Oh well, it can’t all go my way…

Well, things were always going to start to go down hill at some point, I’ve been riding this wave of success for tooo long. Last night, myself and my German counterpart headed to Glacier with high hopes of bringing some half decent music to the table, and we failed.

It wasn’t the kind of epic fail you might think, rather a misjudgement on our part, and a whole lot of under-investment in terms of equipment and supplies…

We arrived at 9pm, as instructed, and went over to set ourselves up before realising that I didn’t have any of the necessary cables to do this job properly. Once we found a phono-jack cable I cheered up a little bit but it was essentially doomed from the beginning. It did however start rather well, as we played some reggae, and actually had the dancefloor full of people at 9.30. Around 11.30, after we had gone through several different genres to try some stuff out, we were told we could come back later, but they wanted to put the normal guy back on to allow people to dance. An hour and a half passed with him DJ-ing and nobody dancing, but better the devil you know eh? It seems breaking through with something new needs to be done on our own time rather than theirs, as even though they are employing a DJ, they want to control what he/she plays down to the individual tracks. Around 1.30 we went back on, and decided to try and up the pace a little. A grindy little number by Justice followed by Stanton Warriors went down better than expected, but again, even though we had the place heaving, the managers wanted us to play what they wanted to hear. We left the stage and allowed them to kill the dance floor once again with the same old shite they listen to every week. A big shame if you ask me. Most people were enjoying it, and given how much of a change in direction this meant, it really needed a few more tracks to get people on side, but alas, it was not to be, we were ushered away and decided to go smoke a joint instead.

So we pick ourselves up and try again, we can come back next week, but I’m not sure it’s such a good idea, I think we need to go back to the drawing board, forget trying to DJ in someone’s club, and try to promote our own night from the ground up, so we are not spoiling the fun of people who are used to having their ears filled with poo every Friday night. We can but only hope that things get better one day…

FIA Approved…

On first arrival, within a few weeks I looked up the African Rally Championship and decided I wanted to go and see either the Kenyan or Tanzanian rounds and get involved as much as I could. Two and a half years on I am now a Senior Official in the sport here, and have three rallies under my belt as one of the main organisers, and two completed training seminars with officials from the FIA academy in Abu Dhabi.

It is incredibly exciting to be able to say that about myself, and for it to be true. I never dreamed of being right in the centre of a sport I love so much as this, and never thought I’d get this far in such a small time. Nevertheless, the last year has given me so much experience and time with the people in the middle of it all, that I am now a known face in Motorsport in this region, and have been offered the opportunity to work alongside the top Officials from AAT and FIA in the upcoming PUMA Energy Rally of Tanzania 2013 as the main results officer for the rally.

Working in a sport like this, that does not have a huge following or any real solid backing and funding is not just difficult, but incredibly frustrating at times. There are plenty of people around who say they are part of our club, or part of the system as a whole, but who do very little to actually drive it forward, and get really bogged down in the inter-club politics to the extent things breaking down and events cancelled with no real reason. As an outsider to not only the sport, but to East Africa as a whole, I believe I’ve been able to breathe a breath of fresh air into our little pocket of motorsport in Kilimanjaro and bring ourselves up from the worst organised bunch of losers to being, along with the Arusha club, among the most respected and called upon group of rally experts and officials that Tanzania has to offer.

Before I left for Zambia and Zimbabwe I spent the previous three weeks fairly busy day in day out working on bringing the cars and the show to Moshi for the 2nd round of the National Rally championship in the form of the Kilimanjaro Vasaikhi Rally 2013. From going around the town delivering sponsorship proposals and desperately begging our partners and suppliers for better prices and deals to the very day of the rally where I was stuck in an office with my laptop for six hours, I can truly say that this was my time to shine. The organisation and preparation for an eventlike this, be it in Tanzania or anywhere is huge, and in our country with the lack of funds available and lack of experienced people who you can trust with delicate jobs, it becomes ever more challenging, but we pulled it off, and had the biggest starting order of any rally this year or last. We had our problems, and at the time they seemed huge and daunting, but working with good people, and keeping our communication up and running meant that nothing was beyond our capabilities, and we closed off the event in the early evening as a resounding success.

