Object lesson

just a quick one. Our computer has suffered fatal hard drive failure, so we won't be online in the near future. It's probably best if you don't e-mail until further notice, as they will just get backed up.

[Object lesson: for those who have anything on their computer that they value, I suggest getting a reliable form of data backup, and backing up regularly!]

PS We are all fine. We should be getting a new hard drive fairly soon, hopefully followed by a new computer].

We visited Africa...

...this morning. 'Real' Africa that is. Sarah, who will be our house lady when we move to our new house, needed to take two boxes of stuff from the house we will move into, to her own house. As she has only a bike, we offered to bring the boxes in our car. [The prospect of owning a car is, to most Tanzanians, about as realistic as us owning our own jet].

In many ways she is very 'fortunate' compared to many of her compatriots - she has a 'good' job, her own house, and a tap outside her house.

However:

* on the money she will earn from us, she supports (at least) herself; her mother; her two children; her sister's two children; and another girl of three who doesn't appear to be related, but who's parents can't afford to look after her. On top of this she 'employs' her own house lady (for a pittance a month) who herself has four children to support. Neither she or her houselady have husbands. (She also 'supports' a cat, a pregnant dog, and five chickens).
* Of her mother's five children, she is the only one living. Of the remainder, one brother died in infancy; one brother was murdered while living in Dar Es Salaam; one sister died of HIV and the other died of typhoid.
* Her house has no electricity, only one window (although she hasn't been able to afford glass yet) and no doors.

It helps put things in perspective, especially when you realise that is doing relatively OK for herself, compared to many other people. It makes you appreciate things you never even noticed before, like paint on the walls, and a covering on the floor; a kitchen which has something in it other than a small charcoal fire; a toilet (that you can sit on, and flush).

It also helps remove all our guilt (as mentioned in previous posts) about feeling 'colonial' and employing a house lady. Firstly, without us the whole extended family would have no means of support, and secondly, just about everyone in Tanzania has house help. Even those who can't afford to pay someone have relatives who help out.

The mind boggles a bit at the 'differentness' of the world she (and millions of others) live in. It is even stranger when we are living pretty much a Western lifestyle a couple of kilometres up the road.

It was a good experience though, and helps us to appreciate Sarah even more. Despite all this 'hardship' she is a lovely lady, and always has a smile on her face. It is good to be able to see how she lives, and makes us glad to be in a position to be able to help.

This is why we came.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Despite the disappointing uptake of last week's quiz, for the stalwarts who had a go, the answers are as follows:

1. Kompyuta - Computer (no prizes for that one!)
2. Teksi - Taxi
3. Baiskeli - Bicycle
4. Gari - Car
5. Mzungu - European (or 'white person' - it's what they shout at you when you're at the market!)
6. Mungu - God
7. Alhamisi - Thursday
8. Hamsini - Fifty
9. Mbinguni - Heaven
10. Kwa sababu - Because

So there you go. I've got hundreds more like that if you're interested. I guess first prize goes to Mel and Ethan with 4/10 - go to the top of the class!

Picture 1: Josh and Bethany at snack time
Picture 2: Bananas from our tree ripening in th porch.
Picture 3: Joshua and Bethany singing in their end of term assembly. You can just see Josh's tummy sticking out at the front and Bethany is next to him. It is school holidays for 8 weeks now. The children start school again in August and Josh will go up to reception. He'll have to leave at 7:20am!!

Tunaanza kujifunza Kiswahili ["We begin to study Swahili"]

Evening all.

I am resurfacing from my Swahili homework to post an entry for your edification. I doubt I will ever be able to write that sentence in Swahili, but never mind. I have to say, when it comes to the language lessons and homework, I find it a lot harder to think of ideas to talk/write about, that to use the language. Our homework this weekend is to write a dialogue using all the grammar and vocab we have learnt this week. That is just way to open ended for me! I'd much prefer to translate something.

The language training hasn't gone too badly, although Libby has not got on too well with our teacher's style of teaching, which tends to be a bit inflexible and not terribly helpful. However, God has supplied a different (better) teacher for her next week, which is nice! Our 'one-in-the-morning, one-in-the-afternoon' approach seems to be working so far. It was a bit of a struggle for the majority of the week, as I was feeling fairly rough, but I seem to be over that now. So, onward and upward!

Apologies for the lack of photos. I don't know if it's our computer, or something to do with the network, but it has become excrutiatingly slow to upload pictures, and 50%+ of the time it doesn't work at all. Please bear with us.

