and lack of willpower), we actually got a training session underway. The pitch, at a local school was more sand and rock than grass (the only grass was under a foot of water for all it was worth). However our opposition was of a higher standard. A bunch of local schoolkids- teenagers- challenged us to a match. Our able striker Shaun (the only one of us vaguely approaching fitness) kindly accepted on our behalf and the match kicked off. After about ten minutes, three things had dawned on us. Firstly, with most of our team bent double and wheezing, we were lacking a bit of match practice. Secondly, given that none of us had touched the ball at that stage, it was clear that these boys were very skilful. However, thirdly and most encouragingly, we noted that they still hadn’t scored. These boys were very skilful but didn’t pass and weren’t getting anyway. Thoroughly encouraged by this, we organised ourselves a bit, put in a few scary tackles and eventually had them on the rack. Nothing illegal, mind- just a few meaty tackles which left one player abandoning the ball and running off the pitch rather than face Shaun! Final score- 11-1 to us! Bring on the Irish!

Well sadly, the Irish decided to cancel- at least until September. Apparently there are various possibilities as to why. Maybe they had heard of our great victory and were intimidated by our obvious fitness. I’d heard that after the last match they had complained bitterly at an unduly physical approach from our team- maybe that was it. There had also been some controversy over whether some of our players weren’t actually qualified to play for England. Well, although there is possibly some doubt on the total Englishness of our team (although Sven and Giovanni both swear they know the words to “Jerusalem”), the Irish are applying double standards. Of their starting eleven, eight have never even seen Ireland. Anyway, match postponed but the training sessions continue!

On the subject of Englishness, we attended our first ball in Tanzania a couple of weekends ago. The Royal Society of St George (a very pleasant group aimed solely at promoting English culture- not the far right extremist party the name suggests!) was holding its annual St Georges Day Ball at a posh hotel in the centre of Dar es Salaam. Soma, never being one to miss a ball had the tickets in hand about ten minutes after they went on sale. Anyway, the old Dinner Jacket was brought out and by eight o’clock, we were supping champagne- just like Cairo! Actually this one was a little bit different. The ball was fairly clearly intended to mirror Burns Night- a party but with a bit of ceremony. We started off singing Jerusalem (a pretty embarrassed, English attempt since everyone was still sober) and then stood to watch a big rib of beef being brought in- a bit like piping the haggis I guess. Brett and I stifled semi drunken, schoolboy giggles as the person holding this joint (one of our teammates Vernon) was announced as the “Baron of Beef”- his ceremonial role for the night. He managed to keep a straight face at the time and even managed to retain good humour through a barrage of jibes as to the pornographic implications of his newly acquired title. Needless to say, the nickname has stuck.

The ceremonies continued- as the drinks flowed, songs such as Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory were belted out with increasing enthusiasm (I even noticed our Romanian tablemate making a fairly drunken effort to convince us all that he would never be a slave either). The formal part of the evening ended with a couple of speeches- the Toast on behalf of the English proposed that we stick to English tradition- “get drunk and then get knocked out in the quarter finals of something”; this was responded to by the head of the Caledonian Society who spent a few minutes admitting that the English were okay, but the Scots were better!

Since that evening, we’ve been pulling our social socks up. Soma, typically unable to attend a function without wanting to run the next one, is now on the Committee of the Royal Society of St George and wants to persuade the BBC to link up to Dar es Salaam for the Last Night of the Proms! If she thinks I’m going to be caught on global TV bobbing up and down like a fool she can think again!

Here Comes the Rain Again....and Again and Again

2008-04-08T00:21:00.000-07:00

After a number of phone calls to various family members, all of whom have expressed their envy of our unending sunshine, I feel the need to put the record straight. It is peeing it down here- not just a slight shower or two, but a full fledged monsoon!

I can finally say, after a few weeks of occasional showers interrupting the heat, blue skies and sunshine, that the rainy season well and truly arrived last week. As befits a former British colony, the arrival of rain- not unusual in what is called locally the “rainy season”- was met with utter surprise, lack of preparedness and a complete breakdown of civil society!

It all happened quite fast, around early afternoon last Wednesday. Taking a break from work, I was looking out of my office window when the sky went from slightly cloudy to black in about ten minutes. The heavens then opened with rainfall of an intensity I’ve not seen outside of India. I then spent the rest of the afternoon watching the demolition of civilisation as we know it.

First of all, we realised that the cut price drainage system bought from the Chinese by the government had a major issue- it didn’t work! Within half an hour the roads were more or less flooded as the entirely blocked up drains took on their usual chocolate fireguard characteristics.

This caused traffic to build up slightly- no problem to the traffic police who patiently man every crossing waving through cars and trying to get bribes off unsuspecting westerners. Trouble, however was that these officers, not quite getting the concept of “to protect and to serve” had ran off searching for cover at the first sign of rain and didn’t reappear until the rains stopped. The result, as seen from my office was complete chaos and gridlock within minutes of the first drop of rain. In terms of an inability to deal with inclement weather, this had me in absolute awe- and I used to be a London commuter remember!

Anyway, after spending a happy afternoon watching the mounting chaos- cars stalling in the rain, running out of petrol in the traffic jams, starting driving on the wrong side of the roads to get anywhere- the painful truth dawned on this smug onlooker. I was going to have to get home in this!

Actually, I was not meant to be going home immediately. Elna, our receptionist had invited me to her sendoff party (the custom here is for the bride’s family to have a party to say goodbye to her before she gets married) just ten minutes drive from our house. It was due to start at half past six so, being prudent under the circumstances I headed off at half five.

By half past six I had got precisely two hundred yards from the car park. By eight I had managed the (normally ten minutes) drive to the turnoff for home and then decided to call it a night. Any guilt I had vanished the next morning when I spoke with a colleague, Chris. He told me that it had taken another hour and half to get from that turning to the restaurant. I would probably have got there at around half past nine- four hours late to a restaurant twenty minutes from the office! Chris told me that further along, the road descended slightly. He had been following a local driver and figured that if the local car could make it then Chris (in a Nissan Patrol) would be fine. Chris decided to take another route when the car in front of him ended up with water coming over the headlights and onto the bonnet. With the true local optimism, the driver in front pressed on but Chris turned back and took a longer route!

Since then, the rains have been quite regular- once a day or so we get a huge barrage of rain and then sun. We’re quite enjoying it to be honest. After three years in Cairo, rain is almost as welcome as snow. For Kieran especially it is a rare treat and he is quite often found running round the compound in the pouring rain wearing nothing but his pants! The power is failing quite a lot as the rain affects the decrepit infrastructure but our generator is holding up quite well. Actually, with the drop in temperatures, we nights are becoming quite cool and we can often manage without the AC units too!

We’re told the rains will stop by the end of the month- we’ll probably have a good British dislike of the rains by then but, for now, we’re quite enjoying it!

Easter Weekend in Ngorongoro

2008-03-24T21:48:00.000-07:00

True to my promise that the next blog would contain a bit more than dressed-up accounts of swimming (and drinking) with the neighbours, we’ve just been off exploring again. To be honest, we were feeling a bit stir crazy having spent a solid two months in Dar and it was high time to get out and about again. This five-day weekend, resulting from Maulid and Easter was the perfect time to get back on our travels. Soma keeps reminding me not to make my postings read like a travel guide so I’ve made sure I’ve included plenty about us- largely centred on Rohan’s digestive issues, but hey that’s small kids for you!

Friday morning found us at the domestic terminal of Dar es Salaam Airport- a real throwback to the old days of flying. We passed through a security check and headed to the Coastal Aviation area. After getting our name ticked on the list we waited till the pilot came for us. Before long we were in the plane - a small 14-seater headed for Manyara via Arusha. As the flight was full, the copilot seat was up for grabs. Amazingly, Kieran hesitated at the chance to spend an hour in the best viewing seat on the plane. After umming and ahing for a while, the decision was made for him by his eager father, who clambered shamelessly over fellow passengers to that coveted seat (sorry Kieran- you snooze you lose! He did later explain that he decided not to take the co pilot seat because he thought he might have to help fly the plane- ah!).

After a couple of hours’ flying and one short refuel at Arusha (with time for Soma to visit the facilities- the first of many such inconvenient stops made to maintain the weak bladdered nature of the standard Chubb spouse), we finally came into land at a remote, sloping airstrip on the top of a hill overlooking Lake Manyara.

Arrival at Lake Manyara Airstrip

As with Mikumi, Lake Manyara is one of Tanzania’s more underrated parks. It is one of the smallest but is also one of the most spectacular. Basically, after leaving the airstrip, which is located more or less at the highest point in the area, you head down a steep incline into a very flat plain- part of the Western escarpment of the Great Rift Valley. The park is centred around a rather large lake, which is famous for very high concentrations of flamingos. Manyara has the highest levels of biomass (sum total of flora and fauna per square metre) in the whole of Africa and has been a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve for almost thirty years.

The downside to this became apparent quite quickly- although the scenery was magnificent, finding any large animals before we got to the lake was going to be tough. In fact we did come across some- a few elephants mainly. However the lack of large spectacular animals was more than made up for by a large variety of baboons and vervet monkeys living out their lives in the dense forest, totally unfazed by our close presence. After almost an hour driving through the forest, we came out onto the lakeside plain and were greeted by a tour brochure scene- mountains in the distance, Lake Manyara and its thick pink lining of flamingos in the background, a small green African plain with a variety of elephants, giraffes and other animals in the immediate foreground- the type of image you might see on a local tingatinga painting but which surely could not exist really right?

Picture of baboons taken in Lake Manyara National Park- just a few of the hundreds we saw there!

Sadly for us (but I guess not for the flamingos) we were not allowed too close to the lake. However, we were happy to look out over it and to take in the view- I tried to take a few pictures but none really did it justice.

Lake Manyara National Park

By late afternoon, however, time was pressing and we headed out of the park towards our main objective- Ngorongoro Crater.

Unlike Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Crater is neither underrated nor suffering from lack of fame- apart from the Serengeti, it must be the most famous and most visited of Tanzania’s natural attractions. This place was most definitely on our “to do” list in Tanzania and we were all full of anticipation as we drove towards it. After a drive of about an hour or so we reached the crater entrance. While we waited for the entrance fees to be paid, we got a feel for the temperature. We noticed that it seemed to be wet and muddy and there seemed to be quite a lot of mist (although at the altitude we were at, it could just have easily been the clouds!) We very quickly realised though that everything we’d been told about the north was true- for the first time in many months (probably since Amsterdam last year in fact) we actually felt cold. This might seem unexciting to anyone reading this from the UK but when you’ve just gone through two successive African summers (one in each hemisphere), the chance to feel cold without cranking up the AC is a rare treat! Kieran stuck his bare chest out of the window as we drove up the crater side- decency stopped me and Soma doing the same!

After a further half hour of winding steep roads (a bit like the Alps except with more elephant dung in the road), we reached the crater rim.

Ngorongoro Crater- picture taken at dusk from the Sopa Lodge on the crater rim

A further half hour along the crater rim brought us to our hotel- the Sopa Lodge. The lodge itself was very well set up and worth every one of the many pennies spent on it (thinking about it is still painful in fact!) To ensure a good night’s sleep, we’d booked two rooms- one for Kieran and myself, another for Soma and Rohan. By the end of our short holiday, I’d yet again seen through the tinted spectacles that come with fatherhood and remembered that sleeping with Kieran means less paternal bonding and rather a lot of kicks and knees to the head in the middle of the night!

Before going much further, it would make sense to give an idea of exactly what Nogorongoro Crater is. Basically, a few million years ago, Ngorongoro was a huge (very huge) volcano, sitting on a massive reservoir of lava. One day, this huge volcano erupts and discharges the entire reservoir of lava upon which it was sitting. Nature abhorring a vacuum, the volcano then collapsed, leaving behind this rather large crater. With a diameter of 19km, this is the largest unbroken caldera known to man. The crater floor is home to one large lake and a lot of animals (although no giraffes as they are apparently unable to get in).

We woke up Saturday morning bright and early (5.45am to be precise) and, packed breakfasts and semi awake offspring in hand, headed out for a head start on the crater. We got onto the crater floor within half an hour and were lucky enough to see the whole area both light up and wake up. This was a very different experience to Mikumi, but certainly no worse. The backdrop of the crater wall was always breathtaking- the crater has its own weather system as evidenced by the clouds forming below the rim. Although you did not always get as close to the animals as we did in Mikumi, we saw animals on a far larger scale- not ten or twenty wildebeest but thousands!

A Herd of Wildebeest in Ngorongoro Crater

We spent almost seven hours driving and saw so many things. Soma still gets dewy about the zebras but added the flamingos surrounding the lake to her favourites. Rohan seems to like the Water Buffalo most, although he insists on calling them “cow”.

Rohan playing in the car

Kieran was most taken with a couple of lions we saw resting a few metres from the roadside. As for me, what to add? We managed to see a couple of very rare Black Rhinoceros- two of only ten estimated to exist in Ngorongoro. I think that I was most taken with a very large elephant we saw almost within touching distance single handedly destroying and eating an acacia tree. Anyone in the slightest bit horticultural will know that these trees have very tough, spiky thorns. The way this elephant was munching away on them as if they were no spikier than noodles was simply amazing!

Elephant eating some seriously spikey acacia

Writing this posting, I realise that much of what I’m saying is very similar to what I wrote about Mikumi. In short we went to a national park, drove around and saw some animals busily being animal-like. True, but that just doesn’t do the experience justice. For much of the time, I was standing up, head out of the opened roof, taking in the amazing scenery. To see an African plain is impressive enough. When it is surrounded by a massive crater rim- almost like some natural stadium- then it becomes even more impressive. When a herd of wildebeest comes galloping past, it really is just the icing on the cake!

After about seven hours on the crater floor, we drove back up to the rim and back to the hotel. After lunch and a nap, Kieran was keen on the outside pool.

Kieran showing just how far from London he now is! (4,419km precisely!)

A quick toe- dip later he was less enthused so we headed inside for some internetting (okay so we don’t have to be David Attenborough the whole time!). Late afternoon, Rohan’s previously grumpy mood took a turn for the worst and we realised that he was well and truly constipated. I have to say, Rohan at his worst challenges that supposedly inviolate parent- child relationship that says you’re not supposed to want to deep fry your kids. However, when, as was obvious now, he was in a lot of pain it was a miserable sight to see. He was doubled over, holding the walls- just like Soma was when she was trying to push him out a couple of years back in fact. Despite the feeding of thousands of raisins (just as good as prunes I hear), hot compresses and even massage from his mum, Rohan was truly hosting the immovable object. In the end, with the little chap’s typical sense of timing the immovable object moved in some force the moment we boarded the plane home!

