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Right, first things first, please don't phone/text me as my phone is gone.
No worries, as it's actually given me one of those classic gap-year traveller stories to add to my collection and hopefully I should be able to buy a new phone + sim card soon.
Basically I was on a Dala-Dala going home from school, I had about 5 students crammed in on top of me and it was actually a fairly uneventful journey until an old woman decided to add four angry and (unusually for tanzania) unrestrained chickens to the mix. Cue the chickens escaping from their owner and clambering over my feet, trying to eat my flip-flops. Given all the people on top of me, I couldn't even lift my legs up, and was subjecting to about seven minutes of chicken torture. Suffice to say, my attention was elsewhere and the phone in my pocket was forgotten about. Enter the pickpocket.
All in all, I was overdue for some kind of petty crime. Europeans are just astronomically richer than locals and we are walking targets really. I've still got a long way to go before I can match the unluckiest volunteer on the trip who has to date had his ipod, camera, phone and $180 stolen.
So...It's been a while since I've managed to blog because of all these powercuts and to be honest you haven't missed much. We christened our new house with a big house party/bbq, and managed to get 14 volunteers to stay overnight fairly comfortably, a bit of a miracle given that we have only 4 beds, a dodgy armchair and about a foot of floor space available. Teaching full-time at the government school is a bit strange, but i'm slowly getting into the rhythm of things. I still miss my French classes at New Life, but then again just basic English is a true challenge at J K Nyerere.
Rainy season is taking full effect here, we went out to a club called Via Via on thursday evening, normally a fairly laid-back rasta haunt with live music, it was closer to the sinking of the Titanic when we arrived. The ceilings are simply big billows of cloth, beautiful on a sunny day, idiotic when it had already been raining for 2 hours. The place was slowly flooding as we danced to Bob Marley covers in about a foot of water. Very surreal, but alot of fun. I can't believe we only have 4 weekends left before our month's travel. Scary stuff.
I'm still planning where I'm going to go after I leave my school, but the current plan (and it's basically changing daily) is to head to Zanzibar for the first week for some island relaxation, mill about in Dar es Salaam for another week exploring all the backstreets, markets and temples, and then end up in Uganda for white-water rafting, quad biking and bungee jumping over the Nile (crocodiles!). Apparently if you bungee naked it's free, and some of the more budget-minded volunteers are already considering it....And then there's the safari in Kenya at the end of the trip with all the volunteers, before home! It seems so close now....
Missing you all lots, missing my phone tragically,
- Ruby xxx
p.s - i'll try and use the internet more regularly til I get a new phone, so your best bet of getting hold of me is a quick email to hotmail.
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