Tort

An all-day meeting that was quite stressful as I was put on the spot by the government to give answers on progress on certain activities. I’m too new to the role to say anything useful in such moments, but I fluffed my way through.

A good stress-buster came in the garden of a colleague who gave me a lift back from the meeting, through the Dar es Salaam rush hour. A veritable menagerie including geese, dogs, cats, chickens, and at least 40 young tortoises, some of which were the size of cupcakes. No one can remain bothered by difficult work moments when playing with a baby tortoise. My friend’s dog did then jump all over my white shirt. She counterbalanced this by feeding me leftover fish pie (which I didn’t smear in my hair like my niece, see yesterday).

Even better than the tortoises and fish pie was going for a drink with Claire, who works on vultures in Tanzania, and who I met last month in Rwanda. I don’t really have any friends yet in Tanzania, and Claire, even though she lives a 12-hour drive away from Dar es Salaam, is exactly the sort of straight-talking open-minded person I want to hang out with. Plus, we talked about book shops and cafés in Hay-on-Wye, which is always a winning subject matter.