Roll forward six weeks, and we get to the Simba Cement Rally of Tanga 2013, which it has to be said was a different story altogether. First off, I was not involved in the pre-event organising, sponsor drive or any other part of the build up. I was in Tanga for the seminar from FIA, and on arrival was asked to help out as event secretary for the Saturday and Sunday when the rally would be held. I never thought it would lead to what happened next. During scrutineering on the Saturday morning we had all kinds of delays and issues that pointed squarely at the apparently absent Tanga Motor Sports Club. During the day, I spoke to only one member of the club, and even he did not arrive until four hours into proceedings. How can a club organise an event, and then really just let it run without even being there to check on it? Its beggars belief. Needless to say, a group of us from Moshi and Dar Es Salaam took up the mantle and began unpicking the fabric of the event to bring it back up to speed, and got the cars through scrutineering and final meetings in the early hours of the evening. Day two saw us head out to service park which was on sponsors’ ground and set up for the day. No provision for electricity, water, printer, you name it, we didn’t have it. We carried on regardless, and got all but three cars through to the end, with Louis crashing out on the first section, and two mechanical breakdowns being the only retirements. I’m not going to go on and on about this rally, as I’d rather forget it, but the hard work that a few of us put in was not unnoticed, and I was approached by the CEO of AAT at the end of the rally to request that I do this job for each rally from now on, as the chief results officer for the championship. This just goes to show how putting hard work in can lead to things getting better.

In four weeks time I’m off to Dar Es Salaam to take this post up officially for the Tanzanian round of the African Rally Championship, and this is where it really kicks off, as I’ll be working with teams from across Africa and beyond to deliver the kind of event that we should be putting on, and to give the fans of our sport what they want: a well organised rally.

For now its back to work, with programmes restarting at the computer centre following my long abscence, and our new business installing and supporting security cameras and solutions kicking off in Moshi this week, and my first foray into DJing in Tanzania beginning this Friday at Glacier in town where myself and my German Dreadlocked counterpart Nils are taking to the decks for the evening in an attempt to improve the rather shocking music scene in this country and bring something new to the table. Moshi won’t know what hit it….

Together and alone all at once

Writing a travel blog is as much about what you’re seeing as it is about what you feel as you enter each place and speak to the people there and experience their ways of life. The last three weeks have been a learning experience for me, not without its fair share of trouble along the way, and plenty of things that just can’t be written here for reasons that also can’t be written here, but overall, I have changed inside, I have become someone that has seen more and experienced more, and I want to share some of this with all of you, whoever you are that is reading this.

As a child life is something we witness, make our choices based on what’s around us and what’s happening to us on a daily basis, but as we develop we are able to make those choices based on a more solid grounding of experience and reason, and see the world and what’s around us with more open eyes. Had I done this journey ten years ago, I would have taken far less from it. Sure, I could have perhaps been more lively, learnt some of the things about me sooner rather than later, but my eyes would still have been half closed, and as a result I would have seen far less, taken in and processed very little, and become someone I would not be happy with in my present state of mind. Losing my father is perhaps one of the definitive parts of my life, but it hasn’t been something that’s held me back, rather it is the reason I am the way I am. We share a lot between us, from the dark hair to our eyes and even voice, but what sets us apart is that we went about our lives independently from each other, yet have become very similar people.

I’ve come to realise that I am a bit crazy. Not crazy as in going mad at the weekends, dying my hair pink and going to Tibet for some lost hope of self-realisation, but crazy as in incapable of ever being a full part of anything that I desire. I am at my own mercy when it comes to how I develop my personality, and in continuing the way I have done I am only making it harder for myself as time goes on. I had a burning desire inside to find out what happened to my father, to discover how I came to be, and in doing so I have found some answers, and re-connected with family I thought was long lost forever but in fact were physically very close for a long time, and it leaves you with a sense of what could have been should I have undertaken this journey a long time ago. I don’t think I was capable ten years ago of being as open minded as I am now, and I don’t think I would have been the kind of person that my family would have enjoyed being back in contact with. I have travelled down to Africa in search of myself, found out so much, and despite the pain and long nights of thinking about what could have been I do believe that things were always going to be this way. Crazy as I am, I see that my future can still be bright and full of love and wonder, I just need to keep my chin up, keep walking the straight line and never look back in despair. I am still socially inept for 50% of each day, I have tried being sober, drunk, stoned, busy, lazy and everything else that I can think of, and nothing has ever made me feel any different. I want to let this go, to be more than just the guy who moans about life and continues to destroy his ambitions, but it is who I am, and the sooner I embrace this the sooner I will find the salvation I’ve been searching for.

