Nicola in Africa: Volunteering in Tanzania: Lindi at Eiid

I got my first call from home today! As it cost my home phone a whopping £20 I doubt we’ll be doing that again… but it was nice J Could hear them making a cup of tea in the background which made me very jealous!

The moon had come out on the Thursday night, meaning that Friday was Eiid, and we were going to Lindi Town to celebrate and go ‘clubbing’. Apparently. Tensions were still ripe after the acid attack on the two British female travellers in Zanzibar, so we weren't sure if we wanted to go and get smashed in a place that was predominantly Muslim!

We spent the first bit of the day wandering around doing shopping. Seeing as there is barely anything ‘Western’ in Mtama we were stocking up on luxuries like shampoo and conditioner, roll on deodorant and so forth. I even bought a kettle (less than £7!) to make waiting for my morning tea a little more bearable. Extravagant you may think, but I'm pretty sure it’ll not only come in very handy but be used at least once a day!
We had a big lunch in this beach club hotel restaurant, although they only thing they were cooking on their 3 page luxury menu were pasta, rice, meat or vegetables. Seeing as we seem to always eat rice and vegetables most of us opted for a nice spaghetti dish, which actually made a nice change! Tea was 5,000shillings, but it was the best cup I've had in Tanzania, so I can’t really complain!

This would be the first proper night I had gone out since my trip had started almost a month ago; it was actually quite nice to slap on a bit of make-up and ‘hit the town’. We had found an awesome shop earlier in the day which had sold little bottles of spirits for ridiculous prices. My 180ml bottle of 37.5% apple-flavoured vodka was the equivalent of £1. ONE POUND. Screw you British alcohol tax. It went down very well with my bottle of sprite before we found the bar. Being Africa, the ‘bar’ was actually a load of tables outside, with a projector playing old 70’s music, Abba, Lionel Richie, and ‘Daddie Cool’. The best thing was the chipsi mayai that I had. I'm surprised it hasn't caught on in the UK but it’s essentially a thick, chip omelette, and it is DELICIOUS. I left before people went into the club thing, which incidently had no people in it whatsoever and wanted to charge us all £2 entry. Bed sounded like a better deal so Avitus, our PC, walked me back to where we were staying.

Which, I forgot to mention, had WESTERN TOILETS. Hello sitting down to pee for the first time in a week.

Steff and I slept in later than the others and had breakfast back at the beach club hotel thing. It was an incredible breakfast! Fruit and juice, unlimited tea (served in a wooden box!?), eggs, sausages and bread with honey and jam. Oh man. That was the best breakfast I’d had since Zanzibar. I could easily have sat there all day. But instead we went to the beach! The beach was gorgeous; we went at low tide and the sand just went on for ever. The water that had pooled on the sand was bath warm! Made me miss my bath at home.

We found a little market to get some fruit in, and started packing up to head home. We sat on the dala dala for over 30 mins before it left. They don’t seem to move until they are full. The journey isn’t too bad, taking somewhere between 1 hour and 2 hours depending how many times they stop. Unfortunately for us it was 6pm before it actually set off, so by the time we got to our stop outside Phaisha Guest House it was very dark. There’s not a light inside the dala dala, and it was so full, that getting off proved to be quite a problem. No one would move for us, instead trying to climb over us to get our seats. Eventually Mary got out and we I had to pass my shopping bags through the back windows, before shoving my way through the passengers to get out. Hmmm. Did not enjoy that part!