Rich the Chippie

Rich has always faniced himself as a bit of a chippie. He loves wood and has always talked about working with it. Of all the trades, carpentry is the one he loves and most enjoys. However, back in the UK he had not really had the opportunity to indulge in much wood work. (Mostly because the majority of his spare time was spent in the garage fixing the cars, putting in kitchen's, bathrooms or re-building the mini.)

Here everything is different. Firstly there is no garage for him to disappear into for an evening's entertainment. Secondly, there is no Ikea or Argos for cheap furniture. Everything is made to order in town by carpenters.

We had decided that we should upgrade our coffee table from a cardboard box to an actual table. Rich decided that this was a project he could take on himself in order to prove his skills as a carpenter. After an evening drawing up plans and discussing designs, he and James (who was visiting at the time) headed off into town to try and locate some suitable material for the project. They returned with wood of various shapes and sizes and started work the next day.

After a day of listening to the noises of circular saws, planers, sanders and hammering they were finished and ready to present their creation to the world, and here it is!

Half the fun is working with the power tools!

Measuring it all up and fitting it together.

Getting a good finish on the wood.

The finished product!

A visit from Mr and Mrs Pinto!!

Today we were sorry to say goodbye to James and Anna Pinto who have been with us for the last two and a half weeks. We have absolutely LOVED every minute they have been with us and have some fab memories and photo's to share on our blog!

We began our adventures together by driving north from Dar es Salaam to stay near Arusha and use that as a base for then going on safari. We spent a day at lake Manyara about an hour and a half's drive from Arusha and then headed on to the Ngorongoro crater. Both of these places were just incredible and we saw some beautiful wildlife. Although the crater was very impressive, we loved lake Manyara as we were so close to the animals. At one point our car was almost charged by an elephant which seemed to make our guide a little bit nervous, but we were just so overwhelmed and excited to be so close to a real life, wild elephant!

On returning to the island, we dragged James and Anna around while we did all our jobs and tried to get back into our usual routine. They did brilliantly and even attempted an outing on a dala dala (local mini bus) all by themselves!

Rich loved having someone to play with and gad about with. It gave me the opportunity to get on with some reading, rather than being called upon for entertainment!!

Anyway, enough of all this talking, here are some photo's from our time together for you all to enjoy!

Anna and James eating an early breakfast while waiting to enter the crater.

We saw loads of hippo's at both of the parks we went to. They are such weird looking animals!

This is the elephant that started to get a little bit too close to our car (there's no zoom used in the picture, he really was that close!)

This is the car that we spent the better part of 48 hours in driving round lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro crater trying to find exciting wildlife.

We had hoped, but hadn't really expected that we would see any cats on our safari, so we were very happy when we saw thes lions lazing in the sun!

We came across another car with a group of tourists all intently looking at a big stretch of grass. When we asked them what they were looking at they informed us that a Cheetah was lying down in the tall grass. So we waited and our patience was rewarded by this glimpse of a Cheetah.

One of many giraffes at lake Manyara.

Our day in the crater was really cold! We were in our element wearing thick jumpers and even wrapping up in warm blankets!

The best cake in Tanzania! We found this amazing little patisserie/coffee shop which served incredible food including these yummy cakes. At the top is chocolate cheesecake, carrot cake on either side and an eclair at the bottom.

Once we were back home we went to the south east corner of the island and went out on a boat to go swimming with dolphins which was AMAZING!! This is a picture of Rich with a group of dolphins. They were incredible beautiful, graceful and somehow peaceful to watch.

After we saw the dolphins, the boys all went off snorkelling and as they were coming out of the water, James fell on a sea urchin. The whitey/purple areas on his thumb and first two fingures are where the sea urchin spikes broke off in his hand. We estimate that he had approximately 30 or so spikes in his hand.

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