Automatic For The People...

So, the new car. It's an automatic. Not so good for some of the rough spots around here, but pretty easy when dealing with the town traffic. It's a Suzuki Escudo, 2.5l petrol, fairly economical, & pretty peppy, which is good for passing large trucks doing 5 kilometres per millenium. We've had to do a bit of work on the transmission since we got it, but she's running pretty sweet now.

Of course, we need to upgrade a few things to deal with the roads here, like better tyres & stronger suspension (and a bullbar, some spots, a winch, recovery kit, & perhaps a roof-mounted RPG for dealing with the traffic here). I've included a picture of what it could look like...

Which I think is much better, on the whole. I still miss the old Battle Truck, though. That thing would've had a ball here. Anyway, it's good to be mobile again, I can get to work every day without worrying how, the same for Aimee, & we get to get away occasionally.

As for work, Aimee's still rocking at the salon, & I'm now managing a French wine & cheese shop for some friends of ours who are away over Christmas. So, lots of wine & cheese for me, but also lots of responsibilities, like paying the rent & utilities, keeping the shop stocked, dealing with pain-in-the-ass customers, & trying not to melt as the wee little air conditioner struggles to keep the temperature at around 32 degrees. Celsius. Seriously, 3 freezers, 3 fridges, & the sun shining straight in the shop-front are a bit much to handle on a sunny day. I wish I was back in the height of NZ summer, because it's cooler than my "air-conditioned" shop. :)

Anyway, off now, I'll try to keep up with regular updates now I have a laptop & can get sketchy internet through my phone.

Perhaps we can have nice things after all...

Just a short post, the first update in a long while.

The News In Brief:

1. We now have a car. A Suzuki Escudo (Vitara for the Kiwis). Needs upgraded suspension & tyres to deal with Africa properly, but it's fine for the moment. Finally a decent reliable vehicle to get us around in.

2. I have a new laptop, courtesy of Dell, my parents & Phil, & finally brought over by a very generous chap who's coming to work with Aimee's parents. For those interested, it's an Alienware M17x, with Core2Duo 2.66ghz processors, 4gb RAM, 1TB of storage in a RAID-0 2x500gb config, & dual SLI 1gb video cards. Screamin.

3. I finally got to fly my paraglider over here, just a few short soaring flights, but it was brilliant after 5 months of not getting out.

So, thing are finally looking up, although not at all in the ways we expected when we came over here. God seems to have pulled a few strings, so that in the long view, we've managed to upgrade a few things we'll need, which should help us in the long term over here. I'll write more in detail about the car & other things in subsequent posts, but for now, rest assured that we're still alive, & now back in contact with the outside world.

Musical Cars (a game for two or more players...)

So, the Land Rover has died. Again, & Finally. Apparently, it's one of the diffs that's gone, & would be pretty costly to fix. So we're without a vehicle now, & with about 75km of travelling to do each day, things are looking rather Interesting. Instead of pouring even more money into the black hole that is a Land Rover, we've ordered a vehicle from Japan, but it'll be at least 6 weeks before it gets here, so in the meantime, we're borrowing other people's vehicles when they can spare them, & praying like mad that we find one to use until the new vehicle arrives. At the moment, we're pretty much living day-to-day in terms of transport, so any prayer you guys can spare is appreciated... :)

Aimee is still loving work, getting busier all the time as news of her mad skillz(chicks dig skillz) spreads around town. My time at Cafe Mambo has come to an end, and after much training & sourcing of local ingredients, their coffee has improved a fair bit. Definitely the best coffee in town now. I'm considering starting a business training baristas at some of the local cafes, as there's a fair need of it around here, but that'll have to wait on my permit coming through. I've also spent a bit of time at the Arusha Coffee Mill, cupping coffee & sampling different blends & estate coffees, & differing roast levels, & generally learning heaps about the preperation side of the coffee process. It's been fascinating talking with the director there, who's the 3rd generation of her family in the coffee industry in Tanzania, discussing all the different varieties of Arabica bush grown on their estate, & the peculiarities & taste profiles of East African coffee in general.

Jeremy & Kendra are back from their trip, & we had them up to stay with us for a weekend. Lots of great times playing cards & games, talking, & Jeremy & I went off-roading to try & get to an acacia forest visible in the distance from our place, but were repeatedly thwarted by deep korongos(dry river beds). Ironically, just as all the family got back together, Alan left for his trip back to NZ, so it'll be another 3 weeks or so until he's back too.

Must go now, will post when & as possible.

Africa is hard on your kit...

