Re-cap

Well, I'm back home now and I don't know if anyone is still reading, but I thought I would just sum up my last week in Tanzania. I didn't write much in my last week since I was pretty sick with a bad cold, my usual stomach issues that I always get when I'm in Tanzania, and a dozen or so bug bites on the backs of my legs that swelled up like 50 cent pieces. It is an adventure to travel to Africa, but there is a lot to put up with, too. It was nice to stay at the nicer hotel with a pool for the second week, but that is when I got the bites, the cold and the stomach issues, so maybe it wasn't such a treat!
The last day in Tanzania was a public holiday so we didn't have to work. We decided to go shopping at a place called Mwenge where they have kiosks set up for people to sell things - mostly carved wood figures, beaded necklaces and things like that.
Shopping is not that much fun in Tanzania since everything has to be negotiated and they tend to double or triple the prices for a white person. They also all try to lure us into their store, so everywhere we walk, people are holding goods in front of us or pointing into their store. If you actually stepped into someone's store, they follow you around like a puppy dog and if you even look at something (or dare to touch it), they will pull it off the shelf and hold it in your face and try to convince you to buy it. If you do decide to buy something and ask how much, they start really high (by their standards, but in reality, we're talking about a few bucks). Our taxi driver told us to just say 'No, half' for whatever they start with. Since I've been so many times before, I know how much some things should cost, so I do a pretty good job of negotiating. It is still a process that is draining for me, though. Its nice to be back to a place where I can just walk into a store and see how much I'm going to pay for something.

One other thing that I wanted to report about my trip was more of how ludicrous bureacracy can be. I've mentioned that one of our projects in Tanzania is to treat children who are HIV + for free thanks to money from a foundation that we received. Most of the children we treat now are children from our Study patients or from a grandmother-to-grandmother program where grandmothers are raising their grandchildren because the parents died of AIDS.
In order to find more children to treat, we decided to go to the orphanages. One of them told us that they didn't want the children at the orphanage tested for HIV because there is a rule that HIV negative children can not stay with HIV + children, and they would have to build a new wing if they knew some were HIV +. We didn't know if that was an orphanage rule or country rule, but that is so ridiculous to me. We want to treat HIV + children for free, but they would rather just not know who might be HIV + because they would have to separate them. Wouldn't it make more sense to test them, treat them, and take proper precautions to not spread the disease to those who are negative?
Sigggh. The world has a long way to go.

Well, that was my trip for this time. I will be going back again in November for our final collaborator meeting for the study. You will probably hear from me again then.

Roasted Goat

Yesterday (Sunday) was a very nice day. Our Study Director (the woman whose husband was running for president last time I was here - he didn't win) invited us all over to her house for a barbecue of roasted goat. All the workers from the clinic were invited, too.
She has an amazing house (mansion!). All the tiles, woodwork, marble columns, etc. inside were direct from Dubai, Italy, etc. This house should be in a House and Garden type magazine. The 'play room' for the kids had a huge, flat screen tv, surround sound, leather couches, and oriental rugs.
We all sat outside by the pool with a constant supply of drinks. It was very nice to see all the staff in a social setting since its usually all work when we're here. Then we had lunch, and believe it or not, the goat was very tasty. We also had chipata (a very tasty bread type thing), rice, spinach, a potato tomato and pea salad, and other things that I'm not sure what they were.

Anyway, a very fun afternoon in Dar es Salaam.
After the party, my co-worker, Wendy and I switched hotels to the Movenpick which used to be a Sheraton. It is so nice to have a little comfort while I'm here for a change. I slept for 11.5 hours last night, and I had a shower with actual water pressure and warm water! At the Swiss Garden Hotel, my bed was so uncomfortable that I have a bruise on my hip from sleeping on my side.
We had a full buffet breakfast included with the room. I think I ate more this morning than I've eaten the entire time I've been here.
Tonight, I'm definitely going for a dip in the pool - another luxury we don't usually get when we are here.

Tanzania Time

We have learned to be very patient throughout the several years that we have been coming here. Tanzania time is just not like US time. If we accomplish 50-60% of our list to do while we are here, we are ecstatic. I have been in someone’s office talking to them and they say that they will be back in a minute. They literally return 3 hours later and start talking again like they just stepped out to the bathroom.

