Busy Busy Busy week

It's been a surprisingly busy week here. After returning from the camping weekend, I could have used a nice quiet week but with the holidays coming up and so many people heading out of town it ended up being my busiest week out here.

Wednesday night was dinner at Addis in Dar - a high end ehtiopian restaurant - for a friend's birthday. The food was good but even more expensive than I expected... this place was expensive for a restaurant back home. Had a nice time though and went out to Karaoke night at Irish Pub after for a while.

Thursday night we had tickets to a play. It was a pantomime modernized sleeping beauty. Quite entertaining.

I spent much of Friday running around the city with Cathryn trying to find a few items we needed... it's a little frustrating how hard it can be to find items that I could get in ten minutes back home. Fortunately Cathryn has a car so we made pretty good time and were able to check a lot of places. In the afternoon I had a meeting with Amref - where I will be volunteering - to discuss what I can do for them. Getting started is turning out to be a lengthy process but I think it'll be an interesting opportunity. After that we went to see the Golden Compass which I was really looking forward to and was so excited that it was coming out here. The movie was okay... it was fun to see but somehow wasn't as epic as I was hoping. And after that I went out with a friend who was leaving town.

Saturday I can barely remember what I did during that day... I know there was cooking involved. That night we had Christmas dinner at a friends house. Something about a potluck in 30 degree weather just doesn't feel like christmas. Though we did have some fine christmas music going on in the background including Alvin and the Chipmunks!

Sunday and Monday were nice and quiet and tomorrow I have to deal with my resident permit and pick up Chelsea from the airport. Almost vacation time! and this weekend we will head out to Zanzibar for a couple of nights to get a quick taste of the place and meet up with Natasha and Jen who will also be out there this weekend.

Mikumi Photos

I had to reduce the quality in order to speed of the uploading a little... sorry.

Camping in Mikumi

I am very sore and tired this monday morning because we finally got to go on our camping trip. Eight of us spent the weekend at Mikumi National Park having a blast. It took about 6 hours to get there but there was beautiful scenery and a gorgeous sunset to enjoy en route. We got there a little after the gate closed (3 hours late) so had to do some driving around and negotiating to get into the park but finally got to our camp site, set up tents, lit a fire and got dinner cooking. Each morning we got up at 6:30, drank some coffee and loaded into the land rover for a game drive. There are soooo many animals everywhere. We saw zebras, wildebeest, buffalo, elephants, impala, giraffes, hippos, lions, baboons, jackals, warthogs, crocs vultures and eagles (We also had a whole lot of insects at camp, including army ants, which hurt like hell when they bite you-I got nibbled twice). One of the guys let me use his 50-500 zoom lens on my camera so I've got some amazing close-up photos.... although more often than not, the animals were so close we didn't need the zoom at all. I spent most of the weekend sitting on the roof of the land rover getting bounced around (hence the sore), listening to music and taking photos of the amazing animals and scenery. We had in our group a couple guys who worked for a hunting/safari company so they knew everything about the animals and the trees and so on. After a few hours we'd get hungry and head back to camp. Saturday we went on an afternoon drive as well (which turned into an evening drice as we ended up really far away and didn't get back to camp until after dark). Sunday we spent a couple of hours sitting around a hippo pool watching as one by one herds of different animals came to the water hole... there was some serious negotiation involved in accessing the water as there was a clear priority sequence and crocs waiting in the water for their lunch. Lions are not the most exciting animal to watch (didn't do much but lay around) but it was pretty cool to get so close up to them and we found four cubs as well. Anyway, beyond this description I think the photos will have to speak for themselves... I took about 400 pics so it'll take a couple of days to download and sort but I will post photos here soon. I had an amazing weekend and couldn't have asked for better company. All in all, a huge success and I could definitely have stayed longer.

sick

Well, I finally got over the stomach bug and was healthy for all of about five days before catching the flu. Have been mostly taking it easy ever since except yesterday my stubborn side insisted on not postponing dinner plans I'd made. Last night was the first night of Chanucka and I had invited my new "family" for dinner. There were nine of us in total and I spent five hours straight cooking. I made latkes and meatballs and ratatouille. Food mostly came out okay - meatballs weren't as good as they usually are - but I was pleased considering I have minimal ingredients and spices to work with. The whole experience was a little exhausting though and I was fairly dazed through dinner and then had to clean up before crashing into my bed. Apparently standing over a hot stove all day with a fever isn't fun. It was well worth the effort though to get everybody together and have a nice holiday dinner.