We’re back in Dar now, and I must say the plane rides home were lots of fun. I’ve now flown on a number of flights using small aircraft (both on safari and to Songo Songo Island for work) and it really is an entirely different experience from commercial scheduled flights. It does take longer and there is no catering or refreshments (only 14 seats so no room for even the most anorexic stewardess). However, I’d challenge any airline to try to recreate the fantastic experience we all had when taking off on the journey home from Manyara today. Lift off from a grassy runway which then vanished as we headed over a cliff and off over the northern Tanzanian plain! That, my dear, is flying!

We’re back, we’re tired but we’re glad to have got travelling again and to have seen just a bit more of our host country. Kieran especially is learning more about Africa and its animals each time we do this and seems to love flying. The fact that on this occasion Rohan quite literally couldn’t give the proverbial did not detract from things one little bit!

More Peninsula Happenings

2008-03-17T03:42:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, finding stuff to include in a blog entry is starting to get a bit hard. I guess we’ve only ourselves to blame for this lack of news. In February we broke our cardinal “Tanzania” rule- to make at least one visit somewhere interesting each month. November had us arriving in Tanzania, so Dar was the interesting place that month I guess. We did Mikumi in December followed by Zanzibar shortly afterwards. From early January to late March- not a lot! That will be rectified next weekend hopefully- more on that later. In the meantime what to say? Well I guess I need to do the writing equivalent of making a silk purse from a sow’s ear and talk some more about our day to day life here over the past weeks.

We’re still nice and settled here at home. The boys are happy at their schools and Kieran’s French is coming along very well indeed. In fact one welcome side effect of Kieran’s new schooling is that Rohan has started to take an interest in his new language. In typical Rohan style, this was not hinted at in advance- just a one off recitation of the days of the week in French to show us he was on the case!

Last weekend, we decided to dip our toes in the local cultural scene. One of Soma’s friends- a trainee medic called Devaki, suggested we go to a local bar- the Sweet Eazy at Oyster Bay on Saturday night. There is usually a band playing there and that night the Soweto String Quartet was top of the bill. A decent international band (assuming that the Soweto bit was genuine) playing at a club only a few minutes’ drive from home (close enough for a quick dash back should the boys overwhelm the babysitter again) seemed ideal and we accepted.

Saturday night sure enough found us on the roof terrace of the bar along with, it seemed, half the peninsula. Luckily we had a table booked- sadly it was right behind a large speaker. By the time they came on to play at about half past ten, Devaki and myself had seen off a couple of bottles of white wine (Soma was the designated driver as compensation for her night out with Praveena, watching a scandalously long Hindi movie). I was at first slightly bemused to find the quartet had five members but then realised that in a fit of solidarity, the band had dressed their technician in the same performing getup that they had. To be honest at that stage you could have put Girls Aloud on stage and I would have accepted that they were the Soweto String Quartet! Their set was good- not the classical music the name suggests. They worked their way through a medley of Paul Simon classics, some well known local gospel music and a variety of other pop music. They finished up at about midnight and we headed home- one of us at least destined for a sore head the next morning!

Last Thursday night found us hosting once again. This time it was a meeting of prospective volunteers for a local deaf school- the slightly unfortunately named Buguruni School for the Deaf. We encountered this school via a friend of Soma’s- Lucy. Lucy is normally a management consultant in London but has taken a year out of her career to come to Tanzania and offer her business skills to this school- fundraising, general organisation etc. She has made a start on things but the end of her assignment is starting to loom a little and she is looking for people to carry on her work. Soma has volunteered along with an America lady called Tori and a Dane called Ane- Kirstine. They will be the “three wise women” who will help run the school. I volunteered to help a bit too- a bit of fundraising and also helping with their accounts and governance.

Anyway, the meeting started off with the ladies discussing some of the stuff produced for sale by the school’s sewing class- a conversation which rapidly descended into a general waffle about sewing. I sat in my chair contemplating firstly whether the school’s name reflected the new England football manager’s selection policy for strikers and secondly whether it would be seen as rude if I just headed over to Dirk’s for a beer. In the end I just got a beer from the fridge and read a book.

By the end of the evening though, talk of sewing had moved onto fundraising and other matters and by the end we’d covered quite a few useful things. We’ll both be helping out with the school as much as possible- there really isn’t much social support here for people so being born deaf is a very tough lot in life. I had my fair share of hearing problems as a child but was treated well and can cope with the residual loss I have. I would not have been so lucky had I been born here instead of England. Fate, it seems, has conspired to help me repay some of that good luck. I’ll post more about the school as we get more involved so stay tuned!

Anyway, a couple of days on and what more to say? I’ve had a useful learning experience from Dirk, who instructed me in the noble art of homebrew. I’d never heard of Pineapple Beer before and am pretty sure I never would have had I remained in the UK. The recipe is pretty simple- pineapples, sugar, water, yeast and raisins- and I now have a few litres fermenting in the kitchen. It should be ready on Tuesday so I’ll post the recipe then if it’s any good.

Hopefully the next post will be a little more exciting. Easter is next weekend and Soma is busy booking another holiday for us. We’re hoping to head up north this time. It looks like Soma has managed to get stuff booked- a charter flight up to a small airstrip at Manyara, an afternoon spent visting Lake Manyara and its large colony of flamingos, before driving up to Ngorongoro Crater for a couple of days. As expected on the northern circuit, it’s quite expensive but then what else to do? We didn’t decide to come all the way to Tanzania and then stay at home all the time! Whatever happens, we’re determined to do a bit more travel next weekend so should have some news and some nice pictures next posting.

Ninaumwa Kichwa!

2008-02-26T04:21:00.001-08:00

Ninaumwa kichwa, na ninataka kunywa maji na baadaye kulala! Now this slightly odd start to a blog entry may tell you two things about our recent activities here in Dar. First of all, you might now gather that both Soma and I have started our Kiswahili classes in earnest. Secondly, for those linguists who can actually translate the phrase (it means “I have a crashing headache and I want to drink some water then go to sleep”), this means that we had our housewarming party last night!

To be honest, life is fast becoming quite settled here- blogs were easy to write when we were dashing from one country to another week after week. Now the drama and excitement of our leaving Egypt and settling into Dar are more or less done, things seem to be happening a little slower. Life here has definitely become a bit more routine, but sometimes a little bit of routine is not a bad thing!

We’ve well and truly settled into our new home now. We live in a four bedroom semi detached house in a small compound just off the peninsula’s main coastal road, Toure Drive. This, happily enough, means that my working day pretty much always starts and finishes with a short drive looking our over the Indian Ocean- not a bad perk of the job!

Our house in Dar es Salaam

The compound we live in is both friendly and multicultural. There are six houses in all of which one is occupied by an English/ Indian couple (us). Our immediate neighbours, Felix and Atee are Nigerian and have a couple of older boys who we see only on school holidays- they are at boarding school in Nairobi the rest of the time. The next building is shared between a French Canadian couple, Sylvie and Real, who have a shaggy dog called Moukki. Sylvie especially has formed a relationship with Kieran based partly on the fact that he is learning French and partly on Kieran’s constant desire to pet their shaggy dog. Next to them are perhaps our closest friends on the compound, Dirk, from South Africa and his Indian wife Praveena. We’ve been good friends almost from the moment we moved in, due largely to the fact that they have two small boys of a similar age to our own. Most evenings, I drive in from work to find four small boys playing happily, supervised by Soma, Praveena and a well drained bottle of wine- our wine consumption has sadly rocketed since we met these two people! The building opposite us is split between Steve, an Australian miner and a Japanese couple (Kuji and Kasuki) who also have a couple of children who come and play occasionally.

A wider view of the compound

Having these neighbours has been a real boon, especially since our shipment has taken so long to arrive (I am told we should have it either tomorrow or Tuesday). The boys have spent months without their larger toys- bicycles etc- and have only avoided going stir crazy by borrowing from their new friends! Not only have they benefited from the toys but also from the attention of new friends. Kieran has been shamed into improving his swimming because the younger of the Japanese girls (age five but much smaller and slighter than Kieran) showed him up by executing perfect dives into the pool! Yesterday, the same girl was learning how to ride her bike without stabilisers and Kieran managed to negotiate himself a lesson too! Net result of our new neighbours- a son who can now dive into and swim lengths of the pool in addition to being able to ride a bike properly!

Rohan, Kieran and me at the compound swimming pool

Finding ourselves happily settled into our compound but still a few days short of receiving our belongings, we decided that yesterday would be the perfect time to hold a housewarming party. As expected, the Soma Mitra party organising machine swung into full gear about two weeks ago. Invites were sent out, menus were drawn up and shopping lists organised. After a final frantic day of buying food and buying then tasting drinks, the party started at about 8 o’clock yesterday evening. By nine, the house was full to bursting with a variety of new friends and colleagues all of whom seemed well up for a party- I hadn’t realised just how many friends Soma had made while I was working away each day! I met so many of her friends from the Ecole Francaise, her Swahili classes, the local expat social societies and all other facets of life that I’d really only heard about. All in all we had just over 40 guests, all of whom seemed to be bringing large quantities of wine. Since we spent most of the party swigging back a dubious collection of cocktails (mine seem to taste better the more I drink of them) we are now left with dozens of unopened bottles- Soma and Praveena will take good care of those I’m sure!

The party finally came to an end and heads hit pillows shortly after 3 this morning- a lovely four hours of sleep before Rohan announced the start of a bright new day- how sweet. My head is feeling better now- just as well since I’m back in the office for a new week tomorrow!

Thoughts on Tanzania

2008-01-31T02:58:00.000-08:00

After the initial excitement of settling in and travelling, which have characterised our first few months here, we’ve inevitably had to settle down a bit. Apart from anything, I’m not being paid to go visit Tanzania- I do actually have to do some work on occasions. This being the case, I have no further travels or holidays to describe on this posting so I thought I’d do something a bit different. Since arriving here a number of questions have popped up both in conversation with people back home and in my own mind. I thought I’d answer a few of them here- an attempt to clear my own mind as much as to satisfy the curiosity of others.

What has been the impact of the events in Kenya on our lives?

In truth, we’ve not been affected too much. There hasn’t been a huge flow of refugees from the north and, even if that had been the case, the large northern cities such as Arusha and Mwanza would have taken the brunt. For sure there have been a few people come to spend time in the safety of Tanzania but by no means a flood of refugees.

The main impact has been far more mundane. For one thing, the port of Mombasa has been more or less completely closed since the troubles started. This has meant that many more vessels than normal have been using the port here in Dar. This resulted both in our shipment being delayed as the vessel had to sit outside port for three weeks waiting for a slot, and also a delay in getting the shipment through customs- the overload on customs now means a lead time of two weeks.

We’ve noticed an impact on prices too. Basically our provisions fall into three categories. You have basic foodstuffs such as fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, rice etc which are locally produced. These are unaffected by events to the north of course. At the other extreme you have Western branded products such as Kellogs Cornflakes or French wine. These are always very expensive ($7 for a small pack of cornflakes anyone?) as they are flown in from around the world. Finally you have products manufactured in Kenya- local brand cereals for example. What we’re finding is that the supply of these cheaper products has more or less dried up. This is forcing us to the more expensive western brands and making the food bill more costly. When we were on Zanzibar, we noticed that petrol prices had tripled overnight. Again this was because petrol came in from Mombasa and this supply had been squeezed hugely.

So in short, the events in Kenya have had a small impact on our lives- mostly in terms of prices. However, we’re also very much aware that this is pretty small stuff compared to the horrors that people to the north are going through right now.

Could the violence in Kenya happen here?

I’m no expert on Tanzania but from what little I’ve garnered from my time here and especially from conversations with my Tanzanian colleagues, the answer would appear to be “possibly”.

It is always possible that violence could break out but not, apparently, for the same reasons. We should remember that there are some important distinctions between Kenya and Tanzania.

Firstly, Kenya has always had a repressive violent streak; Kibaki only came to power himself after a long and violent period of rule by Daniel Arap Moi. Tanzania on the other hand has generally seem smooth transfers of power. Nyerere may have had an authoritarian streak to him, but since his departure over twenty years ago a succession of rulers have come and gone.

Secondly, we need to understand the role of tribalism in the Kenyan conflict. One interpretation of what is going on is that you have two big tribes- the Kikuyu and the Lua- butting heads. In Tanzania you have over 150 tribes- some big, some small. Although there are some large tribes around, none of them are as dominant as the major Kenyan tribes. In addition, you have a tacit unwritten agreement that the roles of President and Prime Minister should always be filled by people from the smaller tribes. This in itself seems to have addressed the very scenario playing out to the north.

However, my Tanzanian friends and colleagues are very keen to point out that just because the specific causes of Kenya’s violence are not found here, it does not mean that violence cannot break out for other reasons. There seems to be a growing disparity between a rich minority and the poor majority. The fact that Tanzania spent decades under the socialist rule of Nyerere, means that this disparity is especially keenly felt here. The press is quite open here, meaning that people are aware of so many instances of corrupt, self serving politicians and civil servants enriching themselves at the expense of the average person. If violence does break out, it is likely to be a reaction of an angry impoverished majority, sick at the self serving corrupt behaviour of the elite.

What is the relationship between the expats and the locals

Although I’m not aware of any resentment towards expatriates coming from the Tanzanian people, I have to say that there have been instances where I’ve been amazed at their sheer patience and forbearance towards some of my co- citizens. Now before I write much more I should make it clear that in most regards, our fellow expats are very nice people and have been most friendly and welcoming to us. However, many people we talk with do have this rather annoying habit of moaning!

In three years of expat living, I’ve come to realise that expats frequently complain and are rarely grateful for the exceptional standard of living they have. When I say exceptional, I don’t mean just in comparison to the local community- although in terms of income we earn hundreds of times more than they do. I, and the other expats have a far better standard of living that we could ever hope to achieve back home- that, of course, is one reason why we’re here!

While I was in Egypt, I found it quite easy to rationalise the behaviour of the slightly more boorish expat. Firstly, a lot of these people were very young, perhaps a trainee only a year or so out of university, and were therefore not used to the implied seniority that expats have in a local company. From being mere students, they suddenly find themselves guiding local employees and also managing domestic staff, drivers etc. Unsurprisingly, this can go to your head! In addition, we found that those who were employees of the larger corporations (BP and BG for example) were there on rotation and had little real desire to be there. Someone who has been born and bred around Aberdeen and has then gone to work for the local employer- BP- might suddenly find themselves in Egypt. To ask people like this to adapt to a foreign culture is always quite a hard request to make and, understandably, not everyone copes. Egypt was a pretty soft assignment and an easy start for us. For many, however, it was an unwelcome period in a strange country to be got through as quickly as possible.

