the bags aren't packing themselves...

Apparently I'm moving to Tanzania in early January.

I’d love it if the bags would in fact packed themselves, but alas, no luck.

Which is probably a very good point to stop and explain some guidelines of this blog. It will not be a confessional. By reading it, you will not gain greater insight into my sanity (or lack thereof). I'm not going to be confessing deep-dark secrets, mentioning the (torturously boring) details of packing, or pointing out that I need to do laundry. This blog will basically be about Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, the blood-thirsty mosquitoes and the giant crabs. (I'm seriously not joking about those- click here and here...) It will be about life in Dar, but not necessarily my life- if you want to know about my life, you have to love me enough to email me. But don’t worry, given that this is me, I’m sure that there will be more than a few stories posted that will have you chuckling, most likely at my stupidity.

So in honor of this being the first post, I'll give you the background info that you're craving:
------I'll be living in Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzanooty. It's the commercial hub of the country. Dar is on the coast- the western edge of the Indian Ocean to be exact. (And yes, there was that ill-fated meeting with the eastern edge of the Indian Ocean when I crawled out of the waves with more broken bones that I'd like to remember. However, Dar does not have any sizable waves for me to ‘surf’ so I can't imagine that happening again. Though maybe I shouldn’t have said that.)
------The house where I will be living is very close to the beach. (And I'm talking a warm, tropical, white sand beach.) If you want a satellite image of Dar, check out Google Earth. (And if you want to know exactly where I'll be living, email me and I'll send you the coordinates.)
------Dar is tropical. And with my blissful return to the tropics comes the fun stuff- malaria, giant mosquitoes, flying cockroaches and heat and humidity that never seems to stop. But hey, I was born in the tropics, so I shouldn't complain. And cockroaches make a great snack- after a quick pop in a frying pan, you can just peel off the shell like you would a shrimp. Full of protein too. Seriously though, I can’t complain because nothing beats tropical plants and flowers. (And the fun of torturing you all with endless photos of them.)
------Dar apparently has problems with electricity. (Though before all of you mumble about developing countries, I'd like to remind everyone that California had rolling blackouts a few years ago.) When I say problems, I've been warned that there is “usually” power 12 hours a day- 7pm to 7am to be exact. (Though the office has generators.) The house also has a generator though I'm told that it's rarely used. How this lack of power will affect my typical diet of ice cream and chocolate chip cookies has yet to be seen, but it's not looking good for the ice cream.
------Tanzanooty is a religiously and culturally diverse country. About 45-50% of the population is Christian while 35-40% of the population is Muslim.
------Swahili is widely spoken, though not the only language, and I will be learning it. (Stop laughing- you know who you are.)

Tanzanooty is home to:
------the Serengeti (which straddles it and Kenya)- think GORGEOUS African savannah, cute lions and friendly, though hungry, hippos
------a little mountain called Kilimanjaro- At 19,340 ft. it rises 15,000 ft from its base (the tallest free standing mountain in the world- or so I've been told). And for a small fee, someone carries your bag up for you, though they don't carry you. (To put that height in perspective, Lake Tahoe is at 6200 feet, Tallac is 9735 ft. and the base camp for Mount Everest is 17,600 ft.)
------Ngorongoro Crater- cuddly animals, not-so-cuddly animals, and gorgeous views
------Gombe National Park- where Jane Goodall studied and continues to study chimpanzees
------Zanzibar- tropical, white sand beaches with Persian architecture. A photographer’s heaven.
------Pembe- world class diving and marine life. And home to those rather large crabs. Since I love crab, I think it's quite convenient that they have giant ones. (Though I don’t think I’ll be chasing any of them down the beach in search of dinner- if anything, they’ll be chasing me.)
------Me (not to be confused with the aforementioned chimps)

You may be wondering about the Tanzania/Tanzanooty thing. The country name is ‘Republic of Tanzania’. It was affectionately given the name Tanzanooty by Ms. Barca herself, and the name stuck. Please don’t refer to it as Tanzanooty while going through customs entering the country- I refuse to bail anyone out of jail.

So yes, come one, come all, to beautiful Tanzanooty. (And if you bring me cold ice cream, I’ll carry your bag up Kilimanjaro.)