6.30: Wake up. Glance at alarm clock. Decide whether or not I really need that workout.

6.40: Drag myself out of bed. Throw on Muslim swimsuit, tights, and white, oversized branded t-shirt.

6.45: Go to rooftop pool. Discover that is, literally, a rooftop pool. Spend ten minutes zoobing at the view. I can see the ocean, and teensy weensy people at ground level [rooftop is on 13^th floor. Spend two more minutes wondering why the hotel has no ‘room 13s’ but has a pool on the thirteenth floor. Accidents can happen you know…]

6.57: Get into pool. Brrrr. Spend three seconds wondering why the swimming pool ladder has strings of rust suspended in mid-water. Note: I don’t say the ladder is rusted, I say the ladder has strings of rust suspended around it. And the strings aren’t floating, they’re just there, like petrified golden threads. Odd.

7.02: Start swimming. Target is 50 laps. Which is easy, coz the pool is only 5 feet deep, 10 feet long, and 6 feet wide. Some people I know can’t even fit across that width…

7.27: Thirty laps done [though at this (lack of) length, they’re more like stretches than laps…] Not tired. Wondering if energy use is proportional to depth…and whether I am actually burning calories or just fooling around in an oversized bathtub.

7.28: It starts to rain. Jump out, grab gear, spring indoors. Decide to use the gym instead.

7.29: Spinning on the spot in the gym, trying to decide what I want to use. I can see an electronic bike-xercise but no cables. Walking round it to see where the cables are.

7.33: Still spinning around. The gym is small, and has weights, weights, more weights, a broken exercise bike, more weights, a running-machine-thingie, more weights, a step-ladder-master-thingie, more weights…I should say weight trainers, not weights; they are variations of things you lift with your arms, legs, knees, glutes, hips, and etc and etc. I settle for the stair-master.

7.36: Trying to figure out how said stairmaster works.

7.38: Still trying to figure out how stairmaster works. It keeps telling me to press ‘Enter’. Input weight. Enter. Input age. Enter. Input target. Enter. Calories, Cardio, Fat burn. Enter. Target 125. [125 what?] Enter.

7.40: Stairmaster has somehow decided I should step for 1 hour. Ee-eh?!

7.42: Exhausted after just two minutes! Jump off the machine and head back to my room.

7.44: Realise that there is a gym B that might have a functional bike-xercise. Request key. Told it will come in a minute.

7.50: Waiting for key.

8.01: Still waiting for key.

8.03: Keys.

8.05: Yippee! Three bike-xercises. All dead. No cables. Drat. Decide to use the running-thingie. Gym instructor comes in and offers to train me while getting me shoes, but I’m already late. He suggests I get off the runner and warm up…which I do. Except I don’t stop the running-thingie before I get off it, I just stop runn … walking…with rather embarrassing results, heehee.

8.07: Gym instructor tells me the bike-xercise is battery operated and initiates on body-heat (?) So I have to panda it and start cycling so that it goes on. Okay. He sets it for ten minutes. I am finished by 3, but I try to stay longer.

8.09: Slowing down. The bike starts beeping to remind me to work it. If I get too slow, the thing goes off. Sigh.

8.17: Waddle off the bike [pant pant, wheeze] and drag myself back to my room.

8.23: Zoobing in bathroom, trying to figure how to take a bath. Stop laughing.

8.25: Still zoobing. This bathroom is preeeeetty! The wall has an etching of palm trees and I can almost feel the breeze and…back to the point. Bath. Right. There’s a white tile wall. The water pipe grows out of the wall. The stuff that holds the shower head also grows out of the wall. No tap in sight.

8.28: Found the tap. It was hiding behind the shower curtain. Some feet from the pipes, on the other side of the wall.

8.30: Trying to figure out the tap. It doesn’t look like a tap. It looks like a shiny metal toilet-paper rack. Note to self: Invest in cameraphone. [NB: in Dar, if you ask for tissue paper, you will be given serviettes. If you ask for serviettes, you will get the ‘What planet did you land from’ stare. If you want the-kind-of-paper-used-in-ladies-or-gents, say toilet paper, rudeness aside.]

8.35: Have finally figured how to get the tap open. Still wondering why it is so far from the pipe and why it is on the opposite wall. Water is hot. I feel like a sacrificial chicken. Five more minutes to figure out how to get the water to be a little cold.

8.40: Done showering. Deciding what to wear. Have 3 jeans and 5 tshirts…

8.38: I’m late for workshop! I need to try the DSTV.

Conclusion: Working out is hard. And boring.There has to be an easier way to lose 10 kg. But I so want me a 13th floor flat with 5 different mirrors and a rooftop pool. Awesome!!

PS: I didn’t get back to my room till 2.00 a.m. Yes, we work that late. So no DSTV today. Maybe tomorrow.

I get amused when people tag me. Seeing as I’m the Queen of TMI [I am working hard to relinquish my Queendom of technobofia], I can’t think what anyone would want to know that I haven’t already told them. 🙂

So. For Mo. 10 true things about myself. I’m at a point where I’m bored of being ‘deep’, so I shall try to keep it light.