We went out to lunch this afternoon, which wasn't a terribly encouraging experience (although we did end up with a meal, which I guess was the object of the exercise). Our waitress didn't seem particularly interested in understanding our Swahili, or making it easy for us to understand hers, which was a little bit disheartening. I keep thinking it's amazing how much we've learnt in the last week, but also realising that we've hardly even scratched the surface. I was doing the crossword in the Weekly Telegraph this morning (Thanks mum) and it occurred to me that the ability to do a crossword in another language is the sign of absolute fluency. I don't think we'll ever get there in Swahili, but it would be nice to be able to order a meal!

Anyway, enough rambling, here's something a bit more interactive (for Jane's benefit). Swahili quiz #1 - these are supposed to get progressively harder. (I do know all the answers this time!)

1. Kompyuta

2. Teksi

3. Baiskeli

4. Gari

5. Mzungu

6. Mungu

7. Alhamisi

8. Hamsini

9. Mbinguni

10. Kwa sababu

[You're supposed to guess the English (Kiingereza) meaning, in case it's not obvious! - no cheating]

Photos

In sickness and health

I'm sitting in the garden writing the draft of this blog (don't worry mum I'm in the shade). Daniel and Joshua are inside ill and Caleb and Bethany are playing.

We've had a bit of week for illness. I had a funny vertigo thing last Saturday (not in the book of tropical diseases) and then a virus thing in the week, hot and cold and aching all over. The problem here is that as soon as you get a temperature you wonder if you've got malaria. I was advised to visit the little doctors surgery (more of a cupboard) outside the compound for a malaria blood test. It only costs 500 shillings (25p) and then you go back in half an hour for the result. It came back negative which was a relief, but it's always good to check! Daniel has now come down with the same malaise and then last night I was up about 4 times with Joshua who'd sickness and diarrhoea. Again the question is does he have malaria? His temperature isn't that high so we've decided to wait until later to decide whether he needs a test. He's not overly fond of having 'pricks' as the injections to come here are still rather fresh in his mind. Will keep you posted.

Our language training that was supposed to start this week didn't happen because the teacher didn't turn up. Apparently her daughter has malaria, but hopefully we should see her next week. She lives a days bus ride away so who knows. Daniel spent the week in the office trying to sort a few things out and I did my usual things at home with my mamas! I was very pleased that for the first time ever I managed to boil the milk without it boiling over. Trivial I know, but everytime so far I have completely forgotten about it. I've even gone out and left it on to come back and find it boiling over everywhere. Fortunately the one time I actually went off site leaving the milk, there was a power cut so the house didn't burn down. Good job really because the list of things we have broken in this house is getting longer and longer. Don't expect the usual residents would have been too pleased to find we'd actually burnt the whole house down. (Although it might put the broken cups, fridge panel, rug that Caleb has pooed on, other rug that Joshua has thrown up on, the video that now only plays in black in white in some perspective!!!) We'll be really glad to move into our own house and break our own things.

I also did the school run for the first time this week. Just a little bit different to the one I used to do in Watford. I'm not sure what the speed limit is, no one seems quite sure. Not sure if there are any give way rules, but it seems to be go if it's clear or whoever is in the most hurry. There aren't that many other cars or 4x4's on the road, but there are lots of people, carts, buses and bikes to avoid. Just imagine all the people that are in cars in the UK going to work, just that they're not in cars, they're mostly walking, or on bikes or in Daladalas (minibuses which people keep getting into but don't appear to get out of). Most of the school run is on a tarmac road, but the last bit is fun - forget speed bumps, these are huge potholes and bumps. The kids think it's great fun but I'm not so sure. I have to concentrate hard to drive over bumps, avoid ditches at the side of the road and not kill any pedestrians. The other interesting sight on the school run is machine-gun man and all the prisoners, dressed in their bright orange uniforms cutting grass. Feels, slightly strange when you're used to prisoners being confined to prisons in the UK. Our neighbour's asked someone to arrange for their trees to be trimmed and he turned up the next day with 15 prisoners to do the job!!

We gave our first loan out this week. The gardener said he needed it for trouble at home!! We gave it to him because we know him quite well now and he works very hard. He wanted 15,000 shillings, that's only about £7.50 for us but it's a weeks wages for him. It will be interesting to see how many more people we get now wanting loans.

My other success this week is that I've managed to locate coffee beans. My mamma found them in the market. Despite the fact that Tanzania exports coffee no one seems to drink it here, chai is the beverage of choice. Not even the Swiss Germans on the MAF compound seem to drink coffeee. Anyway my beans are still green, so I need to roast them in the oven, then grind them, and then voila I have real coffee. I even have a grinder. Hurray, no more 'Africafe'!.