Camping, attempt #2, starts on Friday. fingers crossed.

my new zero tolerance policy for mozzies was going really well for a few days but has since collapsed completely. I just can't seem to keep the damn things off me. apparently I need to eat more garlic. Will keep trying though I can't imagine camping is going to help the situation much.

can't think of other news at the moment. I do have more photos to post (a good one of my campus monkeys!!) but haven't had a chance to do it... hopefully early next week I can put them up with camping photos.

update

Okay, enough not-so-subtle hints. I am updating. I was supposed to go camping this weekend so was waiting to update after that with exciting camping stories and photos but the trip has been delayed for now so that will have to wait for another entry. Not a whole lot to say in meanwhile really. Things here are settled into their own little rhythm. I have not been doing much new exploring recently though I really need to get back on track with that. Amazing how laziness sets in. Mostly just been working during the week and hanging out with friends on the weekend. Must make more progress on the swahili front as well... have been slacking badly.

I have to admit, in the last week or so I have taken some serious losses in the war against mosquito bites. I have at least ten million bites on each foot and thousands more spread elsewhere. I got a bite near my knee while wearing full length jeans! How does that even happen? Between that and a few days with a minor stomach bug, things were looking pretty miserable for a while. But I am regrouping and getting ready for round 27 and hoping the 26-0 record will start to turn around because I can't handle the itchiness any more! I'm considering creating a full body mosquito net outfit that will just go permanently over my regular clothing. The search for 100% DEET begins...

Bagamoyo and SUSHI!

Sorry for the posting delay... power cut out on me Friday so couldn't get this posted. So this is actually from a week ago.

Bagamoyo

The day after the accident I'd been planning to go to Bagamoyo for two days with Marika... so with very little sleep, I packed my bag and we took off for the weekend. Ended up staying for half a day and coming back. Not because it wasn't nice but because it really wasn't that much of a hassle to get there so we'd rather just go again another time and we were both feeling tired and lazy ( I blame the massive headache I still had). But we had a really nice visit and even found a local to give us a little tour around - the guy teaches wood carving and has offered to come to Dar for a lesson some time... Really want to do it and the lesson itself isn't so expensive but the cost of the wood is quite steep so haven't decided yet.

Bagamoyo was the capital of colonial German rule in East Africa and a very important trade port in its day (in particular- slave trading). It's an hour north of Dar by Dalla Dalla (and they drive FAST). The architecture has colonial as well as arab and indian influence though the buildings have not been kept up very well. There are quite a few areas to wander and Marika and I really only saw a small part of what there is on this trip - preferring to spend some time enjoying the beach which is now a centre for boat construction. I most enjoyed just walking around and taking in the most vibrant colors nature has to offer - every color of flower and even the leaves were an amazing shade of green.