I’m on the verge of explaining exactly what has lead me to this line of thought, but as I said above, I really don’t think that I can be as candid as I’d like, and so I have to skirt around the issue, and try to explain what it has lead me to think without being too specific. Life throws swing balls at you, and when you’re put on the spot by anyone, it’s hard not to feel like you’re stuck in the middle, yet we are all capable of making our choices and mistakes with no input from anyone else. Some people have disappointed me in a way that leaves me feeling like I am being unreasonable or over-presumptuous, secrets I hold are both difficult to keep and burning me from the inside as they destroy those that are affected, but secrets they must remain, as it is not my place to get involved in affairs of this kind. Some things must be left to ruin themselves, and some things must be salvaged with an outside hand. It’s with this thought in mind that I change the subject slightly, and continue with my journey…

Whilst in Zimbabwe I met some incredibly interesting people who have helped me understand more about the human condition than anything you can read in a book or on the internet or anywhere else. Life there, as in many African countries has been a constantly evolving and changing animal that has influences ranging from both extremes of good and bad, yet among those that have survived the worst of it spring forward bright rays of hope that give me strength that I am not alone in my quest to be a proper person in the world. I have been told about land reform and how it affected the people who have been moved, as well as hearing exact contradiction from others in the same city. I listened and took in as much as I possibly could without being overly nosy or intrusive, and I can tell you it has opened my eyes even more. I wish I could share more of this story, but it is not the right thing to do, and so I will leave it as it is, and merely use that information for myself to help me understand how wonderful and evil people can be to each other. It is a miracle that humanity has survived this long given the huge disparity in beliefs and values that exist in just one country in one continent of this one planet. We are together and alone in equal measure even with different backgrounds we all share one common theme that we are alive and will continue to live together on this planet in whatever way might happen. Being crazy perhaps helps me to see this in a more open way, but in any case, my existence, short and sweet as it is in the grand scheme of things will be significant and nothing at the same time. It is up to me to become what I want to be, to fit into the world as my own person and being as one with my surroundings.

I’m sitting in a lovely hotel in Kigoma looking out over Lake Tanganyika at the mountains of Western Congo, and talking with Fionnuala about the horrific and indescribable atrocities that have and continue to happen over there, and it brings home the reality of how fragile our existence is. Within 100km of where I am sat there are people who know nothing of peace and prosperity, yet within their boundaries the notion of love continues to exist and even thrive. Our problems, my problems, your problems are all just leaves falling from aging trees, and we should all stop to realise how powerful each and every one of us really is. The next few chapters of my life are unwritten, they hold truths and falsehoods hope and despair, and I can’t wait to know what’s around the corner. When I return to Marangu I will be a different man than he who left there a month ago, and I can’t wait to see what he’s capable of. Maybe I’m being too emotional, maybe I just need to wake up and stop being such a crybaby. I don’t care what anyone else thinks, I am me, and that is something that I will endure for the rest of my days.

Zimbabwe

Apart from getting totally soaked on the way over the Victoria falls bridge where this photo was taken, my entry into Zimbabwe has been far easier than any other border crossing I’ve ever done. Stamp out of Zambia, cross the bridge, pay some money and fill in the form, and a brief walk later I’m now in a nice coffee shop in Victoria Falls awaiting the next step of the journey. Now I’m here I feel scared and excited in equal measure, and really not sure what will happen to me over the next few days. What I do know is that I have arrived, I’m in good spirits, a little hungover, but altogether ready to deal with the next phase of my life. Next stop Bulawayo, and a bit more of the Africa my father knew before he left for the UK.

Everything is in US dollars here, which is a little strange after having pockets full of shillings and kwacha to now have the US president in my pocket, but the Zimbabwean currency died a few years ago, after reaching the highest levels of inflation of any country in the world and they were printing 100 trillion notes… It seemed a good idea to stop and use something else. In that time, the economy has stabilised a little, and things are getting back to normal for most people. So far, I have only spoken to a few people on the street and the guy who just served me my coffee, but all around, and as to be expected for a border town, there are a range of different people doing all kinds of things, both tourists and otherwise, and I plan to blend into that mix as quickly as I can and get myself down to Bulawayo this afternoon. When I reach there I have a few things I need to see, and a few people that I need to contact, but most importantly for me is just to live there for the time I have and see as much as possible. Following there I will be heading up to Harare for a couple of nights before I finally make my way back to Zambia and Lusaka for the return journey back to Tanzania.

