I got back from traveling a few weeks ago and despite having washed my clothes two time they have yet to smell like roses and pixies and continue to be stubborn. If they continue to behave this way they will be forced to spend the remainder of their lives in the pit in my garden..... which contains the rubbish.
Life here has been good, going back to Plaster House after almost three weeks of travelling was amazing. I wasn't sure really what to expect but I was pleasently surprised when I walked through the gates and heard them all scream "ANNA!!!!" and ran up to me. It was amazing and before I left half those kids coudln't walk and now they were running, especially Sabina. Sabina is about 5 years old and when she first came to Plaster House she had never walked in her life and got around by crawling, after two rounds of surgery she can now walk all by herself so its amazing to see how much she has changed. Things at Plaster house are chaotic which is always a good thing.
First weekend back about 15 miniutes before it started we got invited to a African wedding. Having not showered in about 3 days and not having anything to wear we all looked a bit out of place. The Prime Minister of Tanzania was there which was quite cool he was very friendly and said he really liked England and English people(hes got 3 degrees from their) but then again who doesn't :P. The wedding itself was about as interesting as watching paint dry..... actually no thats far to interesting. It was about as interesting as staring at a piece of cloth hoping that it will move itself magically. It was a Masai wedding and their was no alcohol or dancing just talking and talking and talking and then the bride and groom ate cake in front of us when we had been waiting about 6 hours for food. Then after having people dance up individually and present their gift.... all 300 of them we got food and left very quickly. Needless to say the African Wedding was a bit of a disapointment.
Some spots reappeared on my hand so I went to the hospital to get checked out and sure enough my amoeba came back. I first got it in Rwanda got some antibiotics but they can come back, which this one did, I got some more pills and I should be good. Having an amoeba is a bit like being pregnant is some ways, there is something living on side of you, it causes you random bits of pain, hurts your feet, and treats your stomach as its own and reaks havoc on your bladder and your sometimes vomit.
Went to Kenya this past weekend with a friend of ours to meet his family. It was really lovely and I'm going to recomend that the next time anyone feels stressed out and needs a chill holiday dont go to the beach go to an African village with very basic standards of living with lovely African women who will feed you to you cant possibly move and then spend the days walking around the landscape. It leaves you very chilled out and very clear thinking.
So life In Arusha is as busy, entertaining and chaotic as always but thats the way I like it. As of today I have just over 1 week left in Africa and I don't know where the time went it all seems a bit like a dream. I don't want to leave but being in London for the Olympics will be worth it.
Monday, 30 July 2012
Friday, 20 July 2012
We Live In Colour
"The creative adult is the child who never grew up", or the adult who went to Africa. Africa is a place that is known for the being the birthplace of mankind but it is so much more than that. It is the continent of life itself. I saw a coca cola advert when I was in Uganda and it was one of the best adverts I have seen, it goes about comparing the differences between Africa and the West. One of the sequences went " When the rest of the world turns grey, We live in colour." Africans very much do live in colour, form the bright colours of their clothing to their personalities and manerisms which are very bright and loud and shine through theire Kanga's or Burkas, to the smiles on their faces.
Another part of this advert that i really liked is in another sequence it went " When the rest of the world turns its back 1 billion Africans are sharing a coke. 1 billion reason to Believe in Africa." And there are 1 billion resons, The people treat each other as family, they go out of their way to help you and they really do make the most out of each day. For example there is a women who sells tea behind our house and she says she is our African mama and you can quite often find here and other other Africans dancing in the street having a laugh. Or seeing children running around playing foot ball without a care in the world. Africa has an incredibly bright future, it has such charm and such charisma that it makes you believe that Africa will do great things one day. Africa is a place that not only gets under you skin it seeps into you arteries and your veins and works its way to your heart where it will forever have a place. The part of your heart which houses Africa will contain a love for the landscape, the people, the animals, the food and just the life style in general.
One song that will remind me of my time in is Beautiful Day by U2, there is a part of it where it goes "what you don't hove now you wont need it now, what you don't have now you will never need it now", and its so true sure what you have is nice but after not having it you don't really need it. Like posh kitchens, or nice cars or even carpet. Thinking about my life in Canada and England, i really dont miss much of the stuff at all really. It will be so weird going back i cant even comprehend it.
heres the advert if your curious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb6yctYKfhs
Another part of this advert that i really liked is in another sequence it went " When the rest of the world turns its back 1 billion Africans are sharing a coke. 1 billion reason to Believe in Africa." And there are 1 billion resons, The people treat each other as family, they go out of their way to help you and they really do make the most out of each day. For example there is a women who sells tea behind our house and she says she is our African mama and you can quite often find here and other other Africans dancing in the street having a laugh. Or seeing children running around playing foot ball without a care in the world. Africa has an incredibly bright future, it has such charm and such charisma that it makes you believe that Africa will do great things one day. Africa is a place that not only gets under you skin it seeps into you arteries and your veins and works its way to your heart where it will forever have a place. The part of your heart which houses Africa will contain a love for the landscape, the people, the animals, the food and just the life style in general.