Sushi

Yesterday I had sushi for dinner... highlight of my month for sure! They don't have any salmon here which I'm quite devastated about but the tuna sashimi was pretty darn good and they had a fantastic spicy tuna roll. I even liked the california rolls. My mouth is already watering for more.... mmmm

Eventful weekend

So... the weekend got off to an interesting start. Friday night I was meeting a friend for a quick drink before dinner which got detoured into going to a BBQ with a large group of South Africans. Had a really nice time and a great dinner and we all headed out for an early night. And never made it home unfortunately. Not long into our drive home we got rear ended by a guy driving way too fast and not paying attention to the speedbump that we had just gone over. He took a little flight over it and ended up hitting the very bottom of our rear bumper pretty hard. Their car made out a lot worse than the pick up I was in but we still got bashed around a little. Fortunately we were wearing seatbelts so just got a bump on the head from the headrest and a slight hit on the shoulder from the seatbelt. However, car accidents here, especially when concerning Foreigners in one car and locals in the other I imagine, are a bit of a hassle. No mandatory insurance like at home. So we spent a good chunk of time waiting for the police and so on and then had to go down to the police station for a while. The police were actually fairly easy to deal with it seems (though I mostly tried to stay out of it). They didn't want to let us take the car home in case more damage happened before the inspection. The police officer was asking for my phone number... he'd already seen my phone and I didn't think saying no would help us out very much so I made sure he agreed to let us leave with the car before giving him my number :( Hopefully will never hear from him again. That was my friday night. Will write about the rest of the weekend later.

Halloween

Not much to say about the past week... went to a Halloween party Saturday night and had a really great time. Met lots of new people. And now I'm back to trying desperately to find something to do at work and not get too frustrated with how things are going. My energy and motivation are definitely suffering a little in this work environment. This weekend I plan to finally get out of town for a bit so hopefully next week there will be more stories to share and photos to post.

There was a lovely full moon this weekend so I spent some time playing around with my camera and got a few good shots. Haven't had a chance to do any editing yet so these are just straight from the camera.

Order of the Day

a typical weekday...

6:30am Wake up to the sound of the auto-mechanic outside my window. Sometimes he starts at 6. Nothing like the sound of engines to start the day. Sometimes I am able to fall asleep again after a little while (with the help of my ear plugs)

8am Wake up for real. Have some tea and bread and some kind of fruit or veggie. Take my anti-malaria pill, multi-vitamin and Omega-3 supplement. Fill up my water bottle for the day.

8:45 Marika and I head to the University. Usually we leave late but this is when we should leave. We catch a tsh (20 cents).

9am Start work. and by start work, I mean turn on the computer and sit down at my desk. Mostly work is checking my email and messing around online (as I'm doing right now, for example). Occasionally I have reports to write and submit to the CIH in Toronto. Last week I wrote a funding proposal and this week we met with the funder and found out they won't fund us until they've restructured the funding system. (Apparently in the past funding for the Universities has gone through the Ministry of Health - because TACAIDS is a government agency - and the Ministry of Health has done something with the money that didn't include actually giving it to the University so now they want to restructure the system to ensure we actually get the money... which is good... but it's going to take time so for now = no money). I have also been meeting with representatives from various student groups to try to set up some kind of coordination of their activities. Some good ideas came out of those meetings and I hope to keep busy by pursuing some of them, like a Secondary School Outreach program. I also have to write articles for our program's publication.

12:45pm Lunch. Staff at the health clinic gets free lunch (I'm guessing it's because there isn't enough staff to cover breaks and since they bring food down for the patients anyway). Someone from the cafeteria brings down a few dishes of something and we get to eat it. I'm not technically staff here but my supervisor is and he doesn't eat here so I get his portion. Lunch time varies slightly and it's important to get there before things run out so there is a bit of a push/shove process. I can usually smell the food from my office when it arrives. Lunch consists of rice and either roasted 1/4 chicken or beef in a red sauce and sometimes some beans or cooked banana or veggies (the same kind every time). So, not a whole lot of variety but it's free and it's here. There are many different places to eat on campus... most serve the same food and are packed with students or faculty around lunch time. I tend to eat in my office and sometime go for a walk around outside for a bit.

5pm Quitting time. By five it's usually cool enough to walk home without working up too much of a sweat. Takes around 20-25 minutes. After work, I will usually go home and change. This is also when I'm most likely to shower because I'm hot and don't mind the cold water so much. Sometimes I will go to the grocery store to pick up a few things.