So, my laptop died. Again. It seems Dell & Africa are incompatible on pretty much all levels. I'd had problems with the laptop before in NZ, but Africa seems to compound any malfunctions, weaknesses or accidents into catastrophic gear failure. :) So, this means we'll be updating the blog less often, although I still have access to my email & facebook through my blackberry.
Africa is also hard on vehicles, & old Land Rovers are notoriously fuel-inefficient, using perhaps 80l of fuel where a Hilux would use 25l over the same distance. So, we're considering the possibility of getting a newer vehicle, either through importing one, or trying to find a good deal already in-country. So, if you have a spare moment, please pray that God provides either a vehicle, or the money to get one, as our fuel costs are becoming a bit of a financial burden.
That's all for now, I need to let Ben have his laptop back, so he can keep working... :)

Life Through the Looking Glass...

There is something about Africa that speaks to your soul. Something primal and primordial that reaches into our ancient human spirits and strikes a chord. In amongst the dust, heat and frustrations you become aware of the voice of the ages thrumming from beneath your feet, the drum-beats as they pound through your veins. And in the bleak face of the mountain, inhospitable and harshly beautiful; in the opulence of a brief sunset, brilliant and blinding; in the exuberant and excessive display of colour from blooms fighting their way out of the baked earth; in the smiling and dust-covered visages of children tending their goats, flies crusting their eyes, you can truly see the face of God.


So, we've been here a month now, and what a month it's been! I have a awesome job, Dan has more than enough to occupy his time, we nearly have the internet, we have a lovely house to stay in, my family close(ish) by, a horrific road and terrifying drivers everywhere, a stunning view (exhibit a above) and still no water!! Living the fairytale is everything and nothing like we had anticipated...

Seeing as Dan has already enthralled you all with stories of the cars, roads and the daily death-defying gauntlet into town, I will not expound anymore, but will satisfy myself with a brief update on how things are going in Aimee's little Wonderland.

I have been at Aqua Hair, Health and Beauty working with Trish for two weeks now, and loving every minute of it! I approached the role with the usual apprehension that a new job brings, and have been pleasantly delighted with the salon, despite limitations in space and colour, with my boss, who is heaps of fun, my coworkers (free manicures and pedicures anyone?) and my awesome new clients. I was initially alarmed at having to use foil to highlight (I know, who'd have thought??) but I am happy to report that I still have the touch! And the pace here is so chilled out: clients don't mind if they have to wait for ages, and everyone knows everyone, which means the conversations are never dull... In fact, in my first week, a client was happy to wait while I cut Trish (my boss)'s hair because she hadn't had a real haircut in eight months! So cool!

The latest interesting news is that last Sunday our water ran out up at Lengijave... Oh nos! Then ensued a mad hunt for someone to truck water up our horrific roads (apparently the last time someone tried, their truck got stuck - eep!) which resulted in a tractor belching it's way up our drive, hauling 4,500 L of water with it. Operated by a very interesting fellow bearing the enigmatic name Bwana Masikio (Mr. Ears), it was all in all a learning experience as it took a couple of tries, due to the tractor's bald tyres. So, finally, we have a little more water, a lot more experience (and potholes thanks to the tractor) and a definite need for lots of rain before we run out again! So please pray, we need all the help we can get!

In fantastic news, we have made loads of awesome new friendships, re-established some old ones, and made some awesome contacts... This really is the land of opportunity: Dan has already been made two job offers in as many weeks, and with his permit in the pipelines (hopefully only two weeks away), it looks as though things are set to take off soon! Watch this space...

And so, from a dusty Wonderland, over and out.

We're still alive...

Our internet connection isn't, though. The original setup at Lengijave was a satellite connection, which I found out would cost US$175 per month for 1gb of data, if I got it reconnected. And I though NZ had it bad for broadband... So I'm looking into cellular broadband options similar to the Vodafone Vodem back in NZ, & using wireless hotspots in the meantime. Hence my slackness at posting here.

My time at Outpost is going well, I'm looking into sourcing locally-roasted fresh coffee, as opposed to the not-so-fresh stuff from Kenya the cafe has been using so far, but it's a question of quality-vs-freshness at the moment. The Tanzanian stuff is pretty good, but I think I'll need to try sample batches every week or two for a while to ensure that the quality & flavour remain constant. Oh well, trying coffee isn't much of a hardship, really... :)

Aimee is going really well at the salon, she's loving the environment, & her boss is pretty cool as well. As an added bonus, a lot of her old school friends play sport at the complex where she works, as it's also the local venue for rugby, soccer & other sports. So, seeing as I finish a bit after her, & have to drive for about half an hour to get to her salon, she has a bit of time to catch up with them before I get there.

