[Related: Mwanza from above, Isamilo Life, Isamilo Shopping Centre]

On the day of arrival, even before I had found myself a fresh pair of clothes or had started cleaning my car and cargo, I had a room.

Photo: house where I rent a room at Isamilo hill (1215 m, the Victoria Lake water level is 1130 m, you look East, see map)

Don't think everything is going slow in Africa! I live there with two brothers in law of Kees, Tanzanians of course. This will be excellent to recover and improve my Kiswahili. Since it would be an extended type of lodging, I offered Kees a compensation. He suggested me to have the lacking dinner table and chairs made, which I did.
On arrival, I threw some tangerines to the kids who curiously looked down from the house above (see photo background). That was a bad idea. For days many loud children voices screamed "Mzungu give me!", stones were thrown on our roof, and one 4 year old knocked at our door and with a radiant smile explained himself: "It's me!". The photo above shows the house that has my room, near the pass road leading to the hill top (behind you). Steep up hill behind the house are terraces which huts and houses that have a good view down on the house and garden. If they are friendly I have no worries of my security, if they are not, I am lost and had better move. I try to keep the children out of my garden by promising them Lion, Elephant and Hippopotamus sound from my powerful HiFi set if they stay on the stand formed by an intermediate terrace between their houses and us. It works.
We also do recycling. Very modern: we, like everyone, have our own refuse dump. The is no garbage collection. The children are very interested in my colorful empty cardboard juice packs, and our excess plastic water bottles which make good drumming tools - of course, even the toddlers' drumming would make for conservatory entrance in Europe. After use they are thrown down to our kitchen door and we recycle them to our refuse dump, eagerly awaiting our next concert.
Needless to say there is no fence yet. The front garden carries intensive pedestrian traffic by mothers, children, cats, dogs and lizards. The neighbors' goats are in charge of its regular maintenance:

they next day a complete cow reported on the lawn, with son, I baptized them Maria and Jezus. Somebody's bees buzz in our trees. A woman offered to wash my clothes. Mama Robi Chacha (Robi, daughter of Mr. Chacha).

Our water is in an open roof rain tank (just visible on the photo above), filled from downhill by a long tube with an electric pump, very modern. When it rains and the tank overflows, the women of the village above line up in soaked dresses to fill their buckets. Becoming wet is less disagreeable than having to carry buckets of water uphill. Of course, this is a small price to pay for being an accepted and protected member of the neighborhood, as is the free charging of cell phones: we have power. The house owner has day as well as night watch, though, mainly, I think, to protect his rain tank and pump. And with reason, I witnessed one attempt of theft already one evening. The guard had to take off for pursuit so quickly that he only got hold of his torch, which he managed to smash forcefully on the flying thief's head, after which we needed half an hour to get it back into model and functioning.
Some fifty meters away, our opposite neighbor seems to be an as yet unidentified cat sized marmot shaped mammal [was later identified].

Photo: cat sized marmot shaped mammal, probably a kind of mongoose (from 50 m, taken through my binoculars)

And here, all God's creatures are equal: if you do not lock your door, you will hear some noise in your kitchen and there they are. My internet access is through a parabolic antenna nearby. At the moment it is a bit slow, because the velvet monkeys have acquired the habit, when fleeing from the balcony at which it is mounted, to use its flexibility to launch themselves to the branches of the neighboring trees, during which it is swishing dangerously. It is dangerous to leave banana's visible in a car, they might come with a stone to break the window.

Photo Isamilo neighbor (velvet monkey)

My favorite neighbor is Greeneye. Unlike the other cats she had no shyness whatsoever to overcome and immediately started her attempts to trade charm for food. Out favorite game is looking threatening into each other's eyes. The one who first starts to sweat pays a fish. I Always loose (photo). After swallowing her prize she goes for my Maasai blanket (picture). Sometime she gives me a hard time throwing her out for the night and I accept her company (on my bed). Since I have to lock, she opts for the shower as her night toilet.

Photo: 50 m down the road from my room, view on Mwanza Gulf (you look South from Isamilo, see map)

In the morning after my arrival my digital watch compass gave North for the sun's direction. So,  I calibrated it. Still, the sun was straight North. Then I realized it may be morning in my sense of the word, but 11:30 hrs East African time, Northern hemisphere midsummer and Mwanza far South of the equator.
I have taken from my cargo boxes what I needed, most pleased by retrieving kerosene lights and cooking burner, my European camping gear of the 1960's carefully kept, now valuable backups during power cuts.

Photo: the kerosene brigade (my European camping gear of the 1960's carefully kept)

Eight of my cardboard cargo boxes (for the interested readers who read about the unexpected logistical node at Bukoba: nrs 8,1,3,2,14,9,2,7 ) filled and sealed to firm cubes make my bed.

Photo: bed made of cardboard boxes filled with hardware for my dhow

[Related: Mwanza from above, Isamilo Life, Isamilo Shopping Centre]