This trip has been filled with Tanzania time escapades. First there is the building that I mentioned before that was supposed to be finished in February. So, they were supposed to turn over the first floor to us Friday morning. Nope - maybe Tuesday now. This company has been losing about $100 per day since the end of March for each day the building is not finished. That doesn’t sound like a lot to us, but even a well paid doctor here only earns about $60 a day.

So, we negotiated to at least let us bring lab equipment, storage, tables, and filing cabinets in since we had movers lined up for Saturday morning. Right now, our labs are on the Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences (MUCHS) campus – about 4 miles from our Infectious Disease Clinic down in the center of town. We were planning on moving all our lab equipment from the campus to our new building on Saturday. Friday afternoon at 2:00, the lab people informed us that we can’t do that because we have to get all these letters of approval from the campus, we have to get passes to get out of the gates, etc., and all of this bureaucracy can take a month. We are so frustrated. They knew for months that we were planning to move the equipment, when we were coming, etc. Why were we just hearing about all this bureaucracy at 2:00 on Friday? Why weren’t they getting those letters for us months ago? Frustrating!
So, that was out, but we still had a ton of equipment and stuff donated by Dartmouth in storage that we could move in.

The moving company told us they would be at the new building at 8:00, so we arranged for the driver to pick us up at 7:45 – a pretty early morning for a Saturday. Since the moving company was on Tanzania time, they arrived at 10:00. After a flurry of activity unloading equipment and stuff, they said they had to go get 1 more load of stuff for us. Three hours (!) later, they showed up with 2 additional little pieces. We just sat there twiddling our thumbs for all the hours in between.
While we were waiting, we were watching the workers work on the building. OSHA would have a fit! I saw a guy outside on the ledge of the building standing barefoot on a turned-over bucket reaching as far as he could to paint the ledge above him.

My work with the computers has been pretty productive, though. I’ve upgraded the 3 computers in the computer room and gotten all the networks, connections, printers, etc. working again. It was funny, though. I was doing updates on the computer, and the internet connection was so slow, I kept getting messages like “458 more minutes for the download to complete.” More patience required! The worst part was when it would be half way through and the power would zap out (as it does often here). Well, that was a wasted 263 minutes. :-)

I have had a fun weekend, though. We have a Finnish lab person working for our study, and we went to her apartment for dinner on Friday. Her complex had a pool, so we got to go for a swim which felt wonderful after a hot, sticky frustrating day.
Today, after the move, we went to a touristy place called Slipway for dinner. There are shops and restaurants there. It’s right on the Indian Ocean and there are usually awesome sunsets there. It didn’t disappoint tonight. We had a glowing red sunset over the water. I got a great picture of it. I had giant prawns (shrimp) for dinner which was very yummy, though the heads, eyes, and shells were still attached which was a little freaky.

My co-worker, Wendy and I are changing hotels tomorrow. By sharing a room, we pay the same as we would pay here at the Swiss Garden Hotel, but we get a little luxury -like a pool, and maybe a shower that comes out in more than a trickle like I’ve had all week here! Can’t wait for that.

Tomorrow, we are also going to our Study Director’s house for a barbecue. What’s on the menu, you ask? Why, roasted goat, of course!

Back in Dar Apr 07

Hi All,
Here I am again in Dar. This is my 9th trip - I think. I start to lose track after awhile. We arrived Tuesday morning at 6:30 am. We had a day layover in London before our overnight flight Monday. They had been having a stretch of unseasonable warm weather, so it was 70 degrees with leaves on the trees, and flowers everywhere. It was a wonderful taste of spring - especially after hearing what you all got back there on Monday.