Tanzania on the other hand seems to attract a different type of expat. Rather than the young and slightly naïve person you’d encounter in Cairo, the typical expat here has been living overseas for years, often decades. They therefore expect houses to be big, servants to be obedient and servile and for the swimming pool to be clean. Many work for development agencies or for NGO’s and often have a rather patronising view of Tanzanians. Already we’ve encountered more people than we could imagine who complain that Tanzania is an incredibly hard assignment. Sure, things can be tough professionally at times but this is no different to most emerging markets. However the country is safe and stable, we’re a stone’s throw from the Indian Ocean and quality of life is exceptional. The fact that a plumber might not get it right first time may be irritating but it’s not the end of the world- perhaps some people have been expat for so long that they have lost sight of what normal life is actually like.

Added to this, I find that attitudes to Tanzanians are often pretty awful. Only at the weekend I found myself sitting at a table next to a British guy who starting swearing at a waiter in front of his kids. The reason for this humiliation? The waiter was trying to place a cup of coffee on the table at the same time the man was shifting his chair. He launched into an x- rated tirade about “not wanting to have to cope with dumb Tanzanian waiters as well as with his kids”. Sadly, this is the type of person the UK and other Western countries is exporting to Africa all too frequently. Overt racism may have gone out of fashion but the underlying contempt is still there- that man would not have dared speak like that in the UK.

My experience so far is that people are generally very nice but expats really do moan way too much and make very little effort to fit in. Somehow we manage to feel outrage at the reports of immigrants coming to the UK and not leaning English but at the same time feel equally outraged at Tanzanian workmen who don’t speak English properly here in Dar! The concept of actually learning Swahili is enough to send many of my counterparts into fits of apoplexy- which is why my lessons start tomorrow! One of the reasons for writing this blog and documenting all we’ve seen and done is to remind myself that however hard it is, we’re extremely privileged to live this kind of life. The second Soma and I believe otherwise, we’ll what all disgruntled expats should do and head back home!

A Weekend in Zanzibar

2008-01-18T02:42:00.000-08:00

What a cheesy title for a blog entry! Actually I think it’s rather a good title- wasted in fact on a mere blog! “A Weekend in Zanzibar” is the title of the one book that apparently resides inside me, perhaps a screenplay of some pretentious exotic romance starring some artistically pained French bloke trying to pull Kristin Scott Thomas. Well , since I’m too busy helping to run a power station to do much more than this blog, the title will have to be wasted on an account of the Chubb family’s first holiday of the year.

To paraphrase (plagiarise actually) more or less every guide book on the place, the name Zanzibar evokes sensuous images of an exotic paradise- palm trees, white sandy beaches, emerald water and the lingering smells of strange perfumes and spices. That’s all well and good but lets be honest here- in common with most people, before coming to Tanzania, I knew more or less zip about the place. In terms of geography, I knew it was somewhere exotic and warm and near Africa; of its history I knew that Freddy Mercury was born there. I now know a little more so before dealing with the first Chubb (or Sandvid/ Mitra etc, etc) expedition to the island, it probably makes sense to impart a bit of this new knowledge.

Zanzibar is not actually an island; it is the name given to an archipelago situated close to the Tanzanian mainland. The largest island, Unguja, is about twenty minutes flying time north east of Dar es Salaam and is home to the majority of the population and to Zanzibar’s capital, Zanzibar City.

A typical Zanzibar beach scene

The archipelago has a varied history and, all around, you can see the influences of myriad cultures. Actually, one thing I’ve picked up from my travels is just how much the people bordering the Indian Ocean share a culture. This should not be a surprise given that the concepts of “Mediterranean culture”, “Mediterranean cuisine” and the suchlike are widely understood. Here, you have a language- Swahili- that is replete with Arabic and even Hindi words. Traditional food is based on fish, coconut, mango, papaya- just as we found in Goa. Whereas South India has the “dosa” a rice pancake, Tanzania has “ugali”- more or less the same thing.

If there is such a thing as Indian Ocean culture, then Zanzibar has always been right in the thick of it. The monsoon winds blowing regularly between Africa and Asia brought traders carrying wares in small dhows and large ships over from India and the Arabian Gulf, ready to do business in Africa. Situated so close to Africa, Zanzibar has always held an important position as a trading post. This was recognised by the Portuguese who, in 1505 (only six years after Vasco da Gama had first clapped eyes on the place), brought Zanzibar into their empire. Portuguese rule was supplanted by that of the Sultan of Oman in 1698. In 1861, Zanzibar and Oman split into two sultanates, heralding a short lived period of independence for Zanzibar. In 1890, this came to an end as Zanzibar became a formal British protectorate, a status it held until 1963, when independence was granted. However, blink and you missed that period of independence. Within a year, the Sultan was overthrown and Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika. TAN merged with ZAN and in 1964, the state of Tanzania was born.

A mere 44 years later, Zanzibar was graced with the arrival of four Chubbs. We stepped off a rather small and ageing plane, not particularly exhausted after a flight of 20 minutes. It really is amazing how much more I resent the long drawn out procedures at the airport when the time spent in the airport was five times that spent in the air!

We breezed through arrivals in Zanzibar and soon found ourselves at the Zanzibar Beach Resort. The hotel itself had some of the best facilities, the most beautiful backdrop and the most clueless staff I’ve ever encountered. I won’t go into depth about our experiences with staff there- it’s depressing and I’ll start to throw things. In any case, the hotel was beautiful and we settled down for an afternoon of swimming in an enormous pool, all excited by the trips we’d planned over the following two days.

Friday morning we were up and breakfasted nice and early. At 8.30, our guide arrived and we were off on our first trip- the almost obligatory spice tour. A short drive took us to a small spice farm on a hill just north of the capital. Although it didn’t look very impressive, that wasn’t the point- it sure smelled impressive! Wandering through their grounds, we built up a collection of pungent lemongrass, peppercorns, nutmeg, cinnamon, turmeric, cardamon and more or less any spice you’d care to mention. All were grown here although most were not native to the island- brought in over time from India, Arabia, Persia, Malaysia and even from the Americas. After a tour of the place, we sat down to eat some of their fruits and to drink locally made (and very spicy) tea.

Soma and the boys in search of spices- the boys need their curry after all!

After a short interlude watching one of the local guys climbing a palm tree (and Soma’s abject attempt to imitate- your Goan childhood was some time ago dear!, we climbed back into the tour bus and headed into the capital to catch a boat to Prison Island.

Prison Island is the rather ominous English name given to Changuu Island, a small island just a mile or two west of Unguja. To get there, we took a small dhow- a trip made significantly more perilous by the strong winds blowing at the time. For just over half an hour we were tossed around and soaked by waves until finally reaching the island.

The island gets its name from a prison built on it by the British in the 19th century. Although the prison was completed, it was never actually used. An outbreak of cholera across the Indian Ocean resulted in the island and the prison being used to house cholera patients instead. Thankfully the disease is no longer present. What is present however, is a sanctuary for a large collection of tortoises, brought over from the Seychelles in the late 19th century. Kieran was, as usual, frightened of the tortoises at first, but, once we convinced him that the slow lumber was their top speed, he relaxed noticeably. We must have seen over fifty of the creatures- ranging from small newborns to enormous adults- possibly old enough to have been among the original batch brought over from the Seychelles!

Soma and Rohan (hidden) petting a rather big turtle on Changuu Island

We had lunch in the prison grounds, petted a few more tortoises, then headed to the beach before climbing back in the boat for the journey home. Luckily for us, the wind had abated a little and we arrived back on Unguja slightly less wet and frightened than at the end of our first dhow ride!

Saturday morning and the Chubb family was again on the road bright and early. This time, we were heading south, to the bottom of the island to a place called Kizimkazi. Although a little worried at the prospect of a whole morning on the same style of dhow we’d endured the previous day, fears were allayed when we realised that the bay was very sheltered and calm. Decked out in our swimming gear, we headed briskly out to sea to go find some dolphins.

As with many instances on our travels, the plan didn’t quite come off. First of all, the brisk pace lasted all of five minutes until the motor gave out. For the rest of the morning we limped along as both dolphins and the myriad other boats zipped about. The second problem was that of the other boats. Okay, so Kizimkazi is known for its dolphins and we were not so naïve as to assume we’d be the only people out looking for them. However, we were one of maybe twenty boats all pursuing the dolphins- only our boat didn’t really work! In scenes reminiscent of Moby Dick, someone would spot the dolphins and the dubious little armada would head off to intercept them. Once close, the tourists would plunge into the sea to swim with them. Sadly the dolphins didn’t want to swim with us and sped off, leaving the rather inadequate humans floundering in their wake. We did see a lot of dolphins and to be honest, the sight of these boats in hot pursuit of and clearly outclassed by these beautiful animals was quite amusing but, as the novelty wore off, we headed to a coral reef for an hour or so of snorkelling. If the dolphins were impressive, the sheer colour and beauty of the coral reef was stunning. The water was clear as crystal and looking down into it was like swimming in a giant tropical aquarium. Apart from the coral, we saw rays, jellyfish and fish after colourful fish- I could have stayed there for hours!

A combination of torn swimming trunks, bored kids and a guide who needed us to make one final stop finally tore us away from the reef and we headed back to the beach and into the tourbus for the journey back north.

The journey held one last surprise for us. We knew that, as a bonus, the guide was going to take us through Jozani Forest and that we might see a monkey or two. Jozani forest is the main habitat for the Red Colobus monkey- a rare species found only on Zanzibar. I thought we might see some from the road. Imagine our surprise when we made a short tour into the forest and saw not just a couple but tens of these monkeys playing in the trees just yards from our noses. For an endangered species, these guys seemed very much at ease and were not especially bothered by our presence. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d be sure the monkeys were showing off!

A Red Colobus Monkey in Jozani Forest- in a tree above my head minding his own business

This diversion marked the last of our little visits on Zanzibar. The next day we were on a plane and back home in a flash. I’m sure this visit will not be our last one to either Unguja or its smaller neighbours. This island really did live up to its reputation. The scenery is beautiful; the flora is so vivid and colourful, sprouting off almost every spice imaginable; it is so full of wildlife we managed to see giant tortoises, dolphins and rare monkeys in less than a couple of days. This place is truly alive! After our weekend here only one question remained- what on earth possessed Freddy Mercury to leave there and go to south London?

Sunset- taken from the beach outside our hotel on Unguja

Our First Festive Season in Tanzania

2008-01-09T01:48:00.001-08:00

It seems that we were somewhat in the minority as far as expats go here in Tanzania. By the time we got back from Mikumi, the expat exodus was well and truly underway. By the time Christmas had arrived, most of our friends were back in whichever country they came from leaving behind a rather quiet and empty Msasani Peninsula.

Christmas was certainly different this time round, but I wouldn’t say it was any less fun for the four of us. It followed a traditional pattern but some things were just a little bit well….. different.

As tradition dictates, we were woken up bright and early by a couple of very enthusiastic small boys, keen as mustard to open their presents. As with generations before them (well their parents at least), they opened their presents in two seconds flat and then began angling for permission to open our presents too! Happily, the boys were very pleased with their haul- most notably a couple of big wooden vehicles from the “they don’t make them like that any more” era. Fortunately, someone in Tanzania does make them like that still- oddly though, he is a big Swiss bloke called Bernard Straub. Strange really- we always expected to find traditional wood toys here; just not Swiss!

The rest of the morning was a departure from the usual Christmas events in that we made a visit to the swimming pool. This was partly an attempt to kill time and build an appetite for dinner and partly an effort on Kieran’s part to test my new goggles. In a desperate attempt to feel Christmassy, we then phoned home to see if anyone was up (they were- just).

Soma and the boys outside our local pub, the George and Dragon just before heading in for Christmas Dinner

In the afternoon, we headed down to the George and Dragon- our local pub- for Christmas dinner. We spent a very happy afternoon with the remainder of the expat community feeling much more festive as we worked our way through a large dinner (Kieran has developed a major taste for turkey) and finally managed to listen to those great classic songs from Slade, Wizzard and (ever so ironically in a pub in Africa, full of regulars demolishing a massive Christmas lunch) Band Aid.

A quiet evening of Quality Street and Bristol Cream ensued to bring to a close our first Southern Hemisphere Christmas. We had had fun, bits were quite festive and we even got the music in the end. However, it will take a few more years before a poolside Christmas feels right!

The boys and I on the beach over the Christmas break
New Year duly followed a week later and we celebrated in a low key manner. Not only was this the end of 2007 but also of our stay in the apartment complex that has been our home for the past two months. We clubbed together with some of our friends (a group of South Africans and a Malaysian couple) and had a barbecue.

As we chatted through the evening, I cast my mind back a year to when Soma and I toasted the New Year in our apartment in Cairo. At that time we both felt that 2007 would be an eventful year. Well, undeniably this has been the case. Looking at the list of stressful things to happen in life, we’ve gone through some of the big ones! Happily we’re not divorced or widowed and, to my knowledge do not have any new offspring! However, if selling a house is meant to be stressful, then selling a $400 million power station is good deal more so! If moving house and changing jobs is tough then those boxes have been ticked and then some. However, this is not to say that we’ve not enjoyed ourselves. My job, though hard going at times this year, has also been deeply involving. Moving from Cairo to Tanzania has been stressful for sure, but also a lot of fun. We’ve said goodbye to the pyramids, the desert and the mosques but have so much more to see here in 2008. 2007 was a very full year for us all- I hope we’ll have many more like it!

A Couple of Days in Mikumi

2007-12-24T03:31:00.000-08:00

Getting to Mikumi might have taken a while, but there have certainly been more complicated routes in my travels. From the Songas station at Ubungo, you turn onto the Morogoro Road and go in a straight line for an awful long time. After about three hours you reach a small town called (surprise surprise) Morogoro, at which point you encounter a roundabout. You go straight over and carry on for another hour until you arrive at the entrance to the Mikumi National Park- I think I could remember those directions at a pinch!

Fortunately for us, this was not an issue. Since this was our first trip in Tanzania, we had decided to use a guide. Sure enough, early Thursday morning Bernie, our Tanzanian guide turned up in his 4X4, got us loaded inside and headed out of Dar, off to see some animals.