1. I like mirrors. No, scratch that. I love mirrors. And the room I’m staying in has lots of them. Hence, right now, I feel fat and ugly.

2. I’m 5 feet 5-and-a-half inches tall. That’s taller than all the men I’ve ever worked with. My company has a thing for short men. Go figure. And most men in Dar look up to me, in more ways than one. 😉

3. I was at the kiosk outside the hotel jana buying oranges, and I saw a weighing scale where I could check my weight for a sock. [That’s like 5 bob Kenyan]. So I did. 69 kg. I’m so upset that I totally missed the cue to giggle. I feel fat and ugly.

4. I’m at a workshop with lots of good food. I’m trying to ration myself, but they have this banana cake and custard and chocolate bitings and croissants and french toast and…well, i feel fat and ugly.

5. I went to the office yesterday to get some files out of my computer. My workmates were all snapping at me coz i’m in a fancy hotel and they’re not. I’ve been away 2 days. They all commented on my weight. Hence I feel fat and ugly.

6. There’s this Indian manager at the hotel who is always smiling and looking at me like that. I like being looked at like that. But I really wish he was someone else. Plus, I am having my worst bad-hair week in yonks, and I feel fat and ugly. Hence, I cannot understand why said Indian keeps looking at me like that. Puzzled is me.

7. I’m trying to get over this one guy. It’s hard. He’s everything I ever wanted, and it’s hard to recover from that. I’m scared I won’t meet anyone who’ll measure up. It’s so easy to like this guy. I’m afraid to let him go, but I have no choice. Help!

8. Last night my fellow workshoppers ordered chinese rice, thai egg fu yong, buttered chicken rolls and kachumbari [and they were furious when they got salad instead .] Me, I ordered a beef burger. What.

9. I need to join a gym. I feel fat and ugly.

10. I like mild heavy metal. Yes, I am aware that there is no such thing. Doesn’t mean I can’t like it.

I tag KK, because he is one of my favourite people, one of the most gifted writers I know, and because for some strange reason, he enjoys being tagged. There you go Love. **tap tap** You’re it.

For more information on 3CB, click here.

The title probably makes no sense to anyone except this one, this one, and possibly this one. I tried to find a link to explain it, but the search button jammed. 🙁 Sorry. But it’s got something to do with Pop idols, South America, and Mariah Carey.

I’m in a workshop this week, working with some University profs from East Africa. So far it’s been…an experience. Rooftop pool, tiny gym, good food, free wireless, working till 2 a.m…but more on that later. [@Intel, I finally got the cable, lakini the cow has refused. Something about conflicting IP’s, I’ve no idea]

And might I add that I have found my dream house! YAY!! It’s a thirteenth floor apartment; huge windows, great lighting, slumberland bed, DSTV [which I’m yet to use…], pretty painting s of pots, tasteful African decor, leather two-seater sofas, microwave, hot water, pool, gym, view of the Indian Ocean… The catch is that my dream house is a 5 star hotel that costs…a lot. Sigh. Oh well.

Back to the point. I’m at a workshop where, among other things, I read out this as a sample of irony. [I edit English textbooks for a living].

The Kenyans at the workshop couldn’t stop giggling. The piece was pronounced beautiful and brilliant.

The TZis at the workshop didn’t get it.

A few minutes later, the following joke was offered as a sample of…something or other.

Teacher: Listen children, my supervisor is coming. When he comes in, you should greet him by saying ‘Good morning Sir or Madam,’ whatever the case may be. You understand?

Children: Yes teacher.

Supervisor enters.

Supervisor: Good morning children?

Children: [chant] Gooood mooorning Siiiir or Maaadaaaam whateeever the caaaase maaaay beeee.

And finally, one of the TZis offered a sample of his own. It’s a letter he received in response to an ad he had placed in a … prominent location. The ad was a job offer for a watchman.

What I want to know is this: Am I evil to laugh?

Application Leta

 I am aply to my job of security guard to you boss in you
company of uTH.
 I complete to Grade 7 examination certificate in 1997.

  My skool Tembisa high very good.
 I am 27 ears to be Born of age and no mallied and no childish.

 My father is dead long time ago and my mother mary in
  Swaziland
 country there 10 years now, no see she so nobody known
to help me.

  My certificate is just sitting home for itself, but passes
in
 Mathematics, Geography, Science and all subjects but fail
in English
 because of Tsonga teacher teaching me is jelos of myself.
Me wear expenses
 cloth than
 Tsonga teacher.
 I here people you want security guards to you company
and I tell you I. Am
 one of that job experience for 2 years. I shot thief dead.
I want to Join the
 company of you and chase criminal out with me AK47.

  Please consider my aplication careful and call me
any time because me.
 Have celphone. I am red for interview with you. I am
very honest and can speak
 English free.

  Please also great your wife.
 And rememba that English is not our mother land!!

 Am ur honest a Tanzanian Guy.

For more information on 3CB, click here.