Day 2… Wake up in a funny hotel, not the one I booked myself into, hungover and confused, and there’s no water to remedy the situation. I say goodbye to Amanda, who put me up for the night, and take the walk of shame out onto the main street and back to the backpackers place where all my stuff was. Luckily, it was still there. Breakfast was good, still on the instant coffee, but after last night I don’t really care. After booking into the hotel, I went to the bar next door, a sports club I think that has a tennis court and golf course, and began to drink. Immediately met some good people and shared a smoke outside before watching the Real Madrid match and then heading into a club with my new friends. Despite beginning the evening as close to the hotel as possible, once it got to 2am, I had no idea where I was, so kipped in Amanda’s room. She is a South African who now lives in Bulawayo, and most of her friends are Zimbabweans all from this area. What has struck me since leaving Tanzania is how powerful English is as a medium for pretty much everything else. Its easy to say that learning English is the way to fix things, but when you see two countries, Zambia and Zimbabwe both of which have this better grasp of English throughout the cities and rural areas, its easy to see how that has helped, even if it is just through trade and understanding. Bulawayo itself, much like most of Zambia that I saw is quite different to Tanzania. For a start people here are motivated and well dressed, they seem to move around with a purpose and not just wander aimlessly about like in Moshi or Marangu. Also like in Zambia, there is infrastructure here that looks like it has been there a long time. The difference here is that to my untrained eye, I would say that this place matured before Lusaka did, but nothing has improved since then. What a lot of people talk about here is the feeling that things here were much better before; that the struggles of recent times, economic problems leading to 50 trillion dollar notes and then the breakdown of the currency altogether and political instability insofar as unfair elections and violence against those who oppose the state, all have played their part in bringing down the ability of most people to get about their daily business in peace. I met a taxi driver when I first got off the bus who told me his normal job is a teacher, but that hasn’t paid in over five months, so he drives his taxi in the evenings to make money so he can continue to teach. Another person who helped me a lot in Victoria falls to find a cheap bus and not the tourist shuttle told me that in his old job, he worked without pay in the hope that one day his boss could afford to pay him. Eventually his boss sold the business and ran away to South Africa leaving him and several others that worked there with nothing to show for five months work. Back in the UK nobody would go that long without walking away or demanding an answer, and in Tanzania nobody would do 5 minutes work without being paid, let alone 5 months!

Out and about in town, Bulawayo is not that dissimilar to Moshi in its layout, but in terms of the way the people are, it couldn’t be more different. Everyone walks around with a purpose, and despite the economic problems of late most people have money and jobs and things are moving along in a positive way. This afternoon I got a call from Thabani who I met last night and so even though I’m hungover as hell, I made it to the bar, and had a few with those guys sat on top of the stadium grandstands outside – all very civilised of course! Music here is pretty similar to Tanzania but without the local Bongo Flava influence, but after I remarked on this to Simba and Seba I’m now invited with them to their Friday night out tomorrow outside of town for a big party – where there is promise of better music, and decent djs. Meeting these guys clearly was the best thing I’ve done so far in Zimbabwe. Getting an early night so I can get out to the golf club and see more of the surrounding area in daylight tomorrow, get some food out in town somewhere then its out for the night and off early Saturday morning to Harare.

The hostel I’m staying in is very basic, but has the feeling of nearly everything here, kinda old and dilapidated, but clearly once was something very special. All the furniture is British 60s and 70s, and all the people are living that way dealing with what comes their way without complaint. My views of Zimbabwe change every minute, and the more I see the more I am intrigued as to how this place will continue and what it holds for normal Zimbabweans as time passes on. Comparing to Tanzania or even Zambia seems unfair, given the history and the overwhelming British influence here which is more apparent than anywhere else I’ve seen, but as with those other countries, the people are still African, even the whites, yet people here are struggling on in an entirely different way than anything else I’ve seen. My friends here are all black Zimbabweans who have been brought up and raised in Bulawayo, and are exactly the kind of people I would have known if I had grown up here instead of the UK. They live normal lives, taking opportunities that come their way, and thriving despite the troubles of the state and that of the politics of Africa as a whole. Perhaps this could have been the breadbasket of Africa as was once said about Zimbabwe, but not anymore, what is left is a crumbling architecture and a whole load of people who have tasted life above and beyond the poverty that came, and who are now building that back up for themselves on their own. There is no mzungu volunteer influence here, it exists, but it is not so apparent like in Moshi or anywhere else in Northern Tanzania. Like the southern towns we passed on our way down to Zambia, life without that western input seems to be continuing regardless, and it gives me hope that not only is there a light at the end of the tunnel for everyone here, but that for some people, there isn’t really a tunnel, they are free, feel free and are going about their lives with aplomb and gusto that makes those places a joy to visit after the tourist hell that is the towns and centres of East Africa. Back on point with education and support, the real value of people’ lives here, that is really the only thing that needs fixing in Tanzania, and I do sincerely hope that one day people will realise this and the emerging middle class there take this as a kick to do something about the other problems and make their country their own with their own culture preserved and intact. It is possible, I have seen it with my own eyes, and when I return to Marangu, it will have given me a better insight as to what troubles need to be addressed, and which are of no concern to me, that is to say, those things that I cannot fix, and should not fix, but allow to be developed over time in the normal way that most modern countries were allowed to do.

