Benjamin spoke out his first words a couple of days ago. In very clear Swahili language he said: “Father… father…”. Danny was so proud that Benjy’s first words were spoken of of him. The words in Swahili were: “Baa-baa… baa-baa…”. Apparently, Benjy has picked up on some sort of local dialect, because officially father is baba in Swahili. Our son is just so smart.

Pari päivää sitten Benjy lausui ensimmäiset sanansa! Selvällä swahilin kielellä Benjy sanoi: “Isä… isä…”. Danny oli kovin otettu, että Benjaminin ensimmäiset sanat olivat juuri hänellä osoitettu. Swahilin kielellä tämä kuului: “Baa-baa.. baa-baa…”. Ilmeisesti Benjy on oppinut jo jonkun sortin swahilimurteenkin, koska virallisesti isä on swahiliksi vain baba. On meillä kyllä viisas poika.

Our Toyota Land Cruiser 4.2 L. July 2006, Mwanza Home Craft Center

Toyota Land Cruiserimme 4.2 L. Heinäkuu 2006, Mwanzan kotiteollisuuskoulu

Interesting landmarks driving down from Mwanza, July 2006

Mielenkiintoisia maisemia Mwanzasta alaspäin ajellessa, heinäkuussa 2006

Luckily, our life isn’t only work. Danny relaxing on Zanzibar and Benjy taking a boat trip to Bongoyo, June 2006

Onneksi elämämme on muutakin kun vain työtä. Danny rentoutuu Sansibarilla ja Benjy venematkalla Bongoyon saarelle, kesäkuussa 2006

Relaxing on Bongoyo island, June 2006

Bongoyon saareilla rentoutumassa. Kesäkuu 2006

Eels off the shore of Bongoyo island. June 2006

Mureenoja Bongoyon rannalla. Kesäkuu 2006

All is well in Dar. Danny has just returned from a five day field trip through Tanzania. First, to Mwanza by airplane, and then to Shinyanga, Tazengwa, Singida Dodoma and Dar es Salaam by Land Cruiser. The trip was mostly just sitting through extremely bumpy roads and getting acquinted with mud huts and “the bush”. Daniel also got acquinted with the loacl cuisine and luckily managed to escape food poisonings. Unfortunately, his companion wasn’t so lucky and ended up with a severe stomach bacteria infection and ameba. Since the travelling didn’t take place through national game parks, spottings of wild life was rare. However, the huge marabous loitoring around the streets of Shinyanga were quite a sight.

In sweet home Dar es Salaam, we’ve managed to get deeper insights into the local ecosystem. From time to time, the local monkeys gather for breakfast in the monsterous tree in our back yard. The Big Mama -gecko living in our house seems to have given birth recently, since there are a half a dozen more little geckos running around our walls. Sirkku found a huge, shiny spider with red legs weeving a web on top of the drying rack in our back yard. Unfortunately, the gardner killed the spider immediately after he saw it. Also, while we were visiting the neighbouring Bongoyo island, we saw about 60 eels (mureena) gathered in coral pond to pray on fish guts poured into the ocean by local fishermen.

The other week, we had an opportunity to visit the beautiful island of Zanzibar. The first couple of days went walking aroung Stonetown and visiting a youth center and pre-school. As the cherry on top for the trip, we spent the last day in a bungalow in Paje relaxing on the white sandy beaches of the Indian Ocean. The boat trips back and forth were quite an experience. To make sure the passengers wouldn’t get bored during the two-hour-journeys, they showed freakishly gory horror movies throughout the trip. However, since the waves were so high, most of the passengers were not able to pay much attention to the movies, because they spent most of their time on board throwing up into paper bags… This is it for now.