It has finally come to my last few days here in Tanzania..Today I am going out with the Lattitude volunteers for dinner and maybe a few drinks as they are all coming down to Dar for a little break, they all say its tough, they use buckets for showers they eat rice and beans everyday hence they are coming to feast on the lovely food here in Dar. Im quite spoilt for food here usually I go to this Turkish restaurant near my place, close to that is this nice little Thai place. On Saturday we are having a little going away party for me here at the Hotel. The weekend looks very exciting
On Sunday I am playing two games of cricket, I have been selected to play in this 20/20 tournament, its quite proper, well proper for cricket here in Tanzania. The owner of the team took us out to dinner after training on Wednesday. He owns some big telecom company here. Our first game on Sunday is against the Tanzania U19 national team, I really dont no why I'm playing but they seem to really want me to play.
As you can probally tell this should be my final blog, I might update on Monday but I should be back in Aus by Wednesday
Friday, February 12, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Konyagi
Since my last post I have had more free time on my hands for instance on Saturday I just tutored a few people so that was quite a relaxing day. . I didnt play cricket on Sunday as the team didnt have a game, but they have assured me that they will have two games next Sunday, that I can play in.
Something that is quite astonishes is happening just outside my window. A company has started to build a hotel, now building here is very different to back at home, this hotel is quite a big building and they have no electrical equipment such as cranes or saws nothing. They layed the foundations by carrying buckets of cement on their heads after it had been mixed and then dumping it in a pile so that someone else could smooth it out. They have at least 30 people working on the site just going back and forth with buckets of cement on their heads. Just today they started the second story, of which they have no scaffolding , they work through the day and night.
I started my Private lessons in Swahili yesterday but today I decided I didnt like the teacher (my old teacher was not able to tutor me privately as he was busy) since he didnt teach well, and he didnt seem to want to be there.
My new teacher would you believe it is an Australian, he used to live in Warrnambol but he resides in Dar and has been for the past 30 years, so his Swahili is at the local standard if not better. His actual job here is to teach Swahili and apparently he is quite good. I have spoken to him quite a few times as he often comes to the bar here.
The next week I think I will just relax and go to the beach and catch up on my reading.
Something that is quite astonishes is happening just outside my window. A company has started to build a hotel, now building here is very different to back at home, this hotel is quite a big building and they have no electrical equipment such as cranes or saws nothing. They layed the foundations by carrying buckets of cement on their heads after it had been mixed and then dumping it in a pile so that someone else could smooth it out. They have at least 30 people working on the site just going back and forth with buckets of cement on their heads. Just today they started the second story, of which they have no scaffolding , they work through the day and night.
I started my Private lessons in Swahili yesterday but today I decided I didnt like the teacher (my old teacher was not able to tutor me privately as he was busy) since he didnt teach well, and he didnt seem to want to be there.
My new teacher would you believe it is an Australian, he used to live in Warrnambol but he resides in Dar and has been for the past 30 years, so his Swahili is at the local standard if not better. His actual job here is to teach Swahili and apparently he is quite good. I have spoken to him quite a few times as he often comes to the bar here.
The next week I think I will just relax and go to the beach and catch up on my reading.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Cool Blue Maji
The past few days I have mainly spent learning Swahili and doing tutoring. I managed to write a whole page story in swahili without to many mistake, the teacher was impressed. Last night we went out to a Ethiopian restaurant with an Austrian couple that had arrived the night before, the food was ok, it was new for the others so they enjoyed it. I think the best Ethiopian food I have eaten was actually in China.
Today was actually my last day of the intermediate course, I still feel that i'm more advanced beginner so I have hired a private tutor for next week to help me out a few hours a day.
Anyway their is not much else to think of right now so ill leave it at that till next time.
Today was actually my last day of the intermediate course, I still feel that i'm more advanced beginner so I have hired a private tutor for next week to help me out a few hours a day.
Anyway their is not much else to think of right now so ill leave it at that till next time.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Sikutaka
The past weekend went quite quickly and as always I had planned to spent most of it catching up on my swahili which ended up not happening.
