The Rest

I'm back. So, I had a few more things to say about Tanzania for those interested parties. The first thing was that after that amazing workshop day, Moses (Bobo, but he asked to be called Moses in front of all those Mzungus) was inspired to start up some socially conscious work of his own. Of course, he had never done anything like that conference before, and he told me after that he had talked to the people from Training for Life, and he wanted to start up a similar program for the street children in Chuda (Mombasa). I like to think that we inspired him a bit as well. As I said, it was good energy that day.

The best part, and this is a good story, is that he and his friends at Ruff Howz already have a registered organization. In Kenya, one can be arrested for being idle. In fact, a few people I knew got arrested for sitting around while I was there and Bobo and some other people had to go and bail them out. In any case, some time ago, the Ruff Howz gang decided to register themselves as an organization so that when the cops came around, they could say they were having a meeting. Then when they demanded to see the registration, they would actually have one and no one would get arrested.

So Bobo said he's going to talk to Jay, who is their chairperson, and incidentally has some counseling experience and see if they can actually use the organization for something. He asked if I would help and I said absolutely. I'll keep you all updated on how that turns out.

Anyway, that weekend we went to Dar es Salaam for a few days and visited people we knew. I met some friends of Bobo's and went to see the Minhases, some family friends from Vancouver who moved to Dar about a year ago. It was interesting to talk to them, especially the children, most of whom had spent the last year attending African schools. They have definitely struggled with it, but they are all awesome kids, and all the more mature from that experience.

I also got to meet a very big deal music producer from 41 Records in Dar, who is an uncle of a friend of Bobo's. I want to write an article about the Tanzanian music scene for the online journal here at Edirisa. Bongo music as it is known is popular all over East Africa, and it's a lot of fun. I know it from the radio and clubs and stuff in Mombasa. I left Ambrose my e-mail address and hopefully I'll hear from him sometime. I'll let you guys know what happens with that article as well.

Currently, I am back home in Uganda. It felt like too short of a time to stay in Tanzania, but I couldn't justify taking more time off. I was a few days late as it was, cause I accidentally left my passport in Moshi and had to get those guys to ship it to me. I couldn't leave until I had it back, and I ended up taking a plane back two days later for an exorbitant amount of money.
I've now started working for the Travels (cultural tourism) program at Edirisa because we have a bunch more volunteers here now who came specifically for teaching, and Travels needed help. I will keep teaching when I can, but in the meantime, I am assistant guiding on various treks and helping with organization and prep. There should be some good stories from that, but it is getting late, so those will be for another day.

Goodnight!