I still have not made any contact with family members other than what was achieved in Lusaka before I arrived here, but I don’t take this as a bad thing at all, neither am I disappointed to have come this far without finding what I was looking for. My agenda for all this was sketchy at best, and despite being so close, I am happy that I have seen this place, and have a connection here that is difficult to explain in words and pictures, it is one of belonging, of feeling welcome, of coming home. I am British, 100%, but I feel that there is a place for me here, like I should have always lived here, and one day I will come back here and bring the Collier name back to Zimbabwe. From what I have gathered, all of my family on my father’s side have now left Zimbabwe and are living in South Africa, and those that remain here are connected by marriage, and did not know my father when he was young, only my grandfather after he had split with my grandmother and she had moved back to the UK. To that end, it has perhaps been a bit of a failure, but I don’t see it as that rather a journey of discovery for me, and my mind and a settling of a long thought worry that I would never come here and never see what my father saw when he lived here. I can now say that I have achieved that goal, and have ambitious plans to come back here and work with my new friends rather than seeing the UK as my only bastion of hope and sanctuary. I could survive here, and will survive here, and perhaps in my own little way, I can contribute towards the rebuilding of this beautiful place with my knowledge and skills put to good work in a constructive way. For one thing, Bulawayo needs a good internet café that sells good coffee and offers the kind of service you’d expect in Europe. What exists now is working, but already I have seen how I could improve this, build up my own business from the ground up, and possibly even get the cost of living and travelling covered from within Africa, not just relying on going home to get money. I need to find a new home, and here in Bulawayo alongside my house in Marangu I have found a good candidate.

The Final Destination

We set out on Wednesday morning from Fionnuala’s house in Marangu at 6am. It had been about a week since I’d slept properly due to the rally at the weekend before, but I got in a good seven hours that night and was fresh and ready to leave. We drove all day taking it in turns, and as I had expected Tanzania didn’t disappoint me in her beauty and variety of landscape, as we passed through mountain ranges and vast plains, through open valleys skirted by rift escarpments and even through a national park and saw elephants, giraffes and monkeys right in front of us on the road. Coming up into the Southern highlands the mountains changed in shape and structure and towards Iringa we were as high as my house in Kilimanjaro but on a massive plateau with rolling hills and rocky outcrops littering the otherwise green and lush landscape. Driving ever South we spent the night up there in a campsite and turned in early so as to continue our mission the next day.

Wednesday we had driven around 750km from Kili down to Iringa, and were a little behind schedule but saw ourselves hitting the border with Zambia around lunchtime and be a good 300km into the bush by the time we needed to stop and settle down for the night. Oh how wrong we were as despite making good progress initially we were again hit with similar road works and traffic police as the first day but much more frequent, to the point of seeing two or three every hour along the journey, slowing us down and always making it feel like we weren’t getting anywhere. The border crossing ended a solid seven hour drive for me and at 2pm we checked our passports out of Tanzania and entered the madness of no mans land surrounded by heavy trucks, buses, touts and street sellers all talking in different languages and making the excessive heat in the car even more unbearable. Had things gone smoothly, we should have been through to Zambia in a matter of minutes, maybe an hour at most if there was a problem. We finally got going on the main road South over four hours later, dehydrated, sweaty and underfed, with just an hour before nightfall. Luke spotted a campsite sign and behind the bushes we stumbled upon the little haven in the middle of nowhere that everyone dreams of. Little wooden chalets and loads of camping space, sheltered communal kitchen and amazing hot showers and the warmest welcome anybody could wish for by the South African couple that run the place. Leaving there in the morning had left us all recharged, refreshed and ready to get on with the final run down to Lusaka which because we stopped so early on after the border was now a lot further than we’d managed in either of the first two days driving. Luke took the wheel and with much better roads than we’d expected and nearly no traffic all day we averaged over 100km/h and got ourselves into Lusaka just as night was falling.

