Week 3 at School

Peter is now flying solo as the person he replaced has gone back to Australia - Brisbane in fact.

Communications remain a hit and miss affair.  To use Viber we have to use our mobile data plan as it won't work through the school network, so if you want to speak to us you will either have to ring our mobiles or set up a time when you want to use Viber.  Just remember the time difference and that we work until 5pm Tanzanian time.

For those reading the online blog, there is more if you click on the Read more>> button below.

It doesn't appear too many people have been able to SMS us so that's not looking good either.

Peter has finally made contact with basketball people in Tanzania thanks to Scott, and in particular a contact in Arusha.  The initial response I received was "when are you coming to run a 4 day clinic in Dar es Salaam", 650+kms away.  When I contacted the Arusha person, he wanted me there every night plus Saturday & Sunday.

Today (Saturday) I went to see a game.  The court is outdoors with no lighting and the game I saw was from 4.30pm to just before 6pm when it starts to get dark.  I'm not sure what you do if you have overtime.  The facilities are very basic with a blackboard as the scoreboard, a stopwatch for the game clock, a water bottle for the direction indicator, wire nets and wooden backboards.  The playing standard is not great, but what they lack in skill they make up for in determination.

The photo below shows Mt Meru in the background - not a bad backdrop for a game of basketball.  The referees are the guy in the jeans and white top on the left and the guy in the white shorts and pinkish top on the right.

As you can see, new line markings wouldn't go astray either.  I might see what I can do there if the association is interested.

According to the attached article, basketball in Tanzania is not in good shape http://allafrica.com/stories/201304120229.html  From what I saw, the article is fairly accurate.

Our routine here appears to be wake up to rain which stops around 7 or 8, breakfast in the share kitchen and off to work at 8.30 - a 30 second walk.  Lunch is either with the teachers, students, workers and volunteers, or if you don't like what's on offer, back to the share kitchen.  Denise informs me that there is morning tea, but I am always in town at that time.  Work through to 5pm then back to our room, check emails and news then off to dinner in the share kitchen at 7pm.  After dinner it's usually back to the room and off to bed by 9pm to do it all over again.

The share kitchen is Monday to Thursday nights where you get to cook for eight people once every 2 weeks while Friday, Saturday & Sunday dinners are fend for yourself so you go out or cook in the kitchen for yourself.

Peter's office has no screens in the open windows and he has found that the mozzies chase him out of work just on 5pm so that's a good thing.

We are getting used to the Tanzanian shilling.  1,000shillings = 60cents, so at first it was horrifying to see 20ltrs of petrol for 40,000shillings.

Last weekend we went to the second hand clothes markets and Denise filled the 35ltr backpack I had.  Next time I will take my big pack.  Denise bought a dress for 15,000shilligs (about $8.80) plus several other things including bathmats and towels to go at the front door for wiping our feet/shoes.  She has now decided one of the towels is too good to wipe our feet on.....

In the 2nds hand clothes market there are so many clothes and shoes, I'm not sure where they all come from.  You can even buy 2nd hand underwear including undies and bras - we passed on them.

Even though females are asked to dress conservatively, I have seen some sights that take no notice of that conservatism.

I found this little fellow walking across a path at school.