Home sweet home

At the start of the best UK summer in decades, amid dramatic scenes of a British Wimbledon champion but pre-Royal baby fever, I took a trip to London.

Arriving at Heathrow at 7am on a Saturday, I rode the tube to central with fresh eyes. Still wearing African dress, a "borrowed" Kenya airways blanket around my shoulders and a suitcase full of Tanzanian tea and sachets of gin (why doesn't anyone offer to help me with my bags?), no one says hello or makes eye contact. I top up my Oyster card and touch-in like it's something I've done every day for the last 6 months. It gets busier and I have to move my bags off the seat. I know this because a women told me to - not directly, of course. She's telling me via her friend: "That woman should move her bags. Then you'd be able to sit down". I get the message, discreet as it was. One of the downsides to understanding the local language is that you realise what everyone is saying about you.

It's early morning but all the girls look stunning. Full make-up, perfect hair, clothes as per the latest fashion. All the boys look like girls. Make-up, hair, clothes as per the latest fashion. The smell of perfume is overwhelming after 6 months of inhaling only natural body odours. London is heaving. It's the Trooping of the Colour today - men are in suits and the women in summer dresses and fascinators - it's 10am. I surprise my mum by walking up to her dressed like an African with 40kg of luggage. She's not expecting me home for 1 more day and thinks I'm on a stopover in Addis Ababa when I ring her. Actually, I'm outside Starbucks on Villiers Street. Emotional times.

I've missed: Informative TV shows like The man with the 10 stone testicles or 16 and pregnant. The white van men leering "alright, darlin'?" while you're trapped like a rabbit in the middle of a road. Smooth pavements without potholes or sand. Internet on my phone (it took me 2 hours to remember I had that, so happy) - instant contact again at the swipe of a button. Food. Sleeping without a mosquito net. Indoor toilets. Tap water that is really cold and doesn't taste salty. Tap water that gets really hot. No need for a surge protector. No delay on the phone. But then it's windy. I can't see the milky way or shooting stars. It's very noisy. Chocolate bars are really expensive. I have to use cutlery when I eat and you can't buy medication from the shop, like ketamine or Viagra. It's swings and roundabouts.

My trip to Blackpool on the Megabus was first-class luxury after dala dala experiences. I got my own seat and nobody tried to sit on my lap or give me their baby to hold. My neighbour probably thought I was a nutter when I offered him some of my lunch à la the Tanzanian way. At least it was a whole pear and not half of it. He didn't want to share a sandwich either. I thought the English countryside was beautiful, especially in the evening. The sun doesn't set until 10pm. I could sit outdoors and there was twilight instead of sudden darkness. There were no flies or mosquitoes or lizards rustling the dried leaves and sounding like something much bigger and scarier. I spent time with my baby nephew - though he's not such a baby anymore at 18 months. His Blackpool accent is coming along nicely. "Hiya" and "Cler" are my new favourite words, said with an enthusiasm that only a 1 year old can muster.

With his grand-dad

And London was magical in the sunshine. Like a tourist who sees Big Ben for the first time and stops the stream of commuters in the middle of Westminster bridge to take photos, I stopped the commuters in the middle of the bridge and took photos. The architecture is even more captivating when all you have seen for months are buildings made from concrete and mud. I saw a play in the West End, ate roast duck in China Town, tapas in Covent Garden, hot-dogs in Hyde park, dim-sum in Newham. I climbed to the top of the O2, rolled down a hill in a zorb, Boris-biked, speed-dated, picnicked on Hampstead Heath, ran into the sea at Brighton, had a water-fight with some kids who made me watch their synchronised swimming antics, took a boat trip on Lake Windermere, searched for the ruins of Kendal Castle.

But the best part was doing it all with my family and friends. Nothing beats spending time laughing with the people you love. I loved being home - because that's where you all are xx

Zanzibar nights

Having reached the 6 month mark on my Tanzanian tour of duty I felt I was owed a(nother) holiday and 5 nights on Zanzibar was my gift to myself. The down side was a compulsory night beforehand in Dar Es Salaam and all the stresses of a stay in the big city. I slept at the TEC (Tanzania Episcopal Conference) - I didn't realise it was the centre of the Catholic Church in Tanzania - as if I hadn't been surrounded by enough Nuns, now it was the turn of the Bishop's. I haven't had such a socially awkward dining experience since being invited to a meal in Nyangao and needing to discreetly flick the ants off my chicken drumstick.

