Africa Blog Posts - Tgon's Travels

Weeks 59 & 60: Website, working and visa trouble

Posted on 04/09/2012

The last two weeks have been strange, after Katie left I was alone for the first time and I suddenly had nobody around to distract or entertain me. This meant that I had brief instances of loneliness followed by productive days. Week 59 was a bit of a surprise, although the official Ramadhan had ended there was an optional extra week of fasting. This meant that the shops in Makunduchi remained closed, even though only about a quarter of the people in the village were fasting.

I spent most of week 60 sorting out my pictures from previous trips, which had been sitting on my computer for up to seven years without being looked through properly. As I completed each trips pictures I uploaded them to replace the old pictures and cleaned up the ‘Travel Stories’ page for each one. I have finally got up to the start of this trip but decided to give my self a break before taking them on. Towards the end of the week Rihana, my employer, came back to the village, so I spent a few days helping her. My teaching work should start again in the coming week, I’ll be teaching in the hotel and will teach IT to a group of teachers in the evenings. I should be getting a class or two from the school when they start up again from the holidays. Then yesterday (Monday) I found out there is a problem with my visa.

Basically, I was hoping to get my visa renewed through the Ministry of Education, but because of Ramadhan it was taking too long, so my visa ran out last Wednesday. I decided the best thing to do was forget about the Ministry of Education and just go into town to get another tourist visa. When I arrived they said that I had over stayed and so I had to pay a $600 fine. I tried to explain that it was due to delays with the Ministry of Education but they just said that I shouldn’t be going into schools when I only have a tourist visa. They said I needed a visitors permit which costs $200. After some discussion they agreed to drop the $600 fine and said that I just need to get a visitors permit for the remainder of my stay here. So I had the forms and will sort it all out over the next week or so.

Weeks 55 – 58: Nungwi, Dolphins and Goodbyes

Posted on 22/08/2012

This is the longest I have gone without posting here, a whole four weeks, there is quite a lot to catch up on. Most of this time has been Ramadhan so food was an issue for a while. Week 55 was spent in Nungwi, the Aston group went to stay there for four nights, we (Me, Mohammed and Sian) went up for three but rented a friends house in the village, to save money, rather than staying in a hotel. After a tiring four days relaxing on beautiful beaches we needed to unwind so we went to Kizimkazi on the Sunday to swim with dolphins again. When we arrived back in Makunduchi we met a new Zanzigap volunteer called Janet who had come to teach nursery children for around 6 weeks and was now living in the house with me and Mohammed.

Week 56 was quite uneventful, my teaching is on hold because of the Ramadhan holidays so I spent a few days sorting out the house and catching up on my journal. Janet was disappointed to find out that all the schools are closed during her time here, so she wouldn’t be able to teach, which was the only reason she paid to come here. Another two people arrived from England on holiday, my old friend and house mate Katie, and a new friend called Michael. I visited them a few times during the week too. The Aston group left at the end of the week so I travelled into town with Mohammed, Katie and Michael to see them off. While we were there two more people arrived, one of my old school teachers and his daughter.

Week 57 was much the same as week 56. We had no teaching to do so we spent our time visiting Katie, Michael, John and Annie down at the hotel. Janet decided that she should go home early as there was nothing for her to do here, so she changed her flight to the weekend. John and Annie left towards the end of the week and the rest of us headed into town to meet Michael as he returned from his safari on the mainland. Janet left on the Saturday, Michael arrived that afternoon, Mohammed left on Sunday and Michael left on the Monday.

Week 58 was Katie’s last week in Zanzibar so we spent three nights in Nungwi. We rented my friends house again to keep costs down and spent most of the time sunbathing, this was lucky because Katie had her purse stolen from her bag as we were travelling North to Nungwi. When we returned to Makunduchi Katie moved into the school house with me for her last couple of days, then we both headed into town for her last weekend. She got the ferry to Dar es Salaam on Sunday and I came back to Makunduchi. Now I have the house to myself until the 18th September when the next Zanzigap person will arrive. Before then I need to extend my visa, which ends at the end of the month, so that I can stay for another three months. Hopefully I can use this time to get my motorbike sold and sort out India.

Africa Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Week 54: Mwaka Kogwa Festival

Posted on 24/07/2012

This week was really nice, it started out with the Aston exchange trip arriving in Makunduchi. My daily routine remained pretty much the same, although I spent quite a few evenings visiting the Aston group. They get much better food than Mohammed has been getting and it makes a change from the food I cook for myself. I took a couple of the Zanzigap teachers down to meet the Aston group too, so that they could mingle with the wazungu.

