Monday, 21 May 2012

Dar Es Salaam


Karibu (welcome) !!! There’s going to be a few different posts at once because we didn’t have internet until we got to Morogoro, But here’s the first day’s events!

We got to Dar Es Salaam on Wednesday at around 8:30 and then the customs battle began. They herd you into a line then take your passport and money for your visa but the guy didn’t know we wanted a business visa as well, then we almost didn’t get them. Finally they fingured out we had the money for both and we waited another hour for the rest of our documents (not enjoyable in the humid airport).

After we waited for Mike and Miranda’s plane to land (took another 2 hours for them to get out of customs) I went to the hotel in Cheryl’s car and the others took a bus. Our hotel is The Daisy, which SOUNDS nice and pretty…. It’s not. :P The rooms and the hotel itself are cool but there are cockroaches everywherrrrrrrre… Despite our efforts to protect ourselves from them Heather woke up in the morning with one INSIDE her mosquito net just chilling in the corner. We assumed when they cleaned the room today it would be gone but we came back and it was still there and now there’s cockroach juice al over her mosquito net from us killing it :)

Thursday was spent in orientation part 1; we learned about the culture, how our homestays and allowance will work, and had a swahili lesson. I learned quite a few more words that I’m going to need to practise because I already forgot a lot of them :P. We got an awesome breakfast at the hotel before leaving (manjo juice, eggs, toast, and other fruit) then took a Bajaj to the YCI office. Lunch was a fruit salad with mango, avacado and banana, a vegetable salad, fish (delicioussss but had the bones in it) and rice. Now we’re at the hotel waiting for dinner. We’re going to a restaurant (in a Bajaj again… they’re awesome little weird covered trycicle things that weave in and out of traffic!!)
Enjoy the pictures!
Kwaherini !!!!




 Linda and Miranda at breakfast
The cockroach that attacked heather... this is inside her net :P
Mike looking very knowledgeable so early in the morning 
Our Bajaj driver on our way to the office

This is the results of the Bajaj rides and my leg being pressed up against the bars on the seats while we drive through the deepest potholes you're ever going to see in your life.... hurtssssss.

No comments:

Post a Comment