Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

This week I am back with a conversation about waiting in lines here in Tanzania and then episode 4 of Tiny House Nation. I think the best description I have heard about Tanzania lines is that they are like a rugby scrum where everyone locks up and tries to push the pile one way or the other.  It is common here to come into a place of business or especially a government institution and walk directly up to the counter or person seated at a desk and hand them your paperwork or start discussing your issue regardless of the person they are currently helping or the mass of people waiting to get to the front. For example at the gas station, the motorcycles and tricycles and people carrying empty cans just walk right up to the gas attendant and expect immediate service despite the line of 4 trucks.  (By the way all gas stations here operate on the gas attendant system to make sure everyone pays). That image above is common when I go to fill up.  That is four motorcycles...

I am going to start out by letting you know this is not a story about the troubles of having vehicle trouble on the way to Arusha, this is a story about the blessings that can come through such an adventure.  I am going to take a break from Tiny House Tanzania episodes to tell you this story. So this weekend I am headed to Arusha, which is one of the bigger cities and a jumping off location for many of the safari adventures and Kilimanjaro hikes.  This means the city has some heavy influence from outside sources for food.  I look forward to trips to Arusha since I have found a good hamburger joint, good pizza place, good pasta and decent Mexican.  It took me many trips to find those but I have them now along with a break from my diabetic diet to enjoy a milkshake.  So as I leave the valley to Singida so I can clean the truck and pick up some friends who want a ride I realize I have no real power going up the hill out of the valley.  There is no safe pla...

This week we are looking at adding Solar Power Generation and wiring up the Tiny House. Be forewarned I show my math-yes I qualify for nerdom.  After the video are some photos from the science conference in Singida last weekend.  As I state with all my Tiny House Tanzania videos, I recommend the show Tiny House Nation on the FYI Network with John and Zack as some of my ideas will be coming from that show. The photo above is from making the metal frame for the roof mounted solar panel.  I am drilling a hole for a bolt to attach the panel to the frame.  Some may remember it took 4 minutes to drill a 1/2" auger bit through a 1" piece of wood.  It took an average of 15 minutes to hand drill the bolt hole through a piece of metal 4 mm thick.  About the same length of time the video is this week. Here is Tiny House Tanzania Episode 3-Solar Power link to YouTube video if window below does not work:  https://youtu.be/H9rARQfdzGU One another n...

Jambo, Thank you all for helping reach a milestone with the blog.  With last week's blog I have topped 10,000 visits.  It seems a lot of  people liked last weeks blog about the house. I am continuing the discussion on the house work this week with Episode 2: Planning the work of Tiny House Tanzania.  Please remember to check out the inspiration for many of the ideas and for the video blog of the work at Tiny House Nation on the FYI Network or online at  http://www.fyi.tv/shows/tiny-house-nation The episode this week is pretty much all about planning the work to be done and discussing what I will be doing.  Since this week is not a lot of action on site, I am including a separate video of the process to wash clothes on site.   As mentioned in the video, I want to give a shout out to my hardware guy who helps me find all my materials in Tanzania.  His name is John. Here is this week's episode, if you have trouble seeing it in the blog you...