We are staying with some extremely affectionate friends here; but the last two days have been difficult because:

1.There always seems to be a very Indian trait of being fearful of walking around the immediate area (I found this when I lived in Muscat,Oman, too)..don’t go walking on your own, some incident (unspecified horrifying fate worse than death) will befall the unwary tourist.

2.Neither KM nor I are very keen on visiting the tourist shopping areas and picking up those long lean human figurines that are being churned out in the thousands. My friends say that there is little else of interest to see in Dar, a statement which I strongly disagree with, but cannot do much about, short of taking a taxi over the warnings of our host and hostess!

1. Both KM and I are really short on sleep and rest, having spent every available daytime minute in being out, and much of the night hours in charging the camera batteries, downloading all the pictures, during the times that the electricity works at night…so we are both tending to utter slothfulness before we get back to the daily routine.

Today I have decided to go for a drive around the beaches of Dar; it is a day of unseasonal, heavy rain, so walking is not to be thought of…

Tanzania seems as poor a country as India, if not actually poorer; people here tell me that Julius Nyerere, with his communistic ideas, set the country back by five decades and made the people lazy…but I do like the low population after the extreme crowdediness of Bangalore, and the lovely art deco buildings and the general laid-back atmosphere….of course, 3 days is just not enough to form any but fleeting impressions…

Very keen to get back home..the concert went very well yesterday and I seem to have collected a whole new battalion of fans…I had no accompaniments, but I enjoyed singing, and when I enjoy myself, my audience, I know, will enjoy itself too. They did, and that’s not just because they said so!

A dreadfully slow connection, with my hostess glued to it throughout the morning for her stock market dealings (Indian stock exchange) means that I don’t get much access, or much enthusiasm for it, either.

Heaven was the Serengeti and the wildlife experience…but now, Heaven is increasingly the prospect of getting home!