Thursday 7 August 2008

Testing my bloggability...


beaches as big as rugby fields...

slaapstad's good and evil

I'm filled with snot. Again. What is it about this town? I think every disease infested snot inducing bug gets dragged through Cape Town. Something to do with ocean currents and the lack of ozone....

I've just spent two weeks risking life an limb with malaria and yellow fever and god knows what else and not a scratch. Home for two days and I'm leaking on my mouse pad and sneezing traffic. Fuck. Sorry mom. But its an expresive release of some sort.

On the better side dinner partied it up last night on an 8th floor penthouse a work colleague put to good use to say farewell to another work mate. Poor bastard's heading back to the states for 5 years of med school in his bid to save the world. All these Amercans come to save us. Quite encouraging actually.

I also recommitted myself to reducing the boep. Good news is from my place I can get to a beuatiful mountain path and now its actually still light past three in the afternoon so I can hit it after work. Bad news is its three k's straight freaken up to get onto the path and then the path itself is another 3 k's up. Damn. I must look like I'm running through treacle, though coming down I get to stretch my legs and look a little more athletic in case anyone is actually paying attention to my panting ass...

Bizarely I also tore past a 'bergie making a fire on Tuesday eve and stopped for a chat. Guess where he's from? Tanzania. No kidding. Back to work then.

Monday 4 August 2008

Bullets from East Africa

Good blogging likes bullets, like good bad news african news stories....here are my Tanzanian Top Ten in no particular order of time or importance:

1. Diving off the pier at high tide with local kids in Stone Town.
2. Getting stung to pieces by jellies while playing 'chicken' with more local kids too far out to sea.
3. Sunset ferry crossing in Dar with 25 cars, 300 people, 14 chickens and 5 life jackets.
4. Oceans of Baobabs.
5. Poms living 'in village'. Now that's a gap year.
6. Ugali (pap), Safi (lekker), Mambo (howzit), poa (sharp), asante (thank you).
7. Zanzibari locals excited to meet a South African filled with stories of their eviction from the 'Europe of Africa'. One guy told me proudly of his happy days in ‘Woodstocki’ and ‘Hullbra’
8. Robert and Sam, my Dar peers and proud as hell of their city and people
9. White beaches broader than rugby pitches
10. And this quote from an ancient Swahili inscription of a drum reserved for leaders as an insignia of power:

"Your action is a reflection of your leadership. So call all the people together, including those who behave differently, for the wise gathers all and satisfies them"