Although the journey lacked something in twists and turns, it was very interesting- both going there and coming back. Leaving Dar brought us into a totally different world- a world of small villages, mud huts and roadside fruit sellers. The density of Dar was in total contrast to what we saw only miles inland. The heavy rain brought out the incredible expanses of green stretching out as far as the eye could see either side of this single long road. Plenty of people braved the rain- we saw a constant stream of people going about their business. Maasai men walked by in traditional costume; youth clad in years old Liverpool football shirts cycled along; women in their colourful Kangas carrying goods in pots balanced precariously on their heads carried on conversations on mobile phones in a prefect epitome of the melange of cultures affecting a place like this. The further we headed from Dar the more stunning the scenery became. South of Morogoro, we headed through the Uluguru mountains. In the rain these mountains reminded me almost of the Lake District- green slopes, misty peaks- not what I was expecting in Africa to be honest.

After a fairly agreeable four hours of watching people, admiring views and listening to Christmas songs on my iPod with Kieran, we arrived at Mikumi. We figured we were more or less there when we saw a solitary Baboon sitting by the roadside looking at us. As we slowed down for a photo, and I hung my head out of the window for a closer look I realised we were not being looked as so much as flashed by this rather seedy little primate. Suitably amused, we headed on into the park.

Our first stop was at the Mikumi Wildlife Camp to check in, take lunch and to take a look at our accommodation. The camp was beautiful. The stated ethos of the place was that we were the guests of the animals and should therefore fit around them. Accordingly, the camp was clearly designed for low visible impact. Apart from a small shared eating area (meals taken looking out over the plains) there were twelve Bandas- small wooden lodges each with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a toilet. Between us and the Mikumi plains there was absolutely nothing- charming in the day, slightly scarier at night. Sleeping, or trying to, was an acquired skill for me. Strangely, the plains- so calm by day- were a cacophony of noise by night- the bush rats in our roof competed with crickets, bullfrogs and goodness knows what else for the privilege of stopping me sleeping. After hours of lying underneath a large mosquito net, wondering firstly what else was out there and, more importantly, whether mosquito nets would stop snakes or rats from getting in, I succumbed to tiredness and fell asleep. The second night was easier mind- I’m no Indiana Jones but you have to start somewhere!

Mikumi National Park. In the foreground Giraffes and Impala. In the distance, the Bandas of the Mikumi Wildlife Lodge, where we stayed.

So, what about the safari? Between the long, dark and noisy nights were a couple of days- these were filled with some of the most wonderful sights, sounds and smells we’d ever experienced.

Before going into all that, I guess a bit of basic information. When you think of Tanzania’s national parks, Mikumi doesn’t spring to mind- Serengeti, Kilimanjaro, Mngorongoro Crater up in the north are all much better known and are well worth a visit. Mikumi is a very underrated park, in the south of the country. Yes it is intersected by a major road- the main highway to Zambia- and this detracts from the park in the eyes of some purists. However, you’re still talking about over three thousand square kilometres of African plain, bordered by the beautiful Uluguru Mountains to the north and the Udzungwa to the south. More importantly, this park has some of the most consistently good wildlife viewing in the country. Sorry to be superficial, but if we were going to bring two small boys all this way to see animals, then we needed animals.

Boy did we see animals. We opened up the roof of the jeep to allow us to stand up and look out- Kieran named the rearranged vehicle the “parachute car” but, standing up, taking in the view, it seemed more like the Popemobile to be honest! Since the first day was wet we saw fewer animals- the long forgotten experience of feeling cold, however, was a welcome one.

Soma, Kieran and Rohan with Bernie (our guide and driver) and the "Parachute Car"

The second day was much warmer and sunnier, which made both for better photos and way more wildlife. Mikumi’s reputation was well deserved- not only did we see a lot of animals, they were often within spitting distance of the jeep! The biggest boast was that we saw some small lions. Actually, we didn’t just see them, we practically ran over them- in true “King of the Plains” style, these lions were taking a rest in the middle of the track. So what impressed us the most? I’m really not too sure. We came across a herd of elephants, coming up to cross the track in front of us. They were slightly alarmed by an oncoming truck but let both the truck driver and us know who was boss! Soma was less impressed- being from India seeing an elephant is pretty common I suppose. She was very taken with the zebras though- we saw a lot of them over the two days but had an especially close encounter on the second morning- close enough to feed them almost. They seemed less like horses- smaller and closer to donkeys if anything.

Two grown up elephants and a calf- crossed our path on day 2

The giraffes left me in awe. Although they were not as tall as I’d remembered from various zoos, they were so graceful. One after the other they just strolled across the plain, a bit like the trees from Lord of the Rings! However, I think we’re all agreed that the most magical experience actually came in the camp itself. On the second morning. We opened the curtains and saw the plain in front of us full with impala. From behind the Banda, a series of impala then came running by, leaping metres off the ground as they went- there was no obstacle to jump- they were just playing. Such beautiful animals playing and jumping with such energy- even Rohan stopped and looked in amazement!

We spent two days and nights in Mikumi. It is said that Africa gets into your blood- there might be some truth there. As the jeep headed back to Dar, I felt supremely lucky to be able to visit places like this so easily. This will not be the last trip to the parks of Tanzania- of that I am sure. I don’t know if I’m becoming more “environmental” but I remember telling Soma something as we looked out over these plains, so replete with life. “I might be the world’s biggest capitalist” I said, “but there is nothing in the world that would make ruining these beautiful plains and mountains worthwhile”.

The Joys of Househunting

2007-12-15T09:56:00.000-08:00

It’s hard to believe that we’ve now been here for well over a month. I guess time flies when you’re having fun- at least that was the excuse I gave Soma as my mother in law’s congratulatory phone call brought it home that I’d now forgotten each and every one of our five wedding anniversaries.

A month in and we’re still enjoying life here, which is always a good sign. I’m getting used to driving around- in fact I’m slightly worried that my driving has actually got worse in order to fit in with the unwritten rules of the road here! In fact on almost all fronts- kids’ nursery, my work, Soma’s social life- we’ve made great progress. Only two major issues have hung over us- getting a place to live and sorting a work permit. The latter is not going to be covered on this blog- apart from the fact that it is a very tedious and boring subject, I’ve delegated the whole process to someone else and therefore have no clue what is going on!

I have to confess that the housing situation was becoming a cause for concern. We knew that the house market was fairly cut-throat here but thought, naively, that we’d cracked it only a week after arriving. We’d found a house that we liked and made an offer which was accepted. After a few attempts at a contract, we were ready to sign at the start of this month. We might have been ready, but the Landlord apparently was not. He maintained a solid radio silence which seemed to indicate that he had another offer but didn’t want to tell us. It was back to the drawing board for us- hope his house gets subsidence though!

Looking for a new place was not as easy as in Cairo, but, unsurprisingly, not as tough as the agents were making out. Although the market is heated, there were properties there- each time a property fell through or we got gazumped, Soma turned another one up within a day. We came agonisingly close on several occasions- we were seconds from signing on one place when the rather portly landlord (Bob Geldof and Bono need not worry themselves unduly over this particular chap) decided that he wanted us to pay his taxes on top of his rent! After a couple of weeks in which we saw the worst of the local landlord community, we finally stumbled upon a very nice place. It looks like a semi-detached Swiss chalet, and is new build. It’s a big place –definitely enough space for visits- in a compound with a shared pool (always good, as you get to swim in it but don’t have to maintain it!) Incredibly, after a lightening quick negotiation, both parties put pen to paper yesterday- we finally have a home! We’ll move into it in the New Year; we just need a work permit now so our possessions can move from Dar es salaam’s dockside, through customs and into this lovely new place!

With immediate needs now more or less sorted out, we can turn our attention to Christmas. Now why is it that I really cannot believe it’s less than two weeks away? Perhaps we’ve just been preoccupied with other things; perhaps it’s because none of the local radio stations seem to play the usual offerings of Slade and Wizzard. No- let’s be honest, while also rubbing it in shamelessly to those working their way through a cold and dark British winter. We had lunch today outside, in thirty degree heat, under bright red flame trees in a very nice seaside restaurant. We then went on to a garden party at the French school before coming home for a late afternoon swim. Being the southern hemisphere, it is the height of summer here. Being Africa, this means it’s very hot and sunny and not at all Christmassy!

December in Dar! A couple of pictures from today. Rohan waiting for lunch at Slipway. Kieran standing just a few metres further on, along the harbour. The island behind him is Bongoyo- I managed to get the world's worst sunburn there a few weeks ago!

Getting back to organising Christmas, Soma, typically has been well on the case. This is partly a matter of self interest, however, given that the boys are now on holiday for three weeks and she needs something to keep them occupied. Regardless of motive, the girl has come up trumps.

At the end of this week, we’ll be heading a few hours southwest of here to the Mikumi national park for a long weekend of safari. I understand that antelopes, zebra and hyena are pretty much everywhere here, but we’re really hoping to see some of the big animals- the elephants, lions and leopards that I’ve been promising Kieran for months. We’ll be back here for Christmas itself (Christmas dinner booked at a local pub run by a couple from Grimsby) and for New Year, before we head off for another few days, this time Zanzibar. Having so many places so close by (Zanzibar is a 20 minute flight) is a real bonus. Soma and I have learned our lesson from Cairo. This assignment could end tomorrow. I hope we’ll be here for years but we should get out and see the place as if it were our last couple of months.

Making Friends

2007-12-02T10:52:00.000-08:00

Whatever can be said about the work here in Tanzania, repetitive is not an adjective that springs to mind. This past week has been a real insight- not only into parts of my job, but into Tanzania and its people.

One of my roles here is to oversee the work of the community relations coordinator- a very good bloke called Nicodemus. Now in Egypt, community relations meant a few donations here and there in addition to the occasional site visit. Here it’s far more applied. Firstly, the operation itself impacts on a lot of people- the gas comes from a small island which we share with a substantial local community. We then pipe our gas through 250 miles of some of the poorest parts of Tanzania, through villages all of which could use every penny of help we can provide. The experiences of companies in Nigeria, where they take out resources from a region, pay taxes to the people at the top but leave the immediate local community without a sausage is not something we’re keen to repeat. To ignore the impoverished people from whose land you are taking your gas is not only wrong but also something that could turn a peaceful area into another Niger Delta.

On Thursday, we met with representatives of the Songo Songo Island community- their village elders. It was an interesting experience- traditional African villagers coming to Dar to meet with a bunch of youngish British business types! The incongruity was there to be seen. Into our conference room walked two old men in traditional garb- one wore a grey, short sleeved cotton suit, the other was dressed more in the style of an Arab(a long gallabeya and a hashemite style keffiyeh around his shoulders- I’ll get to the bottom of this one day!) They both wore traditional style box hats. They were accompanied by a younger guy dressed in T Shirt, jeans and his box hat (I‘m guessing that the hats denoted membership of the village leadership but who knows- perhaps it’s a local fashion thing) and a smartly dressed, but sadly hatless man who announced himself as their local councillor. I was surprised to find them not entirely effusive in their greeting- there seemed to be an issue somewhere.

We walked through a number of key issues- work to be done on areas such as provision of water (the development of the island has now attracted economic migrants so our originally agreed water provisioning is not enough to go round), improving access to education and health services. However the general feeling seemed to be that things were being done and they were quite satisfied with our help- so why the underlying unhappiness?

I recently read a book about working in Africa- much of which I’ll take with a mountain of salt given the massive generalisation this entails! One thing mentioned was that, in East Africa especially, people are extremely polite and hate getting right to the point of any criticism- a major complaint may in fact come in the guise of an unimportant non issue, in an attempt to ensure the recipient of the complaint does not lose face.

Sure enough, at the end of the meeting, the spokesperson mentioned casually that they felt it was important for us all to share in the successes and good news of the operations- that they felt proud of what was being done on their island. After a bit more digging, it transpired that in fact, there had been some sort of celebration of a technical achievement on the gas field a while ago, and the village elders had not been invited. This appeared to have caused some upset and, combined with a gap in company visits to the island, had given rise to the feeling of not being respected or considered.

Although the meeting dealt with a lot of key issues, focusing on areas where we could spend money to help them, it struck me that, in fact, what these chaps were after was something more fundamental. They were indeed grateful for the investment we’re making and were pleased with the stuff we’ve committed to do next year. However, my sense was that they walked away from the meeting far happier because of the non financial promises we’d made- to visit more often, to make ourselves available to discuss things with them, and to include them in any future events. In the end, the tangible stuff was nice, but the affirmation of our basic respect was far more important.

More settling in

2007-11-22T00:56:00.000-08:00

Well it seems the boys are finally settled. This morning, for the first time since getting here, Kieran turned to me at nursery and said ‘goodbye mummy’ and then ran off to play. A far cry from earlier occasions, when he’s clutched my leg saying ‘don’t leave me!’ and crying loudly enough to disturb even the hard bitten Masai security guards (they have been giving me some funny looks as I run off to the car without so much as looking back).

Rohan has been rather less trouble – I think anywhere with toys, snacks, and adoring adults is good enough for him. He’s recently started trying to make friends, going up to random strangers saying ‘Jambo (Swahili for ‘hello’)! Ana Rohan (Arabic for ‘I’m Rohan’). I think both boys have decided that if the people they see don’t speak English, then they must respond to Arabic! They accompanied me on an expedition to find someone to mend my only pair of shoes (the cobbler was finally found, as promised, ‘under the tree by the side of the highway’) and had a great time chatting with the other men there (not sure what they were doing under the tree). I decided that their language education couldn’t start early enough so they can now say ‘assante’ (thank you) and ‘kwaheri’ (goodbye) in addition to ‘hello’.

Both boys have come a long way since we moved here. Rohan has finally started talking, in whole sentences rather than the occasional word, and Kieran has started to swim! Admittedly with arm bands, but he’s moving along quite rapidly – he can now stay underwater for about 8 seconds. The good thing about Tanzania is that everyone, no matter how young, swims so the boys are being shamed into catching up.

My own existence is a bit more mundane – I seem to spend a fair bit of every day just visiting the shops (4 visits over the last 1.5 day). Part of this is because there are no one-stop hypermarkets here, and you have to go to different places just to get everything you need. The other part is the difference between having a bawwab to lug your shopping up several flights of stairs, and having to do it yourself. I no longer buy a month’s worth of UHT milk, safe in the knowledge that it will mysteriously get from the car to the correct kitchen cabinet without any further effort on my part. (Does anyone realise how boring it is to put away groceries? Not loving that…)

One thing I am loving is driving myself. It’s been about 10 days since I got my driving license, and I’ve got a little hired car (a Toyota Rav4, which seems to be the standard expat mummy car) and it’s great fun to just zip around the peninsula without having to go through the palaver of requesting a driver in advance. Also, when the boys are fractious, we can all jump in the car and go off to the waterfront to have fresh fruit smoothies (and do yet more shopping). Next on the agenda is to explore as much of the surrounding area around Dar as possible, in terms of beaches, islands and safaris – hopefully by the time I next post something, the boys will have seen some wild animals.

