Saturday saw us working in the library again. We had a slight lay in and
met at 10am, where we had breakfast and figured out our day plan. Books were to
be done, and bits of paperwork like the library guides and the design of
library information posters. It was a reasonably stress-free day and the school
was very quiet. For dinner we went into Mtama town to the little restaurant and
ordered without the help of Grace and Ema! Most people got what they ordered,
chipsi mayai and kuku (chicken). I, however, did not get my kuku, and just had
a portion of ugali, spinach, tomatoes and maharagwe (beans). This is the second
time now I have ordered chicken and been bitterly disappointed! Oh well. Konyagi
o’clock it was, with Mary and I sharing a bottle. I still have no idea what is
in it, except for Konyagi. That obviously doesn’t help one little bit, although
it does smell like gin.
On Sunday Mary, Viki and I took a trip to Lindi to buy provisions, while
Eseelle and Steph worked at school on the library. On the way to Lindi we
passed three bad crashes in the space of 15 minutes along the same stretch of
road. Thankfully they were all empty cargo trucks rather than full dala dala’s
although it didn’t exactly settle our nerves! We had a successful day buying 5
ltrs of white spirit, blackboard paint, fruit and veg, kangas and chocolate,
and even had a small amount of time to sit on the beach and get our white legs
out. I need to excitedly mention that for lunch I had a whole red snapper (with
head attached!), roasted/fried vegetables and a separate plate of rice, and it
was INCREDIBLE. The fish was meaty and great, with a few bones. None of this
struggling to get meat off the bone malarky with chicken.
The dala dala home was fairly quick… until it broke down in Ningaya (sp), a
small village 5km away from Mtama Secondary School. We sat on the bus with
everyone else for an hour before I got off to make conversation. Everyone was
ignoring my attempts at Swahili and all the local children were following us around or laughing through the window. Eventually another bus
came past, but it was far too over-packed, with people sitting on others and standing
on people, and it drove away with three-deep men bowed out of the door clinging
on. We were left us three, and a handful of other Tanzanians, one of whom spoke
a little English and was also heading to Mtama. The bus driver tried to put us
on ‘bajajis’ except they were actually boda bodas – basically motorbikes where
you clutch hold of the driver and don’t wear a helmet. We ruled that out
straight away, because we were told another bus was coming. Finally it did,
although it was the same bus as before just turned around, and the people on
there were angry that it was picking more people up, and moaning about mzungu
mzungu. I was getting a little bored of it now. I can hardly help a bus that
is broken down!
Home safely though, and bed was well needed when we got in.
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