…. and welcome to the NaJo report. We’re a bit late but we have excuses. Kiswahili immersion courses, falling down holes (yes, I have already managed to fall down a hole) and generally lying, dead weight, in pools of our own sweat, panting and dosing in 34C heat and 95% humidity. How hot is it? Hot enough to wilt trees.

A sweaty Dar Es Salaam tree

Before we go any further a few words of thanks to our sterling removal road crew who ably assisted us in shifting our worldly possessions into a matchbox. Well, a bit bigger, but not much. A 10 cubic metre storage room. 9.99 cubic metres for Nadine (she’s hitting me while I write this) and 0.01 cubic metres for my precious dirt collection to which I hope to be adding more samples (I’ll explain later). Anyway below from right to left thanks go to Eilidh, Thiago (possible the most elegant removals person I’ve ever worked with), Ivo (the brains), Nadine (long suffering of my anal removal plans and storage layout diagrams), don’t know who the bloke is second from left. He just wandered into the photo. And last but not least Steve.

The A+ Team

Editor’s (Nadine’s) Addendum: It’s a blog, John, a blog, not a report. But just in case anyone’s keen on some more reporting: Yes, we did arrive safely in Dar and the photo of the interesting tree also shows the Econolodge, our elegant abode during our VSO induction training, which included climbing into “daladalas”, private local busses, (“a dollar here, a dollar back”) through the windows at record speed or, as a more conventional method, wrestling matches by the bus door. An interesting example of survival of the fittest as there is certainly no way an old or sick or disabled person would make it onto one of these. The Econolodge itself was the epitome of Customer Service, flashing signs such as “Mr Credit has gone on safari, meanwhile deal with Mr Cash” at reception. Welcome to Africa. Oh, and I did learn in our Kiswahili training that safari simply means journey . You’ll get to see some of my photos of my first  one – giraffes, elephants, zebras, baboons, buffalos, impalas  and hippo babies in half a day –  a spectacle selfishly consumed  while John was licking his wounds from the little mishap with the hole in the convent garden. Yes, I am a good wife…. (more to be told soon on what that means in Tanzania)

General Hack’s (John’s) Addendum to Addendum: Actually, I used the opportunity of the safari to become better acquainted with Tanzanian beer Serengeti (herby, slighty tangy aftertaste), Kilimanjaro (sweet tasting. Good head), Tusker (bloody awful. Even after the third).