The Move to Tanzania. Part 3- Settling In

2007-11-16T07:53:00.000-08:00

Okay, so just under two weeks after arriving here what has happened and what are the first impressions? There is so much to get through I really don’t know where to start! As with most times I arrive in a new country, the first impression seems to be the weather- very British of me I know!

Unlike Cairo, the weather here has changed from day to day. People here tell me that this is because we’re just on the cusp of a change in season- from dry to the first rainy season. When we landed a week back, it was sunny, albeit slightly less harshly so than Cairo. Although the temperature was lower than Cairo at its worse- about low to mid thirties- it felt a good deal hotter. In part this was due to the significantly higher humidity, in part due to the slightly more basic air conditioning, meaning that we’re more exposed to temperatures here than before. Whatever the reason, for the first few days we all sweated like crazy and worked our way through gallons of water- it would have been more had we not used the swimming pool outside religiously every afternoon to cool off!

As regards humidity, the last few days have been a case of out of the frying pan into the fire- or out of the steam room into the monsoon! I was advised by a well meaning colleague that the rainy season was here. Seeing torrential rainfall outside (not quite as heavy as India last June but still quite a shock to the system after Cairo) I think I’d managed to figure that one out for myself! So, to summarise- it started off hot and humid and is now hot and torrentially wet! Soma is in paradise!

The first few days were all about getting up and running. I had forgotten just how disorienting a change of country is- the first day you really are starting from nothing. Upon waking up the first morning we had no way of telling the time (Soma’s watch broken and all mobiles handed in at Cairo), no way of calling anyone (the internal hotel phones are internal anyway since the billing system is broken) and no way of getting anywhere! From this unpromising point we really needed to get food (we are self catering here), get the boys into nursery, get ourselves mobile and start the search for a house.

Things got a bit easier once we got in touch with the world. We walked a few minutes down the road and got a mobile phone card- we could call people finally! This enabled us to procure a company car and driver- hurrah! Things got easier from then on. With a temporary arrangement for use of a driver, we achieved our first goals- food and nursery. Driving to Little Scholars was easy- leaving the kids considerably less so. Rohan was fairly easy- he saw the toys and scuttled off happily. Kieran, being more aware of his impending abandonment stuck to my leg like glue. I ended up taking the tearful little guy into his classroom and staying there for the first few minutes, only leaving when he was well and truly engrossed in something!

With the boys out of the way we went house hunting and, unbelievably, found a place on the first morning. I’m not going into too much detail for risk of tempting fate- needless to say we like it a lot and will describe it more when we move in!

The final big achievement was, at the end of last week, getting our Tanzanian driving licences. This sounds impressive but required minimal work on our part. Fortunately, being British, we’re at a huge advantage. We drive on the same side of the road (ie properly!) so are almost there from a Tanzanian perspective. After handing over a copy of our UK licences, two photos and about $4 each, we were in proud possession of our licences that same day- a bureaucratic triumph made all the sweeter by our two lovely Rav4 cars fresh from the car hire store! In four days we’d got the kids in nursery, found a house and got us some wheels. A great start!

Driving here is not too bad actually- I know driving in Africa sounds really exotic and cool but actually it’s a bit like Essex- rules of the road exist but nobody pays much attention to them. The locals bemoan the crazy driving that goes on, but frankly it all seems a bit tame after Cairo. Certainly people do some strange things here and the rules of the road are interpreted a bit flexibly (more like guidance notes than real rules) but in my few days of driving (both on the Peninsula and driving to and from work in Dar city centre) I’ve not been subject to crazy bolts out of the blue as frequently happened in Cairo. People cut in front of you just like in Cairo but here they indicate first! Traffic can be slow and, when you get congestion, obeying silly things like traffic lights is just going to result in getting home hours after everyone else. The secret here is to stay calm, keep moving forward, whatever colour the lights, be careful not to hit anyone/ thing (and if, like my boss you do, make sure it isn’t a police motorcyclist you send careering into the gutter- they get very upset and angry with you) and to make sure you stay awake- nothing too tough in that! Now that the rains are here, however, I’m very grateful for the cars we have. In Cairo we had a large Pajero, mainly in an effort to protect us from the suicidal taxi drivers who plough into the side of you. Here we need 4 by 4 cars to get anywhere off a main road! The main roads are okay, even in rain but the minor ones, such as that which leads to our hotel entrance, have craters which have now become minor lakes- getting over and through them is fun in a Rav4, less so in the Fiat we owned in the UK!

A week in, I think we’re getting settled. The boys like the place; I like drinking good wine and driving (not together of course!). Soma is starting to make some friends here- the people in our block are a very friendly bunch and a myriad of nationalities. It will be a while before this starts to feel like home- certainly not while we’re in a serviced apartment rather than our own place- but when I look back at where we were a week back I think we’ve done okay!

The Move to Tanzania. Part 2- The Journey There.

2007-11-11T04:01:00.001-08:00

The worst part of any journey, for me, is getting through Cairo airport. Whether it is the shiny but overcrowded “Old Terminal” or the decrepit, rundown “New Terminal” (another Egyptian oddity I know), arriving at the airport is always my least favourite part of any flight.

Having said our goodbyes to Mohammed and headed into the departure area with the most overloaded trolley in existence, the check- in was pretty trouble free. No stroppy policemen, pestering porters or clueless check in staff. The last of these was mostly due to the fact that, thanks to some major price cuts by Emirate Airlines, we were travelling Business Class the whole way- once you’ve turned left on a plane for the first time, you never go back! I was twenty six when I first went business. Our two boys have beaten that by decades the lucky so and so’s!

After an uneventful hour or so patrolling the terminal- mostly the foodhall and the play area- we boarded the plane. If you are travelling Business just once in your life then make it Emirates- you are treated like royalty. We all took our seats (so large that each seat was a play area in its own for the kids) and awaited take off. Kieran and I said a last goodbye to Cairo as the plane powered up on the runway and then we were off. The three and a half hour flight to Dubai was quite uneventful. Kieran was completely absorbed in the various videos practically the whole flight. When we started our descent, the man in the window seat next to me kindly allowed Kieran to look out of his window. We saw sea, clouds and, off in the distance, the Iranian coastline all of which Kieran took in avidly before he had to be belted in for landing.

Rohan was well behaved too. For the first hour he had slept soundly, and would have done so for longer had his mother not spilled a glass of wine over him at lunch! Even after that rude awakening, Rohan was no trouble. He looked around, watched videos and, in the end was congratulated by some Australian passengers for his good behaviour!

Dubai is simply another world- we felt as if we’d emerged from the darkest recesses of some jungle! The first thing we found upon arrival were these long lost virtues of customer service and common sense. Immediately upon disembarking we were able to take a complimentary buggy for Rohan. The visa queue was brief and painless and bagges came quickly. Before we knew it we were in a car, headed to our apartment at the Golden Sands Hotel.

After check- in, we needed to sort out the kids’ (and our) dinner. This being Dubai, a large supermarket was just over the road, so off we headed. What should have been a quick jaunt took much longer, due largely to two adults, freshly off the plane from Egypt standing and gazing in awe at the sheer mass of choice. Wines, branded goods from home and, most amazingly of all, a pork section! No longer did you have to source this illicit meat from a local “dealer”- you could buy it in a shop! Needless to say, four of us got into bed that night, tired but well fed and happy.

The next day was a busy one. We were due to meet up with an old friend from Cairo. Marianne had spent the tail end of 2006 in Maadi with her husband Doug and her two kids- same age as ours happily enough. When their time in Maadi came to an end, they were so taken with expat life Doug took up a new post with his company in Abu Dhabi. In fact, working for Doug was one of the options presented to me when the Egypt assignment was drawing to a close.

Full of optimism we headed out onto the roadside to hail a taxi. After ten minutes in sweltering heat, discretion duly overcame valour and we returned to the hotel to order a cab instead. A half hour drive past landmarks such as the Burj Tower (7 star hotel) and another building which apparently going to be the tallest in the world, saw us arriving at the entrance to the Emirate Shopping Mall- a place highly recommended by several friends.

Marianne was not due for at least another hour so we got down to our shopping. Half an hour (and a projector, a Nintendo and several games) later, we stopped for lunch next to an immense indoor ski slope. It was at this point, Kieran decided that Dubai was his favourite place on earth- this was not just a small artificial slope but an entire indoor, climate adjusted world of snow. Sadly our planning for a journey to Tanzania via Dubai inexplicably omitted ski suits so we were not able to go- next time will be different, our eldest was assured.

After lunch, we made our way to the soft play area where we met Marianne. She seemed fine and all was perfect. The boys played, the ladies chatted and I headed off to buy more Nintendo games. After a long day of shopping and playing, we got back into our taxi and headed to the hotel for dinner and bed- the toughest part of our journey lay ahead.

It would be fair to say that, despite the best efforts of Emirates, the second part of the journey was a good deal more frazzled than the first. Things got off to a bad start when our Emirates pickup called in late. I contacted the airline to confirm that we would not miss our flight and was told I should have booked him earlier. After much exploding on my part (they had suggested the pickup time in the first place after all) profuse apologies were offered. The driver turned up forty minutes late blaming traffic “traffic bad- what to do?” was the lame excuse “leave home earlier” the fairly curt response. After a pleasant ride through suspiciously uncongested roads, we arrived at the airport in good time. We trundled our bags into what was a snobs’ paradise (ie heaven for me)- the business class terminal. Not only did our tickets mean a separate queue but a completely separate, posh part of the building- these guys know how to do luxury too! We spent a happy half hour in the lounge working our way through the buffet (bacon, eggs and champagne anyone?) before boarding the flight to Dar es salaam.

This flight was, at five and a half hours, a good deal longer than the first, and Rohan had slept in the airport as well. It was no surprise therefore that this time was a bit tougher than the last. Both boys behaved quite well though and, in mid afternoon sun, we landed at Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es salaam. Unlike Dubai (and just like Cairo) there were no buggies on hand to place Rohan in. Dubai was a welcome aberration in our slightly more flustered and sweaty “emerging markets” existence, we reminded ourselves. At this point (and in retrospect entirely understandably given the length of the flight), Kieran decided not just to blot his copybook of good behaviour but to well and truly dye it black. He was impossible in the passport queue, staging a lie- down protest in front of the official (who, had it have been me would have deported him!!) and then played havoc with the luggage belt. After retrieving all our bags, we headed outside into the hot humidity of Tanzania. The first face we saw was that of Joyce, a Songas administrator. She brought the car up to us- Rohan nearly brought his Tanzanian existence to an abrupt end by running so suddenly in front of a car that even Soma’s reflexes did not catch him! After all the bags were packed, Soma and I got into the back of Joyce’s car, a kid on each lap. We left the airport headed towards our temporary apartment on the Msasani Peninsula, both boys gazing avidly out the window at their new homeland. Rohan practised his Swahili by repeating “Jambo” over and over. Kieran practised his diplomacy by loudly asking why everyone outside was black. Soma and I were absolutely dog tired but glad that at least the journey had come to a close.

The Move to Tanzania. Part 1- Leaving Cairo

2007-11-10T10:17:00.000-08:00

As predicted, the last posting was indeed the final one made from Cairo. As I sit here in our temporary apartment here in Dar es salaam, I realise there is a lot to recall in the last week or so. To make sense of things, I’ll split this posting into three bits; the final preparations before we left Cairo, the journey here and the mad few days that have passed since we arrived here on Monday 5th November. Here goes for part 1- “The Leaving”.

My final day at work was an odd affair. Annoyingly enough, after a month of complete inactivity a fairly urgent issue came up in the final couple of days. With one foot out of the door, I was really only able to provide advice to my colleagues on how to handle it. A couple of calls and emails were needed before I handed over my laptop for good though. After a short lunch with my colleagues (aptly ordered in from the same hotel we stayed in upon our immediate arrival in Cairo) I made one final tour of the office, saying goodbye to as many of the people as I could find. I was a bit sad to say goodbye but have been on the verge of leaving for far too long to feel anything other than relief at finally getting out. With considerably less emotion than I had expected, I got into the car and headed home to see how the removal men were doing.

Using removal firms is an odd thing. Right up until a couple of days before departure, your house is untouched- you begin to question whether you have actually done everything you need to do since things simply don’t look as if you’re about to move countries. All of a sudden, though, about twenty men descend on your house, falling upon it like locusts. In just one day, our apartment was utterly denuded of its furniture and all our accumulated junk. By the evening, all our possessions save a few that were actually coming on the plane with us) were sitting in a pile of boxes outside the front entrance to the building, awaiting the removal truck which, true to Egyptian style, had vanished. Save for a few items belonging to the landlord and about five suitcases and their contents (coming with us on the flight), the house was stripped bare.

After half an hour waiting outside, Kieran and I decided that the absent van was the problem of the removal men- not ours- so headed up to bed. Thankfully one double bed and one single mattress belonged to the landlord so we at least had something to sleep on!

Friday morning began as normal with a trip to Café Greco. We stayed, said farewell to the staff there and headed home for lunch- difficult to cook without any pots so we ordered in and ate on the terrace. That afternoon and evening saw a steady stream of friends come over to say a final goodbye. Carol and Paul, Daniel, Viv and Ian (both of whom split the remaining contents of our wine and spirits reserves and, finally Tim. The toughest goodbye, however, was that of Iman- the boys’ nanny. She has been a part of the boys’ lives (whether as nursery teacher or as nanny) throughout our time here so has known Kieran since he was a year old and Rohan practically since birth. The boys did not grasp the gravity of this particular goodbye but Iman may as well have been handing over her own children. Promises to come and visit or to fly her out to see us would have been impossible to fulfil so there was little that could be said to console her. She left our house very tearful- hopefully her new job caring for Viv’s baby will take her mind off things.

Anyway, we had one final bizarre dispute with the landlord over when the apartment should be handed over. We’d agreed 6pm that evening; he then sent his wife at 7pm but she didn’t want to get out of her car so just took all keys except one and drove off without seeing or signing anything. Hee then called to reschedule for around midnight, or possibly midday the following day (approximately 15 minutes before our plane left!). Soma told him very firmly that he could either come round immediately or would have to come before 9am the next morning, after which time we’d leave the remaining key with the bawaab and head to the airport. He promised to come at 8.30 on the dot the next morning. One final, typically Egyptian vignette that sums up beautifully some of the bizarre frustrations of living there! We retired to bed, ready for the big day.

