On March 18^th, 1962 a school in what is now the north of Tanzania was forced to close down, after it was gripped by fits of uncontrollable hysterics. The laughter had begun with a group of three friends sharing a private joke at the back of a classroom, but spread quickly around the class, despite the best efforts of their teacher to stifle it. Once the students were let out for lunch the infectious giggles spread like wildfire throughout the playground, until pretty soon the entire school was unable to do anything at all due to paroxysms of uncontrollable mirth.

Sending the students home only made the situation worse, as the laughter spread rapidly through local communities. Individual attacks lasted for various periods of time – from a matter of minutes to a few hours – but they would always reoccur, and most people found that they could not recover full control of their senses again for a period of more than two weeks after the initial titter. Eventually, outside help had to be called in and the region, which – at its height – had seen around one thousand people affected by the epidemic, had a quarantine order imposed upon it. When the last chuckles finally died away a full two years later, no trace of anything which could be linked to the outbreak could be found, and not a single person had suffered any lasting damage as a result of this freak outbreak of mass hysteria...

Which is reason enough to want to visit Tanzania, but when you throw in our incredible projects, in the areas of Teaching, Care and Medicine...well, you must surely be asking yourself why you aren’t already out there?

Projects Abroad Tanzania is one of our newest offices, but it has a rapidly growing reputation for the placements it has set up and the service it is currently offering to our volunteers, who are all based in and around the charming town of Arusha. Tanzania is not only a great place to volunteer, but it is also a spectacular destination for tourism, with – among other things - the majestic Lake Victoria and the imperious Mount Kilimanjaro well worth a visit during your time off.