A Safari, a four day sporting carnival, a trip too Nairobi and a few games of rugby later, it has certainly been a jam packed few weeks.

So back to Easter and my first experience of a five day weekend, yes a five day weekend. It was Mohammad’s birthday on the Thursday and then the Easter weekend. Due to Tanzania having equally as many Muslims as Christians, we take Muslim and Christian holidays although not all of them as we would probably not be at school that much. Played another game of rugby against the Cheetahs from Mombassa on Good Friday which we lost 34-0, it was certainly an improvement from the previous week. It was a much more enjoyable game and that team only lost 17 – 18 to the team that killed us previously so we were kind of happy with the loss and celebrated accordingly.

On the Sunday a group of us at the school hired one of Richard’s (Gemma’s husband) safari vehicles for the day and head off to Arusha National Park. It is only a half hour drive from the school at the base of Mt Meru. Despite the at times gloomy day it was the first time I had had the chance to get out and see some of the wildlife. No more than 100m into the park we saw a Giraffe or Twiga and from then on we were in luck all day. We saw baboons, zebra, buffalo, bush buck, dik dik, several different types of monkey’s and heaps of birds. At the point where we stopped for a picnic lunch we were looking over a herd of at least 17 twiga’s which was just awesome. There are elephant in the park but few rarely get to see them. As we were driving to get out of the park Skola, a Tanzanian girl who was with us noticed some elephant feces on the road. A few hundred meters before the gate yours truly spotted a herd of five elephants about one hundred meters off the road. It capped off a great day. It was not the image of wildlife you generally think of as Africa given that the setting was lush vegetation which at times is rainforest but it was so easy for us without a guide to just drive around for the day. We were going to hire the car again on the Monday but unfortunately the gods were not so kind and it poured all day so that plan was abandoned and the bar was seen as a more viable option.

After another short week I was heading up to Nairobi for our final match in the Bamburi series, finals were always going to be a long shot for us. I did not go up on the bus as I finished work late and went up in a car with two of the other players. Kenyan rugby booked us into a hotel like two hours the other side of Nairobi for the ground an Arusha. As if the Kenyans needed any more help against us. By the time we got to Nairobi we decided to stay with one of Graham’s, (who was driving) friends on the right side of town to the ground. This place was a mansion. The pool house alone was equivalent to a two bedroom house. We went had a steak which was awesome at a near by restaurant. It was bizarre to be surrounded completely by westerners again. It was an early game the next day which meant we able to watch the other Kenyan’s go at it afterwards. After going out to 14 – 0 lead I think we were scared of winning and eventually lost 45 -25. We really could have won this game as we improved dramatically on the previous couple of games, but just did not really have the players one to fifteen and as a result they were gifted quite a few tries. Was great to be competitive though and I think it ensured that Tanzania will be invited back to participate next year.

This week I have been attending the Arusha Primary Schools Sports Bonanza. Five of the English Medium schools from Arusha attend. It has all sorts of events from athletic to football (soccer). It was so much fun and the kids that got the chance to go enjoy themselves and tried so hard. At times I was tearing my hair out as the whole thing in typically Tanzanian style was appallingly run and there was so much time wasted. Some events they just did not decide to run in which case the students who went to compete did not get to do anything. Mind you I think they were just happy to get away from school, for the day. In the end St Judes was the overall winner which was the first time they had won it and given all the other schools are fee paying private schools the kids were over the moon.

The term is really winding down in the lead up to the holidays. It is hard to believe I will see Mum and Dad in Cape Town in just over two weeks. I am certainly looking forward to that!!