The unforeseen

My horoscope in Tanzanian 'The Citizen' from September 4th advised me to stay flexible for unforeseen changes of my plans. So I do.

First of all, it turned out that I would have to wait for the Mozambican visa 5 days in Dar, while on the Malawi-Mozambique border I get it straight away. So: going to Malawi.

Then I wanted to go straight to Mbeya, closest to the Malawi border, but there were no more buses. So I got on the bus (together with 800 top quality little chickens) to Iringa , half way, hoping for a connecting bus to Mbeya. And there it was. And waiting on the bus, I met 2 Finnish that are going to a sort of a 'psychodelic electronic' music festival held as a backup to a huge event that was supposed to take place at Mafia island in Tanzania, but got canceled in the last moment. Still, in Malawi there are supposed to be a couple hundred people from all around a world listening to really freaky music. Why not pop in for a night? It's on my way anyway.

What else?
... blackouts in Dar. There are more of them than I remembered from the last times. And they are there day and night. At night it's impossible not to notice. During the day time, you can tell that the electricity is gone by a sudden explosion of the noise of power generators that most of the local houses and businesses are equipped with.

... elections coming up. You can see pre-elections meetings all over the place. The newspapers are full of them. There is probably not going to be a change in the ruling party (CCM has been in power ever since the independence), but the interesting fact is that in the primaries many of the ministers and other long-term MPs have lost to new candidates. So, the analysts say, democracy is working! :)

ay.... got to go!