50,000 lights & counting

I’ve been a bit slow getting around to this blog – we’ve been pretty busy recently, house moves & trips away! Some ups, some downs, but all in all we couldn’t be more relaxed and happier!

50,000 lights by Sunny Money* Tanzania in 2012! *Brand name of Solar Aid

Celebrating 50,000 lights with
the supa-safi Solar Aid Tanzania team

Liisa and I have solar-lights at home, and we’ve got to say they’re brilliant. Especially with recent electricity price hikes the importance of solar power in Africa has really been emphasised.

Add to that 90% of the population don’t have access to the grid, thus relying on dangerous, expensive kerosene. You quickly realise that, without solar, the options are (a) something you can’t afford, or (b) darkness.

 

So big congratulations are in order for Solar Aid Tanzania who have in 2012 hit a milestone of providing 50,000 lights!

We’ve targeted 100,000 more before the end of the year – it’s going to be a busy few months ahead, and plenty to keep me busy. We’re on top of a huge amount of logistics, whilst also ensuring our little lights don’t develop little legs, and we like to keep it that way!

Ramadan

Takes about a month, and has just ended.

Be careful!

For those unaware, during Ramadan Muslims shouldn't eat or drink anything until the sun's gone down. During this time, as a non-Muslim, do expect to feel guilty if you eat ice-cream in public (... and at 25p, Azam Ice Creams are every bit as tasty as their £2.50 Galaxy counterparts)

This year there was much confusion as to when it actually ends (and thus we get a bank holiday) as the decision isn’t made until the day before when the moon is in a certain position. Or something.

For a while it looked like it’d fall over the weekend, but lo and behold we found out yesterday that today (Monday) we have an unexpected bank holiday!

Cashback.

Securing a nice home!

There was quite a lot wrong with our old flat, and as the lease was coming to an end, we jumped at the chance to move somewhere with hot water, an oven, a freezer, and windows! (most places have that mosquito grating – which is fine except dust comes in quicker than you can sweep it!)

Overlooking the fact one of the rooms in our old place was literally about to crumble, what probably pushed us over the edge was one night when our Security Guard was robbed. Robbed? No wait, I mean stolen. They stole him!

They also took some things from the compound office, and the security guard made it back OK, and even though we were not targeted it was enough to decide to live somewhere a little bit more ‘comfortable’!

Crime in certain parts of Dar in particular continues, and will probably do so until the police take a significant change in approach.

Whatever they’ve done in Nairobi over the last few years seems to have cleaned it up, and Dar could do with facing up to some of the issues it has.

I'd heard rumours about this
thing appearing in the sky,
but it's something else to see it in person

Weather

Just.

Ridiculously.

Good.

Like, all the time.

Love it!

Chizi (crazy) People

There is a distinct lack of mental healthcare in Tanzania, and this is something I hadn’t really ever considered before. If you’re in a very poor country, there is really little to no help for anyone with mental issues, and when these people aren't helped out at an early age, it really becomes a big problem. This is something we definitely take for granted at home.

Liisa & I have learned to take a little bit more care than usual when walking in some poorer areas, as the weirdo/normal person ratio does tend to increase.

The odd time when you do get a crazy person shouting obscenities at you, we’ve found the trick is to ignore it, walk the other way, and usually some friendly passers by usher them away and apologise!

Malaria

Prevalence of ‘malaria’ is somewhat higher than I had expected, everyone seems to have it! 

Feeling sneezy? Malaria.

A tickle in your throat? Malaria.

Cold-sore you say? Malaria!

The doctors aren’t much better with misdiagnoses – if they’re ever unsure, it's Malaria.

Yes, malaria is Tanzania’s equivalent of man-flu.

Pretty bad if you have it, but you probably don’t.

Property Title Deeds…

…don’t really exist in Tanzania. Sometimes people have them, most of the time not. There doesn’t seem to be any proper system governing this.

A colleague phoned in late for work last week as somebody was building a small house in her garden – well it's a better excuse than ‘Malaria’ anyway!

I also wondered why countless houses have big red X’s painted on them. Presumably something to do with census counting? Not so! The government paints these on to let the inhabitants know they may knock it down (whenever they get around to it).

And there we have it for now! 

Hopefully I’ll get another update a bit sooner next time around. Take care & kwa heri!

Tom & Liisa

Decisions!