Speaking of driving, the city of Arusha seems to be in a permanent state of, well, you can't really call it gridlock, seeing as they don't even have a grid, but more a case of No-One-Can-Move-Because-Of-Every-Other-Bugger-In-The-Way. There is one set of traffic lights in town, & it seeems to cause more problems than it solves, due to sheer unfamiliarity on the part of the drivers. There are no give way rules, except those that apply out of self-preservation, ie Give Way To Bloody Big Trucks. Intersections are navigated by pulling out into the smallest gap in the lane you want to be in, whenever you can, want to, or just feel like it. Indicators can be used to signal an impending turn, a lane change, oncoming traffic, passing, don't pass, or any combination of the above. Use of the horn is an accepted alternative to indicators. You can pass on the right, the left, the footpath, or even the other lane in the path of oncoming traffic, if you think you can get away with it, & no-one will even look twice. Of course, this may be because the traffic is only moving at about 10km/h anyway...
Except for the Dala-dalas. Dala-dalas are vans used as taxis, filled with squashed passengers, & driven by grinning homicidal maniacs bent on vehicular manslaughter. These guys will take any gap, pass at any time, stop without warning, turn without signalling, & I suspect they may even drive with the horn taped down. They turn even the jammed rush-hour into a non-stop adrenaline-fuelled madcap destruction derby/rally/survival-of-the-fittest fiesta.

So when I say you can only afford to keep half your attention on the traffic, & need all the rest for the road itself, it gives you some idea of the state of said roads. Only some of the roads in town are paved, & somehow they manage to be at least as bad as the dirt roads. Potholes big enough to swallow at least a medium-sized elephant abound in the paving. Cracks, shoddy repairs & gravel patches give a wonderful texture through the suspension. And speed bumps. Let's talk about speed bumps. The designing, construction & maintenance of speed bumps seems to be some sort of Tanzanian National Pastime. They have them at each end of every village, every zebra crossing is a speed bump, they put them in dusty spots to slow passing cars, they even have small speed bumps to warn you of approaching larger speedbumps. Some are smoothly paved & can be taken carefully in 3rd gear, some are almost square in profile & are best avoided by driving off-road around them. Some of them are constructed out of dirt using shovels, and some come small & in sets of 3 or 4. It's like they didn't think the rest of the roads were rough enough, so they decided to help. Maybe they just missed that old-fashioned off-road feel. And the best bit? You can never tell what type of bump it's going to be until afterwards.

It's not that I'm complaining, mind you, I like off-roading. I just didn't expect to be doing it for 2 & 1/2 hours every day, from home to Aimee's work, then mine, & then back again...

Still, all in a day's work, eh? :)

Coffee Beans in a Vanilla Bean.

I drank a lot of coffee today. I've been contracted for a period of at least 2 weeks by the best cafe in Arusha to train their staff in the art of espresso. There's also a chance that I may be staying on longer in some sort of management/barista capacity, if needed. If I do, it'd be a great opportunity to learn the ropes before we start our own guest house.
Tanzania grows some of the best coffee in the world, but hardly anyone here knows how to make a decent cup. The best roasted coffee seems to come from Kenya, & even that is at least 2 weeks from roast when it gets here. There are a few local roasters that can deliver on roast day, but their beans seem to be all local origin, with no blending for flavour balance. Plenty of room for experimentation & improvement, methinks.

I spent about 4 hours today familiarising myself with the equipment, procedures & staff at The Outpost, which is also a lodge with a good restaurant. I'll only be involved in the cafe side, which is a bit of a relief, given my more or less nonexistent restaurateur experience. The cafe is an open-sided place with polished concrete floors, a mix of couches & tables with some pretty nice decor, situated right by a small pool & under the shade of some tall trees. The atmosphere is great, the people are friendly & seem willing to learn, & they speak pretty good english. My Swahili is coming along slowly, but I seem to pick up more by osmosis than through study.