Seems crazy to go over 2,500km of Africa in just a few paragraphs, but we really did just push on, only stopping for toilet breaks when all three of us concurred it was necessary, and racking up two speeding tickets along the way (neither of which were me I might add). On our return journey we are taking around two weeks to get back, and will see much more of Zambia and Tanzania as we go. The last three days I have been networking and making new friends here in Lusaka who have helped me on my mission to find family no end. I now have service records of my fathers death, and many people who have been so helpful on message boards and facebook that I will meet and speak to once I arrive in Bulawayo on Wednesday that I feel I am closer than ever, and really starting to feel like I am reaching home in a strange way that I’ve never felt before. Living in Africa for two years has prepared me for taking this journey, and it’s a culmination of feelings and emotions that have brewed for 27 years inside me questions that need answering and a hole that I can see being filled.

Tomorrow I take charge of my own journey and head into Zimbabwe as a Collier, the oldest left in my family searching for roots that have been lost and forgotten. Sometimes you know where you’re going and what you’ll see when you get there. Sometimes life throws you off course and you don’t know where that might end you up. My current journey has brought me from my home in Tanzania down to Zambia, and it’s not over yet, as tomorrow morning I will be heading off on my own to my final destination, and with my arrival I mark a major turning point in my life, and the fulfilment of a promise I made to myself when I was still very young, and one that I made to my father on the eve of my surpassing his age and becoming the oldest in my family – I’m going to go back to where he is from, to see the place my father called home, and to do it with my head held high knowing I made it here on my own merit. I haven’t done this on my own, far from it, in fact without the help of those closest to me out here in Africa and also back home in the UK I would not be able to say that I ever went to Zimbabwe. However I can say that as this week that’s exactly where I’m going.

All change again

I’ve gone from several posts a week to once a month and almost gave up altogether, but am now trying to recover lost ground and pick myself back up again to keep writing and recording my thoughts. It’s now March 2013 and continuing on as my life always has, I’m living in the third house in as many years out here in Tanzania. As before, and as always, I have no plans to go back, or really to “stay”, I’m merely living out this portion of my life as full as possible. Recent events have helped me to see a future here, but work permits and the ever present desire to move on will keep me honest on all this until a real decision has to be made. There is one thing however that although hasn’t committed me completely just yet, is about to do just that.

We moved into our new house a week ago. Zawadi had given birth to some gorgeous puppies, and other events notwithstanding it was time we moved out and into somewhere new. I am going to endeavour to get the real sequence of events down here for all to see, but unfortunately, this requires a bit of background, and also a bit of non-chronological information.

Carry on up the hill from Mshiri, and you will reach the secondary school, Sakayo. Not a brilliant school, far from it, but not the worst either; this is where our good friend (by that I mean sworn enemy) Bob Philips teaches and has done for the last two years. He originally came out here as a volunteer working for Katy Allen in primary and secondary schools here in Mshiri. It’s a long story why he and Katy fell out, but it happened, and ever since I arrived, Katy has been very worried about his presence and what that means for us and this village. He has been working with the village chairman and management against the good will of the people and the school to turn many of them against us, and has also been involved in many dodgy activities here that I’m better off leaving out of this blog. Cutting a long story short he is leaving, and this marks a new beginning for us, and a better opportunity for the students of Sakayo to finally get a good education and move on in life. The results from their form four exams (equivalent to GCSE) for this year are appalling: 74 sat, no first grade, no second grade, 3 third grade, 22 fourth grade and 51 failed. It is time we sorted this out. Bob is leaving soon, and this gives us a great opportunity to try and right some of these wrongs.

A little way down from Sakayo lies my old house. When I moved in there in September last year I was very excited, and finally pleased to have my own place to invite friends and enjoy Mshiri on my own. It didn’t quite work out as planned. At Christmas we were greeted by my landlord’s wife for what we were told would be a few days, but turned out to be three weeks, and not just his wife, but him and his three children also, all living in one small room in our house. Its not inappropriate to continue our lives while they were there, but where I come from, it felt that way, and certainly didn’t allow me to enjoy my Christmas holidays as much as I’d have liked, because there was a couple with three children going to bed at 8pm every night while we were enjoying not having to get up in the mornings and staying up late playing games and watching movies.

This in itself was also not really that bad, as he was polite, they always apologised, and generally we were out for most of those three weeks down in Marangu anyway, so I let it go without argument. Moving on into the New Year however, things took a turn for the worse, as we were contacted by an ex volunteer from the UK who had received a dodgy email from Tanzania asking for money for children’s school fees. We looked into it, as although it said it was from Dilly Mtui, it clearly wasn’t him, and we set a trap. We got the cyber crime division of Tanzania and Western Union involved, and when the culprit, who was pretending to be us in order to gain trust to take this money arrived at the office to collect his money, he was greeted by police who arrested him and took him away.

