Ange on Tour Begins

So it's been a while and life is different.
I'm back in Arusha after a horrendous month back home. No insult to my wonderful sydney family who made the whole shitfight so much easier, but I'm certainly happy to be back.
It's been almost a week and my neck has finally stopped siezing, my headache is gone and i'm sleeping through the night. The rains are here so it's beautiful and green and we've got a whole new cast of volunteers to keep the entertainment going.
Carmod and I are reunited with a rediscovered obsession with jibjab, a website that puts your head on a dancing body. Actually it puts any head, including my new pet goat Konnie. Never have you seen the Mexican Hat Dance til you've seen Konnie and I ripping it up. http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/gxwKKXGHPq8nzaAh?cmpid=jj_fb_friend_edf

Ange.
Well after a lovely final weekend roadtrip to Bowral and a couple of bottles of vino at Palmy with the girls we got on the plane seriously rooted but knowing everything was done, sorted and we can move on.
Dear old Ange had a good flight. No issues with security and she got a window seat for her first view of Africa. No complaints so far so I guess 'tour guide' approves. She's got her own little possie above my bed with the pic from the service and her 'Ange on Tour' book. And the candle I lit on the coffin is making my room smell beautiful.

It's been lovely to see the mamas and kids again and Mudi's welcome home 'man chai' was the best i've had so far. Work is back on track and i'm off to market tomorrow for Thursday veggie day. But of course nothing is ever quite normal so yesterday's 'shit sorting' wasn't completely out of the box, albeit a little gross. It's quite simple. The biodigestor won't take anything non organic or undigested by the cows. No grass, no sticks, no corn cobs, no nails and certainly no batteries. As of yet a machine hasn't been invented to handle such a lovely task - well i'm sure it has but why buy something new when hands do the job just fine? I'll let the picture speak for itself but suffice to say we were forearm deep in watered down poop squeezing half eaten grass to conserve every juicy ounce of goodness. I left Ange at home for that little experiment, there are some things she probably doesn't have to witness.

Konnie, on the other hand, she'd love. Named after a delicious local brew 'Konyagi', a personal favourite of Carmod and I, she is taking to life at the Village with a token amount of stubborness Ange would definitely respect. Today has been day one of training and if we keep going like this i'll have her jumping through fire hoops in no time. She knows her name, wags her tail at kissy noises - carmod can take full credit for that one - headbuts the dogs unprovoked (and myself when she gets the urge) and has a wonderful sense of comic timing. Mid team meeting to discuss the ins and outs of owning a goat in communal living and she unceremoniously jumps up onto the living room bench next to Carmod's head. Good goat.

Well i've been back for 6 days and heading off now for my second chipsy (hot chip omelette) so I better get my gumboots out, rain coat on (thanks Mum) and brave the weather. Might tie Konnie up first since I don't trust my training techniques, as good as they are, to work when i'm not around. And something tells me a kitchen laced with goat shit isn't condusive to happy communal living.
lots of love, Laws and Ange

Mama Afrika and the long-lost art of freehand dicing.

A year ago I got dressed up in a bright blue silk dress, ate a four-course seafood lunch, drank numerous glasses of champagne and called it a Christmas party.
This year was somewhat different.

This year – I cooked.
Although not entirely new to the concept, this was not the sort of cooking that comes with $50 recipe books and utensils that cost half a month’s wage. Nor was the final product the sort of gastronomic art they dedicate TV shows to. This was beef and rice assembled by 4 chefs, one knife, two enormous pots, some charcoal – and many a bucket.

The discovery of Merman - the underwater miracle.

Although there is definitely something exotic and exciting about living in Tanzania, weekends in Arusha, as with anywhere, can become repetitive. There are only so many gourmet buffet lunches set amongst willow trees in picturesque plantations one girl can handle. So a few weekends ago, having taken Friday off for some R&R, loosely translated to doing little more than eating cereal from the box and watching Nip Tuck in bed, it was time to shake things up.

November Update

OK – I apologise, I’ve been a bit slack.
What can I say – I’ve been having too much fun? Been too busy saving the world? That was a joke.
Anyway, here’s an update, not too much detail I’m afraid but I’ll make it a new year’s resolution to be better.

It’s been over three months since I arrived and I’m still as happy and settled as ever. I had a couple of ‘three month hangover’ days as I was warned before I came, but aside from the desperate need to go for a walk along the beach and be completely inconspicuous, I got off lightly.
Work has been wonderful – I spend half the time being communications manager, trying to navigate the temperamental internet connection with facebook, picasa and google mail. The other half I spend with the mamas and their sewing business, battling the roads of Arusha in the Land Rover full of veggies, or trying to think of new ways to make money locally. It’s challenging, fun and every day is different.

Wedding Bongos

Considering that marriage isn’t necessarily a life ambition of mine, I’ve done my fair share of wedding time. Fortunately, for the sake of keeping things interesting, only a small proportion of these have stuck to traditional western white dresses, bouquets, finger food and never-ending champagne.
At ten I picked my own bridesmaid dress – a beautiful white twelve layered, sequined bodice white number complete with puffy sleeves and hundreds white felt hearts. Luckily it was an Italian wedding and the bride upstaged me by at least a dozen layers of taffeta and several cans of hair spray. At 18, to the day in fact, I possibly caused the unemployment of a poor Indian waiter who tried to serve me cranberry juice and found himself at eye level with my chest and unable to hold on to his tray of drinks. I moved on from the cranberry and stuck to the finest French champagne followed up by fluro green tequila served in test tube holders.
So when the pink ribboned invitations arrived, complete with a request for contributions, I was pretty confident that this wedding would come no closer to the ones I’ve read about in Cosmo.