After a very pleasant flight with Swiss Air we arrived in Dar es Salaam (we got extra pizza that was actually supposed to be the cabin crew's meal, but they all smiled it away!). At the airport we were warmly welcomed by Claire, the British half of the ‘introductiecommissie' of VSO, which consisted of two VSO volunteers who had already been here for three months. Claire and Robert (who for sure comes from the same country as Jim Carrey) are the nicest and most hilarious people we've ever met (they read this blog too..

). Green as we were (it felt like the first days at university..) they mentored us during this first week and taught us the ins and outs of Dar, VSO and... Canada. ‘Us' refers to us plus 14 other volunteers from Canada, UK, Switzerland and the Netherlands, a very mixed but jolly good group of people.

Every day we went to the VSO office, for the so-called In Country Training (ICT) about VSO policies and strategies, Tanzanian culture, money matters, health and ... gender. I was very happy I recently followed the Netherlands Course of Tropical Medicine, where similar topics were discussed, like inequality, corruption, access to health care, human rights, own health and of course gender. Interestingly though, one of the first things we learned about the Swahili language was that there is no difference between male or female words (like our hij/zij or he/she), hence gender equality!

Our lunch was rice, beans, and spinach, served with fish(head), meat or extra spinach. Delicious. In the evening we went out for dinner, had pizza, Indian or local food, enjoyed with Tanzanian beer (Tanzanian beer brands are named after the country's tourist attractions; Serengeti is our favourite). Twice we went to the so-called Badminton Club, an Indian place which made us think that VSO had sent us to another continent and where Indian songs were performed by.. a Tanzanian (in Hindi!). Another cultural experience which was offered during ICT, was this 30 minute daladala ride in a minibus so fully packed that it might be that the only space to sit/hang/breath is on an unknown man's lap (here's a link to a post by a fellow volunteer about daladala's: http://debra-peter-martyn.blogspot.com/2011/10/theres-no-dilly-dally-when-you-ride.html ). Overnight we had our first safari experience since we stayed at Econo Lodge, which was very ‘econo', with cats, rats, roosters and other exotic animals. We stayed on the fifth floor, and the rats fortunately didn't make it that high. Neither the cleaners, so we suffered from... bedbugs! Aaaah.

All together, the first week we had a jolly good time with great people. ‘Hakuna matata' would be suitable, but obviously that is Kenyan Swahili so we're not supposed to say it. Any other LionKing vocabulary however is allowed. Photo's to be found under 'Foto's': 'First week in Tanzania: Dar es Salaam'.

Second fantastic week: Swahili lessons in Morogoro, including a safari to Mikumi national park, story & pictures will follow soon!

P.S. Our Tanzanian cellphone numbers are: +255-684057748 (Marije) and +255-684057743 (Tim). But, thanks to our brand new dualsim phones, you can stillreach us on our good old Dutch numbers too!