Heaven sent from Mars (Incorporated)

I could get used to all these holidays. One of the good things about living in a country with religious diversity is that we get to celebrate the Christian and the Muslim holidays. There are days off for the birth of Jesus, the death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus and the birth of the Prophet Mohammed. We commemorate the assassination of Vice President Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume, the anniversary of the overthrowing of the Sultan of Zanzibar, and the unification of Zanzibar with Tanganyika. There's a special day to remember Father of the Nation, Mwalimu Nyerere, then Eid al-Fitr followed 2 months later by Eid al-Adha, and not forgetting Independence Day, Peasant's Day and Worker's Day. It is incredibly diplomatic.

The real challenge is finding places to go on all these days off. Tanzania is so big that it can take days to get somewhere even if transport doesn't let you down. Southern Tanzania in particular doesn't have many draw cards for tourists and the Rough Guide grimly describes most of the places within weekend reach of Nyangao as being "shabby, run down towns in Tanzania's most impoverished region" (anyone still keen to visit?) Which goes some way to explain why on alternate weekends we go to Mtwara, an oasis of civilisation, to stay in the mission-run beach house and wake up by the sea, stock up on treats at the Wazungu supermarket, visit our friends and eat some meat. Lindi is another port town slightly closer than Mtwara, but in my opinion it's a little "shabby and run down". I think in the south of Tanzania at least, once you have seen a few towns you have seen them all. You always find the bus stand near to the market which sells the same goods as everywhere else, with dwellings and stalls spread out along the main road leading to town. It is always sandy, there are always lots of people, goats and bicycles travelling along the road and the colours are always the same; orange and green, orange and green.

Sunrise in Mtwara

The new Alfa Supermarket - spot the Kelloggs

For Easter a group of us travelled to Kilwa, 6 hours dala-dala ride away to see the World Heritage listed 14th century ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani. We treated ourselves to a stay in the nice but expensive Kilwa Seaview Resort, though as volunteers on a budget we squeezed five girls in a room. I was reluctant to stay in a local guesthouse after the guidebook described them as "a profoundly dismal bunch". But then if you believe everything you read, Kilwa's restaurants rarely have anything more than a "sackful of rice in their larders or days-old oily snacks in their display cases". Someone with more positive marketing skills really needs to work for the Rough Guide.

Kilwa Masoko Bay

Kilwa Kisiwani ruins

Easter morning breakfast

Last weekend in honour of Union Day we spent the public holiday relaxing by the pool at The Old Boma Hotel in Mikindani. In days gone by, Mikindani was one of the coast's major seaports for ivory and slave-trading caravans and was supposedly the site of Livingstone's camp in 1866 at the start of his final exhibition to the Great Lakes. For an afternoon I was just a tourist, lying on a sun-lounger at "southern Tanzania's best hotel" with the smell of chlorine in the air, monkeys in the trees and a ice-cold ginger beer in my sun-burnt hands. Then we left the beautiful, colonial surrounds of the old boma and were spat back out into the real Africa with the sand and the smells and street stalls selling octopus tentacles for dinner. To complete the holiday feeling we discovered a place that sold ice-cream and ate caramel flavoured vanilla ice whilst keeping one eye on our shopping bags and ignoring the flies and the traffic fumes. I found a shop that sold Twix. Not even my favourite chocolate bar but that gold and red wrapper made me very happy.

The Old Boma, Mikindani

Today we are celebrating Worker's Day hence a Wednesday off work. Yesterday afternoon there was a sherehe, or party, for all the hospital staff. Having been to a hospital sherehe before, I knew better than to arrive on time and had planned to turn up just after the 3 hours of speeches had finished but before the food, though my absence would be noted as one of only 3 white people in the crowd. In the end I thought better of it and sat through the formalities, which is less like a party and more like a protracted torture one must go through to get a free soda and a plate of pilau. The scrum for food was something to behold once the speeches were over. Somehow I got squashed in the middle of a particularly pungent group of workers who were even more excited than me at the prospect of a free meal. Still trying to decide which animal the one piece of meat on our plate came from.  

So, happy Worker's Day to you all. I think I will use my time wisely and watch lots of American TV shows whilst I wait for James' promised barbeque this evening. A meal with minced meat is a meal fit for a queen. I'm already looking forward to our next public holiday - International Trade Fair Day...what a great country I live in.