The keenly-eyed among you will see that I have now quoted Romeo and Juliet twice in my blog titles. Well - its a very good play! Anyway, I write this blog as dawn breaks on my last full day here in Tanzania. I cannot believe that the three months has passed so soon. But looking back at my time here, I don't think one single day was as I had expected.

My plan had been to teach, to sort out the school's accounts and to have a break from my hectic London life. The reality…

Being a linguist by profession and having a deep-rooted love of language, it was only natural that I try to learn Swahili. Before I came to Tanzania in 2011, I therefore purchased a Teach-yourself book and set about learning the language. I learnt quite a bit last year, and this year, having been here for 3 months, I have learnt considerably more.

It must be said that the book I bought was quite outdated and this was reflected in the phrases it taught. Sentences such as…

I have been debating whether to write this post for a while, since I don't know how many people reading this may have been directly involved with Cheka school and I was concerned about the reactions. Nevertheless, it is a story that needs to be told, and one that we can learn from. It is also a story that we hope will have a happy ending. Let me begin...

The Cheka Foundation was created by a Dutch couple who first came to Tanzania in 1994 and having decided to sponsor a young…

1.Seatbelts are just there for decoration.

2.Riding bent double in a daladala, bum hanging out the open door, with someone else's vegetables on your feet and unable to see out the window to tell when your stop is coming up has long since lost its novelty.

3.Your knees are grazed from one too many bodaboda rides alongside lorries.

4.You know what a bodaboda is.

5.You also know that the correct attire isn't a helmet and leathers, rather sunglasses and…