Our holiday

We spent a few days away on an island in the Indian ocean in the Zanzibar channel. The perfect island retreat for some - but we had Caleb with us! Fully recovered (he had possible malaria over the Christmas weekend), he was on top form which meant that relaxing and unwinding on this idyllic Robin Crusoe island were not much more of a reality for his parents than before we left home.

It took us ages to get there. The so-called 'short cut' to Bagamoyo turned out (because of the rain) to be a very slow, bumpy, potholed route. When we finally arrived in Bagamoyo we weren't sure where to go next. We asked directions from about 5 people because the route they were all sending us looked decidedly dubious. However, 15km later (not the 5km we were told) we arrived at the beach. We were a little bit worried by this time, as it was over eight hours since we'd left home and it was not far off going dark and there was no one around to ask where to go next. Eventually we found a guy who said he would take us to the island in his boat. It turns out that this was 'the' boat.

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As Libby said above, the island had all the makings of a perfect holiday location - sun, sea, sand and good food. However, the fact that we had to continually watch out for Caleb; that we couldn't really be out in the sun between 12 and 4 (and there wasn't much else to do); and that the evening meal was at 8.00pm meant it didn't really work out brilliantly. I was also feeling fairly unwell for most of the week, which didn't help.

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Anyway, I guess the upside is that we were very glad to get home! Unfortunately, Bethany now seems to have whatever it was that Caleb has last weekend!

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We feel that we have to apologise for the depressing nature of our blog over the past few weeks! I don't think our life is as bad as it sounds, but maybe (like the news) the bad stuff is more entertaining. Maybe our new year's resolution should be to include some of the good stuff on here as well!

Christmas day

We received lots of Christmas cards this year hoping that we would enjoy our different Christmas. It certainly was different but not in a good way. It's been a tough weekend. My enduring image from Saturday is Manuela (the lady whose husband died ) arms outstretched in anguish, standing on the steps of her house as her husband's body, wrapped in a Masai blanket, was carried to the MAF pickup to take it to the hangar to fly it to Dar for autopsy.It's really hard not to start questioning why? Their little boy had a twin sister (Tabia) who died when she was only a few weeks old in Kenya. It seems incredibly unfair that that this loss should occur on top of losing a child. Only last Sunday night, Henrik and Manuela were singing 'Silent night' in German in the Anglican Cathedral here, it was beautiful. We were singing the same song on Friday evening in the compound here at about the time he died. Manuela believes he died whilst we were singing 'sleep in heavenly peace'. She was at the compound singing with us and returned home to find her husband dead. I also heard today that last night thieves broke into their house. Somehow we have to stand firm on what we know is true, that God is in control, that he wants the best for us and that he knows what he is doing, even when it doesn't feel true.

We sort of celebrated Christmas yesterday. Except we didn't really feel like celebrating and Caleb fell sick on Saturday evening and spent Sunday with a high temperature and vomiting. The malaria test we did came back negative, but the doctor next door recommended that we treat him for malaria anyway because the tests are not very reliable. He is still quite ill, although he seems to have stopped throwing up for now.

I actually manged to track down a turkey last week. The owners even offered to kill it for me - how kind! I said what I actually wanted was it to be ready to put straight in the oven. It was delivered as promised, but was rather tough and chewy. A bit disappointing.

Anyway from a rather subdued Christmas here, we hope that wherever you are you have a good Christmas. At least, even if we are sad, we can be thankful that at the first Christmas the light came into this dark and horrible world and that one day there will be no more death or crying, or weeping and that Timo, Tabia, Manuela and Henrik will see each other again.

Henrik, Manuela & Timo Niehausmeier

Dear All

Please can we ask you to pray for Manuela, a German friend of Libby's, and her three year-old son Timo. Henrik, their husband/father died suddenly and unexpectedly last night, possibly from typhoid.

We are all very shaken up.

I will may write more later, but now is not the time.

Thankyou

Daniel

Soapbox time...

