daily life…

Over the Summer, back in crazy busy London, I promised myself to have a different lifestyle here in Africa… and just after a week in Tanzania it is going quite well! I sleep more, drink more water, eat healthier (not difficult!) and I give myself time for daily exercise.

The exercise is nothing serious, just some Pilates and strengthening activities with squats and stuff. Oh and held the plank for 1 minute today! Aim is to get to 3 minutes before Christmas… sounds rather pathetic since I just googled that the world record is 8 hours!! Anyway, will keep you posted on that! Haha 😉

The healthier eating is helped by living in a quite rural area, also crisps are expensive and so is eating out. Let me give you an idea of the costs of different things…
£1 = 3,000 Tanzanian Shillings (tsh)

– an apple: 1,000 tsh (imported)
– small yoghurt: 950 tsh
– beer in a bar: 2-3,000 tsh in a local bar (5,000 tsh in a hotel)
– small bag of crisps: 1,500-4,500 tsh (dependent on brand)
– pack of bacon: 14,000 tsh
– 10 organic tomatoes from a roadside stall: 500 tsh
– bottle of wine: 12-20,000 tsh for the cheapest Tanzanian or South African wines
– motorbike taxi ride into town 3-5,000 tsh
– lunch at a cafe yday; omelette and Coke Zero: 8,000 tsh

They do have Diet Coke in the supermarkets but it’s so much more expensive than Coke Zero so have switched, trying to keep them to a minimum though because of the plastic waste! There is even Red Bull, but have avoided it so far – also expensive!

In short, I can get most things here, but anything imported is of course a lot more expensive and since I am trying to live on quite a strict budget I have to prioritise my ‘luxuries’… my luxury items this week were bacon, butter (real butter from Ireland – no Lurpak!) and a bottle of wine.

Anyway, here is a quick tour of my little house… (had to compress the video right down to make it upload, so the quality is quite bad, sorry!)

I will probably live here for another month, but then it might be time to look for something a little more cost effective if possible, will play it a bit by ear, though. The owner of the house here is from the UK. She has lived here for 20 years, is married to a Tanzanian and has three children. She has given me so much great advice already and I feel lucky to have chosen this place to live just for that!

And on her recommendation I am flying to Zanzibar on Tuesday as there is the Zanzibar Tourism Show – need to start making some connections! Three days of small talk and ‘selling my abilities & services’ – my worst nightmare (as most of you will know), but just got to bite the bullet and get on with it!

Will write more about the work side of my life next week, it’s all still very much up in the air, so…