Prelude

Jenny and I are off to Tanzania in early July for 12 months.  Most of this time will be spent in the small city of Bukoba in the far north-west on the western shore of Lake Victoria.

We are both new volunteers with VSO.  Jenny has a posting to teach primary teachers some new ways to teach mathematics.  I don't have a posting yet but there has been an indication of work with school food programs (I'm an agricultural scientist so I'm supposed to know how to grow plants)!  If this doesn't eventuate I'll be an accompanying spouse to Jenny and she expects dinner on the table when she comes home, all her clothes ironed (to kill botfly larvae) and ample purified water.  I hope to find some other useful occupations - maybe helping to develop birding tourism.

I'm really looking forward to the birding opportunities and have been doing a lot of research into the birds of the area and East Africa in general.  It seems the birds of the Bukoba region are not particularly well known so maybe I can add to the knowledge base.  To this end I've been in contact with the Tanzanian Atlas folks - Neil and Liz Baker and have joined the Tanzania Birds Yahoo group.  I have a copy of "The Birds of East Africa" by Stevenson and Fanshawe and I've just had my binoculars serviced.  My iPod has had lots of calls uploaded from xeno-canto/Africa.  I'm learning Swahili!

We get to Dar es Salaam on July 4th and spend a month there and in nearby Morogoro doing more training before we are let loose on the citizens of Bukoba.  During our 12 months we would like to have a couple of brief visits to places like Serengeti and Zanzibar.  Maybe we will go and see the gorillas in Rwanda - it ain't cheap but when will we get another chance.

Anyway - I hope to add to this blog regularly with birding reports and more general news of our experiences.  Jenny will be doing the same with her blog.

Cheers
Steve

Here's another picture of Bukoba - from the ferry as it comes into the port...