After having lived in guest houses for 5 months, mid-March we finally moved into our house: a one floor block with 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. Our garden is the size of half a football pitch, with our own roundabout, parking lots, vegetable garden, banda (African-style shelter), rain harvesting system (how green are we!). It has very colourful flowers and exotic trees (including just another lemon tree), and is home to beautiful butterflies and singing birds. All maintained by Fredy, our day guard and gardener. And o yes, a 100m walk leads from our backyard to the beach and Indian Ocean. See photos.

Last weekend we wanted to finalise our house by raising the Dutch flag, just in time for Queen's Day. Attached to our house is a long pole, we think an unused TV channel receiver. Now Tim had asked his mother to send us the Dutch flag (thanks a lot for sending this over!!). Tim spent all day Saturday installing a good working hoisting system. Suddenly the District Police Commissioner himself came at our door saying that we cannot have that flag there because that would imply that The Netherlands claims or even conquers this place! Haha, yes, we're starting our small Dutch colony from here! Now we have to seek permission from our ambassador and the Regional Commissioner here. What a formal hassle! As the sun set down anyway, we took the flag down. This was another shock for our poor police officer as we didn't follow any procedure of saluting, singing the national anthem, folding it according to rules, and all kinds of other formalities. These uncivilized people in The Netherlands!

We have to say that we appreciate Mtwara more and more. It doesn't have all the inconveniences of cities- no traffic jam, no rush, no big buildings- and it feels like a stretched village, very relaxed, green and beautifully located at the ocean. It also doesn't have the disadvantages of a small village where there's nothing to do. Home to some 90,000 people, Mtwara has some more restaurants (4), some variety of goods in shops and even a lounge bar and two night clubs. Being the capital of the Southern Region, there are more wazungu (white people) around to share experiences with- most of them development workers or working in the gas sector (huge gas fields have been discovered off shore Mtwara). We play volleyball twice a week, there are barbecues and drinks organised, we do activities like snorkelling trips and visits to the local cashew nut factory, the port, other health facilities, a construction site, the helicopter base, and so on. And of course, daily activities, such as cooking, shopping at the market, doing the laundry (by hand), take a bit more time than back home.

We spent Easter weekend in the region with some other wazungu. On Good Friday, we went to the Rondo plateau for a good walk. The views here are panoramic, looking into some sort of green canyon, eroded over time. After that we set off to Ndanda for a good meal. Since some 100 years, Ndanda is home to a Benedictine complex housing a hospital, a big cathedral, several schools and workshops. Although the village is small, these (German) monks and sisters managed to bring life here up to a pretty convenient level. They installed their own hydropower system and water supply system, both much more reliable than the public systems we have in Mtwara. Next day we went to another village Nanchingwea, where we visited sesame fields (although even after several ‘Open Sesame's' there was no gold to be found until someone directed us to gold mines some 90km away- a bit too far for that day). On Sunday we climbed one of the rocks around Msasasi (we need to practice for the Kilimanjaro!). As there was no path the only way up was making our own way through the bush and hanging on the rocks. On the top we enjoyed Paasschuimpjes, sent by Marije's mother!

After this enjoyable weekend, Marije went to Tandahimba to join Jolanda and Kirsten, two Dutch doctors, to see how they survive in their hospital. At the end of that week, cashew nut farmers started protesting in and around Tandahimba. The vast majority of all people in the south is dependent on cashew nuts, and the government bought their stock but did not pay. We do not know all details, but the cashew nuts are sold to the government which subsequently sells on to private factories for further production. The farmers are paid in 3 instalments: 70% immediately, 30% later and possibly an after-sales bonus payment. In October, everything was sold and the second payment was not yet done. We heard from friends who work at a cashew nut factory that the government was not able to sell on because their price was way above world market price. These companies (big internationals) obviously went for cheaper cashew nuts from India and Brazil, but the Tanzanian government still didn't want to lower its price (probably because they promised these local farmers this higher price). Anyway, after an official demonstration, they started rioting. On all sides were roadblocks and there were demonstrations, police came from throughout the region for the revolt to crush. The whole evening and night there were explosions and gunshots (in the air, by the police). The whole village was deserted, all shops closed, a veritable ghost town. On Saturday, Tim drove down to Tandahimba to pick up Marije. After 50km, he noticed the first villages with removed road blocks, but he could pass without problems. But then, in one village, a big tree was cut to block the road. Tim had to stop, and he was immediately surrounded by hundred yelling cashew nut farmers. First, he was not allowed to pass at all, but after a while this was possible but only for some big amounts of money. Tim managed to get this down to 15 euros, 10% of our month salary!, and only under the condition that this would be a lump sum for going back and forth, passing all the next villages without having to pay again. To guarantee this, half of the amount would only be paid on the way back, and one of the villagers jumped in the car to guide him through the next villages. Luckily enough, it all went well as agreed. We only found out that one of these hundred villagers had stolen the wheel cover of our spare wheel at the back of our car. So when we got back in that village we refused to pay the second half until they brought back our wheel cover (which apparently was already on the local market).

In the hospital, last month was pretty quite. The Medical Officer in charge (MOi/c- the hospital's CEO) suddenly left to Russia for further specialisation. At the same time, the Regional Medical Officer (RMO- the governmental boss of the MOi/c) got promoted to become RMO in another region. Due to trainings, congresses and multiple-day-training sessions, quite some other decision makers in the hospital are away as well during the last weeks. In the meantime, NO decisions are taken as people are waiting for the new decision makers to be appointed. This week, the new RMO arrived and hopefully the new MOi/c will be appointed soon. So we hope that after that, things will start to move again.

Many new photos on the 'Foto'-page (as we have to make up for our silence during the last two months)!