A slight interlude – gulping the cake down!

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The Gulper!

I’ve been in Tanzania.  ‘How glamorous’ people say.

If only they knew.

This time I was looking at sanitation programmes.  In case I haven’t said before (and I know I have), 2.5 billion people don’t have access to adequate sanitation.  Poor sanitation, hygiene and dirty water contributes not only to diarrhoea, respiratory infections and so on but has also been shown to be linked to stunting in children under 5.

So, anyway, there I was in Tanzania when I came across the Gulper for the first time.  The Gulper.  What a brilliant name.  It’s up there with the arsenator (well, ok, not quite).  The arsenator being a tool to help monitor arsenic levels in water (arsenic is a massive issue in the Desh).  The Gulper is, I think, a WaterAid innovation and in this case we met a bunch of women who had set up a group to try to help improve sanitation provision including by supporting better emptying of the pits!

Moving swiftly on from such a serious note (albeit a very important one), I’ve been contemplating airport cakes.  Contemplating them in terms of their diversity, colour and also my ability to stop my children wanting to eat them all!  It started earlier in the year in Yangon when I saw some delightful bright green cake.  If only I’d taken a picture!

Well, time has passed and my visit to Tanzania has introduced to me to some new delicious looking items.  So, I’m going to start documenting airport cakes!  And then perhaps I can focus down on Isobel and Arty’s favourites – after all, they are about to come widely travelled, so why not widely test the cake varieties!

Below we have some examples:

(a)  Not strictly airport as it was take in a restaurant in Dar Es Salaam.   I think this cake looks OK and quite edible.  No scary colours.  But then again, no pink icing and sparkles!  Not sure it would get the kids vote:

 

(b)  Dar Es Salaam Airport.  It was hard to find cake here.  However, I eventually found a few pieces….not especially appetising it has to be said:

(c)  Addis ‘Bole’ Airport.  Cake was proving hard to find.  At first I thought we would have to make do with a picture of the cake menu but then there it was – cakes, pastries, more cakes.  In fact, a very good selection and one which I thought the kids would enjoy!