6 weeks down and umm ? left to go

Trip Start Jan 14, 2007

Trip End Aug 01, 2007

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Where I stayed

Sea Cliff Hotel Dar es Salaam

Flag of Tanzania Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
Monday, February 26, 2007

So its been about 6 weeks and I am starting to almost feel like a permanent resident of Dar. So whats been happening this past week you ask - well work has been busy as Beth from London School is here and we are working hard, swahili school is almost over and to be honest I am glad about that as I feel my retention for the new language can not go beyond -- the following.."Where is the toilet, Hello, goodbye, chicken, rice, fish, water, I want, and I need to go (insert place)". My teacher Dina tells me I need to study more, but who has the time when you work 8 hours a day go to the gym and try to have a social life! Speaking of, not sure where I left off in my last entry but this week was full of fun social events. It helped that Shari, another Pfizer fellow arrived in Dar last week, she is from NY and works in Human Resources at Pfizer. On Thursday, we went back to the Sweet EZ and had dinner and stayed out until 2AM dancing with a group of pilots (Kiwis, British, and Spanish boys) that was fun and a nice distraction for us and especially for Shari since she is having a hard time this first week adjusting. She is great but definitely still in the "NY state of mind", which well simply does not work in Africa. I think with time as I did she will learn to adapt to the change, I made a decision to keep my distance as I think it is best for her to adjust on her own..as I did! Although on Saturday we hopped on the Dalla Dalla and sat backwards with about 25 other people and made the 45 minute drive to Bagamoyo, which was the first German settlement and the hub of German East Africa and served as the port where the slaves were traded from to Zanzibar. Livingstone's dead body also passed through there on the last stop before boarding a boat to be sen tto Manchester. Well we spent the afternoon checking out what is essentially a ghost town now with all the old German buildings in ruins. We had a nice lunch before the dreaded heat of TZ took over and forced us to get back into the dalla dalla..this time we were smart and got 2 seats next to each other..what we did not realize is that we would have about 6 people standing and sitting basically on top of us the whole time...sigh all part of the experience..Shari's jet lag kicked in and she fell asleep on the way home, how I am not sure since it had to be about 90 degrees in that bus!
Saturday night, I headed out for a quick drink to watch some rugby with Beth, it was some sort of tournement England vs. Ireland, well we ended up in an Irish bar (of course there is an Irish pub in Africa) and had some interesting times watching the game with some irish lads all dressed in irish flags with faces painted..they were not really into the fact that I know little about the game of rugby and kept asking them things like.."was that good that the guy just kicked the ball..and why are they all beating each other up" ..ha ha..anyway now I know where to go for St Pats day..ha ha. Sunday was a day of relaxation for me..I went for a nice breakfast at the big hotel here www.hotelseacliff.com, read my book by the water and then found a place to get a pedicure nice posh place connected to the hotel, they also have massage there and its cheap 25 bucks for one hours. Today Monday I woke up with a huge eye infection, which frankly I knew was coming since my contacts have been bothering me for the last 2 weeks..I was slightly concerned that my eyelid was the size of a golfball..so I headed up to the clinic which is part of a International School..very nice and the Dr's are Belgium and really cool..they gave me some heavy antibiotics and some cream..so far though I still look like Rocky..and I had to stay home from work..so I decided with all this drama I better go relax more so I went for a massage! Now I am cooking some chicken with pesto and pasta..I will try and go to bed early as the Doc said that this is a common infection when you are run down..it also does not help that I was wearing my contacts in the heat and dusty environment..back to glasses I guess for the next 5 months..which come to think of it is not going to help my social life..ha ha. So everybody send me some email and let me know whats happening back home miss everyone..
ps. I would love to post the picture of me when I woke up this morning but I am afraid if my dad saw it he would be on the first plane here...