The next morning, we were up, bathed, dressed and breakfasted early. We all spent a final few minutes saying goodbye to our terrace- the coolest one we’ll ever have I think! The landlord phoned to say he was sending his driver to take our keys- I knew 8.30am was going to be too early for him! We did a final check, signed off the handover form and left the keys (and a pristine flat) in the hands of our landlord’s driver. At just after 9am, we got into the car and, after a swift detour at Viv’s house, headed to Cairo airport.

After an easy run to the airport, we loaded up the trolley, bid a final and grateful farewell to our driver Mohammed (both of us quite sad to see the back of each other but not as hysterically upsetting as Iman thankfully) and disappeared into the departure area of Cairo airport- the same terminal into which three of us had arrived back in 2005. The leaving was over, the three day trip to Tanzania via Dubai- two adults and two excited, nervous and generally rowdy toddlers- was about to start.

Of Parties and Partings

2007-10-30T03:47:00.000-07:00

After what seems to be an eternity of getting ready and saying goodbye, we’re finally entering the last stretch of our stay in Cairo. The departure is imminent and the farewell parties are in full force!

Kieran was lucky enough to have first go- a collection of his motliest crew convened at our house last Thursday. In fact, this was not strictly speaking a leaving party. We’d decided to bring his birthday forward a few weeks to ensure he actually had some friends to celebrate with. Lots of fun was had on our roof- old games like “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” brought back memories of my single- digit birthday parties. Soma even made Kieran a special cake that at least two of the guests recognized as being Thomas the Tank Engine! After a couple of hours, all kids were burned out and had departed. Kieran and Rohan wended their way to bed and Soma flaked out accordingly!

From left: Nina, Kieran and Adam rifle through the party bags.

Next day we were up bright and early- seconds away for round two and this was the big one! At seven that evening, about sixty of Maadi’s finest would descend (or more appropriately ascend, given that the party was on our roof) for our official leaving party. The day sped by- people came with traditional tables and chairs; more people came to set up the lights and the bar; beer, wine and soft drinks arrived in massive quantities and by late afternoon Samir from the Deli had arrived. Now unless you have lived in the Middle East for any length of time you will not truly understand just what a legend a man like Samir is. He is gold dust for the simple reason that HE SELLS PORK SAUSAGES AND PORK CHOPS! To be honest, once the rumour had spread that Samir was both supplying and cooking for our party, the RSVP’s flooded in- so was it us or the pork? Who knows, but by eight that evening our roof terrace was kicking!

The barbecue was as good as had been promised- aided by some lamb pies and prawns that Soma had secured from another “diamond geezer” supplier of ours. Once fed, a few hardy souls set about the one remaining task of finishing off my bar. Over the past few years, I’d amassed a fair sized collection of obscure liquors and spirits, none of which were headed to Tanzania. Unwilling to chuck them down the sink, we chucked them down ourselves instead until…….I woke up the next morning!
Daniel holding an early Chubb attempt at a Long Island Ice Tea- we got it right in the end!

After a Saturday that will go down in history as the forgotten day- Daniel and Janice coming around with some Latte from Café Greco being the only highlight- I woke up Sunday for the start of my last week as Commercial Manager of Sidi Krir.

The day was nothing to write home about- not until my official works leaving do started that evening at the Four Seasons in Garden City. Another hot tip for anyone planning on eating out in Cairo- Aqua is a very stylish, very posh little restaurant on the second floor and well worth a go! Soma and I were joined by my boss, Tom, his wife Barbara and my soon- to- be- ex- colleagues Colin, Sherif, Wafaa and Sayed. After a far more civilized dinner than had been enjoyed on our roof, Tom made the customary, but very generous speech about my contribution (which as is clear from the increasing size of this blog has been somewhat limited as of late!) and presented us with an array of leaving presents. We are now richer to the tune of three very nice Syrian alabaster candle holders, one video camera and a crystal clock- I’ll try to do a fly on the wall video of the move!

Works leaving do at the Cairo Four Seasons. From left: Sayed, Wafaa, me, Barbara, Sherif, Colin, Soma and Tom

Thus are the official leaving parties done. We’ll have friends round this week to say some proper goodbyes of course. I’m not quite sure how it will all pan out. Soma and I aren’t that emotional (read- we’re both cold hearted!) but there are some fine people we’ve met in Maadi that we will miss a lot. Friday in Tanzania will be a working day, not, as has been the case since 2005, spent meeting up in Café Greco with our good friends Viv, Tim, Carol, Paul, Daniel, Janice and an assortment of other fine people.

I’m not sure when the next update will be to this blog. I’m writing this on Monday- the home computers get packed Thursday and that same day I walk out of this office in Dokki leaving this laptop in my ex- to- be office. For now it’s a case of continuing to say bye to Cairo- the next posting will most likely be from a new life in Tanzania. The Msasani Peninsula, Little Scholars, South African wine and right hand drive cars await us!

Ma'a Salama ya Sidi Krir!

2007-10-18T11:33:00.000-07:00

As our departure date looms ever closer- 3rd November is now a little more than a fortnight away, the bitter sweet experience of the “farewell tour” is now underway. What with all this jetting around through the past couple of months, I had not actually paid a visit to the Sidi Krir power plant in what must have been ages. Colin Parrish, our Plant Manager heartily agreed and suggested very enthusiastically that this absence had to end.

Thus it was that, on the morning of Wednesday October 17th, I found myself in the passenger seat of our Pajero, pulling out of Maadi to start the oft driven schlep up to Sidi Krir. On this occasion, however, something was a bit different- the weather. Now weather in Egypt is not something you dwell on too much. “Oooh what a sunny day it is, I wonder what it will be like tomorrow” tends to run a bit thin once you get into the third month of blazing heat and zero precipitation. In fact, one thing very noticeable about Egyptians is that they never really talk about the weather- it’s hot, get over it!

Well today the weather was worth talking about. For the first time in months it had actually rained the night before- and not just a small shower either. For hour after hour, rain poured, thunder rolled and lightning flashed. In fact, on the way home the previous evening, the dark, miserable rainy weather had evoked a very brief flash of homesickness in me- one that vanished once I stepped out of the car, mind! The rain was so solid and so heavy that, in the wee small hours, it started to come through the gaps in the terrace door and window and was dripping solidly down onto the corridor floor. I was actually quite grateful for this- being a tenant, I was not on the hook for the repair and, more importantly, we now had a cast iron excuse for the water damage inflicted by a session or two too many in the paddling pool over the summer.

Anyway, Mohammed and I made painfully slow progress across Cairo, whose lack of a decent drainage system was becoming rather apparent. We worked our way through umpteen lake sized puddles and around countless vehicles which, being on their last legs in the dry, had given up the ghost completely in the wet. After an hour we reached the Heliopolis apartment of my friend and colleague Sherif. With Sherif aboard we made our way west to join the Cairo- Alexandria road.

With the rain behind us, everything from this point had the grim predictability of a journey which had been made over fifty times before with the added tinge of knowing that this was actually the last time I’d be doing it. As things on the road flashed by- the unspeakable service station halfway on the road, the huge equine sanctuary with Delboy like statues of horses adorning the entrance, the “Lion Village” zoo- I bid a quiet goodbye to them. We even played Mohammed’s favourite CD (the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, which I’d bought him a year or so ago in an attempt to stop him from ever again asking me to listen to his cassette of the Bee Gees in concert with Barbara Streisand).

We arrived at Sidi Krir at lunchtime- the usual McDonalds salad will not be missed. After an afternoon of very dull accountancy, the details of which I will not go into, we headed off for a last night at the world’s worst Hilton hotel- the Borg al Arab Hilton. It says Hilton on the signage but in reality I have spent a few nights each month for the last three years staying at a pink Arab version of Fawlty Towers. The only fond memory I have of the place isn’t even mine- it is of our cantankerous Texan CEO trying to have a shower and getting scalded in the process. After a few beers with Colin and Charl (a South African piping consultant here ostensibly for our ongoing outage but seemingly for the sole purpose of needling Colin and I before the Rugby World Cup final) I headed up to enjoy my final night in the place.

After a few more hours of bean-counting the next day, I started to say my goodbyes. I donned the glasses and helmet for the last time and headed to the maintenance building with Colin where I caught up with a few soon- to- be- ex colleagues. After a final photograph with Colin and Sherif (a team photo is a fairly traditional goodbye rite for all visitors there) we made our way home- a final slog back to Cairo.

Sidi Krir Power Station- the reason we came to Egypt in the first place!

A final team photo outside the admin building. From left Colin Parrish (Plant Manager), me, Sherif Moussa (Financial Controller)

Although I left Sidi Krir without much emotion, I must confess I’ll miss the place. Although I’m no engineer, it is a place I’ve come to grow fond of. The people have come together as a team and have taken a pride in their station. Unlike many engineers they have not just accepted my visits but have really embraced what I've been trying to do, proving that Beancounters and Dilberts can work together! However, it is the whole repeated ritual of these trips that will be remembered fondly for a while yet. Listening to awful Bee Gee cassettes on the long, dull road to and from Cairo, swapping weak jokes with the likes of Adel, Abdallah and Nabi, semi drunken gossip with Colin in the Hilton bar and braving the worst a supposedly five star hotel can throw at you are now firmly ensconced in my memory.

To Bawiti and Beyond- Camping in the Desert

2007-10-03T04:29:00.000-07:00

Day 1

The first thing I noticed about the room we’d taken in the International Hot Springs Hotel was that, despite it having no air conditioner, it was actually pretty cool. Looking around, we were in a clean and basic hexagonal room with windows situated in just the right position to get a good throughflow of air. “These desert people certainly know how to design a cool house”, I thought.

“These desert people” were in fact Peter, a middle aged German man with a penchant for traditional galabeyas and his Japanese wife. They had come to the village of Bawiti some 14 years ago, set up this hotel- come expedition base camp and had run it ever since. I guess running a hotel anywhere must pretty quite hard work. To set up a hotel in the middle of a desert in a foreign country however, requires a level of drive few of us have. Peter and his wife employ a large staff of local people, both in the hotel itself and in the desert excursions they also offer. Listening to Peter talk about the area, looking at the postcards created by his wife and the camel blankets he himself sells, you can see a driving passion for the desert and its people. His Arabic might be a bit broken and spoken with a German accent but this man seems determined to take his place as part of the fabric of local society- attracting much needed money to the area, employing local people but taking pains to respect the local environment seems to be a pretty good way to achieve this.

The village of Bawiti is found close to the Bahariya Oasis towards the easternmost extreme of the Western Desert and is about a four hour drive from Cairo. Walking around the place, we felt well and truly taken back in time. The village is very hot and dusty, with low built houses cramped up against each other. The only real hint of modernity came with the numerous offroad vehicles which shared the narrow lanes with the far more traditional mules and carts reflecting the way the tourist industry shares pride of place with traditional pastoralism here. After about twenty minutes we sought shade by heading into the oasis itself. When thinking of an oasis as a child, I always imagined a small lake surrounded by a dozen or so palm trees such as is seen in cartoons. Actually a real oasis is much bigger than that. We found ourselves walking through a large forest of palm trees. Apart from the respite from the heat, we took in the fact that this place was replete with food- every tree had something edible hanging from it. At first we minded our manners- respectful of the fact that our guide was fasting for Ramadan. However he insisted we try some of the fruit and soon enough we were working our way through some of the sweetest, freshest dates we’d had in a long time. Kieran found a lemon tree and, inexplicably started on a couple of lemons too!

Kieran and I coming out of the Baharya Oasis

After much walking, we eventually emerged from the oasis, slightly tired and very full. Kieran announced he wanted a piggy back so we took that as the cue to head back to the hotel.

Sunset came soon enough and Kieran and I climbed to the top of a small hill behind the hotel called Gebel al Ingleez (the English Mountain). The name comes from the fact that in times past, the occupying British forces had a base on the hill to keep an eye on Senussi tribesmen coming through from Sudan and Libya. Kieran and I watched the sun go down over the oasis and came down for a visit to the hotel playground and dinner before bed.

Day 2

Unusually enough, I woke up before Kieran did- although not by much. After about five minutes, he woke up, got out of bed and trotted over me and asked if he could go to the playground. I told him that today was a very big day and he needed to keep his energy for exploring the desert. Soma and Rohan joined us soon enough and we headed to the playground for a pre- breakfast go on the swings. Breakfast was basic but very good- local balady bread, cheese and eggs along with the traditional foul dish so loved by Egyptians everywhere.

At 9.30 we met Peter in Reception where he gave us an introduction to the desert. We were to leave the hotel and drive through the Black Desert. The Black Desert is approximately 40 million years old, dating back to the Cretaceous Period. At that time, the continent of Africa started to split in an East- West direction (apparently it is still doing so at about a centimeter per year). This split created massive geological upheaval resulting in a lot of volcanos spewing up a lot of lava- this lava is what makes the Black Desert black. We would then head into the White Desert which, apart from being white, is even older still. Dating back 70 million years to a time when only one continent existed, the White Desert is the fossilized remains of a seabed. All interesting in theory but we were anxious to see it all.

We met our guide, a local man called Arif. We packed our belongings into an already full Landcruiser and headed through Bawiti into the desert. As promised, we headed first of all through the Black Desert and it certainly lived up to its name. There was very little sand- it was mostly very dry, very hot black volcanic rock. After half an hour we did manage to find some real sand and accelerated the car to the top of a large dune from which we could see a very impressive black panorama. From here we had our first experience of the sounds of the desert- absolute silence!

Half an hour further on and we stopped at a small volcano. This was clearly a regular stop as other trekkers were already there. Soma helped Rohan totter about while Kieran and I made a bid for the top. In fact we got about halfway up before he asked for a piggy back. That being the case and the fact that the way up was becoming steeper and less clear, we decided to stop there and take in the view. “Kieran” I said, “this is real desert!” Kieran’s response, logically enough was “was the desert before a pretend desert, daddy?” Stumped by this, we sat together for a while, headed back down for more water and continued on our way.

Panorama of the Black Desert, taken from halfway up a volcano

We stopped at about midday for lunch. Arif needed to go to his Friday prayers so we took lunch in a very nice tent structure attached to a small restaurant. The food was basic but good- more balady bread and various salad items were served along with some juices for the boys and mint tea for us.

