INTRO

If you’ve opened this entry, you are already interested in helping others. That’s how I started just over a year ago, and this is where I am now.

Got a new job too.

Most of us reach a crossroads, a point in in our lives when we contemplate our priorities and what we’d like to achieve while we still can.

This site is a personal and loose documentation of my 13 weeks of voluntary work in Uganda, followed by my “pat on the back” – a journey through the game parks and culture of Tanzania. I set out to achieve something I’d thought about frequently but never dreamt I’d actually dare to do, and I did it. Tiring though….

Due to the vagaries of WordPress, the entries are upside down, first post at the bottom.
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I’ve always wanted Du-bai a fake Rolex

..and tonight was the perfect opportunity! The archetypal dodgy back street boys led me up a lift to a smelly old office from where out came a cardboard box with…a gun, no just kidding, a swag of Rolexes!

This is not a fake Rolex, have to protect our man’s dealings. It’s a mosque.

This is a reflection, there’s a lot of gold in Dubai…

And that, folks, says much. And it’s about it. Tomorrow morning I leave Dubai, Sydnee, Chch, Nelson, and home. Too many stories, too much to tell. I’m looking forward to a new normality and to processing all this.

Thank you all for your support and love, the people at home, overseas, and the many wonderful friends I’ve made along this journey.

Good luck really does lie at the crossroads of planning and opportunity.

……………………………………

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See Diary #16

Rest, reflections, and re-adjustments, the Three R’s
And some concluding thoughts….

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Can it get any better?

… Like I said before, only if all of you were here with me.
However my surrogate family is doing me so very proud. Cliches aside it seems a month or 2 that we’ve been a team, not 13 days….

These people are beautiful.

Tanzania is an interesting place. We shot through it in a week, including Serengeti and Ngorogoro, as documented by our man. Mixed landscapes…

Hot and humid but much drier than equatorial Uganda or Kenya.
Except in the mountains where we stayed 2 nights. Whilst other mere mortals upgraded to real rooms, OMIK saved the MI5 expense account and camped, catching more than a few stars and the odd passing drop of dew…. Beautiful up here.

…before heading south through more amazing landscapes…

…

and finally ferrying over (rather akin to Wellington to Picton) to the “spice island” of Zanzibar.

The spice tour, gotta do it.

So tasteful. Ginger, vanilla, cardomon, turmeric, the wonderful “lipstick” plant…

Chanel#5 (more than a passing resemblance actually, if memory somehow serves me right), pepper, chilli, nutmeg and mace, cinnamon, and the king of spices, cloves:

Brilliant, just so interesting. I’ll never look at a curry the same way again. And a cosmic lunch of every tropical fruit ever invented and spiced octopus, of all things.

I could really fall in love with this island.

Could it get any better? Well I wouldn’t ask if the answer wasn’t Yes. The last accommodation of the tour was to be the best. Somehow I’ve managed to not share tents or rooms which has been great and more than possibly one of the increasing number of benefits of age and the sympathy it evokes:

Swanky hotel on the white sand beach, at the top of the island. Think Abel Tasman with sea at 30’C. And turtles.

Today we had a snorkel tour (as an aside, note, some people don’t go in for tours, too organized. Me, give me every tour you can imagine then send me on a tourism conference).

.. though too many tours can get to you…

And, don’t you love the evocation of a dhow, traditional sailing boat, variation of a dory.

My dad would SO have loved to join me, sailing into the African sunset on one…

…with my newest bestest shipmates:

Including captain Dan, our stalwart Kenyan tour leader…

… Love birds Simon and Liz, who became engaged on this very jaunt under the most romantic conditions known to man or woman, with Simon slipping both the ring and the question down in the hold…

…while the crew slipped discretely up to the poop deck for a beer…

and a dive…

And as the sun set slowly in the west…

… we bade farewell to another perfect day in paradise, to the mixed and possibly incompatible refrains of “Wonderful World”, “South Pacific” and “Captain Pugwash”.

Dan and I are scheming a scheme to bring tourists here to my sailing school. And, naturally, stranger things have happened.

I’m so very happy for Simon and Liz, a great combo. Go well in harmony, you two.

So, no, sorry, it don’t get no better after this.

The team dissipates tomorrow morning, dissolving back into their other worlds with a little added spice in their veins.

I’m staying on for 2 extra days, part of our man’s master plan to readjust to whatever the rest of my life may bring. R and R, reflection and readjustment.

Nearly home after so long. It will be good.

And maybe not before time…

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Q and A

Ok you wonderful people, time for your questions; anything about our man’s amazing journey, Uganda, voluntary work, rice mulch or buffaloes. ……. This should be interesting!
Fire at will……

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Our man in the Indian oh-cean

I’m in Zanzibar and it’s amazing. Early start on the ferry this morning (upped tents at 3.30 am from beach side campsite in Dar es Salaaam.)…

First time for front and back pregnancies…

And

And

Zanzibar is amazing. I have 5 nights here, 3 with this amazing group…
And 2 on my own, actually alongside Terri and Steve from Melbourne.

Now we’re here..

Sea is HOT, air is VERY hot and humid, beautiful. I could only be happier if you were all here with me, to share an amazing ending to this incredible journey.
More later.

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My family and other animals

Tanzania, lovely country, makes Uganda seem VERY poor.

Just look at these lucky animals…

This is the Ngorogoro Crater. It’s 4000 sq km of wildlife, pretty much completely cut off from the rest of the country.

The animals stay there and their populations are static – a testiment to hands off the environment. And amazing considering the amount of carnage going on at any one time.

These examples of early hominid are Sim and his mate Simon.

The zebras live with the wildebeast cos the zebras have good eyesight, so they go ahead at night, while the wildebeast have good smell and lead the way at day. Clever.

We saw a lion pack tearing a wildebeast to pieces, presumably having attacked from downwind. There’s a frustration lying in wait behind every solution!

Then they laid down in the road after their 40 kg lunches, and this truck had to wait! We left….

Now we’re in the mountains of NE Tanzania, a bit cooler, around 30’C. 2 nights camping here then off to Dar es Salaam, then Zanzibar.

I’m a happy man and it just keeps getting better.

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