I just arrived home in Dar from Durban and I already miss the beautiful beaches with waves that could knock you over in a second. Durban (and maybe South Africa in general) is such a paradoxical place; so many sides that some how co-exists. I’m sure, however, that if I were able to stay longer, even more sides would emerge to fill the missing puzzle pieces. The peer exchange was an amazing experience: lots of insights to how different governments […]
My internship has officially finished. I do get to go to the peer exchange happening in Durban, South Africa though. So today I packed my bags and went for the 2:30 am flight out of Dar to Johannesburg. (Aside: I booked through Kulula, the budget branch of British Airways in SA. Except I always call it kulala, which means “to sleep” in Kiswahili. Fits perfectly for the late night flight). I was packing until the last minute. Had to do […]
I was out eating dinner when the bombs started exploding. At first, we thought they were fireworks. Then the taxi driver said something about the military, so we assumed it was a military drill. But the noise was crazy loud and the bombs had been exploding non-stop, every second for almost an hour. It couldn’t be a drill. Finally we figured out that it was the army ammunition depot in Gongo la Mboto bursting into flames, out of control. A […]
Rainy season has finally arrived. It poured the last two days out of three. And I really mean pour, tropical rain style. If this is the ‘short’ rainy season, I can’t really imagine what the ‘long’ one will be like. This one is called short because in general the rains last shorter (as in only about one hour). The other day, I was in town for an interview. I jumped on a dala home, but as the dala approached my […]
I just had my favourite vegetable for lunch – kisamvu (cassava leaves). Plus maharage (beans) and ndizi moshi (bananas cooked Moshi style – Moshi is a region in northern Tanzania). Mmmm….I wish they had kisamvu more often. I also love how when they do serve it, they’re always worried that I won’t like it. Little do they know that it’s my favourite. It has such an indescribable taste…I swear they put some kind of special spice. I’m starting to think […]
I had a strange day yesterday. It deserves to be recorded in full. First, on Friday night, I went to NCT (National College of Tourism) after work to camp with some of the tour guiding students. One of my fellow CIDA interns work there and they were having an outdoor camping sleepover. It was so much fun. The students had so much energy and huge smiles. We taught each other songs and games. Had food in the candlelight. Made s’mores […]
I learned two new Kiswahili* words yesterday. Translated to English, they both mean corruption. Takrima and Rushwa. Google translate tells me they mean handouts and corruption respectively. In reality, they both have connotations of corruption, but with one crucial difference. Takrima can only be given and never asked for. Rushwa can be asked for. Takrima is like a gift you give to someone with the intention of asking them for a favour. Rushwa can go both ways – you can […]
Lesson: if you’re serious about staying and working in a foreign country, you have two choices: 1) start you job search earlier and/or 2) stay behind for a while to focus on job searching and networking. Do not have vague hopes about funding for your organization to hire you to come in on time (and thus postpone starting your job search). Do not book your ticket out of the place too early and risk having to spend extra to change […]
This morning, I woke up at 3:50 am to skype into a conference in Vancouver at UBC. I was one of the presenters at the panel for International Development Week called “A Day in the Life of the International Humanitarian.“ The theme was a ‘typical day’ of my work (and the 5 other presenters). Just the thought of a ‘typical day’ is quite interesting because the things I do almost always differ from day to day. But I did my […]