I was shocked to find out after all we’d been through, that the guy using pictures from my camera, who copied our Facebook page and used our good name to steal money was in actual fact my landlord. So we started looking for alternative accommodation.

This lead to an exciting time looking at houses, old, new, big and small, and eventually lead to what is probably my favourite house I’ve ever lived in. We now live a little way further up the hill than before, above Sakayo and just below the forest and the Kilimanjaro National Park. We have four rooms, all en-suite, a large garden and garage/office space, plenty of space for camping including outdoor plumbing, toilets and electricity, and so far, a really good relationship with our neighbours and friends around us. It’s a good start.

I also have found a good part time person to take over some of the responsibilities of the computer centre while I’m away or doing other things. This is leaving me with more time to concentrate on fixing the house and getting some marketing and advertisement done to bring in guests and volunteers to come and enjoy the place. I think we’re offering something that nobody in Mshiri has done before, and that is a mzungu-ran volunteer/backpacker hostel way up on the mountain that will be a haven for anybody wishing to get a good night’s sleep and enjoy some amazing views and walks around this beautiful part of the world. So far we’ve had four guests who have all enjoyed being here, and more coming in the next couple of weeks before I head off to Zambia and Zimbabwe.

When I return, it will mark the beginning of chapter four in my Tanzanian adventure, and also a full unbroken year of living in Africa. I hope to come back a better man, with more information about where I came from and where my family roots are. I hope to come back to a burgeoning business and lovely home; as well as better working relationships with more schools and colleges; a fuller itinerary of clients’ systems that I look after and administrate, and hopefully a regular income meaning my next trip back to the UK should be funded by my hard work here in Africa, and not to go there just to make money. We can only hope!

Picking up the pieces of an old and broken lifestyle

Life is not without its fair share of troubles and strife. We all begin from the same place with nothing to show for ourselves and nothing to set us apart from each other. Within a few weeks we begin to show signs of our own character and individualism. Within a few months, the first few words have come from our mouths and we identify each other with our surroundings and our families. For most people, this continues for years, and the reality of having to fend for yourself, look after yourself and feed yourself doesn’t hit home until university or sometimes even later or not at all. There are a few among us however, who learn this important life skill much earlier, and have to change what they do at a very early age in order to make sense of the world and how cruel and lonely it can be at times. You might think this is going to turn into a long sob story about how I lost my father or how I struggled to make it on my own, but no. I consider myself to be in the first group. The people in this world who did have everything they wanted, and who loved and was loved back in equal measure for the entirety of their lives. No, I’m not talking about myself, rather a juxtaposition of my own outlook upon those with whom I share my life now. I am surrounded by people young and old who have a completely different set of boundaries and beliefs. The people of this mountain know not of divorce and separation and going to visit dad at the weekends. They have no affection for some things that I hold dear and I no love for theirs. In short we are different people, from different countries, with different colour skin and even a different set of goals to achieve. Up here on Kilimanjaro, I have learned the importance of some of the things I take for granted, and have developed myself as a result of this to continue with my work despite our differences, with the aim of bringing a status quo to both sets of ideals, and find the peaceful medium within which we should all be living.

I am blessed with this opportunity to share my life and skills with people who have not had a chance to develop themselves. All around me are people living within their means, in a way that gives them the belief that they are poor and have nothing, yet within every household I see a wealth that some of us don’t ever see in our own lives. Underneath the thin veil of poverty lies a complete family system that is built from the ground up out of the hopes and aspirations of the people who dwell within. Each morning a set of routines and procedures take place that an average European household could only dream of. Grandma lives in a house next door, Uncle and Auntie just up the road, and without any organisation or pre-arrangement the family is a unit that will not break up for anyone or anything. This is a normal African household, and it is something to behold when in full swing.

