Only in Africa - Driving Range.

The boys on our team were recently very excited to find that there was in fact a driving range in the town we live in. They all went along for an afternoon's manly activity and came back full of stories about the African-ness of the driving range.
Rich went again yesterday, with a friend who is staying for a while, for a Sunday afternoon of hitting golf balls. Rich took these pictures of the driving range on his phone for you all to laugh at and enjoy.


As you can see the range itself is no bigger than a large-ish garden and close behind the back fence are some houses. Of course this then provides endless fun of seeing how many balls one can hit into the village. Note also the car parked in a precarious position. Apparently there are no smashed windows as yet, but the body work is a bit dented.

This picture of James preparing to take a shot gives an idea of the width of the range. Lining the right hand side of the grass is a row of duka's (shops) and warehouses and on the left hand side is a restaurant with air conditioning units on the outside making convenient targets for cheeky boys!!

Only in Africa!!!

Funny Hats

At night, in every city we visited, the streets were overwhelmed with women walking around with trays strapped to them (a bit like the trays used in cinema’s and theatres during the interval to sell ice cream) full of nik naks, such as bracelets, hats and wooden frogs that make a sort of croaking sound when you rub a stick of wood over their back. We never did actually count how many would approach us during our evening meals, but on some evening’s it was easily 20 or so different women all offering exactly the same thing.
After a while Rich decided to mess around with them a bit, so he would point at Hans (our team leader) and mime putting a hat on him. One lady obviously thought that there was scope in this for making a bit of money, so she put hats on everyone at the table while we took photo’s and had a bit of a giggle. Jason then commented to Rich something along the lines of ‘I wonder how much this is going to cost us?’ No sooner had the words been uttered, the lady was asking for money and insisting that we buy something in return for the photo’s. Suddenly everyone else around the table was very deep in conversation and I, who was sat right next to the lady, was left to try and explain that we didn’t want anything. Eventually she did go away, but I was convinced that she would be waiting for us around the corner when we eventually made our way back to the hotel at the end of the evening!

South East Asia - A tour of the city

During the two days we had prior to our conference, we were able to have a bit of a holiday and do a bit of shopping and site seeing.
We decided to go and visit the grand palace and as it was close we thought we would walk there. On our way we met a man who very helpfully informed us that the palace would not be open until the afternoon and that because it was the week of the Queen’s birthday we could benefit from a special tour offered by the local tuk tuk drivers. For a bargain price of around 50p for both of us, we could have a 2 – 3 hour tour of the city and visit most of the sites (mostly temples in this city). Usually we are fairly stubborn and like to do things our own way according to our own plan. However, we decided to through caution into the wind and climbed aboard the next tuk tuk that passed us and began our city tour. It soon became obvious that it wasn’t so straightforward as paying 50p for a city tour. As various shops and outlets were included in our tour and our driver became more and more disappointed with our very brief stops and these outlets. We soon discovered that apparently the drivers get a fuel voucher for bringing along customers to these shops and because we had no intentions of buying anything from any of the places we were taken too (they weren’t what you would call the most bargainous of shops) our driver wasn’t doing too well out of us.
Eventually he told us the situation and we decided to humour him by taking a bit longer to look around a jewellery shop and factory and showing a bit of interest in buying something. However, by then the damage had been done and he told us that he would take us to one last temple and leave us there! We were a bit surprised as we thought we had done our best to be obliging and helpful to him, but apparently not...

The view from our tuk tuk and our driver.

The tallest Buddah in the city.

A Buddah in one of the city temples.

A pretty bulding!

Reverse Culture Shock.

We were once told that returning to our home culture would result in almost as big a culture shock as coming to Africa in the first place did. We were doubtful after all, what could be more normal than returning to the culture we have spent our whole lives in?
On our recent trip to South East Asia we discovered that the advice we had been given was 100% accurate. Although, strictly speaking, South East Asia is yet another culture, there are many similarities between the cities we visited and our beloved home country!
We were gobsmacked by the sheer size and variety of everything. From Starbucks and McDonalds to Topman, Whittard and Boots. Glittering, air conditioned shopping centres that frankly put West Quay to shame. We were literally walking around with our eyes wide and our jaws dropping at each new discovery, not unlike children in a toy shop.

Good old Maccy D's!! Been a long time since we last saw the golden arches!!

Central World Shopping Mall - loads of shiny, glittery shops.

The main tourist hotspot - loads of stalls selling food, clothes and souvenirs lining the street.

Photo's from our recent travels

We arrived back yesterday from South East Asia where we have been for the last 10 days. Part work and part play. We had a couple of days before the work part of our time began to enjoy yet another culture.
There are many stories to tell from this trip and I shall endeavour to write about some of them over subsequent blog entries. For now I will mainly post pictures for you to enjoy and to get a bit of a taster of our time away.

At Dar es Salaam - Literally after travelling for less than an hour we stopped at the capital to pick up more passengers only to find that one of the engines would not start again. We were all taken off the plane and given soda and pie type food while fundi's (technicians) took the plane apart in order to put in a new starter motor...

One of Rich's favourite parts of our holiday time was all the food that was available on the streets for bargain prices. Often he would buy street food after just eating his real dinner in a restaurant. Why he isn't fat I don't know... life isn't fair.

The boys bravely eating fried grasshoppers!! Yet more of the street food on offer.

Public transport along the river.


At one of the MANY temples in the city.


For the first time in 10 months Rich found a drum kit in one of the upmarket shopping centres. Left me free to do some browsing and kept him entertained for a while.

At the airport waiting for our flights home. We had 12 hours to wait for our flight back to Africa so thought we would pass the time watching some films. Somehow we managed to book separate flights to Addis Abbaba and Rich and I got bumped up to Cloud 9 (Ethiopian airways first class) - bonus!!

Rich watching the luggage during the loooooooooong wait for our connecting flight to Addis