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!

Everything's Supa Safi! (super cool)

The happy couple, together with some guy

Getting Married Tanzania Style
So we got married!

As you all knew, Liisa and I had been engaged when coming to Tz. However we decided to bring the wedding forward, partly because it ahem helped with a couple of tricky visa issues(!)

Organising the wedding was remarkably simple. On the Friday morning we started looking into it, and so went to the Registry Office. After filling in a couple of forms (which referred to Liisa as a Spinster), and handing over a cool 38,000 T-shillings (£15), we were almost ready to go! Although the official didn't fancy much working on Friday afternoon (as is the way), so he checked if we could wait until Monday, so we said fine.

Monday morning 09:30 we return to the Registry Office. The Registrar (Bernard) happily told us he was going to 'skip the legal mumbo jumbo' as we were in a hurry. When we'd said we were in a hurry, we had meant within the next week or so, not that morning specifically!

But first there were a range of marriages for us to choose from:
(1) Monogamous
(2) Polygamous
(3) Monogamous with the option of polygamy at a later date.

After much humming and hawing, we finally agreed on the third option.
(Heheh, not really!)

And hey presto, we're married! We're still planning on having a reception with the families next year when we're back in Europe, and I'll probably have some sort of stag (/30th thing) as well, our timing is just a little all over the place!

Kiswahili and Morogoro

Learning Swahili with our absolutely superb
teacher Benji (who works with KIU)

Last week we took a week-long Kiswahili training course in Morogoro, about 3 hours west of Dar.

Morogoro is a wonderfully scenic town with a great vibe and a beautiful mountainous backdrop, I became instantly jealous of any volunteers placed there!


There were 10 or so of us on the course, half were new arrivals to Tanzania and the other half have been here a few months, so were a step ahead with Swahili. Accordingly we were split into three classes, and for once I was in the Top Class! Liisa predictably was still the best in the class, but I'm not doing bad!

That's not to say there haven't been a few issues with the language:

* If somebody greets you with 'Shikamoo' it's a sign of great respect (usually said to elders, I get it the odd occasion) and one should always respond 'Marahaba'. Don't mistakenly use 'Marahage' for your first three months - it means Beans. 

* When purchasing mosquito repellent: Do not confuse 'Dawa ya Mbu' (Mosquito repellant) with 'Dawa ya Mboo' (medication for the penis).

Animals, innit

Safari
Mikumi National Park wasn't too far from Morogoro, so the lot of us went on a Safari last Friday.

We had a brilliant trip taking a DallaDalla around the park (small bus, usually used for local transport where the regular game seems to be 'how many dozen Tanzanians you can squeeze in').

Yours truly thoroughly enjoying the DallaDalla

We had an ace day and got to see loads and loads of animals! Lions having lunch, hippos, zebra, giraffes, and warthogs (my favourite) to name a few. Some nice pics too!


Until next time, kwaheri!

Mr & Mrs Peilow

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

The Good - Mikadi Beach

 

We spent last weekend here, and will definitely go back again. Beautiful, tropical, relaxing, the pictures sum it up. And somehow the water is even more pleasant than it looks!

Getting here involved a 10-minute ferry, and at 200 Shillings (8p) I thought it a fair price. Locals, however, don't agree and are unhappy with the recent hike from 100 Shillings (4p). I do wonder what they'd make of TfL.

When we arrived at Mikadi I had that feeling of recognition, and yes, I had stayed here before on my overland trip in 2008 - mad buzz! Great beach, and brilliant food (the calamari was probably the best I’ve ever had. And I eat a lot of calamari)

We're thinking of buying a tent and camping here every few weekends. Absolutely wonderful stuff.

The Bad - Mr Mugger

Well it had to happen sooner or later. Our lifetime perfect ‘zero-mugging’ record is gone. Some complete twonk decided to snatch Liisa’s bag when we were out walking, the whole thing happened very fast and he was gone in a flash. With hindsight, we shouldn't have been out walking after dark (it had just gone sun-down), but lesson learnt.

As muggings go, it wasn’t the worst. He got 20,000 Shillings (£8), a Kiswahili study book, keys, a cancelled bankcard and an 11-year-old Nokia phone. Good luck selling that, bozo.

The most irritating thing was finding somewhere to get new keys cut - it really is incredible how rare this service is in Dar es Salaam. After a swift 4-hour search, we finally found one in Oyster Bay shopping centre. Which is less than 5 minutes from home.

Also more inconvenient than the mugging itself was giving the police report. This took two hours, and it was old-school Good Cop / Bad Cop. Bad Cop got angry because we hadn’t reported it immediately. I felt like stating the bleeding obvious ‘it’s not exactly like you were ever going to do anything about it’. In the report he described the reason for our delay being "we were confused and we panicked". Hahahaha, we just weren't arsed! Good Cop was lovely and cheerful, and immensely impressed with our pidgin Kiswahili. Liisa's moreso than mine, but hey!

"An Ideal Husband"
.....Well, the programme at least

What slowed the process down was that the report had to be told and written down three times into three different books. They're currently writing up our copy of the report which we'll collect later in the week. Got to love bureaucracy - you'd never want to be in a hurry in Africa!

