The Big Brother House

When we imagined what it would be like living in Africa we didn't stop for a minute to consider that our enjoyment would be critically impacted upon by our housemates. That's not to say they are rubbish housemates. Far from it. There are moments when some thoughtfulness from someone will lift the spirits enormously. But is an interesting mix of people that, had we not come here, would have otherwise never found ourselves living with.

There is Heather (age: 26) (who you know), I'm not sure what her 'image' or reputation is in the house yet - works hard (as we all do), makes funny little comments - is the nurse to whom everyone turns when they feel a bit off.

Me (age: 27). I've gotten the reputation of being the quiet one with good general knowledge.

There is Rebecka (37) - FWS President and our fearless leader and morning 'toolbox' meeting chairwoman.

Her partner Darren (37) - or Daz - the builder of everything, overlord of the worksite and labourers, laid back karate expert, supplier of the occasional cold beer.

Robert 'Corky' Cork (28) - environmental engineer, disciplinarian of the staff, occasionally rude and blunt, burnt out and sometimes irritable workaholic country boy.

Clare (54) - lovely woman in her mid-50's, hearing impaired child teacher, education coordinator along with Heather. Provider of tea and biscuits in the evenings.

Her husband Warren (55), or Woz, or Babu (grandfather in swahili). Desperate to work hard, in a tizzy sometimes, often forgetful, crooner, unaware of occasional offensive comments.

Lili (26) - friendly and well travelled German girl, with German sense of humour and German tolerance for excessive flambuoyance.

Janelle (42) - Excessively flambuoyant Aussie woman. Which most find humourous most of the time, except when tired. aka: Cash Cow, as she has a sum of money from another organisation that she may or may not give to us.

Jenna (19) - Just departed back to Aus. Mature beyond her years, avid fund raiser for FWS in Australia. Blunt in a good way, never rude.

Plus all our Tanzanian staff who are in and out of the house all day:

Mudi (Mohammed) - FWS Assistant Manager - Softly spoken, intelligent, caring, hard working superman.

Aggie - Bubbly Kenyan cook and occasional cleaner - always asking about English words ('notorious' was today's word). Source of numerous anecdotes (ie. about her)

Our 20 labourers - a variety of characters - all friendly, trustworthy men.

I should describe some of the goings on - but this is getting long enough, and every day is completely different so I forget what happens two days ago.

Working the nfaregi

Every week, or every other week, or once a month (not sure of the schedule yet) 50-70 of Sangui's (the village) men get their pangas (machetes) and mattocks and spend half a day tidying up a section of the nfaregi.

The nfaregi is the traditional irrigation system, which is a network of trenches varying from 50cm to two metres wide into which the water from Mt Meru flows. To irrigate your farm you dig a connecting trench from the main line into your own network of trenches in your farm. There must be some etiquette surrounding its use because it would be easy for someone upstream to hog all the water. The nfaregi is also used as a rubbish bin (rubbish floats away - out of sight out of mind) and a toilet. Most of the illnesses around are a result of people drinking nfaregi water, which is laced with typhoid and cholera causing bacteria. The town water, which is on for about 30 minutes each morning is also very dodgy, and it is too expensive for people to boil their water. This is particularly a problem now that coal burning for cooking has just been outlawed. The old Masai women who carry bags of coal on their donkeys to sell, have had their coal confiscated by the government. And no policies for alternative fuel sources appear to exist.

So, this morning at 7:30am, Corky (Robert Cork - environmental engineer) and myself headed off to the meeting point for this round of nfaregi work. I was in the front group with the panga and Corky was in the back group with the mattock. For about 4 hours I and 40 other men waded upstream hacking the grass, plants and branches away from the sides of the nfaregi. The murky grey-brown water littered with rubbish and excrement would splash up into my eyes, mouth and gradually increasing number of cuts in my arms and legs. Sounds a bit putrid and no doubt put my vaccinations to the test, but the scenery we passed on our (roughly 2km) wade up the nfaregi was like something out of an Indiana Jones or Tarzan movie. The dense banana trees (and thousand other types of plant) overhanging the nfaregi, the steep slopes of the hill we traversed overlooking the shambas (farms) in our village and surrounding areas. When we reached our end point we stood in a line in the water and gathered the rocks off the bottom and piled them on the edges (we only did this for about 10 minutes before everyone got bored of it). We then wandered (there is only wandering here - no purposeful striding) back down to the village and sat under a huge Acacia for the nfaregi meeting. The meeting discusses who didn't show up and what to do with the fine (for not showing up) money - and they have decided to build 4 mini-weirs around the area to better manage the water flows.

