Touchdown Dar es Salaam

Jet lag has subsided. Sweat glands are moderating. Head has stopped spinning. Team Tanzania has landed and the world is upside right again.

After two days of travelling, including a swell stop in Frankfurt where we snapped a few photos of the Occupy protest in the main financial square ...

We crashed at a motel soon after then flew to Zurich, Nairobi and then Dar es Salaam. The continent of Africa is so huge and diverse it's hard to comprehend. Mountains, deserts, coastal beaches, jungles, savannahs. In Tanzania alone, oil and gas exploration, offshore and on, gold, diamonds, huge tracts of arable land being bought up by multinationals. Kilimanjaro for goodness sake! So why are the people so poor? So where is the trickle down? Gated homes with swimming pools and people walking by barefoot with no teeth. Mamas cooking in the street with little gas stoves. Power outages a couple of times a day. Unpaved roads and cars beep-beep, beep-beep! And bicycles and buses that stop and start with the wave of a hand and three wheeled taxis and people carrying textiles in baskets on their heads and men pulling carts of bananas and watermelons. Everybody smiling and Habari asabouhi! (Good morning!) Muslims and Christians side by side, no problem. It's a symphony of mayhem. It's alive, brothers and sisters. Up close and in your face. Mesmerizing. Invigorating. Like nothing you'll ever see in Orillia or Ponoka.

Sorry no pictures of Dar yet. I feel like a geeky tourist when I pull out my camera but I promise my next post will give you a flavour of the city. Soon, I'll get a day off... For now, here's my hotel room bed with lovely mosquito net. I be the Queen of Sheba thus.

We've met some dedicated folks at CUSO-VSO and look forward to meeting more in the days and weeks to come. We're off to Morogoro on Friday (about three to four hours drive west of here) to meet with a volunteer who helps out at a special school for high-risk girls who drop out of school or who stumble on the cracks of poverty and never quite get up again. It's called the Secondary School for Girls Advancement or SEGA. It's only four years old but already showing amazing results. Then it's off to the magical isle of Zanzibar (!!) for about 5 days to talk to people who help farmers sell local produce to hotel chains and fishers to improve their crab harvest and people with disabilities to learn skills for employment. Oh, and apparently there are world class beaches there too. Sweet. Are you still with me? Stay tuned for the continuing saga.