6pm I usually have an hour or two before Marika comes home. I spend that time reading or watching CNN (which I get at home). Sometimes I do some Sudoku puzzles.

7:30/8pm Dinner time. Marika and I usually have dinner together. Sometimes we cook at home. If we go out, we usually go to Euro - a restaurant around the corner from us. Meals are much the same as what I described for lunch although they also have a really good beef stew. They also have burgers and samosas on the menu but I have yet to try them. Other options include a few places for chipsi and mishkaki (fries and beef skewers). Before going out I change into longer clothing and apply ample mosquito repellent.... I swear those things hunt me down.

9pm After dinner Marika and I often sit around talking. Often Emmanuel will stop by for a while to visit and teach us some new kiswahili words (and test us on the old ones). Sometimes I watch a movie on my laptop.

10 - 12 Depending how tired I am, I'll read for a while and go to bed. But first I wash my feet, re-apply mosquito spray and re-adjust mosquito net. I also often spend a little time killing any mosquitoes I can find. It makes for a more fulfilling day, I think.


And there you have it, a day in the life of Nicole. Next time we examine... the weekend!

Finally... some photos

Sorry for the terrible layout but this takes forever so I just threw them on there... I'll keep working on a better alternative.

K, I'll get a better photo when I can but in meanwhile: MONKEYS!!!

On campus (left)

Pretty Beach :

Marika, Emmanuel and I at the pretty beach:

My house

Cute kids:

My street at night

Apartment building in the City Centre

Dalla Dalla Station at Mwenge (nearest station to my house)

Dinner. no, not really... it's dinner for the dogs.

AIDS

So... I thought I'd spend my monday morning posting about what it is I'm actually doing here. I don't have a whole lot to do so I still spend a good part of my day messing around on the internet BUT I am definitely starting to get into things and it's interesting though I have serious doubts that I will have any impact whatsoever... and this is predictable but still disappointing.

Saturday night I was out having dinner with Marika and we were approached by a guy who decided to sit with us (this happens A LOT). We start talking and it turns out that he is starting now as a HIV Peer Educator... a program included in the funding proposal I have just written. So we start chatting about the program and (keep in mind he's clearly had a few drinks) our new friend starts talking about AIDS.

He starts talking about how everyone learns about using condoms but what does that even accomplish when they sit out in 30 degree temperatures all the time. In his opinion they must be completely ineffective. He's also convinced that in developed countries we don't use condoms.

We also spoke about HIV testing. I know that getting people to get tested is hard but he was quite convincing about his anti-testing views. He said that if he finds out he has HIV, he knows he will die of AIDS and what's the point of spending money on post-secondary school. Also, he said families abandon those who are infected so that you are forced to work and take care of yourself. And if you don't have sufficient access to nutritious foods then the treatment isn't going to be very effective anyway. So, he has not been tested and does not plan to be tested.

Keeping in mind that this young man has been selected as a peer educator (granted he hasn't gone through his training yet), I am feeling discouraged about the effectiveness of these programs.

Aside from writing funding proposals, I am also meeting with student groups to try and coordinate world AIDS day events. The people I have spoken with are very enthusiastic about putting together something different this year and would like to focus on more positive messages about AIDS. Of course, I have no funding for anything so I am hoping that the groups are able to find funding and are willing to use some of it towards a collective element (I want to put together a program listing all the different events to distribute to the students.)

Also working on coordinating an event to promote HIV testing (there will be mobile testing units set up) but it's supposed to be happening in a couple of weeks and the budget was submitted so late and hasn't been approved yet.

anyway, that is what I have been and will be doing.

pictures to come. soon. I promise. tonight...unless the power goes off again.