The main event of the week was the Mwaka Kogwa festival. I missed this when I lived here before because I arrived in late July and left in early July the following year. The festival is based around the rivalry between the northern and southern parts of the village. People gather in a large field and start singing and dancing, but the songs they sing mock the other people. The women sing songs that suggest that the men of the other half of the village have small manhoods and will not be able to produce children. Then a man from the north and a man from the south go into a hut which is then set on fire. The man who stays inside the hut for the longest time wins. The main event is a large fight, the men have sticks and whips made from banana plants, they beat each other until one of them submits. It is quite a strange festival to watch but is very enjoyable.

Usually the festival lasts for 4 days, the other days are filled with parties and celebrations, but this year Mwaka Kogwa was the day before the start of Ramadhan so the celebrations have been delayed until after Ramadhan has ended.

Africa Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Week 53: Settling in to Makunduchi life

Posted on 17/07/2012

This week I have been settling in to my routine which will continue for the next month or so. I get some breakfast and ride down to the beach by bicycle, I take my laptop so that I can use the internet in the hotel. I teach the staff in the hotel at 12 each day, English Monday to Wednesday and IT on Thursdays and Fridays, then just after 1pm I get a free meal with the staff. I ride back into the village ready to teach from 3pm while 5, these lessons are with students from Makunduchi Secondary school. I have three classes to teach during the afternoons, two of them are IT classes and one is English. After 5pm my time is my own, I usually relax in the house then cook my evening meal.

I also met my best friend from when I lived here before, Mussa Kiongo, he is now a teacher and he asked me to go into his school to speak to his class. So one morning, on my way to the beach, I called in to his school. I answered a few questions and then ended up drawing maps of Europe and Africa on the board, asking the students to name each country I have visited. My house mate Mohammed has spent the last week or so travelling around Zanzibar with his brother, he had already paid for his food to be delivered to the house and decided not to cancel it, so that I could eat it. Luckily they didn’t bring his food, the food he has been getting is not good, sometimes it seems like they have intentionally brought him the worst of the available food. The lack of this bad food forced me to start cooking for myself, I wanted to eat well as I had not eaten properly for a week or so while I was ill. So I have been cooking tuna pasta and my favourite meal at the moment, potatoes sautéed with onions and garlic, served with scrambled eggs with onion, tomato and sausage inside. The food seems to be working well as I am feeling much stronger and full of energy.

The only problem in my daily routine is the power goes off at around 8:15 until 9:30 most evenings which has caught me in the middle of boiling potatoes once or twice. As for my other side projects, I haven’t found a definite buyer for the motorbike yet, although there are a few people who have shown an interest. I also still need to find a job in India, I have a little over a month until I am supposed to leave Tanzania but I already have a contact for one job in the North of India but I am still looking for something in Delhi or Varanasi. Happy 18th Birthday to my brother Connor!

Africa Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Weeks 51 & 52: A Year on the road

Posted on 08/07/2012

I started week 51 by moving out of the hotel and back into my old house in the village. There was also a guy called Mohammed arriving from England on the same day, he will be here for two months to teach in the school, his time here was organised through Zanzigap. We spent the first week travelling to the neighbouring villages and looking around the school. Mohammed was observing classes in preparation for his own lessons, I was waiting for confirmation of my own teaching job. About half way through the week my job was confirmed and I was asked to start as soon as possible. Unfortunately I started to feel ill towards the end of the week, at first it was just stomach cramps which I ignored thinking it was the normal kind of stomach issues people have from time to time when travelling. At the end of the week Mohammed’s brother arrived for a holiday, the first night he stayed in town, then the next day we went to Jambiani.

By the time we got back from Jambiani I was feeling worse, the stomach cramps were now joined by headaches and fever. As I’m not taking any anti-malaria medication I have been on the look out for fever as this is one of the symptoms of malaria. I decided to go to the hospital and get a malaria test, it was negative, but I told them that I had been to Malawi recently and could possibly have got Bilharzia while I was there. Luckily I had already bought the medication in Malawi and was planning on taking it soon anyway. They told me to take the pills and see how I felt after a few days. The Bilharzia treatment is a one time dose, the size of which depends on your weight, the pills flood your bloodstream and kill the parasites, but can also cause stomach cramps and headaches. Luckily I didn’t get the stomach cramps but I did get a terrible headache, I spent the day in bed trying to sleep through it.

It has been a few days since I took the pills and I am feeling better, now the only problem is that I haven’t eaten properly for a week and have lost weight. I just need to cook myself some nutritious meals and I should be fine. Obviously I haven’t started teaching yet because I have been ill, but I should start teaching this week. As for my other arrangements, the Namibian government have transferred my money and I have had a couple of offers on the bike. The offers were a little lower than I am looking for (about £200 lower) but I’m in no hurry yet. As for making arrangements for India, I met a girl who spent some time working for an organisation in northern India, she sent an email to one of her friends there who has offered a job. We haven’t talked about wages yet but I have time to look for other jobs if this one doesn’t work out, at least it’s a start.