Australia Day - yep, we had one too!

Our guys worked till midday. We then treated them to a sausage sizzle, sang the Australian anthem, asked our workers to sing the Tanzanian anthem, and then ate our snags together as we discussed Australia's fairly dodgy history as far as our indigenous population goes. They wanted to know about aboriginal history and how we white people came to live in Australia - were we really just British? - and how we live today with our indigenous family. Did we fight for the land we now live on in Australia's? What with? Why didn't the aborigines fight back? Why did we take indigenous children? What religion did the Aborigines follow before we came? Why are we teaching indigenous history in schools - isn't that just creating anger in our indigenous population? Why isn't Indigenous Australia seeking their revenge us on white people now, as the Maasai surely would?

We let Daz handle most of these with Mudi translating. We ended up this intense, and extremely sombering conversation, by assuring our workers that the Australians standing in front of them are very sorry for our ancestor's role in Australia's history as far as our indigenous population goes, and that most of our fellow Australians and us are hoping for, and working toward creating a better future together... just like we, black and white, right here now on Tanzanian soil, were working together to create a better future for the community of Sinon.

The guys agreed, and we suggested they might want their weekly pays now...

At 3.30pm, we'd organised for all the Aussies (and a few stray Kiwis and Tanzanians!) within coohee to head down for a Australia Day barbie, game of cricket, chuck of the Sherrin... coulda sworn I was at home...