I'm here with 4 other people from Dartmouth this time - 3 co-workers and one of them brought his 18 year old son. So many of us came because the new Pediatric HIV clinic that we are building was supposed to be finished by now and we are here to move all of our lab equipment, computers, clinic rooms, etc. into the new building. The building was actually supposed to be finished by early February, but since they are on Tanzania time (which is very different from our time as you know from previous posts), the building is still not finished.
We are now charging them a fee for each day they are not finished since the contract states that they were to be done by February. Its amazing how quickly things are moving along now. It actually is a great building. I'm very impressed with it.
We will occupy part of the first floor and the second floor and Harvard will be building a 3rd floor for their use.
The first floor will be turned over to us Friday, so we will start moving lab equipment at 8:00 Saturday morning.
The second floor will be turned over to us next Friday, but since that is the day we leave, we will just store everything on the first floor for now, and they will have to move it later.

The pediatric HIV clinic was created with a $2 million endowment we received from a foundation in the US. The clinic is treating HIV positive children for free. Most of the patients right now are the children of our DARDAR study patients, but we are now doing outreach to reach more children in need. Its a very exciting project and I'm happy to be a part of it and helping in some small way.

My trip was almost postponed because the computer rooms weren't going to be finished while I am here. Fortunately, the computer room construction hasn't been started either, so I could still come and do all my computer transfers, updates, fixes, etc. and they can just easily move the computers later (hopefully!)
That's what I am working on right now. We sent 3 new computers before we came, and I am replacing all the old computers and then relocating those computers to other places.

Its the rainy season now in Tanzania, so its a little cooler and the electricity has been slightly more stable. Its been pouring buckets, though, and getting to work is a chore since we never know if we're going to be swallowed up by one of the lakes in the road. They have very poor drainage here with lots of potholes, so you never know quite how far you're going to drop when driving through standing water on the roads.

More later

the airport

I have to comment on the airport because it is so different than our airports. It is pretty small - probably smaller than a Kmart or Walmart. There are only about 4 airlines that fly out of here. We take British Airways and there are only 3 flights that come in or leave Dar each week - Tuesday, Friday, or Sunday.
Sometimes we go right into the airport from the plane. Sometimes they unload us in the parking area and we have to take a bus to the airport.
The first thing that hits me is the heat. The airport isn't air-conditioned. The second thing that hits me is the smell. Its hard to put into words, but its a combination of stale fish, salt air, and heavy BO. Pleasant, huh? :-) Not to be judgemental, but there is a certain BO smell here that I've never smelled at home - even on the stinkiest, sweatiest person. When I get on a plane, if I smell that certain smell, I can be pretty certain there is an African sitting near me. Not to say that all Tanzanians smell, but they defnitely have different cleanliness standards than we do.

Anyway, after we get off the plane, we wait in long lines. Tanzanians don't rush...ever. We have to wait in line to buy our Visa to get into the country. It costs $50 and they sometimes like to play a power trip and refuse a bill if it has writing on it, if it has the slightest rip, if it is too old or whatever. It cracks me up because you should see their ripped up, gross, filthy money. I just know to bring new bills now, and it usually goes smoothly - even if slowly.
After the visa and the passport check, we go to the one baggage area to claim our bags. This is total chaos. There are people everywhere. Since they only have one small belt, the workers just start lifting off pieces of luggage and setting it on the floor - wherever. We usually carry computers, xrays and all kinds of things with us. So, we have to maneuver in and out of swarms of people to locate all of our boxes and luggage.
Last time I was here, I actually left a computer at the airport. Oops. It all turned out well in the end, though, and I was able to retrieve it two days later.
Then, after we got our luggage, we used to have about 6 taxi drivers dangling keys right in our faces saying Taxi, taxi! They don't allow them to do that anymore, though, thank goodness, because that was quite disconcerting after a 10 hour flight, and feeling jetlagged, and tired.

When leaving, they don't just run a wand around you, they frisk you which almost turns into a breast exam! Last time when I was leaving, they felt the need to search my bags. I've had this done at other airports, too, but in Tanzania, they had to open every zipper of every bag and pull out everything. I had to turn my computer and camera on, and they forgot my little money pouch around my neck, so she had the next person search that. Then, when I was trying to get everything back into my bags that I had packed so carefully, they told me to hurry up because the door was shutting.

