New roommates

We've been slacking on the blog posting lately, but truth be told, we've been really boring. My research has pretty much wrapped up since the one person in the government who deals with adolescent nutrition isn't too helpful, and no one else that I've talked to deals with adolescents at all. So, now our schedule as of late has consisted of working out at the gym at the embassy in the morning, then vegging in the airconditioning in the afternoon.

A friend of mine from ISU has been in Dar for the past few days, preparing to leave Tanzania after living in the forest listening to chimps for 19 months. His daily trips to various government offices strewn about Dar es Salaam makes our COSTECH/Immigration issues look like a cakewalk! I guess I'm glad that anyone off the street just can't import kilos upon kilos of ape poo.... but it makes me glad I
work with people.... Anyway, the community of poor graduate students in Tanzania is small, and welcoming, so through a long string of a friend of a friend of a friend-type acquaintances starting with my ISU friend Alex, we were offered a free room in a house rented by an American professor. Of course, after hearing 'free' we jumped at the opportunity, and packed up all of our stuff, loaded it into a cab and headed over. Of course we've never met the professor, and until yesterday when we showed up in the cab, had never met her student who was staying in the house. Emily, it turns out, is very nice.

We're also sharing the house with the professor's cat, who seems to survive just fine without anyone around to care for it for months at a time. Yesterday, we saw it chase a bird, bat it down mid-flight, and eat half of it. The other half, he proudly brought it into the house and left in the middle of the floor as a snack for later. The other roommates are, unfortunately, the bravest and most outgoing bunch of African cockroaches I've ever seen. Bugs are obviously a big problem in a tropical area such as Dar, and with the people gone, the roaches seem to have taken over the house! I'm not a fan to say the least, and generally just freeze and become completely worthless when I see them. Alex thinks that killing them will just make a mess. So, he's taken to grabbing them with his hands (gah!) and tossing them out the door. Ryan's taken a different approach, and chases them down and beats them with a broom. The cat and Emily just ignore them.

So, we've learned that paying for your housing gets you things....like insecticide and air conditioning....but we'll deal with a couple of bugs for a few days to save a few bucks.