I have a new favourite taxi driver in Dar, Nasoro, who shepherded me through the furore at the ferry terminal with the sage advice: "Don't let anyone carry your bags". "Don't let anyone sell you a ticket". "Don't stop walking until you get inside the ticket office". I felt well taken care of and more than a little paranoid. Buying the ticket for the ferry to Zanzibar is the hardest part - fighting the crowd around the ticket sellers who haven't smiled since Christmas and trying to explain that "I am a Tanzanian resident", "I don't want to pay tourist price" and "Please give me a ticket with my own name on it and not my next of kin's" (the British passport can be confusing). Once you have that, the 2 hour catamaran ride across the Zanzibar Channel is pleasant enough, depending on the crossing and the number of passengers throwing up around you. Worryingly, the VSO office does not encourage volunteers to use the ferries after the 2011 and 2012 boat disasters in which hundreds, mostly Tanzanians, died. The government does not maintain the cheaper boats that the locals use - it makes far more money by investing in the "tourist" vessels that draw in more revenue.

The ferries dock in Stone Town where you run a second gauntlet of ticket touts and men luring you to their hotels/taxis/bars. Once you have escaped their clutches and got away with all of your luggage, the next challenge is finding your way through the labyrinth of Stone Town's narrow, twisting alleyways.

The Zanzibar archipelago includes 2 islands; the poorer, north island of Pemba and the main island of Unguja - or Zanzibar for tourists. Both islands are predominantly Muslim unlike the Tanzanian mainland and the adhan can be heard from pre-dawn. The one belonging to the mosque near my guesthouse sounded like a WW2 air-raid siren. Maybe it was. Stone Town was the heart of East Africa's slave trade during the 18th century and at various times in its history the islands have been under the control of the Portuguese, the Omanis and the British before uniting with mainland Tanganyika to form modern independent Tanzania in 1961.

After 6 months in the village, staying in a guesthouse with hot showers, an indoor toilet (en-suite would you believe!), a good fan, choice of breakfast and views over the harbour -  was like being dropped in heaven. Lingering over the roof-top breakfasts, even the pervasive smell of fish from the market below was not enough to dampen my holiday mood.

Some lucky volunteers are based on Zanzibar and others were passing through at the same time as I. We had lots of fun travelling on the local dala dalas, visiting the food stalls at the Forodhani Night Gardens (subsequent food poisoning excepted), spotting the red colobus monkeys in Jozani Forest and pretending to have money ++ at one of the all-inclusive 5* star resorts along the coast. Street stalls sold tiny cups of coffee for 8p which you sipped whilst watching the world go by. The tourist bars sold cocktails for much more than 8p which you could drink as the sun set over the Indian Ocean. Luxury - why don't they need a pharmacist on Zanzibar? 

My dala dala face

Mr James' good deed

After receiving a grant of 1.2 million shillings from the Tanzanian Development Trust, my neighbour James, a biomedical scientist/VSO volunteer, was able to organise a series of outreach visits to local villages to test residents for HIV. Having nothing better to do on a Saturday morning in the African bush, I tagged along. Before we went, permission to attend had to be sought from the village elders. Early in the morning stocked up with test kits, lab equipment, HIV counsellors, student medics and a couple of people who needed lifts along the way, we set off. This time we went to the village of Ndawa - only 15km away but a 90 minute drive along sandy tracks into the bush.

On arriving we were introduced to the village elder and given a tour of the school. Later, after setting up in the meeting house and preparing the equipment for testing we awaited willing volunteers. Part of the package was a drum to announce our arrival and encourage participants but sadly today the drum was late.

Ndawa Village school

The Village Elder

The adult rate of HIV in Tanzania is 5.1% which has fallen in recent years. 1.6 million people in the country live with HIV; 230,000 of whom are children. Condom use is low and whilst 48% of women have a comprehensive knowledge of HIV, only 43% of men can say the same. Many misconceptions about the cause, treatment and so-called "cure" for HIV still exist, leading to many dangerous practices and abuses of young girls, in particular. Today, 56 people were tested and received counselling on preventing the disease. Whilst outreach clinics are invaluable for reaching the communities far from hospital based HIV clinics, the question remains whether those who suspect themselves to be infected actually come forward for testing. Over the 2 days of outreach this weekend, 100% of people tested were negative for HIV.

Leading by example and getting tested for HIV

By the afternoon the flow of patients had reduced and we had a look around the village. Some of the group wanted to buy chickens. A couple of hours later having found a man happy to sell his birds and an entertaining time watching them being chased through a corn field, a fair price had been negotiated and the 3 cockerels were trussed up and thrown in the back of the hospital 4x4. It was time to head home dropping off the passengers, counsellors and chickens along the way.

Our driver took a diversion on the way back and we ended up at Namupa; home of Namupa Seminary. The Head Teacher of the boys' school took great pride in showing this unexpected group of visitors around his school which involved looking in every classroom, dorm room and staff room on all 4 floors. The chemistry lab was a nostalgic throw-back to the 1970's, with Bunsen burners right next to the caustic chemicals. No health and safety regulations in force here.

The view from the top of the Seminary

The next day, I watched one of the chickens turned into dinner. Nothing went to waste - liver, heart, testes, stomach, feet, all went into the pot. Only the intestines and lungs are thrown away. An interesting piece of information I gathered in addition to how to kill your own dinner - chickens don't have kidneys (they never pee).