As Corky pointed out, we are probably one of the first mzungu to ever have helped work on the nfaregi and the appreciation it earns us goes towards the security of our accommodation. The more people we can have on 'our side' then it is less likely that any organised raid of our house and land will happen (which is a distinct possibility given the number of laptops in this house and general wealth that surrounds a group of mzungu).

This afternoon and tomorrow (Sunday) are the rest days. Got some pics of a couple of kiddies in the gallery now too.....

The Report

I've just received some fairly exciting news.

From September to November last year I was rising at 6:15am most mornings (early for me) to start work at 7am, go to Uni, write essays or do a combination of these things throughout the day. It was the busiest I've ever been in my life and was under more pressure (mainly from myself) than ever before.

The job I was doing was a cost-effectiveness analysis of the regulating the solarium industry in Australia. Basically the number of melanomas that would be saved and how much it would cost to regulate the industry - plus all the background on UV light and skin cancers. 'The report' (as it infamously became known to Heather and anyone else feeling the brunt of my rapidly burning out mind) was finished in mid-November (as I was doing final exams) and presented to the government a week later.

The report was released publicly this previous Monday and has got a fair amount of attention from the media. Louisa Gordon (the woman I wrote it with) went on the TODAY show the other day and has been chased by the media for interviews and comments.

So anyway. I was just feeling a bit proud (deadly sin I know) of 'the report' given how hard it was to write in 2 months while trying my best at full-time Uni.

If anyone is interested in reading bits of 'the report'.

http://www.arpansa.gov.au/pubs/rhc/QIMR_solaria07.pdf

I wrote Chapters 1, 2, 3, half of 4 and 6 (this the cost-effectiveness analysis).

Some pics are also up of our first few days.

Mambo? Poa, niaje

After nearly a week sleep in our little volunteer room and a million smiling interested people, we feel like this is home. The countryside is incredible. Not so much breath taking - but the lushness and variety of plants and the rich soil provides a sense of serenity that is difficult to explain. Perhaps it is the lack of artificial (or should I say highly processed) objects around us. Almost everything is locally made from local materials for local people. The community we live in is part of the wider Sinon area which is a rural area 7km outside of Arusha. Across the road is a row of properties owned by four brothers and is teeming (like our whole area) with excitable little children screaming 'Good Morning' at all hours of of the day or 'mzungu' (european), and wanting to hold hands or wave.

The people are very friendly (partly out of strict code of etiquette) and they really appreciate every word of our limited Swahili, which is going through a vertical learning curve at the moment. The project is also so 'real', there is no bureaucracy, no set rules, everything is negotiable and can be changed if you have a good idea. But there is an excellent plan and a thoughtful approach to sustainability and cultural sensitivities.

We crawled in last Thursday night an exhausted wreck`after a couple of long days of airports and aeroplanes. We spent all day Thursday walking around Arusha with FWS employee Lucas - a young Tanzanian chap who speaks great english and we are teaching Spanish as well.

Every evening I wander through the cool air with my bucket of hot water to our banana leaf cubicles for a much needed and enjoyable wash beneath a bright crescent moon and watch the final rays of sun disappear from the peak of Mt Meru.

My head is a blur at the moment and I need to have a think about how to describe where we are and how it works. And also to put some photos up.

It is a very different life, and at times the idea that 'this is it' for the next 12 months can be a fraction daunting, but there are sufficient moments every day that make me thankful to be here.

Dossing in Doha

It's 6:30pm here in Doha International Airport (and I assume in the rest of Qatar as well) and the jet lag has drawn Heather into the Prayer Room. She may be prostrating herself in the direction of Mecca through religious devotion or inadvertently as she dozes. I'm fighting with the jet lag as I take advantage of the free wireless Internet available here in the airport. We've been here six hours and still have another 15 hours to go before our flight to Nairobi. Our budget backpacker highly restricted Internet fare does not entitle us to a hotel in Doha. We could have paid US$25 each to leave the airport and find somewhere to sleep, and the prospect of exploring Doha a little was appealing. But since I have less than $3k to live on for the entire year, we decided against it and have been killing time with the laptop, playing my x-mas guitar and listening to old Muslim men sing songs all afternoon,

To quickly recap the last couple of days: (a couple of pics are in the gallery)

Day one on Bangkok was Heathers birthday, which was spent striding around downtown Bangkok in hot, hazy and humid conditions in search of the Grand Palace. We managed to encounter and evade a number of the scams we were pre-warned of and also see several of the sights by accident on our convoluted route to the Grand Palace. Exhausted at the end of the day we had dinner at our delightful hostel and I was enjoyed perhaps the best Thai Green Curry I've ever eaten. I'd heard that 'Thai food' in Thailand is supposed to be very very good. Up to that point I'd only experienced various disappointing combinations of flat noodles, vegetables and meat. I attempted another green curry the following day and was sorely let down - surely the worst green curry I've ever eaten. None of the creamy coconut from the night before, just a handful of chili, ginger and coriander in an opaque fluid. Not wanting to waste food or be dominated by a plate of chili I force fed myself the lot until fire was flickering out of my nostrils. Even Heather's highly dubious prawns (I encouraged otherwise at the time) in her Phad Thai would have been better than that. So that was day two - sleeping, reading and recovering from dreadful food (I could mention the sliver of fat and soggy frankfurter that passed for bacon and sausages that morning).