So, its definitely an experience each time, but if you go with the attitude that there will be hassles, you just grin and bear it, and soon you're on the plane and heading home.

changes

Dar es Salaam has really changed a lot in the 5 years since I started coming here. Tanzania is right on the east coast of Africa with palm trees, white sand beaches and the warm, aqua-colored Indian Ocean. It really is (or could be) a beautiful place. I bet in a few more years, this will be a resort area like the Caribbean or Hawaii or somewhere.
Tanzania also has the Serengetti, the largest animal reserve for safaris and Mount Kilimanjaro, the largest mountain in Africa, and the island of Zanzibar, known for spices and Stone Town.
It is already a somewhat touristy area because of those attractions. People generally fly into Dar before heading out on safari.
I have mixed feelings about all the growth here, though. If the Tanzanians benefitted, it would be great, but my sense is that people with money come in, put up a big fancy hotel, bring their people in to run it and then put a gate around it to keep the undesirables out.
We went to the newly refurbished Kilimanjaro Hotel the other day for a meeting. It was like stepping into the Trump Tower in NYC. I certainly didn't feel like I was in Dar anymore. There were security guards at the gate. There were 2 doormen standing by the door...and it was an electronic door! I'm still not sure of their purpose for standing there. It was glitz and glamour inside like I've never seen in Dar.
It does give lots of locals jobs, though, which is good as long as they are treated and paid well.

They really need to work on the infrastructure before growing too much, though. The ocean right off the coast is filthy because of sewage, garbage, etc. The water in the city is still undrinkable and unswimmable. The roads are still mostly dirt and filled with huge potholes. The electricity still goes out quite often. They just seem to pile up garbage along the sides of the roads and burn it when the pile gets too big. The cars are probably still using leaded fuel, and the oil and gas smell when driving down the road is almost unbearable. There are obviously no pollution standards here. There seems to be no rules for driving. It seems like utter chaos, but it also somehow works. I'm always amazed that we actually get where we're going. I would never attempt to drive here, though. The other day, it was the worst I've seen it. There were 6 cars (including ours) entering an intersection at one time, and everyone sat there looking at the others waiting for someone to back up and move. A short distance down the road, all cars were stopped as two drivers were in the middle of the road having a fist fight.

So, in my opinion, its great that there are people bringing money here to build up and fix the area, but it will also be sad to see the Tanzanian way of life fade out and become just like any other other resort area with fancy hotels and exclusivity. It also seems to mean that the haves and have nots are getting a wider gap between them which is sad because that means the Tanzanians are the ones left out of the growth and prosperity and the foreigners profit from their beautiful area.

Oct 2005 - Here again/ election

Here I am in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania yet again. I've been here a week, but I haven't really found the time to write, yet. Our study is going well and things are moving along as smoothly as they ever do here in Africa.
We are also in the process of building a clinic to treat and give antiretrovirals to children who are HIV positive. This is with a 2 million dollar endowment that we received several months ago. We have the usual red tape and bureacracy to deal with in trying to get anything done in Tanzania, but we are a few more steps closer after this visit. It will take up to a year or more to finish the building, though.

The presidential election in Tanzania is Oct 30. A president is elected every 5 years here. The funny thing is that the husband of the doctor who runs our study here (Lillian) is a candidate for president! We may be associated with the future first lady of Tanzania. If he wins the election, of course that means we would lose her as our Study Director which would be terrible because she is wonderful. She has a photographic memory and could tell you just about anything about one of our 2000 study patients just from memory.
We learned a lot about the Tanzanian government and the elections while we were here. Lilly was trying to focus on the study and the patients all week, as well as help her husband with the campaign. She spent all week trying to find barrels for fuel for the helicopter. She and her husband were going to be campaigning by helicopter this weekend. She finally found fuel, but they didn't have barrels. There is only one company that provides fuel in Tanzania. When she finally found barrels, they said they couldn't use them since they didn't have their company name on them. Of course, its all political. If they don't give them fuel, they can't campaign, and then their person can win. Its such a corrupt election here. It was amazing to hear all the things that go on here. It really is an uphill battle for anyone but the main party to win. And we thought we had problems with the Florida fiasco in 2000. I think Lilly did eventually get it all worked out after hundreds of phone calls and they were able to get their fuel and barrels. They are the first ones in Tanzania ever to campaign by helicopter.

