Well Ratty was hungry! He ate right through a container of rice leaving red plastic shavings all over the place. I went to see Francis to see what could be done. He said, ”Yes. We have rats. You should kill them.” With that helpful advice we went shopping in town.

We’ve found a new bread shop which I suspect Francis has not seen. They sell fresh bread and biscuits and buns and a Tanzanian croissant which costs 1000tsh and looks as though it weighs half a kilo. We’ll have them for breakfast tomorrow and I’ll report back. It’s a tidy little business though.

That afternoon we took the bijaji to Mikandani and had lunch in the Old Boma. It’s easily the best place to stay and probably the best place to eat in this region. Later we walked down to the small bay where canoes were returning with their haul of fish.

I still haven’t got used to being the centre of attention. There are very few white people about and the few that are around do not seem to walk about the place unaccompanied; hence we have every kind of person, young and old, walking right up to us and saying, “mambo” “habari” or sometimes “how doo you doo – i’m fine”. If we answer it’s often met with peals of laughter and back slapping. Two young boys laughed like they had never heard such a joke and cried after us, “wazungo” (white foreigner), a word which has none of the pejorative connotations its equivalent in Europe might carry. It makes me consider the comparison between the reaction to our presence here and the reaction to migrants’ presence in Europe.

We’ve had chai and biskuti  for tea and, as we’ll be up with the rooster, if not the imamu, we’ll be early to bed. We’re off to 7.00am Mass tomorrow with Francis. We plan to force ourselves on some unsuspecting nuns or priests, with a view to them giving us voluntary work. I don’t know what the collective noun for wazungo seeking to do good works is, but it’s probably something terrifying.