I like the word ubiquitous, and when I visit somewhere new there generally seems to be something that jumps out as being ubiquitous. In Thailand, with the exception of the taxis, mopeds and tuk-tuks that are common in most Asian countries - it seemed like 7-11's and hair salons were EVERYWHERE. One street near our hostel in an outer suburb of Bangkok had four 7-11's in the space of 200 metres and probably double that number in hair salons.

Day Three - which happens to be today, even though this morning is literally half a world away and metaphorically another lifetime. Up at 4:45am to get to the airport. Convolution seems to be a theme for us, as our somewhat convoluted and semi-doctored evidence of onward travel nearly had us denied admission to our flight, but we managed to negotiate onward passage.

Several movies later and we cruised in over the expanse of whitish-yellow sand that dominates this region. I expected heat, but upon stepping out onto the top of that stairs leading down to the tarmac, and momentarily feeling very Lawrence of Arabia as I cast a searching look across the vast desert, I was received with an air temperature and dryness that gave me flashbacks to Canberra in early Autumn - 17 C at midday!

Now just after 7pm Doha time - or 11pm Bangkok time - or 3am Australia time - not sure where my body clock is at the moment - maybe I'm in Burma somewhere.....

The Departed

The journey has begun after a veritable obstacle course of natural, political and administrative disasters endeavoured to prevent our departure from Australia and journey to Sinon, Tanzania.

In order of hurdle:

1. Civil unrest in Kenya turns violent after a dubious election victory by the incumbent president. Claims of genocide are made and large numbers of Kenyans flee the machete wielders. As our route passes through Nairobi we decide to fly our of Nairobi rather than gamble on a bus that may be an easy target for angry mobs. Luckily Shona, FWS member, is able to secure us tickets through their cash only purchasing system.

2. The final packing up of our worldly possessions is hampered by consistent rains. As the rains continue to fall and intensify we depart from Brisbane in our chock-a-block little cars bound for my parents place near Beaudesert for a final day of reflection and preparation. The Honda, for those who know it, is a dry weather high performance vehicle. Driving through the heavy rain and puddles inevitably resulted in the loss of one, then two and at times three of the cars four cylinders. Barely keeping it above 80kmph on the highway I tried to keep Heather's car in view through the fogged and poorly wipered windscreen. All cylinders dropped out just as we exited the highway, still with 30 minutes of country backroads ahead of us. Two cylinders availed themselves to the task just before the car rolled to a standstill and we were off again. After 25 minutes of treacherous corners, dips and humps and were faced with the final and deepest dip, which by this stage was a coursing torrent of rainwater and debris. It was only a relatively short crossing of a few metres so I ploughed through in Honda. Just as the car was pulling itself out the other side, all cylinders finally drowned and went to a better place. Luckily Heather made it through okay and we made the final couple of minutes to Mum and Dad's place, who used their 4WD to tow the Honda out of the rapidly rising water around it.

3. Severe flooding in the rivers of South East Qld meant our usual route to the airport on Sunday was cut off, which required a diversion south to get onto the Bruce Highway again. And we were fairly sure the alternative route would not be blocked off by rising floodwaters.

4. Administrative errors within Qantas and JetStar meant that we had no seats on the plane when we tried to check in. After some heart palpitations and some rushing around we secured our seats on the plane and shortly afterwards were airborne bound for Sinon via Kilimanjaro via Nairobi via Doha via Bangkok via Melbourne.

5. On collection of my pack in Bangkok airport, somebody's soap gel had leaked out all over the top of my bag, so it was all nice and foamy and smelt pleasant as we tried to wipe it off.

So here we are in Bangkok, with two days of sightseeing before the final jaunt to Tanzania. Our Hostel is a lovely little place between the airport and the city. The clientele are pleasant, unlike the vast majority of those on our flight into Bangkok - mainly football teams or other groups of loud and overly attended to hair males.

Thank you to everyone who has given us such thoughtful and useful gifts, advice or encouragement, it would have been much harder without it.