The Land Rover rego came through today, so I drove it into town for my first day at Outpost. I've christened it RattleTruck©. The suspension actually makes for a more comfortable ride on the rough roads than Jeremy's Isuzu Bighorn, but the rest of the vehicle seems to be constructed entirely of quirks. The driver's door is the only one with an external key lock, & the key has to be turned just so while pressing the open button, but the inside lock still stays down until you pull it up manually. Sometimes the offside back door doesn't stay shut, & the latch in the door needs to be fiddled with to get it to stay closed. The back bench seats fall forward when you go over bumps, the indicator lever is on the wrong side of the steering column, making me turn on the wipers when I go around a corner, reverse gear is to the left of 1st, & there are 5 different keys for all the locks on the vehicle. The jack is a meter-long monstrosity of medieval engineering, as I discovered when I came out of the cafe to discover a flat front left tire.
So after half an hour of wrestling with siezed bolts, finding hidden tool caches under the driver's seat, & thanking the Lord for those last few slices of Aimee's brownie as I used all my weight on the tire iron in order to get the wheelbolts undone, I managed to mount the spare tire. After that, it was a simple matter of stopping at a gas station on the way back to En Gedi, getting one of the fundis (workers) there with limited English to take the tire off the spare mount, take the tube out, patch it, reinflate the tire, take the spare back off the front wheel, remount the fixed tire & stow the spare back on the rear mount. For about half an hour of relatively skilled labour, I payed the princely sum of 2000 shillings, or about NZ$2.50. That's right, two & a half bucks. I love this place.

So, now that we have transportation, we're finally moving tomorrow to Lengijave, our new home. The process of getting the vehicle on the road has been a bit of an eye-opener as to how slowly even simple administrative things can move over here, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. This Is Africa, after all. We've done a load of shopping for the basics we'll need up there, including food, drink & kerosene lanterns, which I intend to modify at my earliest convenience. More Power, grunt-grunt-grunt. I'll have those things shooting 20-foot jets of flame, if I can get away with it. :) We've also met up with plenty of great people over here, including paragliders, motocross riders, pastors, musicians, old friends & a host of other mad characters we look forward to getting to know better. Everyone here, including us, seems just a little bit mad, but life is an adventure, after all, so why not live it to the full? :D

The Lord Pimpeth My Ride...

Hi all, Dan here. It's been a week & a half already since we arrived, & it seems like time flies over here when there's a lot to do.

We went up to Lengijave again today, to make a brief inventory of what we'll need to get before moving up, as it's a fair way from there to the nearest duka (shop). The house is already fully furnished, & the kitchen fully stocked with cookware, cutlery & crockery, so we're sweet on that score. The main priority seems to be getting a large water container to fit in the back of the Landy, so we can get water daily from the local waterhole, or perhaps from town depending on availability.

Speaking of the Landrover, here are a few snaps of the vehicle itself:



It's even more rugged than my old BattleTruck©, so I'm looking forward to seeing how well she handles off-road. I've no idea how old it is, but it seems to be in pretty good condition, & we've just spent some money to get it road-worthy again after a few years of storage: replacing oil, filters, boot seals & so on. It belongs to the family who own the house, & they've very kindly let us have the use of it for as long as we need it, on the condition that they can use it when they come over to visit. So that's another major hurdle miraculously taken care of, as vehicles are quite expensive over here. Any new vehicle imported into the country is required to have almost half it's value again paid to the government as import duty, meaning a $20,000 vehicle suddenly costs $30,000 by the time you get it on the road. So, full props to God for taking care of that one.

We'll probably be moving out of En Gedi (Aimee's parent's place) & up to Lengijave later this week, which will come as a bit of a relief to me, seeing as how Lynda is a dyed-in-the-wool vegetarian. There's only so much salad a man can eat before he wants to start gnawing on someone. :)

All joking aside, it's been great to be able to stay with them for a couple of weeks, just to get our feet on the ground & organise ourselves for the intimidating task of living in an isolated community, the language of which I speak very little. Most of the area we'll be living in is populated by Maasai, who speak kiMaa as a first language, & kiSwahili as a second. Aimee is fluent in Swahili, & knows a word or two in Maa, so she'll be able to cope, but I only speak English & Bad English, so I'm in the deep end. The workers at Lengijave have only a few words of kiIngereza (English), so I'll be relying on Aimee's interpretation until I can learn enough of the language to make myself understood. Thankfully the Tanzanians are a delightful people, who are always eager to help one learn Swahili, & correct any mistakes with a smile.

Anyway, time to stop rambling & get back to it, so I'll post again after we get settled in at the new place. Kwaherini!

Getting right into it!

The second installment is here!

So, on Wednesday, we went to visit Trish at her lovely little salon and spa, Aqua Hair Health and Beauty... Now, you will all be relieved to hear that you can get a decent manicure and pedicure, or a massage if you prefer, in the deepest darkest corners of Africa! Or a haircut provided by yours truly... That's right, I got the job!

