10.25am and all’s well.

Saturday morning (11th Augustus) at the Kesho Office & Volunteer House (now also known as the Kesho Farm) and all’s well. That’s a saying Joe, my grandfather, used to whip out hourly, according to my mum. An oldie but a goodie, so I’ve adopted it. What’s it actually mean? Probably just that things are going along at their own pace and of their own accord.

And that’s precisely what’s happening here now. We have Mudi here helping Daz tinker around. That’s my version of events. Daz and Mudi would no doubt prefer me to say that they are hard at it, grinding and welding our steel safe box into the cement walls of our bedroom. We had the basic box made up by a local steel fundi (pronounced: foon-di, and meaning: tradesman) yesterday. Now Daz and Mudi are making awful noises and smells (that fiery, welding stink), fitting the safe into its cubby hole. We thought it would be a good idea to throw our cameras, laptop and computer hard-drives in it when we head off to town each day. Not that security has been a problem (well, I think someone pinched my favourite Parker pen, but stupid me for bringing it in the first place!), but we can’t really afford to lose the info on our computers and cameras. Daz has his whole building schedule (the one he spent 4 days in Kenya creating) on his laptop, and I have created artworks of excel documents outlining our expenses and guestimated budgets (I’m sure Anne, our treasurer, would think they were quite fanciful and pointless but they’re working for me at this point!). I’ve also got copies of our land sale contracts and everyone’s contact details and a job list and, and, and.... Point is: We’d be feeling pretty lost if any of it ever went missing. As for the camera – well, yes it holds some footage that we hope to be downloading onto our site or a u-tube site for you to check out soon. And of course, there’s the doco we ambitiously plan to film and edit ourselves!

That’s actually my job today (apart from my self-appointed role of cracking the whip at Daz & Mudi). I’m downloading all the filming snippets Daz & I have been shooting. It’s not as clear-cut as that as we are a team of many cameras. We’ve filmed some stuff on our handy-cam – as Shona-Stuck-In-The-Eighties likes to call it – before cracking up and saying “what are those things called now anyway?” and we’ve filmed a bit from our spiffy Canon Ixus too. So now I’m trying to meld the two types of footage together. Oh, it’s a flash finish we’ll be getting here. I can see it a mile off. Ten-minute excerpts of Blair Witch shakey filming (I’m only new at the handy-cam) interspersed with not-so-shakey-but-oh-so-short 40 second snippets from the Ixus that probably don’t make any sense. Maybe the only audience willing and able to stomach the onslaught will be the hardcore FWS fans. Do hardcore FWS fans exist?

News? We can’t open a bank account here yet. Borizimo or wot? The obstacle revolves around FWS not yet having NGO status in Tanzania. It’s not entirely unexpected. But don’t panic, we ALMOST have it. We’ve applied (it’s been a process we started when we last came in April), but it might be a few weeks away yet. In the meantime, the ever-helpful Christian Brothers have agreed to hold our money for us and to release it as we need it. We actually haven’t spent any of your kindly donated FWS funds yet – Daz & I have been using our savings but they’re looking a bit sickly, so will soon need to access the FWS funds. We sign on the land on Monday at 3pm but already Daz has purchased some poles and barbed wire for the fence we’ll erect around the boundary. We’ll grow bouganvillea (spikey thorns – good for security) in between and over the fences as is the custom here. Prettiest security fences you’ll ever see.

Did I mention how cold it is here? I can’t believe I didn’t throw in a jumper! Locals tell us the winter should be wrapping itself up soon but each days seems to drop a few degrees. Still, it’s far warmer than the Sydney weather we left, so despite my sniffles, I no complain.

Another thing I don’t complain about – because it’s pure, unadulterated bliss – is the absolute all-enveloping quiet that descends over our village at night. Yes, there’s the odd rooster, cow, kid, dog, chicken, wind whistling through the grevilleas, water galloping in the infereje (man-made river) but unlike Petersham, there isn’t the thunderous, wall-shaking earthquake of a plane flying overhead every 10 minutes. Unlike my days at Bondi, there isn’t the raucous, non-sensical, alcohol-induced arguments of the neighbours till 4am, and well Rose Bay, was also nice and quiet – but there was always the hum of the highways in the background, the odd ambulance siren, the buzz of a distant neighbour’s TV. Here, there exists a sheet of pure silence which is occasionally peppered by village sounds…no ongoing hum, no ongoing thunder or yelling. It’s a truly delightful experience. If I didn’t live here already, I’d sooo move here.

Another thing we are gobsmacked by is the meat, the meat, the meat. Sooo fantastic. We’ve been meat & vege every night, just because we can’t bring ourselves to miss a night of the plump, juicy, red hunks that hang at the deli in town. The size of the steaks has us in stitches. Daz bought two rumps yesterday (for about $7 total). Later, when we laid out the first, smaller piece, it covered a 20cm diameter plate and then some. We looked at each other and grinned. I asked him why he bought the second piece. “I dunno!” he chuckled. We cut it into three, threw some garlic and onion on it – and wow, soooo incredibly delicious. But still, it was far too much eating for us. When we’d done, we whacked the second piece in the freezer and vowed to only pull it out when we have the Brothers over for dinner – not like we could even begin to get through it ourselves!

Don’t get me started on the biltong. How can we ever justify paying $4 for 100g of stringy, crumbly, fake-flavoured ‘beef jerky’ in Australian petrol stations again? Here, we pay the same for 800g of thick, peppery, chewy biltong, cut before your eyes – would you like fat on or off? On, always on! Disaster for your arteries but divine destiny for your gob!

The vegies here are great too. The tomatoes – well you’d weep. Just like those tomatoes your Nan used to grow when food tasted like food. The bananas are the sweetest, most exotic and tropical tasting fruit you’ve ever put in your mouth. The oranges are so different - practically acid free – taste more like a super-sweet and juicy mandarin. The green beans are too good till wait to dinner – they’ve become my daytime snack. The mangoes take a bit of getting used to – they’ve a slight “earthy” flavour which at first is a turn off. Stick with it, I say, and you’ll soon be converted and craving the taste. The 100% passionfruit juice? I can’t describe how good this stuff is – you’ll have to come taste it yourself.

So yes, the food here is pretty special. Of course, there is some Aussie ingredients which I already miss. For three years, I ate a daily lunch salad made of rocket lettuce, pink lady apples, coriander, grape tomatoes, mushrooms and Sirena tuna, in Sydney. Not one of the ingredients is available here – so sad, too bad. Mind, I could buy a 100g tin of John West red salmon from the supermarket in town - $10.50 USD that’d set us back!

Youch. Better stick to biltong!

Till next time, still-itchy...
Beck