Buswelu!

Lake Victoria, Mwanza
Originally uploaded by An Smith.

We are living in a place called Buswelu. It's about twenty minutes by car from Mwanza which is a small town located on Lake Victoria in Tanzania, East Africa.

Our house is cool - we have four roommates (other volunteers), electricity most of the time (no fridge or hot water) and we cook on kerosene stoves. The boys from one of the orphanages come and fill the tank on the roof with well water every week so we can shower and flush! We also have a Masaai who is our night watchman. He basically patrols the house at night and makes sure there are no problems. He protects us with a bow and arrow and a machete (I am totally serious). Denise and I had bow and arrow lessons last week (in the dark). He is sooooooo bad ass cool.

So putting down our bags for six weeks is an amazing feeling!! It's nice to stop and settle in for a while (oh yeah, and two days in we extended by another two weeks because we just adore it here). The orphanage is close to home and we can get the basics in Buswelu corner (there is a scattering of fruit and veggie stands and a few duka's that sell eggs, water, bread and basic items like soap and detergent). There is also (strangely) a million places to get your hair cut, but anything more complicated and we need to go to town.

Obviously we don't have a car so we rely on Dala Dala's to get us in and out of Mwanza (after dark we taxi). It's about 0.40cents one way and it takes a good hour and a half to catch one and get into town. (We sometimes walk up to half an hour or more until one goes flying by and we wave it down - they don't have bus stops really. It's actually much smarter in my opinion.. you get exercise and closer to your destination instead of standing around like a dummy).

Anyway, the dala dala is basically a large van with four benches and the idea is to mash as many people in as possible. If you are last to get on you have to sit on laps, stand or lie on top of people vertically and there is a possibility that limbs are hanging out. If you can do some sort of funky bendy thing with your body and get comfy you are totally laughing. Yeah, it gets super hot and smushy but it's fun. The more mashed you are, the less you notice the pot holes! The other day we ended up hitching on a school bus dala dala and the kids sang English songs for us while we dropped them off at their homes throughout Mwanza. Adorable!!

*Interesting Dala Dala tid bit - on the way in this morning I felt a sprinkling of something on my toes, looked down and realized the floor where my feet were was quickly being flooded with 'water'. I then realized the baby sitting on the ladies lap in front of me must have peed. The funny part of the story is that the mom and baby got off at the next stop. Unfortunately the baby wasn't sitting on mom's lap - yup, complete stranger got peed on !! See the thing is, if you have a free lap you get children, chickens or groceries shoved in it. What happens next is your problem :)*

So we are settling in quite nicely. We were even welcomed with a mild dose of Malaria - but we are feeling fine and took the meds and caught it in time before any serious side effects.. I actually didn't feel sick at all. Mom stop panicking and having malaria conference calls with Denise's mom ;).

The thing that is shocking Denise and I the most about our time here is our social life.. we suddenly are out every night and we've consumed more wine in the last week and a half that I ever have in my life. Last Sunday we took a boat ride on Lake Vic and went to a resort (friends of friends kind of thing) for a poikey (yum, lamb stew) and we swam and drank copious amounts of South Africa red wine. Last night we strolled in around 4am and there is a party for us tonight at some house on Lake Vic.

Pole F'ing Sana my friends.