On Saturday night, we went to see a production of Oscar Wilde's 'An Ideal Husband' (thoroughly enjoyable), and we bumped into a friend of Liisa’s who’s on the same Swahili course. When she learned what happened, her response was classic [thick Aussie accent] “Well that’s bloody great news – Liisa’s so far ahead of the class maybe this’ll give the rest us a chance to catch up!”

The Ugly - Football

Ireland just can't pinpoint where
preparations have gone wrong

Ireland 1 – 3 Croatia.

Ugh.

Whatever, bring on Spain & Italy!!

Trip to Kilimanjaro

"S1" desktop Solar Light

Hello again, this time from Moshi on the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. Solar Aid have sent me up to here to work with the Sales Team and see how everything operates when they’re away from Dar.

As a bit of background, Solar Aid has targeted getting 360,000 solar-lights into the hands of Tanzanians, the majority being school-children throughout the country. The most common of these is the S1 Solar Light, and is sold for a subsidised price of 10,000 Shillings (around £4).

What I can assure you is that demand for the product is phenomenal. One of the biggest problems facing Solar Aid is ensuring they can simply get enough stock out to the team in the field. Keeping in mind that Tanzanian Infrastructure is still developing, the logistics of sending thousands of lights up from Dar es Salaam can be challenging. Oh the perils of such a popular product!

With the Sales Team in Moshi. About to go for a
well-earned meal after a week selling 6,000 solar lights

I’ve had a brilliant week with the team here and I managed to get involved in the sales processes themselves, giving me ample opportunity to practise my Kiswahilli with the locals. I’m still finding the language much easier to read or write, than speak or listen beyond very simple vocabulary, but I guess that’s just the way it is for a beginner! My aim is to become intermediate / conversational by the end of the year.

Liisa, never one to be put off by a ten hour bus journeys, has joined me in Moshi – one of the benefits of translating only requiring email, making her flexible for such trips!

Trading off English lessons
for Kiswahili ones

The whole area has been beautifully green (thanks to the recent Rainy Season), and it’s been brilliant to just take walks around everywhere.


We’ve stayed in a couple of towns in the region, and in some, where Westeners are certainly more of a rarity, we do get “Mzungu-ed” a lot (© Liisa Peltonen) i.e. when you walk by you can hear people talking about the “Mzungu”, or simply shouting out “Mzungu!”. Other times it’s children saying “Good Morning” (or my personal favourite “Good Morning Class”) Also, the fact it’s four in the afternoon doesn’t seem to matter!

Not a bad old view of Kili from our hotel room

Where we’ve been staying in Moshi, we’ve been lucky enough to wake up and be greeted to a breath-taking view of Mount Kilimanjaro. I start to consider climbing it again, although I’ve still not forgotten last time when at the top I swore  “Too tiring - never again!”

Now, however, we must get back to Dar. 99% of things in Tanzania are 'pole pole' ('slowly slowly'). Bus-driving, however, is not one of them. Wish me luck!

When it rains, it pours

Home sweet home!

Three weeks in and I've seen why they call it the rainy season. At one point last night I thought there was an air raid, such was the impact of the howling rain on our little tin roof! Still, it's warm with plenty of sunshine, so I guess it's not entirely like an Irish Summer.

We've now moved into our second, more permament African home. We've got a living room, a kitchenette, a bathroom, two bedrooms and a ground floor balcony. Fully loaded with couches, fridge, cooker, beds (...trust me, I'm making it sound far fancier than it actually is!)

My daily walk to work

 

As for the commute, I'm a 3km walk from work, which is nice for the exercise. Bye bye beer belly, welcome six-pack! Maybe.

VSO are providing us with an allowance of £5/day, which is apparently enough for one person to live on. As a challenge, Liisa and I are seeing if it's enough for two people to live off, and so far we're on track! The financial analyst in me has converted our entire lives into a fully functional Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet ...I'm trying to convince myself this is to help with the budgeting, but I think we all know it's because I'm a massive nerd.

Buying fruit & veg. I thought I'd haggled a good price. But, that said,
the next time we saw the assistant he was wearing A LOT of bling

 

Somewhat appropriately, we've got solar lights installed at home (thanks to Solar Aid), thus saving on the electricity bills. We've also found some good local markets nearby, and have learnt how to ask for what we need, with "Viazi kumi, tafadhali" serving me well so far.

By a stroke of good fortune, we're also saving on Alarm Clock costs, courtesy of: (1) The daily Mosque Call at 4:20am (2) the rooster next to our bedroom window, & (3) our neighbour's unhealthy obsession with Whitney Houston.

Bongoyo Island

We spent this weekend at Bongoyo Island (it's like a very very mini Zanzibar), and are planning a trip to Moshi shortly (up north), so hopefully I'll have some nice snaps of Kilimanjaro to follow!

Ambaye mzungu? Niko mzungu!

I must apologise for the delay in my first post since arriving in Dar es Salaam. Liisa and I have been experiencing some technical problems. Namely the construction company next door has stolen our electricity!

Updwards and onwards.