Another hour of driving in the afternoon found us in the White Desert and never has a place so fitted the name! This was not just pale sand but absolutely brilliant white rock for miles around. Out of this brilliant white landscape protruded hundreds of the strangest rock structures we’d ever seen. This was truly the most unearthly landscape any of us had ever seen! Driving offroad was much easier as this was not so much sand as rock so we were able to go at some speed. With no other car for miles around and a perfectly flat, infinitely wide “road” we must have hit 100mph- it felt almost like high speed ice skating! We ended up at one rock structure known in the area as the Chicken and the Egg- it apparently looks like one although Soma had her doubts. According to her, trying to give shapes to these structures was like a Rorschach test, you could ascribe meaning to anything- spoilsport!

The White Desert

As the shadows started to lengthen, we headed back into the Black Desert and, after an hour, found a suitable dune to camp under. Soma headed off onto it with the kids while Arif and I set up camp. We set up a big tarpaulin against the side of the car and put down some rugs. That half box was our kitchen. Given that sunset was imminent and Arif was desperate to eat we decided dinner should come before the tents. The two of us sat down and started chopping and peeling. Dinner came along with nightfall and we sat down under the stars, with just headlights and a fire for light.

Rohan and Kieran were starting to yawn so we put up the tents and put them to bed. Rohan fell asleep immediately but Kieran kept poking his head out, presumably to check we’d not left him alone in the desert. After a bit more gazing at stars and taking in the sheer silence, we too headed to bed.

Day 3

Unbelievably, for a second day running, I was awake before Kieran! This time, though, I had to wake him too. He was almost awake and I needed to go pee! I didn’t want his first memory of waking up in the desert to be marred by panic over where his Dad was, so he got up and came with me. Fascinated by the concept of “going” in the desert, he too dug a small hole and had his morning pee! Soma and Rohan were by now awake but, not wanting to wake Arif, we headed over to the next dune to play and to watch the sunrise. The pre dawn was light enough but, at six o’clock, the sun finally came over the dune- a magical moment with a reddish orange light mixing with the other- worldly blackness of the desert floor.

Our camp- taken just after sunrise on Day 3

Sitting at the top of “our dune”, I felt extremely fortunate to be where I was. We were the only people for miles around; the kids had unlimited sand and rocks to play in; the air was pure and, for the two hours straight after sunrise, the temperature was very pleasant- the desert chill had been tempered by the sun but the sheer dry heat of the day had not yet arrived.

Arif awoke soon enough and, conscious that we wanted to be away before the real heat set in, we had a simple breakfast, packed up and headed back to Bawiti. After lunch in the hotel we met up with Mohammed and began the long drive home.

Our weekend in the desert was perhaps one of the most magical experiences any of us have had. To spend a day taking in the sights of these geological wonders was amazing; to be allowed to spend a night and to wake up in such an environment was a privilege. Speaking to my Egyptian friends and colleagues afterwards, I was amazed that none of them knew much about the desert areas and nobody had thought of visiting them. Part of me was disappointed that 99% of the people had not seen what constituted 90% of their country, especially given the sheer beauty of the place. On the other hand, perhaps an invasion of the masses is the last thing the place needs. I’d heartily recommend to the five or so readers of this blog that you go visit Bawiti, pass on my best wishes to Peter by all means- just don’t tell too many people how good it is!

A visit to Greece

2007-09-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

In the true spirit of London buses, I’m now rounding off a mini glut of posting to this blog- although two posts hardly construes a glut it’s still a lot of typing! The office is working strictly to Ramadan hours, meaning works finishes at 3pm. In an attempt to get back up to date both with work and with this blog, I’ve opted to stick around until 7.30pm when Mohamed my driver has finished his Iftar and gets back across Cairo to take me home. Actually the drive home should be quite pleasant- leaving at 4pm most days, the roads are jam packed with starving angry drivers all trying their best to get home by dark and managing to reenact Wacky Races in the process. After Iftar everyone is home so roads are empty.

Anyway, back in my office in Cairo, all seems to be quiet again. Our mad two weeks of traveling has come to an end (well international travel anyway) and Mum has headed back home after a rather tough fortnight of dealing with the boys!

Last weekend saw our final bit of overseas travel (for this month anyway). In the wee small hours of Friday morning, Soma and I boarded an Olympic Airlines plane headed for Thessaloniki via Athens to attend the wedding of our long standing friend Matt to his Greek better half. Egypt having changed its hour early and, more specifically not having told the rest of the world about it, we actually landed in Athens an hour later than we thought- good news since we more or less got right onto our connecting flight.

Coming out of Thessaloniki Airport, the place did not seem that impressive. Other than the nice weather and the fact that our driver was smoking like a chimney and playing non stop Bee Gees tracks the whole way, there was little to differentiate this place from Wolverhampton!

Once we got into the city centre, to the Minerva Hotel, that view changed radically. Thessaloniki is a port town with beautiful classical architecture, wide plazas and a long waterfront on which hundreds of small bars and cafes stretch off into the distance. We met up with Matt and some other friends (many recognizable from the haze of his stag do in Munich last year). What a difference a year makes, I thought- none of them were too bothered about heading to a bar. We all opted for lunch and a quiet coffee instead. Was this a new found maturity? Had the fact that two had become fathers brought them kicking and screaming into middle age? No- they had all been out on a bender the previous night and had only got in at 7am!

Soma on the Thessaloniki waterfront- a brief interlude of walking between cafes!

Anyway we wandered through a marketplace to a very small but very good little restaurant recommended by Matt and sat down to one of those long leisurely lunches you’re meant to have in these places. We must have spent hours in the place, picking away at the various mezze, working our way through the myriad film posters on the wall working out which of the classics we’d actually seen (nobody had seen Citizen Cane which confirms my suspicion that, despite it always getting voted the best film of all time, nobody has ever watched it).

Anyway, on to Saturday- the wedding day. As with our own wedding in India there were a number of pre wedding rituals that had to be followed during the day. The oddest of these was Matt getting shaved and dressed by his friends. All of us were crammed into a small hotel room, sipping afternoon drinks with Matt sat in his boxer shorts on a chair being shaved- very odd.

At 7pm we were all suited and booted and were picked up by the coach taking us to the church. We stayed outside the church a while taking photos. Everyone got very excited when Soma came and announced the bride was round the corner meeting her Greek family and friends “and she’s wearing a meringue!” she said to the delight of at least the female contingent. We all headed off to see her and started taking photos until I realized that this was not the Christina I knew- unless she’d put on weight, dyed her hair and more worryingly, shrunk! Indeed this was not Christina, but another newly wed lady who had taken the 7pm slot!

Bang on time we headed inside the church and waited a while taking in the beautifully ornate artwork of the place. Interestingly, although it was obviously a church, it lacked the European feel of a Catholic or Protestant church. This was much closer in feel to the religious places close to our home in Egypt- a useful reminder that Christianity is not a Western religion at all, but one rooted in the Middle East.

Matt and Christina came in together- not a bride being given away so much as a couple presenting themselves before God. The priests came in with them and conducted the entire ceremony themselves. According to the wedding notes, this was because the wedding was not so much a conversation between the couple as one with God- one which only the priesthood could conduct. The ceremony ended with the couple and the priest walking round the altar three times (three times to represent the Trinity, the priest was there to guide them on their first steps in married life) and that was that- hitched!

Matt and Christina being taken on their first married steps by a very large priest- also being pelted by a lot of confetti/ rice.

After a slightly convoluted ride to the reception we arrived at close to 10pm. Food was ready and waiting and we dug in! The music varied from your traditional wedding fare to some more Greek stuff and, predictably we all ended up in a big circle dancing to Zorba the Greek- a huge cliché but a lot of fun!

We headed back at 2am (5 hours before the bride and groom left the building apparently!) and went to bed, treating ourselves the next morning to our first lie in years!

We enjoyed this Greek wedding and the whole experience of Greek café life. However, on more than one occasion we got the sense of time having passed. More than a few people now have kids and Matt, the epitome of the single man, is now married. There were some huge nights out had by some but they seemed be a bit of a last hurrah- two of the protagonists now have small kids and are beginning to realize that screaming babies and hangovers don’t go. Matt I’m sure will be at that stage before long too. This time round we all drank more tea and coffee than beer- seems like the sensible life is upon us!

Jambo! Our First Visit to Tanzania

2007-09-25T02:21:00.000-07:00

We go from one extreme to the other it seems. A couple of weeks ago I was cribbing about not writing because there was nothing to write about; now so much is happening I don’t have time!

First things first; we seem to be getting close to agreeing a move date for me. Actually the first draft of the posting included a very definitive and confident paragraph stating that we’d be leaving October 18th- that, typically, has now changed. We’re looking to move somewhere around the first week of November now- good for us as some of Soma’s family is in Egypt at the end of October and can now pay us a visit!

The move process is getting well underway now. Quotes have been received from removal firms, we’re doing a major triage of stuff (the pool table went to a loving new owner last week!), vaccination are being pumped into us as fast as the doctors can administer them and we’re even learning a few words of Swahili!

The biggest step to date came over the weekend. With Mum now arrived in Cairo on major babysitting duties, Soma and myself boarded the Kenya Airways flight on Thursday night to Dar es Salaam- a short “look see” visit was in order.

I’m not going to get too sidetracked but the flight was not a lot of fun. The plane was good, food great, flight crew very professional. However their sense of timekeeping makes Egypt look like Switzerland. Through the six stages (Cairo- Khartoum- Nairobi- Dar and back again) five were late. The Dubai route definitely looks like being the one for us next time!

Anyway, what about Dar? We’re both really positive about this place. We were picked up by one of the Songas drivers, Abubakar, who was very friendly. The drive across Dar, to the Msasani Peninsula gave us our first experience of Tanzania driving……and it wasn’t bad at all. The bonus is that they drive on the left although, as with Cairo, that is always a fairly flexible rule- potholes are a bigger factor in where on the road you drive than any Highway Code. The traffic itself was okay and drivers a bit better than Cairo. Abubakar spent a fair bit of time pointing out the shocking driving of various Daladala (microbus equivalent) drivers who swerved from lane to lane. As with their Egyptian counterparts, these guys were a bit kamikaze but, as Soma pointed out, at least they indicate in Dar!

After an hour or so, we arrived at our hotel on the Peninsula and got a feel for the area we’re hoping to live in. The first thing that leaped out at us was just how clean it all is. Sure there was a bit of rubbish and debris from place to place but the lack of pollution was…. Erm… a breath of fresh air! I guess that should not be too much a surprise; there is less heavy industry in Tanzania than in Cairo so actual pollution is lower to start with. Added to this, we’re on the coast so have a fair bit of wind to take any pollution out to sea- doubly so on a peninsula. The peninsula itself is pretty lightly populated- it seems to be the rough equivalent of Maadi in that most expats live here. However, this is not a place where you’ll be strolling from neighbour to neighbour- a car of some sort is going to be needed for any sort of social life here.

A shot of the Tanzanian coastline, taken from the Msasani Peninsula

Friday evening found the need for food just about trumping the need for sleep so we headed down to the restaurant for a bite. Sitting at a table by the sea, an African band playing away, we both realized that this destination was perhaps not going to be as tough as we and many of our friends had feared. We also had our first experience of the food. That first meal sealed the deal for Soma- keeping weight off here is going to be hard as the food is just amazing! The basic ingredients here are remarkably similar to those of Goa- lots of fresh fish and seafood, rice, fresh fruit, coconut and spices. There seems to be an Indian Ocean cuisine in the same way you have Mediterranean food- not surprising, I guess, given the centuries of trade between East Africa, Arabia, India and China.

Anyway, apart from simply taking in the general lifestyle of the place, we did need to carry out some more focused researches. After seeing about ten places, we realized that none was quite in keeping with what we were looking for in a home- too small, wrong location, bad décor etc. Most of the homes we saw would do at a pinch but we came away feeling that a bit of time would allow us to find “the one”. That being the case we opted for a serviced apartment to stay in for the first month or two- to be used as a base for Soma’s more hard nosed assault on the local property market later.

We did sort one thing out however. After a careful selection (Eton, Repton, Harrow….) we decided that the boys will be going to “Little Scholars” playgroup. Out of all those we saw, this one just blew us away- the icing on the cake was that Kieran’s teacher- to- be is originally from Pune!

The playground at the boys' new nursery- "Little Scholars"

So, back in Cairo, what have we returned with,apart from the obligatory Kenya Airways model for Kieran and two bottles of top notch non Egyptian wine? We certainly have much more information with which to work out how to get ourselves settled. A nursery for the boys is now set up; we've chosen a good serviced apartment for the first few months; we have a good idea of what sort of housing we can get for our money; I know where the local pub is.

We've had just a glimpse of our new life and have come away counting the days till we can make the move. We’re going to be very happy living in Dar. It's a cleaner place with great food, nice people and decent wine! We'll miss Cairo for sure and will be leaving some special friends behind, but what we saw in Tanzania is more than just a silver lining!

We got back last night- very tired after the obligatory plane delays but also full of enthusiasm. In Tanzania we have lot of fun ahead of us- safaris to take, people to meet and, for me, a lot of interesting work to do. We’re off to Greece for a wedding at the weekend. From there on in there’s an awful lot of work to do to get us from Cairo to Tanzania!

Off to the Football

2007-09-04T00:07:00.000-07:00

At long last I’ve done something I’ve been itching to do for the past two and a half years. The Pyramids and the Sphinx have been done to death, the Khan el Khalili and the Mohammed Ali Mosque have been seen and wondered at too. A couple of times we even ventured as far afield as the Birkash camel market. These were all well and good but what I’ve been dying to see for ages is a decent Egyptian football match.

Football is very popular here in Egypt. I don’t mean European football either. Through most of Africa and Asia, if you ask someone what their favourite team is they will probably say Man Utd, Liverpool or Barcelona. Not in Egypt! Although Egyptians take an interest in overseas football, and are especially proud of their overseas contingent (including two plying their trade in the North East at Middlesborough!) their real passion is for their local sides. Of these, none is as big or as successful as Al Ahly. Their red shirts with Vodafone splashed all over the front look at bit like the 2006 Man Utd team. That, however, is where the similarity ends. In terms of success they knock spots off anyone. For two years after I arrived here they went undefeated in Egypt and on the African continent. They have won the Egyptian league three years in a row and the African Champions league twice in a row. They celebrated their centenary by winning their hundredth major trophy. These guys might be in a smallish pond but they are very big fish indeed!

What better occasion for my first football match than a crucial final group stage match in the African Champions League against Asec Mimosas, champions of Cote D’Ivoire. The tickets were ridiculously cheap (or is it just that UK tickets are stupidly expensive?) at 30 Egyptian Pounds (less than three quid) each. Wanting to look the part we all bought a shirt each for about the same price.