We went to dinner the other night at Lilly's house. We were trying to give directions to the taxi driver, but got a little lost. Then we saw the posters for her husband, so knew we were in the right place. When we pointed out the poster, the taxi driver said that Freeman Mbowe (Lilly's husband) lives here. We said we knew. That was where we were going. His eyes got big and he was very impressed. I'm sure he went back and told his friends that he had just dropped people off at Freeman Mbowe's house. That was kind of fun to see his reaction. Then, during dinner, we got to watch her husband on tv as he was giving a press conference.

It was a very nice evening anyway. It was Lilly's birthday, so she had other people over, too, and we all had a lot of fun.

work

Just so that you don't think all I do is play down here, I thought I would write a little about work. Our project is the DARDAR Health Study. (for DARtmouth and DAR es Salaam. I actually came up with the name, but I was joking and everyone liked it, so it stuck) It is called Health Study because there is still such a stigma about HIV/AIDS, so people wouldn't come if others knew it was an AIDS study. Our study is a TB vaccine study in HIV+ adults. TB is the number one killer down here of those who are HIV+ because once their immune system is weakened, it is very easy to get TB through particles in the air.
We are enrolling 2300 patients and half get the vaccine and half get the placebo. Each patient has about 30 visits, so it is a very huge project. My part in the project is managing the budget (with subcontracts in Finland, Tanzania, and Boston University) and to manage the computers and data. I created all the databases (more than 60 at the moment) and I try to keep the computers, printers, network, etc. working down here.
The people we work with here are wonderful. They are all so nice and friendly and competent. We really have a great group. I wish I spoke more Swahili so that I could get to know them all better. I always hear them laughing. They just really seem to enjoy life.
Its also very frustrating working here. Every day and week brings new problems to solve. The electricity goes out about 20 times a day here. Right now I'm listening to a very noisy generator because the power was out when I came in this morning. The other day, I couldn't get one computer to turn on, so after trying everything I knew, I opened it up and there was literally an inch of dust in it. After I blew it all out and cleaned the key components, surprisingly it worked again.
We've had vaccine go bad because the electricity was out for 4 days and no one thought to move it to a refrigerator where they had power. We've had parts stolen out of a computer that was in a box in a locked room. We can't buy any supplies down here, so we ship everything down and then it sits in the airport for a month until we bribe them to get our stuff. We've had stuff shipped from here go to Lebanon, Beirut instead of Lebanon, NH where we then can't get it out because of an embargo. And that is just a small sampling of the hassles and frustration we deal with on a weekly basis. Everything takes 4 times longer than it should. So, its definitely not all fun and games.
But, the study seems to be going well. We have about 1600 patients enrolled so far, and we've managed to put out all the fires that have come up so far. We are definitely making a difference in some small way for the people here.
We got a severe rain storm Monday night. It just came down in buckets for a few hours. Normally, if it rains that hard at home, its for a few minutes, and then its just a steady rain after that. There is poor drainage here, so cars were driving through water up to the tops of their tires on the way in to work. The roads are in horrible shape here anyway, so when it rains like that, it just creates huge problems in the roads. I'm surprised cars last at all here.
This will be my last blog for this trip since I head home Friday morning. (arriving home Saturday afternoon) I have to get back to work - lots to finish in my last two days. I hope I've given you a little insight about my experiences in Tanzania.
Kwaheri (goodbye)