Our first African home

We've been in 'Dar' a week now, spent a couple of nights in the aptly name Econolodge, and have since moved to temporary accomodation on site at Solar Aid (my workplace) It's a nifty little apartment they use for visitors, and it makes my journey to work a delight at just 30 odd steps away! If you're looking on a map, we're on the Msasani Peninsula.

Solar Aid has an apartment for us, about a 25 minute walk away, which is just undergoing some minor renovations at the moment, such as the front wall being built. We're hoping to move in sometime this week - I think Liisa and I are both looking forward to empty our suitcases!

Last Monday we started with a relatively brief one-day induction from the organising agency VSO (our full induction will happen in July, this is because Liisa & I arrived out of sync with most volunteers... by the time we go on the induction we'll nearly be country experts!), and I started my job on Tuesday.


Two of the team are 'mzungu' ('whites' - this is a politically OK term!), one being me, the remainder are Tanzanians, with around 10 or 15 in the office. Most speak a good level of English, however I'm making surprisingly good progress in Swahili. Things I can communicate already include:
* Hello, goodbye, how are you, I'm fine, no thanks etc
* Counting up to 29
* Two beers / coffee please
* This is my food
* It is hot!
* I am a dirty mzungu

Attempting to get into Solar Aid for the first time

OK, so it's not quite fluent yet, but the locals have been receptive at helping us mzungus pick up the language and are only too enthusiastic to help anyone making an effort.


Our current apartment has air-conditioning - NICE! Although, as noted above, we're having a spot of bother with the electricity which has ballsed things up a bit - darn construction company next door are hogging it all! So sans-electicity and light, what is there to do in the evening... Go to the pub? Didn't really feel like it... What to do?


Alas, fear not! We're staying on site at a solar power company... So we grabbed a couple of demo solar chargers which had been powering up all day and, hey presto, we had light and could charge our laptop. An evening of watching Fawlty Towers proceeded.

We're settling in brilliantly, it's hot, people are friendly, and we seem to be landing on our feet with everything.

(I nearly forgot to mention, work cook up a smashing lunch for me every day - it's pretty incredible. Love it!)

A decent proposal

As April draws ever closer, I've had plenty going on recently -

Meet Emmanuel, star of my Training Course Production
 "Emmanuel learns all about AIDS"

All the training is finished, the second course in Birmingham really was excellent, and we had a great bunch of people on the course - all friendly and out-going which made the tasks all the more fun.

And in a more life-definining move, I surprised Liisa with a trip to Albania (where we met), popped the question (incidentally just before February 29th!), & very thankfully she said Yes. Huzzah! My fiancee!

Liisa quits her job on Friday, and I've got another 4 or 5 weeks. The time will fly and we're both really starting to focus on Tanzania at this stage!

If anybody would like to donate to the very worthy cause that is VSO, I would be entirely grateful:
http://www.mycharity.ie/events/tompeilow (for the Irish)
http://www.justgiving.co.uk/tompeilow (for everyone else)

See you all soon!

Now we play the waiting game

If London get indepedence, this city will become the UK's capital
(this isn't the VSO training building!)

Everything is coming along nicely, and we're firmly counting down to April. Mass amounts of administration are in process (visas, accomodation, flights, insurance etc), but I'll spare you the details on that.

On top of online based training,  Liisa and I were in Birmingham for a 3-day course to help us prepare to move a developing country. A good course, although tiring coming at the end of a long week. It was great to meet other volunteers who were a fantastic bunch - we developed a few of our own tasks, such as "Go to the Pub" which I particularly excelled at!

Liisa is to hand her notice in on Monday (hopefully her manager doesn't read this ...actually even if somehow she does, what would it matter?!) Everything is quickly becoming more real, exciting times ahead, and no regrets.

But next up, another trip to Sunny Birmingham on Saturday!

Step 1

The biggest step so far is done - I've handed in my notice! I'm sad to leave Avanti, I've built up a lot of strong friendships there, but it feels like the timing is right. Liisa and I have also had plenty of time to consider our decision, having first thought of all of this back in August.

After much researching, and hitting a few brick walls on the way, I managed to land a Finance Consultant Volunteering role for me with SolarAid in Dar Es Salaam, structured through A f I D and VSO. SolarAid is a fantastic organisation, and as they have a head office in London I've met the staff here and really have a good feel for them.

Liisa meanwhile will be going over with her primary focus on starting up her freelance translating business. Once she has a laptop and the internet she can do that from anywhere in the world. So where better than a tropical beach with temperatures in the high 20s to early 30s?!

When in Tanzania, the working language will be English, which is a relief! We will however undertake Swahili lessons. Liisa, and her knack for picking up languages, will soon become probably the only person in the world who can translate from Swahili into Finnish!

First up, I will remain with Avanti until early April before moving to Tanzania, and I have no doubt the time will fly. There's plenty still to organise - I need to complete VSO's training with a couple of trips to Birmingham, fundraising, working visas, accomodation, make sure I get home enough to see my new nephew Padraic, arrange my shots & malaria, and make the most of the weekends I have left!

My 3 years in London have flown by, and I may very well be back one day. It's been brilliant.

Hadi wakati mwingine!




Tom Peilow