Monkeys, Religion. and other musings

You may recall in an earlier blog I mentioned seeing monkeys. Well, it was the first day I had arrived and I was brought into the office for a little while. I was pretty tired and just wanted to sleep. When we left the clinic, I was surprised to see a group of monkeys hanging out near the clinic. I recall pointing them out to my supervisor and he told me that they are often around the campus. If I hadn't had that brief conversation I would probably have assumed that the whole thing never happened because in two weeks of work, I had not seen another monkey. Until yesterday. I was leaving work and looked back and there was a group of cute monkeys nibbling at the banana peels left over from lunch. And I didn't have my camera :( So now I will start bringing my camera with me so that someday I will catch the monkeys and be able to post photos. That is assuming I can ever manage to upload photos. This evening I will try the internet cafe.

Religion is an interesting topic here. Everyone is religious, the only question is "Christian or Mulsim"? A tough question to answer for me as, first, I'm Jewish, and second, I'm not religious. So if I respond with "I'm Jewish", so far, I either get told about how I'm of the chosen people or I get asked quite random questions about Judaism. Once I was asked to teach someone how Jews pray. When I said I didn't pray they called me a liar. seriously. After several challenging conversations about being Jewish, I decided once to try to say that I'm not religious. They kinda just stared blankly at me. So finally I just said I'm Jewish and that seemed less confusing but they still looked at me like they thought I was lying. Everyone I've spoken to also seems to think that being Jewish and Israeli are interchangable.

Working in a health clinic is rather distracting. There are constantly sick people sounds... like vomiting, crying, occasionally screaming. and the place smells like disinfectant a lot of the time. We are supposed to be moving to our own office in the next few weeks. Should be a nice change except that I will be sharing a large office with my supervisor... I'll have to make sure I set up my desk so the monitor is facing away from him or no more random internet use.

I've been a little sick that last couple of days. Just a bad cold but it kept me up all night sniffling so I was pretty tired. Finally got a good night sleep tonight so am feeling much better. Usually I get woken up at 6:30 by the neighbor who seems to be an automechanic/fridge refurbishre and who likes to work with power tools between 6:30 and 7:30 in the morning.

Work has really been picking up this week so I've been quite busy with, hopefully, useful stuff. Will write more about what I'm doing next time.

Again: haven't been able to upload photos but I'm working on it.

quick mouse update

Turns out we didn't have mice afterall. We had a rat. A big rat. An ugly rat. Thankfully, we also apparently have an expert rat catcher and he happened to see our rat while cleaning the kitchen and was able to catch the rat and kill the rat in a rather unpleasant and violent way. I arrived home and was proudly shown our dead rat.

yuck.

Having problems uploading photos but I promise they will come as soon as possible.

Weekend on the Beach

I can't believe it but it's already been a month since I left Vancouver and two weeks since I arrived in Dar. Time is swishing by and I have yet to do anything productive.
I finally got out of the office long enough to enjoy the city a little. Saturday I got a tour of the neighborhood from a friend who lives/works where I live (there are a few flats that are rented out and then the main house where he lives with the owner). He took us through the smaller routes around the area and then to a nice quiet beach that's a little out of the way and so not so busy. Marika and I weren't expecting to be out so long and so didn't think of sunscreen. oops. But we weren't fully sunburnt... yet.
Sunday we went out to Bongoyo Island which has a really lovely beach and was not very busy. It was quite expensive to get out there and then we had to pay a park entry fee but it was a nice day at the end of which I must admit I have received my first ever sunburn. Just a little patch on one shoulder. I put on sunscreen and was in partial shade most of the time but the malaria meds make you sensitive to the sun so I guess it was enough. But it is nice to have a tan at last! I did take photos over the weekend and hopefully this evening I will get to the internet cafe to upload them.
I neglected to comment on food in my last post... Though the food is usually pretty good, there is very very little variety. A standard meal is rice or ugali with meat of some kind (always prepared the same way as far as I can tell). Often there is a little bit of veggies with it, sometimes some beans or cooked banana. Sometimes there is Pilau or Biryani which is basically the same thing but with flavored rice. The other option is chipsi and mishkaki (french fries and beef on a skewer)which can be excellent but sometimes the beef is very over-cooked from sitting on a grill until purchased. Fortunately, almost any type of food can be purchased so cooking at home adds a little variety to my meals. And there are lots of cheap, fresh fruits and veggies to buy so I'm trying to inject some health into my diet that way.