Zanzibar

The island of Zanzibar is technically part of Tanzania, but they have their own government and in many ways, they see themselves as separate. Zanzibar is called 'Spice Island' because many different spices grow there. It is about a 2-3 hour ferry ride from Dar es Salaam depending on which ferry you take.
I'd been once before on my first visit, but I only stayed in Stone Town which is right near the ferry. This time, we went out to the East Coast which is beautiful. The hotel we stayed at was called Robinson's Place. It just had 4 little bungalows or huts (I'm not sure what you would call them), each with 2 rooms. There was no electricity, only oil lanterns. We did have water, though, which is stored in a gravity tank or something. The bungalows were right on the beach.
http://www.robinsonsplace.net/acco_frame.html if you want to check it out. I was in the main house.
The owners of the hotel are a guy from Zanzibar named Edi and his Swiss wife, Ann. We only met Edi. His wife was travelling. He is quite a character. I can only describe him as a laid-back Jamaican type man with wild geri-curls all over and a wild beard. He was so funny.
We arrived Friday night after dark and they had to come out and greet us with lanterns. People had already sat down to dinner, so we joined them. The other 6 guests of the hotel were all sitting on the ground in a little circle inside a little open hut with only a couple lanterns for light. Dinner was fish caught fresh that day, rice, and some kind of vegetable, but it was too dark to see. We sat around chatting for awhile, and then headed to bed. Since the lanterns didn't provide enough light to read, I went to bed by 9:30.
The next day, breakfast was the freshest fruit I've ever tasted in my life - mango, passion fruit, pineapple, and watermelon. I even loved the pineapple which I normally hate. We left early for our dolphin tour, and got back around 1:30. I spent the day lounging in a hammock surrounded by palm trees, alternately reading and napping. It was heaven. After awhile I decided to go for a walk on the beach. I thought the sand on Bongoyo Island was soft. This sand was literally like walking in flour. There was no graininess to it whatsoever. It was just powder. It was essentially a deserted beach for miles. Occasionally an African would ride by on a bike, probably on his way back to the village since I imagine the beach was easier to ride on rather than the bumpy dirt roads.
By that night at dinner, I had gotten to know the guests of the hotel much better, so it was a lot livelier than the night before. We were having a lot of fun, and sat around talking for quite awhile. After awhile, somebody suggested going to the 'disco' up the road to 'shake our bodies', as Edi said. Just about everybody at the hotel went including Edi and Chande, one of the guys that helps Edi. Chande was hilarious. He was another 'Jamaican-type' guy. I think he had a little thing for me. He was trying to convince me to stay and not go back to the States.
We walked up the beach about 15 minutes to the 'disco'. It was such a gorgeous night. We just had the stars and moon for light and there was a wonderful breeze coming off the ocean.
There weren't many people at the disco when we got there, but Edi requested some reggae music from the DJ, and all 7 of us were out there 'shaking our bodies'. Yes, I was out there dancing, too! :-) It is true that white people have no rhythm - at least compared to the Africans. Edi and Chande were jumping around like crazy. The Mzungus (me, my colleague, and 3 people from England) were going from one foot to the other like we do. I'm sure there were lots of people commenting about those white people out there, but it was lots of fun.
On the walk back, there was a hazy moon, the stars were very bright, there was a nice breeze, and here I was in Africa, walking on the beach of the Indian Ocean at midnight or so. It is definitely a scene embedded in my mind forever. To add to the scene, a couple of dark shapes came walking up the beach toward us. As they got closer, I realized they were cows! I guess even cows like to take moonlit strolls. :-) They don't tie up or fence in their cows here, so they pretty much just wander anywhere. I don't think I've ever seen a cow on the beach before.

I know this is long, but it was such a cool weekend. Just a couple more observations. We drove through and by many little villages on the way to the hotel and to see the dolphins. The villages here are a lot like what we think of African villages being like - little huts scattered around, women carrying large piles of stuff on their heads, children running around barefoot, some naked, some little girls with the too big, dirty, fancy dresses that must be shipped here from Goodwill or something, cows wandering around, people pushing carts of things on the roads, etc. Our taxi driver stopped along the road to buy some mangos, so I was playing hide and seek from the car with one little girl. She would pop into the doorway, yell Jambo, and then when I would wave, she would giggle and scream and duck behind the door. We did this for a full 5 minutes.
I wouldn't want to ride a bike on the roads here, though. We passed lots of bicyclists - most riding the old fashioned kind of bike with no gears and with rims over the tires. The taxi drivers don't slow down at all for bicyclists. They start beeping about 100 yds back and you've got until then to get over. If a car happens to be coming from the other way at the same time, watch out, because they don't slow down then either to wait to go around you. We actually brushed against one guy on a bike.
Well, that was my weekend. I finished off my stay on Zanzibar this morning by having a mango milkshake back in Stone Town while waiting for the ferry. Very yummy! After a rustic weekend away, I have to say that it was nice to get back to the "luxury" of the Swiss Garden Hotel, though.
Now, back to work tomorrow.