Woohoo!

So I expect you all to call for appointments, no silly excuses please, like,"I couldn't find a baby-sitter for three weeks..." or "9,000 miles is a bit far for a haircut!" That just won't do! ;-)

Aqua is a small but well out-fitted salon (complete with L'Oreal colour, I am happy to say!) situated in a lovely little recreational compound with a gym, sports facilities, restaurant/bar and, I'm sure, many other delights! I start work next week, on Tuesday, and as the salon is only really big enough to accommodate one stylist at a time, Trish and I will be doing shifts. It'll be like having my own little place - how fun! I will try and post some photos for you all, if I can ever get the camera to work (I believe I am photographically challenged)!

Speaking of photographs, I have some more for you! These are shots that my non-photographically-challenged brother, Jeremy, took of Lengijave last time we were up there, about a year ago...

When we went up for visit on Thursday, unfortunately it didn't look quite like this... There has been hardly any rain in the region this season, so the whole area is a dust bowl. Still beautiful, but very,very dry. In fact, as the house is run on rain water, we have only enough to last the two of us about six weeks, and the rains aren't likely to come for another three months - eek! Then we will have to fit the back of the Land Rover with a tank to truck more water up the mountainside... Ah, the joys of living in Africa!

But on a serious note, please do pray that the rainy season starts early as the local Maasai people are having to move away from their homes as their cattle - their livelihood - are starving. It's such a reality check to realise that, for so many people, a glitch in the seasons, a few months without rain, can make all the difference when scraping together an existence. And in the midst of such relative poverty (could I survive it? I think not!) to be continually reminded of the important things in life... Relationship, hope, faith, love, giving out of nothing... I have never seen so many smiling faces as I see here, in the third poorest country in the world. I tell you, I wouldn't be anywhere else :-)


So tomorrow we do another trip up to Lengijave, with the whole clan this time, Mum and Dad, Ben, Claire and Nia and the two of us to do another reconnoiter and meet "the staff"! Crazy days... We will start moving all our stuff up this week, as soon as the Land Rover is ready and registered (Dan's gonna publish a post on that later, for any automobile enthusiasts).

So, until there is any more interesting news... Take care and God bless!

So, it begins...

Hi Everyone! Let me introduce our cast of characters before we begin!

From the left we have: Claire & Ben Stephenson (my brother & his wife), John (Granddad) Stephenson, Jeremy & Kendra Stephenson (my oldest brother & his wife), Alan & Lynda Stephenson (Dad & Mum) & your intrepid authors Aimee & Dan Packer.

Well, here we are... IN AFRICA! Vanilla Beans in a Cocoa Bean World!

We arrived safe and sound on the afternoon of Sunday the 19th of July, to a balmy 26 degrees Celsius and 43% humidity - man, the cool season sucks! ;-)

Looking back on the 40 hours of travel with Ben, Claire and their baby, beginning at 4:30 am on Saturday morning from Auckland, it was, all in all, an uneventful journey, although traveling with my 3 1/2 month old niece, Nia, was a learning experience... And despite being significantly overweight (the baggage, I mean) we were charged no extra - yet another little miracle to remind us we are definitely on the right track!

We have since spent a lovely couple of days hanging out with family, just relaxing and recovering from the trip. I am still a tad jet-lagged, but Dan is doing awesome! I must admit we were both feeling a little trepidation on the way over - "What to expect?", "Are we doing the right thing?", "Will it work out?", "We're not going back this time! Eek!" - but we both felt such a significant feeling of arriving home when we walked into my parents house... It's good to be back.


This is the inside of Mum and Dad's lounge - note the banana-bark ceiling and curved walls... Mum designed the houses after true African style, round and thatched! This keeps the houses cool in the hot season and temperate in the cold...

Tomorrow we are going into town to visit Trish - my prospective employer - to see how she likes me! So please be praying - I really want this job! Trish is currently running a little salon with a reputation for doing the best cuts in town, which is right where I want to be! It would also be a great opportunity to establish connections for when we start up our Bed & Breakfast...

Speaking of which, we will pop up to Lengijave on Thursday to have a look around and see what we need before we move on up. Lengijave is the area where Dan and I are going to be living, in a beautiful, rustic house, owned by family friends, who are happy for us to convert it into our dream boutique B & B - such an awesome set-up, totally a God-thing!

These are just a couple of images from the outside of Lengijave house, we will upload more after our visit for your viewing pleasure :-)

So, until then, kwaherini wote!