There are however some very distinct problems and differences between the dining area outside the house here and your ordinary British kitchen table. The differences exhibit themselves in every facet of life, and despite the initial scene looking very familiar there is not really a single element save the tables and chairs themselves that could be found elsewhere in different cultures. My morning routine has built up over the last two years to adopt a set of these things that fit in with my own view of life, whilst also retaining who I am from my upbringing in the UK. Similarly, many people here have taken aspects of western life and adopted them into their home lives. All of this happens with varying amounts of success and failure. What we have then is a mixed up society that doesn’t know if it wants to move forward, backward or stand still. These three different approaches are visible in every family in each generation, and it is perhaps Africa’s main reason it has fallen behind so drastically over the last 50 years, and why many of us here see a future which will continue on this road until something happens to change it. Young people here have been faced with this very dilemma, and unfortunately will be leaving their older siblings and relatives on the wayside when it comes to a brighter future for themselves. Western technology has arrived and has been here a while now, but only the youngest generation are able to fully harness its power. Just a few years back, before the mass rollout of mobile phones and internet, it would have been impossible for me to be sat here writing this where I am right now, but I would have had to go into town and use an internet café, probably paying as much ten years ago as you pay now in 2013, and it would have been only other white people and foreign ex-pats that would use that service in the way I did and nobody else would have understood how or why. Moving back to the present day, and my internet café is full with local people getting on with their own lives in their own way. I am not here to challenge the way of life people have here, and have had here for a long time, no I am here to provide what is being asked of me, a decent connection to the outside world, and an opportunity for the young people to grab onto that and use it for their own benefit.

Those of you who know me well, know that I like to whinge and moan about lots of things. I especially like to complain about people, and their inability to do anything properly. I live here on a fairly meagre wage of just a couple of hundred dollars (US) each month, and have done so for so long that I have even forgotten the PIN for my cashpoint card. My view of being poor is tainted by my years in front of the TV and access to all the things that make the West “great”. Unfortunately, when I come down from my lofty heights of self-deprecation, I realise that I am actually very well off here, and have enough to survive, more than many others, and the fact I struggle shows that I am not yet a fully integrated part of this society, but rather an addition that is still finding his feet. On the other side of that, comes the reality about most of my neighbours and friends here on Kilimanjaro. Most families don’t have a regular salaried income like me. Most families are not just one guy and his dog, but a mish-mash of people, friends of friends and daughters of cousins that care for each other in a much simpler way, and succeed. There are parts of Tanzania where food supply is still an issue, but not here. There are parts of Tanzania where water continues to be unavailable, dirty and difficult to transport, but not here. Up here we have everything that humans need to thrive, but what is missing, is the connection with the outside world that was in effect discarded in order for this lifestyle to continue as it has done for so long. Also unfortunately is the reality that it cannot continue like this, and needs a drastic overhaul if these people are to survive whilst retaining their history and culture. What was a seemingly endless amount of land to be handed down the generations is rapidly disappearing and becoming overcrowded and over worked. The Chagga tradition of your sons and daughters carrying on the family farmland and producing enough food to survive on with no outside intervention is a passing memory for some, and a laughing joke to others. In effect, the plight of the average man here is worsening and it has nothing to do with the government or any outside factor that could be blamed or controlled.

I believe that this has happened before and so we must learn some important lessons before we try to fix this with band-aids and foreign money. Running out of land is not a problem new to humans. It was in fact this very issue that drove the early species of upright-walking humans into Europe in the first place. Fighting with each other to control land continued into living memory, and even continues to this very day, yet despite all of that, we still all consider the borders of the world to be disintegrating around us, as we become one planet of people, rather than several continents of enemies. A real solution to the problems that face a modern African in this day and age will consist of many new ideas that a lot of his or her peers will not want to consider as a possibility. Taking on new roles and responsibilities, especially those developed by a different race of people, is not something that any proud African will want to accept, yet through this knowledge and experience, Africans will gain the expertise to see what needs to be done and fix it accordingly. Sadly, in order for them to succeed, we all need to leave them to it. We are welcomed here in droves to work in schools or develop strategies that might help in the long run, but we are all band-aids and we all are doing damage rather than helping. In our own little bubbles, it’s possible to help, to make a difference, to really improve some people’s lives through education and development of skills, but in reality, we are doing what Africans should be doing themselves.

Throughout modern history, humans have been converging on an almost parallel state of being across all the continents in the world, but one has been left behind, or rather one is definitely struggling to keep up. Africa needs a boost, and it needs to find it soon before it is forced to take things in a different direction that could be much more harmful in the long run. It needs to start making sense to the outside world, stand up for itself, and defend its rights and way of life by showing everyone that it works. Until then, we only have the possibility that through continued outside help and effort that people might wake up and start doing things right. We are already in a situation which proves this approach to be both damaging and of no real use to the average African person. In effect, Africans need to pick up the pieces of their old and broken lifestyle, make it work, integrate it with these new standards of living and show us how we could be moving on in the world more in harmony with our surroundings. In exchange, we will invest and continue to work with this continent for the benefit of everyone involved. For now we carry on as normal, pushing where needed, and taking everything as it comes.