The past week has been packed with power outages and new experiences. We probably only have power for 3-4 hours a day at Jane's house, and so these precious hours are definitely cherished if you're lucky enough to be at home for them.

We have 2 researchers from Georgia and one of their daughters staying with us at Jane's house, and so it has been fun to spend some time with other North Americans who know Dar Es Salaam well. One of them has spent quite a lot of time at Jane's house, so we are learning a lot of funny stories and tricks to surviving living in East Africa when you are used to the comforts of the Western world.

We also learned a few other funny things. The most alarming is that there is a big 6 foot cobra living on Jane's property that the people working for Jane's son's boat building business have seen, and are apparently terrified of. This is, of course, pretty scary, but we simply need to be careful not to walk into long grasses and bushes on the compound, which is easy enough. Another funny thing I learned is that we used to have 15 turkeys, but the guard dogs at all of them but 2. Apparently there is another turkey mama with babies that gets kept in a shelter so that they have a chance at growing up without being eaten by guard dogs.

Today was really quite fun as my Kiswahili class had a food preparation day. We went to the local fish market (the picture), and made some yummy Tanzanian treats at our friend's house under the instruction of our teacher.

I have also been spending more time at the Jane Goodall Institute office, and so I think I am beginning to get a feeling for the dynamics at the office. I can easily adjust my lifestyle to the East African ways, but I think changing my work habits and expectations will be extremely difficult. We are constantly warned that Canadians and Americans practice saying we will or will not be able to complete a task, and get it done accordingly while East Africans will always say yes regardless of their intentions. I expect that it will take me a full 7 months to get used to this.

Tonight we are going out with a bunch of wazungu (white people) and a few people from the office for live music and drinks and last night we went to a beautiful Ethiopian restaurant for dinner. Tomorrow I plan to take a ferry that costs 60 cents to a pristine beach for the day.

Life is good.