I'm in Tanzania! :D

I left home midday on Tuesday to travel to Glasgow airport, check in was at 3am on Wednesday (I have learnt now to book later flights!) I flew via Amsterdam into Kilimanjaro International Airport. The second flight was very quiet and I attempted to catch up on sleep on the way across.

I landed in Kili at 19:50 but wasn't to leave the airport for another few hours. I am supposed to be getting a work permit for Tanzania, this cannot be processed until I am in country however. As a result of this I was supposed to pick up a temporary visa in between for $50. This visa however immigration refused to give me. They had my passport and said I had to give them $250 to enter. I didn't have this on me, so I had to leave everything there and leave the airport to find an ATM and somewhere who could convert my Tanzanian shillings to American dollars. In the process of all of this my bank card mysteriously vanished! I had to be leant the money from the person who came to collect me. Returning to immigration I paid the money, only for them to demand $2000. I refused to give it and then all of a sudden they claimed I hadn't given them the $250 at all! I got taken for questioning which was very stressful. Eventually though, thanks to having some Uganda work permits in my passport, I got my passport back and two visas! Both visas contradict each other however, so I'm not really sure how I am here, but I am. The British Consulate are now involved as I am here without access to any money and should have only paid $50 on entry. Luckily I had a £5 note in my purse still so I have changed that so I can buy food and things at the moment. Anyway hopefully it shall be sorted soon. Also by the time I manage to post this blog online it will have been as I will have found a way to afford internet. All I can say is if this is the worst thing to happen this year at least I got it over and done with on day one!

The drive back was two hours long into the town of Moduli where I am living for the next year. It was very dark out and fairly warm. Driving through Northern Tanzania it really reminded me of Uganda only with better roads, more individually owned vehicles and less people. I didn't see much of Moduli driving through but did notice that there are a lot of trees!

The house is amazing! While there is no running water and sporadic electricity (it goes off at about 6am and comes back on about 8pm) it does however contain: a fridge, kettle, sofas, and gas stove. I am sharing a room while I am here with a girl from the Florida, though this may change. Currently the volunteer houses are full however most people are leaving in December so I might get my own room from January onwards. Luckily, the girl I will be sharing a room with is super nice and has been really helpful and put up with my thousands of questions! The house is fairly spacious and is actually a lot more equipped with things then I expected, there even is an overflowing book shelf! The lack of running water hasn't hit me as hard as I thought it would and so far I've found I've managed ok returning to boiling water and bucket showers.

I finally got to bed at about 1.30am and woke up about 6 my first day as it was very bright and I had a very noisy cockerel outside my window.

I had the first day off as it is Eid and so a national holiday. This worked out well as it gave me time to unpack. I went for lunch with one of the other volunteers into Moduli town. We had something called chips amaya which is like an omelette with chips in it. We had to make a hasty retreat though as we had 2 very drunk men join us who kept trying to pour gin into our water, find out our phone numbers and tell us repeatedly that we were welcome to Tanzania. Following this we went to the weekly market that was on today. I got some bread and bananas which means I didn't have to use too much of my money and can eat for the next few meals. I found I understood a lot of the Swahili spoken as its very similar to Luganda with slight changes in the beginning of some words. The market was very interesting, they had lots of fruit and vegetables on sale and lots of material and second hand shoes. I definitely don't feel quite so small standing next to Maasai. I had one small child run over to me to see if my skin came off or not! It didn't but I was going red from the sun so came back to the house to top up on drinking water and sit in the shade for a while.

My second day here I went up to the school for the first time. The road up to it is fairly bumpy and extremely dusty. We past lots of donkeys carrying water, goats and cows (which look a bit like camels). The school is up fairly high and the view from it of the surrounding area is incredible. I tried to take some photos but I don't know how they will turn out due to all the dust creating a haze across the plains. Apparently after a good rain shower to clear it it is possible to see Kilimanjaro from the school. Orkeeswa School is fairly well equipped and includes a laboratory and library, six classrooms, teachers offices, the headmasters house, a chicken pen, a basketball court and a football pitch. I didn't teach today but got given a tour of the school and sat in on a class run by a girl called Angela, who is also from the UK. School finished earlier as it is still kind of a holiday here at the moment but should begin on Monday as normal.

So far I have managed not to get homesick and am learning very much to take everyday as it comes as it is impossible to plan ahead. I am nervous about getting ill, but trying hard not to think about it too much. One of the teachers here is recovering from typhoid and another recovering from food poisoning but yet there are other volunteers who have not been ill at all. As I'm not taking antimalarials I am trying to make sure I stay covered up after dark and so far have avoided all but one bite (which was actually from a spider).

Well, I better stop writing now as I am going to celebrate the weekend by drinking camomile tea, trying to get the dust off my face and feet and staying up to until 8.30pm. Life here is wild! All the volunteers tend to be in bed by 9pm as after it gets dark everything sort of stops and then its bright by 6am and no one seems to manage to lie in. I do wonder how the security guards at the house manage it everyday!