Saturday I tutored a few people. I had managed to find english as a second language worksheets on the internet which I had printed off. My English is ok but its obviously not the best (as I'm sure you have realised from reading this blog) and when we were going through the worksheets their was this one question that I didn't even understand, and found it difficult to explain to the student, other then that I went through the news paper with one of my students and looked at past interest rates and trying to figure out why they were moving.
Sunday morning I woke up feeling quite sick, this was quite annoying as I never really go out to restaurants here but on Saturday night I had gone to "Spur" this South African chain of steak ranches and I'm relatively sure the salad was poisoned or something. Therefore most of Sunday I was in bed untill 1 when I left for the cricket ground. I met the captain at the relatively large ground located next to a mosque. He was quite tall and basically the first thing he mentioned to me was that he was the first African to play for the national Tanzanian side (the side is basically made up of people from the subcontinent). The game started soon after, the team I was playing for was called the Dar raptors which was made up of young kids, I was the 3rd oldest after the captain and one of the fathers, they were all asking me about cricket back in Australian. Anyway back on to the game, my team bowled first, the opposition was made up of old Indians the oldest being 65 it reminded me of the 4ths back at home. Both sides had 25 overs and after about 10 in the field I was quite dehydrated and this overtook my stomach pains, it also reminded me that Im still unfit. The other team managed to make 140, which was decent on that ground. Now the ground was interesting, it was quite hard and had a turf pitch it was one of four cricket grounds "apparently" in the country.
My team came close and lost by 10 runs, I manged 18, the bowlers were ok, slow but accurate. All the kids on my team seemed to really enjoy it and since they were so young they were managing to do quite well in the senior league. They want me to come back again next week as well as going to training to help the kids out.
This past week alot of people staying here have gotten malaria so everyone is on the lookout, I dont no how some of those locals survive they casually tell me that they get malaria every few months, one of the receptionists was only able to get one day off as if he took anymore he woundn't be paid, he didnt even complain.
Saturday I tutored a few people. I had managed to find english as a second language worksheets on the internet which I had printed off. My English is ok but its obviously not the best (as I'm sure you have realised from reading this blog) and when we were going through the worksheets their was this one question that I didn't even understand, and found it difficult to explain to the student, other then that I went through the news paper with one of my students and looked at past interest rates and trying to figure out why they were moving.
Sunday morning I woke up feeling quite sick, this was quite annoying as I never really go out to restaurants here but on Saturday night I had gone to "Spur" this South African chain of steak ranches and I'm relatively sure the salad was poisoned or something. Therefore most of Sunday I was in bed untill 1 when I left for the cricket ground. I met the captain at the relatively large ground located next to a mosque. He was quite tall and basically the first thing he mentioned to me was that he was the first African to play for the national Tanzanian side (the side is basically made up of people from the subcontinent). The game started soon after, the team I was playing for was called the Dar raptors which was made up of young kids, I was the 3rd oldest after the captain and one of the fathers, they were all asking me about cricket back in Australian. Anyway back on to the game, my team bowled first, the opposition was made up of old Indians the oldest being 65 it reminded me of the 4ths back at home. Both sides had 25 overs and after about 10 in the field I was quite dehydrated and this overtook my stomach pains, it also reminded me that Im still unfit. The other team managed to make 140, which was decent on that ground. Now the ground was interesting, it was quite hard and had a turf pitch it was one of four cricket grounds "apparently" in the country.
My team came close and lost by 10 runs, I manged 18, the bowlers were ok, slow but accurate. All the kids on my team seemed to really enjoy it and since they were so young they were managing to do quite well in the senior league. They want me to come back again next week as well as going to training to help the kids out.
This past week alot of people staying here have gotten malaria so everyone is on the lookout, I dont no how some of those locals survive they casually tell me that they get malaria every few months, one of the receptionists was only able to get one day off as if he took anymore he woundn't be paid, he didnt even complain.
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