Long time....

Let me start my once again apologising for the lack of updates. This has definitely been the longest absence I have had from blogging, and I will not go into the hundreds of excuses I could give. However I would like to say thank you to the followers in Droyslden who have stimulated me back into action!




30 days to go, yes that is correct I now only have 30 days before the great event, so I am sure you want to know if I am ready.



NO.



During my absence I have made a lot of progress in terms of kit, visa’s, vaccinations and training, which I will give you a run down of in the coming weeks, at the same time the donations are still dribbling in and I am expecting a torrent before I actually depart.



So for my final month of preparations – I am in London this week, Frankfurt next week, Japan the following week, which will give me just over a week to do any final preparation! Now I haven’t planned that well have I.



So enough of that and now for some updates.



Today I thought I would start with the Visa…. Yes believe it or not Tanzania is worried about immigration problems !, therefore all visitors must have a visa. Since I cherish my passport and I am never sure exactly when I need to use it, I didn’t’ want to risk sending it off in the post. I therefore took it in person, arranging to collect the following day. Now here is an interesting fact. Tanzania foreign office only accept cash – yes you have to pay in cash. When I dropped off my application and passport it seemed very quiet, but the following day at collection, there was a huge queue of people, tailing down the street all waiting to collect. Now when you consider we were given collection times, I came to the conclusion that Tanzania house is definitely a cash laden place at the end of each day.



What was also interesting is that despite making some errors on the form, he quickly corrected them with a biro, and the only thing he was interested in was if I had the cash.



Anyway the end result is a Visa where my picture looks more like a monkey than me. I would attach a scan but that could end up being copied and used by other visitors!



So advice if applying for a Visa , don’t worry about what to put on the form, don’t worry if you don’t have a photo you can use someone else’s just remember the cash.



I wonder what do they do with all that cash.