Swimming with dolphins!

I got to swim with dolphins on Zanzibar! OK, its more like chasing dolphins, but I have to say that was probably one of the coolest things I've ever done. They take us out in this little motor boat. There was just me, my colleague from Dartmouth, 2 people from Switzerland that joined us, and the guy running the boat. They go out until we see the dolphins playing in the water (which would have been cool enough just seeing that!), and then we jump off the boat with our flippers and snorkel and mask on. The first time, I jumped off, and when I came up, I adjusted my mask and put my face in the water...and there they were! There were about 5 of them swimming right below me. A couple people said there was a baby, but I didn't see that. They swim pretty fast, and my snorkel didn't work well at all, so I could only stay under for a few breaths before I felt like I was hyperventilating.
When they swim out of range, we get back in the boat, and follow them, and then we jump off and try to swim after them to see them again. We jumped off the boat 4 or 5 times and I saw them 3 times. Partly, I feel bad that the boats chase them, though. They don't seem to mind swimming with us, but I don't think they like the boats.
The one bad thing was the little jelly fish that kept stinging me while I was in the water. A few people that had gone the day before warned us about that. There were no lasting marks or anything from them, but it was very annoying feeling these stings all over while swimming in the water.
Ater seeing the dolphins, the guy took us in toward the coast to do a little snorkeling. That was pretty cool, too. I saw quite a few different kinds of fish.
In the US, we would have had to sign several waivers to do something like this saying that we didn't hold them responsible for anything and that we might not see any dolphins, etc. Nothing like that here. The place we stayed arranged for a taxi to take us there (about an hour away), they gave us fins and snorkeling stuff (yeah, you get a little used to not having everything so clean and germ-free here), and hopped on a boat. We never even paid until we got back. Fortunately, it was overcast that day, so I didn't get fried.
Definitely up there on one of the most awesome experiences of my life!

Our hotel

We always stay at the Swiss Garden Hotel when we come to Tanzania. It is a small 12 room hotel owned by a Swiss man, Beat (pronounced Bay-ot) and his Tanzanian wife Juliana. They are wonderful people. Every time I visit, there are new improvements. For the past couple of years, they have had internet access in every room. The rooms are basic with a desk and bed with just a sheet and a mosquito net over it. (Blankets are rarely needed here!) Each room has a bathroom, and they've all been redone since I visited last which is wonderful. I usually share my room with a couple of geckos (probably trying to sell me car insurance), some mosquitoes that just love me (I think the mosquito smoke signal goes out when I arrive. "Yay, that white woman with the delicious tasting blood is back. Everybody head to room 2!"), and I even shared my bathroom with a cockroach the size of an egg once. I made sure that he stayed on his side of the bathroom when I was in there, though. Last night, I had a thick, black worm-like thing slithering along my floor. I drew the line at sharing my room with him. He was scooped and flushed!
We eat breakfast outside under a thatched roof hut at the hotel. It usually consists of some fruit like mango, papaya, pineapple, or watermelon, and I also get an egg. There is usually bread or cereal (stale from the humidity) on the table as well. The crows are getting braver. The other day, one landed in the bowl of cereal. (another reason why I don't usually have cereal here!)
If we eat at the hotel, dinner is also outside with all the other guests from the hotel. Most of the guests who stay here are usually here doing some sort of business just as we are. I've met economists, agriculturists, people doing malaria research, and lots of others. It's pretty cool eating dinner with people from all over the world. I've met some incredible people during my stays here. Last night, there were people from Ireland, Edmonton, Toronto, London, Italy, Finland, and Sweden. I had actually met the man from Ireland and the woman from Finland here on previous visits. It is like a homecoming each time I return! The man from Ireland was the one who told me last time that I looked like I'd just been plucked out of Ireland yesterday when I told him I had Irish in my blood. It really is a small world out there.
I'm off to the island of Zanzibar this weekend. When I return, I'll write about my experiences there including swimming with dolphins! Can't wait!