We’d been warned to get to the stadium very early- this was a major match and a high attendance was likely. The police therefore could well stop off access some time before kick off. We parked on the main road, just over from where former President Sadat was assassinated, and made our way through the police barriers. The first impression I had was how closely this resembled an English match- lots of supporters all making their way in a never ending column towards the stadium. The next impression however was that actually this was ever so slightly different. The level of police coverage was massive- hundreds upon hundreds of black clad riot police, horses and heavy duty vehicles. Even at a Millwall match there are not that many police- and they certainly are not armed to the teeth as they were here. I wondered what the police were there to prevent- surely there were not going to be more than fifty Asec fans making their way to Cairo?

The Cairo National Stadium is most impressive. It is a typical Latin American style bowl- the pitch is some way from the seating separated by the athletics track (upon which a variety of policemen and special forces types were sat). At first it seemed fairly empty but, as expected, it filled up fast. By about 7 o’clock the place was rocking- an hour before kick off and more noise than you’d find anywhere in the Premiership. As expected the stadium was a sea of red- there seemed to be more Asec players warming up on the pitch than there were Asec fans! Still, that didn’t stop the hundred or so of them being given an entire end of the stadium (sad as it made for a half empty stadium in what could have been a sellout match). These fans must have had a reputation as supermen as they were surrounded by a two thick cordon of police!

The Al Ahly end........

.........and the teams coming out to face the army of Asec fans (or should it be the army and the Asec fans?)

Kickoff was at 8 o’clock and the match was pretty anodyne for the first part. In part this was due to nerves on the part of both sides- a draw would suit both if results went the right way elsewhere but defeat would be a disaster. In addition to nerves, the Egyptian tactics were rather bizarre. A team of small, skillful players were trying long, high balls against the biggest guys I’ve seen outside of a basketball team! As the match progressed, the crowd started getting less enthusiastic- just as anywhere else I suppose. In Egypt, however, this is simply not allowed! From nowhere a huge bloke, employed I think by the club started running among the supporters and, in traditional sergeant major style both insulted them (pretty sure I recognized the Arabic for “dumb beasts”) and exhorted them to get singing. At once everyone started singing and cheering again! I wondered what this guy could achieve at the Molineux!

As the game headed towards a draw, Al Ahly’s star player, Mohammed Abou Trika, who had just returned from injury, came onto the pitch. This seemed to unsettle the Ivorians as they fairly quickly managed to concede the first goal of the game- a messy, scrambled affair. With five minutes to go, Abou Trika capitalized on a goalkeeper error to make the score 2-0. The ref eventually blew for full time and the crowd went wild- Al Ahly, once again were through to the semi finals, to play al Ittihad of Libya.

As we trooped out of the ground, my Egyptian friends kept reminding me of how wonderful Al Ahly were, conveniently forgetting, as any good fan should, that for most of the match they were actually rubbish!

What an experience. The match itself was pretty poor but then that was not the point. Walking to the ground, bantering with other fans, singing football chants were things I’d really missed since I was last at Molineux. On the other hand being in a stadium which, even though only half full still had over 50,000 watching meant an atmosphere I’d never experienced before. The best bits- the fireworks, drums, standing on the seats etc- which have now been banned in the UK led to a football experience you’d never find at St James Park, Old Trafford or even Molineux- and all for three quid!

Cairo Jazz and Rohan's Soul

2007-08-22T03:30:00.000-07:00

I admit there has been something of a delay in updating this blog. This has nothing to do with diminishing enthusiasm and more to do with the fact that, on the work front at least, the last couple of weeks have been incredibly boring and quiet. Frankly, I’ve been waiting for something to happen that I can write about!

On the home front all is well. Rohan in particular seems to be growing fast and appears to be finding hidden spiritual depths. His spiritual journey has started with Buddhism- the little guy seems to be following in his father’s footsteps and has taken quite an interest in my Buddha statue. Sadly, rather than pondering the meaning of the dharma, he has taken to playing “gimme five” with the outstretched hand of Buddha! Well I guess Buddha won’t mind all that much and probably prefers this more street cred alternative to “round and round the garden, like a teddy bear” that Rohan was trying before!

Just as we thought Rohan was looking eastwards, he now shows signs of following the Christian path (not a surprise given his daily visits to nursery at the local church I suppose!) We found Rohan sitting in his buggy, hands together in prayer saying “let’s be quiet for a minute and pray!”. He rounded off his imaginary service a few seconds later with “Amen” and then “well done!”

Socially, things have been good in Maadi. A new batch of arrivals are now esconced and seem quite nice- it will be sad to leave before we become good friends with them. Last Saturday we went off to the Cairo Jazz Club with our friends Daniel and Janice. The club was great. Once inside, it seemed just like the average UK club- a bit dark and dingy but alright- we had a bit of a problem getting seated as the club was convinced we hadn’t reserved. It took the doorman to introduce a bit of common sense to the waiter (now that’s something you don’t find at home) by pointing out that the club was empty so getting seated shouldn’t be a problem. Anyway, the food was alright, there were decent, cheap drinks, the typical atmospheric smoke (which is now a thing of the past in the UK I hear) and good music. However, being Cairo, something had to be a bit wrong- things are never quite spot on here. Although it did not detract from the evening one little bit, it did seem a bit odd that we did not hear a single note of jazz music- dance, hiphop a bit of world music- jazz however seemed to be totally inappropriate for the venue- genius!

Things are gathering pace on the house move front. We’ve had a few removal companies visit and have received some quotes- glad I’m not paying for this! Tonight we start the injections- Hep A and B to start with then onto the exciting stuff (Typhoid, Yellow Fever, Rabies etc). We’re also in the process of getting rid of stuff- there’s a waiting list (unsurprisingly) for the pool table, likely takers for potted plants, curtains and huge pot things we have in the living room. On a bigger scale our tax manager has just offered to buy our (as yet unbuilt) apartment in Ain Sukhna! Although a Red Sea apartment would be nice to have, I can’t help but think that once in Tanzania we’ll not be seeing too much of it. Fun job for the weekend is to triage the store room- expat life is so fun and glam isn’t it!!

Soma is off tonight to the Khan el Khalili with our neighbour Anu (also Bengali). She and her family are also leaving Cairo and she wants one last visit. The Khan is famous for its shops and the vendors normally fleece the tourists something rotten. I can’t help but imagine they will turn slightly pale after any time haggling with those two particular Bengali ladies!

Anyway, I’m still not sure when we’re going to leave yet. We have a look see visit planned for September some time but need to get sorted on key things like the leaving party! One final bash on the roof is something we’re definitely looking forward to.

Where Next? Clarity at Last!

2007-08-04T04:37:00.000-07:00

So what has happened with us since last posting? A fair amount, to be honest. We’ve travelled a bit, earned my Granddad a fiver and managed to find a creepy crawly that Kieran isn’t scared of.

I guess the most important news relates to our immediate future and specifically where that future lies. This has now become much more solid. Late last week Soma and I headed to Amsterdam for what was ostensibly a budget review meeting but ended up being a meeting to decide where my next assignment would be and a chance to do some tourism and shopping.

Firstly, a bit about Amsterdam- what a place! We were lucky enough to be staying in the Dylan Hotel (see below for a link if you fancy a go)

http://www.slh.com/netherlands/amsterdam/hotel_amsbla.html

a small but excellent place on the Keizersgracht right in the centre of Amsterdam. It was a bit pricey, so it’s probably not somewhere you’d spend a week. However, for a couple of days of top notch accommodation I’d definitely recommend it.

As for Amsterdam itself, well maybe I’ve spent too much time in hot dusty third world capitals but this place was fantastic. Due largely to the fact that most people were either walking or on bikes as opposed to driving, the city was clean, peaceful and quiet- you could hear a pin drop! Walking around, it was so easy to imagine this place in its prime several centuries back, with small ships unloading onto small canalside warehouses. The architecture remains more or less intact. The Dutch seemed to have perfected the idea of maximising ground space by building upwards- something developed by future inhabitants of New Amsterdam it seems! Anyway, Amsterdam definitely goes alongside Geneva onto the list of retirement locations!

The budget stuff got dealt with in the blink of an eye and we then got down to the real business in hand. I had a short talk in the courtyard of the Dylan with our VP of Operations about the kind of role and package that was on offer at Songas. What I heard settled in my mind that Tanzania was the place to go. With Soma’s blessing, I confirmed that I’d accept the role and there we were- off to Tanzania as soon as Sidi Krir gets sold. Granddad officially wins his bet and is now owed a fiver! Hopefully we’ll be in Dar es Salaam by the end of the year- maybe sooner, maybe later, who knows. Although you can’t tell with these things, I’m hopeful that this will be a good three to four year assignment giving the boys a bit of stability as they start school.

Soma and I then spent a couple of hours talking to my likely new boss in which he gave us some useful pointers on Tanzania. Houses are big and good value for money, there is an area like Maadi (called the Msasani Peninsula) where most expats live, crime happens but is not too bad, they drive on the left etc etc etc. I guess we now need to get cracking on organising the move. Since the move date won’t be known until Sidi Krir gets sold, the actual move will be at very short notice. We need to sort things like removal firms, inoculations, leaving parties etc well in advance- Soma does so like a project to get on with!!

So back in Cairo how are things? Well, in a nutshell it is ridiculously hot and dry. Daytime temperatures are well into the mid forties, so nobody really does anything outside. All those lovely Maadi flowers that Soma eulogised about have long since been scorched away. Most expats have headed to Europe for the summer and any Egyptian with sense has fled for the north coast. August is a very quiet month here in Cairo- very little work is done since nobody is actually here. Good news is that at least the traffic is lighter- getting to work is just a 25 minute drive now! At home the boys are well. Kieran encountered a tiny newborn house lizard in the bathroom last night- clear coloured and no more than an inch long. Being on the seventh floor we are spared the scorpions and snakes that some of the villas get (our office in Dokki revealed itself to be the home of five snakes last year, including a four foot cobra in the filing room!). The occasional cockroach or house lizard is more or less it for us. Amazingly for someone so squeamish, Kieran looked at it curiously and pronounced it “very cute”. Perhaps there is hope for him in Africa after all!

Of Weddings and Pyramids

2007-07-24T02:55:00.000-07:00

So, just to make sure the prediction made at the end of the last posting does not come true, here is an update from sunny Cairo! All has been fairly quiet on the work front. This is mainly due to a very civilised four day weekend brought about largely by Revolution Day- the annual commemoration of Nasser's coming to power in the 1950's. As a patriotic Brit, with a reasonable grasp of history and, in particular, the Suez crisis, I'm not sure how much I should be celebrating that particular revolution. However, I'm one of "Maggie's Children" and am therefore genetically programmed to think mainly of myself. If Nasser's coming to power means I get a quiet morning sipping Latte's in Cafe Greco then good on the old boy I say!

Anyway, what has happened since I last posted? Well, as the title suggests, there has been a marriage amongst us! Our very good friends, Janice and Daniel decided to tie the knot and, after much running around embassies and ministries, finally did it. If I imagine the bureaucratic grief we go through to do the most simple things here in Egypt, my hat goes off to the intrepid twosome in their ultimately successful efforts to get hitched! To celebrate their union, we held a small party in their honour at our house- ten or so guests and a very sweet bellydancer who goes by the exotic and entrancing name of Lorna!

I have to say, she was great. Although she's not Egyptian (she's Scottish actually!), she is very good at what she does and, almost uniquely among belly dancers here, actually looks like she's enjoying herself! I have to say Janice put on a good show of dancing too- especially as she's still on the road to recovery from a major car crash which seemed to have broken or bruised almost every bone in the girl's body!

Anyway, after a bit of a dance and lots of food, we cracked open the champagne and headed up onto the roof- it does get tolerably cool up there after about 9pm! We'll definitely miss that roof terrace when we leave- when it's not blazing hot (through summer) or blowing a gale (through khamseen) it is a profoundly beautiful place with some of the best views of Cairo we could have wished for.

What else? Well apart from numerous visits to Road 9 for shopping and coffee (I was quite impressed to find the new Harry Potter released in Cairo too. Soma said it was too expensive and we could wait until we go back home and buy it from Asda. I saved even more money by logging onto Wikipedia and finding out the whole plotline for free!), we figured we'd better get a bit of last minute tourism done, so headed for the pyramids yesterday. Yes, I know we've been here nearly three years- I have actually seen the things hundreds of times since every Tom Dick and Harry who heads here "on business" seems to want to go see them! However, the boys have only visited once previously and that had to be cut short when Kieran got sick all over the Pyramid of Cheops! So, at 8.30 yesterday morning, we all clambered into the car and headed to Giza. Half an hour later we were there armed with water, small boys and a camera. After a brief interlude with a tout who had mustered up the courage to try sell Soma something(I saved him getting hit at great personal risk but was shocked by the sort of local Arabic vocabulary she has picked up!) we headed round two of the Pyramids then down to the Sphinx. Kieran then pronounced himself hot- to be fair it was 36C at only 10.30am and he had been good- so off we headed to Wadi Digla club to go swimming!! Anyway, below is a pic of Soma and the boys next to Cheops (Chephren is in the background).

One final piece of news. although I'm vegetarian so am not directly affected by this, I can't help feeling a small bit of local pride at the fact that our local burger bar, just down on Road 9, is apparently the best in the world- go take a look for yourselves if you don't believe it!

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1639839,00.html

Anyway, that's all for now- hopefully we'll have more news next week. I'm off to Amsterdam to meet with some colleagues and should be slightly more certain of where we're off to next. At the very least I'll be able to buy myself a decent camera!

New Beginnings

2007-07-15T09:54:00.001-07:00

It seems odd that, just as we get to what appears to be the end of a memorable period of our lives, we should only now decide to start a blog. This could of course be fairly short lived- neither of the two adults in this family have the longest attention span and the boys can be excused being just three and two respectively!

Basically, this blog has been set up because it is looking increasingly likely that our happy existence in Cairo is coming to an end. Of course we should have started writing this two and a half years ago and we could have documented for posterity such events as Rohan's arrival into the world, Kieran being sick on the Great Pyramids, the bagpipe playing pharaohs at the Sound and Light Show and the annual church nativity play with real camels (and real camel pooh)!

Well better late than never. We don't know where we're going next- in the past weeks we've explored everywhere it seems- Nigeria, Abu Dhabi, Mauritania, Tanzania and Uganda to name a few. If we end up back in the home counties after all this rigmarole, there will be trouble!

However, if we do end up somewhere interesting then we want to record it properly. Perhaps a few family members or friends might take a look. If not then fine, we'll look forward to looking back in years to come- bet this ends up being the only post though.