Thanks everyone who has made comments... it's nice to hear your thoughts (though maybe not the one about the mice... which, by the way, seem to be doing very well)

First Impressions

I get asked a lot by both locals and friends/family at home: "How do you find Tanzania?"

So, here's how I find Tanzania so far...

Dark. I'm finding it hard to get used to the daylight hours here. Because we are equatorial (only 6 degrees south) and have no daylight savings time, it is daylight here from approx. 6am to 6pm all year round (with maybe an extra half hour of dawn/dusk on either end). Seeing as there are no streetlights (not in the areas I've been to so far) and no city lights reflecting of cloud cover or any of that, it's really quite dark by 6:30. And for me that means my body starts to think it's late and by 10 it's hard to convince my body to stay awake. Also, with getting home from work around 5:30, this doesn't leave much daytime to wander around and I'm not yet so comfortable walking around alone after dark so for that I wait for my roommate.

Dusty. Though the main roads are paved here the shoulder of the road is dirt and there is also a lot of road construction (I'm assured that no progress has been made since my predecessor arrived a year ago) so there is a lot of dust being blown into the air by cars. It really hurts my eyes sometimes. And at night, when it's dark, the headlights stream through the dust and you can only see dust and silhouettes of people walking on the side of the road. It's really neat looking and I'm hoping to take a photo but obviously it's hard to get a good picture when it's dark and the light is moving.

Despite a few rainy days last week, the weather here has been good. The high has been just under 30 degrees but there is often a nice breeze and sometimes some clouds so it feels much cooler. So far it hasn't been too humid either. However, everyone keeps telling me that we are entering the rainy season so it is supposed to get hotter and more humid. Interestingly, the descriptions people give me of the expected weather over the next few months is quite different from the climate charts I've seen so I'll have to wait and see.

Other than that, I'm finding that, not surprisingly, a lot of people like to talk to Mzungu (means European but is used for all white people, possibly all foreigners) so you get a lot of people saying hi (mostly in Swahili) all the time. The children are cute because it seems to take them a while to get up the nerves to say hi so often I'll hear them yell "Hello!" several moments after I've walked by. The constant barrage of greetings is quite tiring as there are numerous greetings in Swahili and there is a correct response to each (you can't just say hi back) so it takes me a few moments before I can respond.

In other news, just when the battle against the household bugs seemed to be progressing (we've cleaned and sprayed and everything that needs to be sealed in a container is sealed reducing the bug population to a very acceptable level), it turns out we have a mouse. possibly mice. And our new housemate got into the cupboard last night and gnawed holes into various food packages. Thankfully the fruit and veggies are all kept in the fridge now and we were able to salvage the rice as it had only a very small hole in the bag.

Settling in

So I have had a few days to get settled in now and mostly things have been going very smoothly except for a few hiccups with my visa and my bank card. For some reason the Tanzania High Commission in Canada issued me a six month tourist visa (I did indicate I was on a volunteer internship) but here they won't accept that for some reason. So, they've allowed me into the country for two months by which time I need to apply for a resident permit. Which is all fine and good if it weren't for the ridiculous amount of money I paid for that damn visa. The High Commission will be receiving an email but I don't imagine it will accomplish much. The bank card situation is too frustrating to get into. Let's just leave it at the damn thing doesn't work.

Anyway, my home is quite comfortable and well located. I have a great (but slightly overpriced) grocery store, several atms, a movie theatre and excellent internet cafe within a five minute walk and it's only a 20 minute walk (or 5 minute bus) to work. There are currently two of us living in a four bedroom house with a lovely dining room, sitting room, kitchen and a private bathroom for every room. We have thoroughly cleaned the kitchen and have started to do some cooking there. Blackouts are quite frequent but we don't really need electricity so much anyway. I am working very hard on the swahili and have managed to learn basic greetings and numbers so far. Everyone seems very eager to teach me and I feel completely useless without it so I hope to become mildly conversant fairly quickly.