One song that will remind me of my time in is Beautiful Day by U2, there is a part of it where it goes "what you don't hove now you wont need it now, what you don't have now you will never need it now", and its so true sure what you have is nice but after not having it you don't really need it. Like posh kitchens, or nice cars or even carpet. Thinking about my life in Canada and England, i really dont miss much of the stuff at all really. It will be so weird going back i cant even comprehend it.
heres the advert if your curious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb6yctYKfhs
Sunday, 8 July 2012
Uganda, Zanzibar and transiting Kenya.
After my intially planned 3 days cry fest in Rwanda which turned into a 1 week mind blow the boys and I got a bus to Kampal from Kigali. It was suppose to take 8 but ended up being 15 hours... oh well TIA. The border crossing from Rwanda to Uganda took a while cause "no mans land " ( the bit where you have to walk from Rwanda to Uganda and are technically in the middle of nowhere) takes about 20 miniuts to walk to but there were farms on either side of it so you get thinking " which country are they in and which country gets the profits." After crossing the border we continued to trek towards Kampala. It is really how much diffrence a simle line on a map makes. Rwanda is the land of 1000 hills and is greeny brown for the most part but as soon as you enter Uganda it gets flatter and more tropical.
Going to the bathroom during the journey was a bit of a challenge as you have to trek through grasses and compete with other Ugandan women to find a bush. There was an incident where i thought i found sizeable coverage and then a motorbike driver on the road quite a ways in the distance stopped and then proceded to have a conversation with me... which was a tad awkward oh well it happens.
After 5 days exploring parts of Uganda Ed and I flew to Zanzibar to meet up the others. We went Kampala,- Nairobi- Dar es salaam- Zanzibar.Ed and I have now filled out 10 forms just for entering and exting Kenya and have now started racing each other to see who can fill the form out quickest.... we are obviously so cool.
Zanzibar is absolute paradise, warm weather nice beaches cheap indian food and the ocean. Due to the fact that I do not tan my SPF 60 is a piece of poo and my malaria pills make me burn I now look like a radish and have a burn mark in the shape of the batman logo which is bloody impressive.
Its been really interesting backpacking through East Africa and seeing how diffrent each country is from each other. My favorite is still Rwanda and im pretty sure its an English persons paraside with nice weather, wine bottle sized deliciouse beer for 80p and Kebabs that melt in your mouth. Uganda has very very strong beer and Kenya is very expesive in comparison to the other countrys granted I was only in Nairobi but still. Jomo Kenyatta Interntional Airport in Nairobi is like my second home in Africa considering the amount of time I have spent there .
After Zanzibar im back to Arusha and back to my plastrhouse babies who I'm looking forward to see again .
Going to the bathroom during the journey was a bit of a challenge as you have to trek through grasses and compete with other Ugandan women to find a bush. There was an incident where i thought i found sizeable coverage and then a motorbike driver on the road quite a ways in the distance stopped and then proceded to have a conversation with me... which was a tad awkward oh well it happens.
After 5 days exploring parts of Uganda Ed and I flew to Zanzibar to meet up the others. We went Kampala,- Nairobi- Dar es salaam- Zanzibar.Ed and I have now filled out 10 forms just for entering and exting Kenya and have now started racing each other to see who can fill the form out quickest.... we are obviously so cool.
Zanzibar is absolute paradise, warm weather nice beaches cheap indian food and the ocean. Due to the fact that I do not tan my SPF 60 is a piece of poo and my malaria pills make me burn I now look like a radish and have a burn mark in the shape of the batman logo which is bloody impressive.
Its been really interesting backpacking through East Africa and seeing how diffrent each country is from each other. My favorite is still Rwanda and im pretty sure its an English persons paraside with nice weather, wine bottle sized deliciouse beer for 80p and Kebabs that melt in your mouth. Uganda has very very strong beer and Kenya is very expesive in comparison to the other countrys granted I was only in Nairobi but still. Jomo Kenyatta Interntional Airport in Nairobi is like my second home in Africa considering the amount of time I have spent there .
After Zanzibar im back to Arusha and back to my plastrhouse babies who I'm looking forward to see again .
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