1 - 10th March 2007

For the third weekend in a row saw us go to another small village in Mtwara rural called Mnima. It is about a 2,5 hour drive from Mtwara. We weren’t initially sure where we were going but we soon found out. Half way on the journey we picked up two players who would join in the training session. The point of these weekends was to encourage the girls that would be travelling to Finland to continue playing in their free time and also to motivate other girls who weren’t chosen for Finland to continue playing regardless.

After a longer journey than expected - going through village after village, the road becoming smaller and smaller and going up and down really steep hills we eventually arrived at our destination although it seemed that there was nothing here only for the road to open up with a school, football pitch, goals and what seemed like the whole village waiting for us to arrive, adults and children. To my knowledge we didn’t pass many of the local houses on the way yet here where in excess of 200 people waiting for us to train them in soccer.

Luckily for me I was on the football pitch doing a training session with the girls. The coach Muya helped as we showed the girls some drills after some time we divided them into teams and played a game. One of the unfortunate things I noticed is that when one of the girls makes a mistake e.g. miss kick the ball the whole crowd laughs at the girl. I find this a bit discouraging for the girls and certainly doesn’t help their confidence it they make a mistake.

After about two hours in total it was time to leave as it was getting quite dark. It felt a little bit strange that the training session wasn’t organised for somewhere closer than Mnima as the previous weekends the places where much more accessible. A total of five hours driving for only two hours playing didn’t really make sense.

That night we were invited to a wine and cheese party at a fellow Mzungu house, Philip. This was the second one organised my Philip the first was a real success and the second one was just the same if not better. Again he had Malteesers. Little luxuries! The host had again made his own different varieties of wine most of which were good although some were a bit sweet. As for the food it was great, Philip had obviously spent a lot of time planning and preparing. Luckily electricity is more or less a guarantee now in Mtwara so that helped in the preparation compared to the last time where he spent several hours at a friends place making the food.

The next day Sunday we had organised for some time to take a road trip to Msimbati. We heard that with a letter volunteers can enter for 1,000 Tsh (60 cents) rather than 10,000, quite a bit difference for volunteers. Jennifer, our host mother, who is acting boss for the Marine Park wrote us the letter we needed. Some people were nursing sore heads from the wine and cheese party. We had a packed land rover ready for the journey and good weather. As it had been raining for some days previously the roads to Msimbati were not in great condition. Luckily enough we didn’t get stuck and arrived some two hours later at the beach.

It is such a beautiful place to relax, enjoy the sun and go snorkelling. We first went straight for the beach and after this to the beach resort where we would each lunch. Lunch and entry into the resort is 10,000 Tsh. The resort provided a great variety of food all with large portions. Before and after lunch we sat on the beach taking in the sun, going swimming in the beautiful, clear, ocean water and some walked along the beach. At around 4 p.m. we started to make our way back to Mtwara and in the distance we could hear the rumbles of thunder and the dark clouds appearing on the horizon.

We made it home without any problems and with no rain either as the storm clouds passed away to the west. Unfortunately a big truck got stuck in the mud going to Msimbati right in the middle of the road. We helped to pull them out with the land rover. It seemed as though they had been stuck there for some time and again without a house in sight so many people had gathered around.