The first few days of work went by okay. My supervisor was invited at the last minute to a conference in Liberia so much of his time went to making arrangements and then he will be gone all of this week. It took me until now to adjust to the time difference too so I wasn't much use. I am focusing now and making arrangements for a big event to happen sometime in the next few weeks in which students and faculty at the university will be invited to a day with some speakers and entertainment and where HIV testing sites will be set up. I have serious questions about the possibility of success for this event but it's hard to know without knowing the community and what will motivate them to come out to a weekend event. Friday I was asked to sit down with a couple of members of the student government to figure out a budget for the event. Like I have any idea what tent rentals cost here!!!

Will take some photos today and post them next time I'm online... internet connection at the internet cafe is much better than at work so I'll have to do it here.

Arrival

I'm using my supervisor's computer at the moment as mine is "being fixed" so this will be a very brief post. Arrived safely in Dar yesterday morning having regained my sense of adventure after a brief lapse while trying to sleep in London between flights. So far, I have been well taken care of. Musiba, my supervisor, met me at the airport and got me all settled in at my house. I have a room in a house shared with three others. Things have been going very smoothly except for a few moments of panic when I woke up from my nap in the middle of a blackout (it was already dark outside and no one was home) and had to use the light from my wrist watch to find my cell phone and the light from my cell phone to find my still-packed flashlight. Fortunately the lights came on within about 30 minutes. So far I have come across various lizards, a frog, a spider, a goat, a chicken, monkeys (just hanging out on campus) and, most annoying so far, two loud and mean looking dogs and many very tiny ant like bugs found everywhere but also, particularly notable, in my bed. the loud dogs live very close to my window. the little bugs don't seem to bite and I've now set up my treated mosquito net (because I've seen some of those too) and that should help with these little bugs too hopefully. Will write more once I have some time to myself on a computer. The internet connection here is slow but not too terrible so updating shouldn't be an issue (photos my be another matter however).

This is the lovely room I enjoyed at Heathrow's Novotel between flights. It was very nice BUT they were doing some renovations in the hallway so it wasn't easy to get much sleep :(

Training

I am a few days from being done with two weeks of training. I spent 20 hours in transit with 7 months worth of luggage to reach all my lovely training sites so it's been pretty tiring. Not so thrilled with most of the content and definitely could have condensed it into a week but the area around Montreal was absolutely beautiful with all the leaves turning red so that helped. Now I am spending a week in Toronto finishing off my training and getting everything else ready. I am enjoying having a little space to my self too. But I am getting pretty close to being ready as far as having all the necessary arrangements made. If it wasn't for the 40+ hours it will take me to get there, I would probably start getting excited right about now!

This is where I will be working (the University of Dar es Salaam):

View Larger Map

isn't technology cool?!? The map is fully interactive so zoom on in and check out my new neighborhood. I guess the training wasn't entirely useless...

the anglo-crew:

On my way

I am writing from the ever so exotic location of..... Ottawa! Ok, so I'm not yet in Tanzania but I have said my goodbyes and packed my stuff and will now spend two weeks in training in Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto before heading overseas September 30th. I will be working at the University of Dar es Salaam to build the capacity of their HIV/AIDS committee as part of a program at U of T's Centre for International Health to increase the role of Universities in combating the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Or something like that... it's all a little vague but soon enough I'm sure it will all be clearer. I have spent the last two weeks quickly pulling together all the necessary fragments for this experience (visa still MIA) and am looking forward to two weeks of relaxing with all the new people I'm meeting. Already regretting the lack of sweaters. Anyway, stay tuned here for updates on what I'm doing, where I'm going and, of course, photos.