We watched Hotel Rwanda last night, and frankly I think everyone who can should be made to watch it. It's not particularly graphic (or I'm just desensitised), and not the best film making ever, but it's true.

It's basically the story of the genocide in Rwanda about ten year's ago, and the West's culpability in that genocide. We knew what was going on, and did nothing (not to mention having created the problems in the first place).

It got us thinking like no film I have seen in a long time. At one point one of the Rwandans is discussing the atrocities that are going on with a US cameraman who has just been shooting footage. He says "It's good that you will be showing the world what is happening, so they will come and stop it". The cameraman laughs derisively and says "No, people will see the footage and say 'How terrible', and then go on eating their dinner".

Effectively, this is what the West did. I don't recall knowing much about the situation at the time, and watching the film you can't help asking 'Why didn't somebody do something?' But I have to wonder that deep down, even if I had known about it, would I actually have interrupted my life to do anything about it? Or even think about it?

It also makes you wonder about Africa generally - why is it such a cauldron? How much of it is a legacy of colonialism, and how much is it today with other factors? And how much can we even verbalise what those factors might be? Are 'Africans' lazy, too fatalistic, too short-termist?

But then you start wondering, why do we think of 'Africans' as 'Africans'. They're not 'Africans', they're people (and I'm pointing my figure at myself here). When you live here, it is easier to start realising this. Not long ago a lady who works in the hangar lost a child during a C-section. She was off work for weeks, and had to go to another town for therapy/counselling. This was a complete shock to me - I kind of assume that because life is so hard here, and death such an ever-present reality, that life is not valued as much as in the West. And I still think that in some ways maybe this is true.

But people are still people.

So then I start thinking - is there any hope for Africa. What can be done to help people help themselves? These aren't original thoughts, but when you live with poverty staring you in the face every day, it has to get to you eventually.

Does what we are doing here make a difference? I know it does, in a limited way to a limited number of people. I remember the 'fable' about the boy tossing beached starfish back into the sea. He is interrupted by a guy who asks, 'Why are you bothering? There are millions of them, it can't possibly make a difference'. The boy answers by picking up another starfish, throwing it into the sea and saying "It makes a difference to this one."*

But sometimes I wish we could make a difference in the kind of way that the man was thinking about it - a bit more macro, a bit more global.

What can we do to help is a fair question, but we also have to ask what help is actually needed? (I think Libby's talked about this before). Most people are fairly happy most of the time, but what is the bottom line? No one will ever be 'perfectly happy' by improvements in lifestyle. So again, I guess, Jesus is the answer. Maybe I'm looking at this at too humanistic a viewpoint.

So maybe we are doing some good here.

I hope so...

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*[I think I'm getting old, I've got a nasty feeling I've written this one on here before. Never mind, it still makes the point].

Christmas approaching

I don't feel very bloggish this morning but I'll give it a go. We have power so I'd better make the most of it. The rain keeps coming, there are less power cuts, but thousands of flies. Daniel is having great fun frying flies and mosquitoes with his fly sizzling gadget he bought in Dar.

Christmas is gradually coming to Dodoma - well at least to the MAF compound. My house ladies assure me they do celebrate Christmas here, but there is no sign of it yet. We on the other hand purchased a christmas tree and I have made a christmas cake (first time ever). You can't get all the right ingredients so it will be interesting to see how it tastes. Even more doubtful is the marzipan that I had to make from scratch!

I was really pleased this week because Eunice (the lady I mentioned a couple of weeks ago) came back having made 13,000 shillings selling paraffin and matches. I’d spent 6000 to buy the stuff, so I thought that was a pretty good profit. To be honest I don’t really care about the money, I was just so pleased that she’d stuck to the deal and was trying to make a go of it. She asked me to keep the capital and then she came back yesterday to buy some more goods to sell. It seems that microloans might be the way forward.

Elizabeti’s husband came back last week having been advised to wait until next July to buy a shamba (farm). They have put the money in the bank to wait until then. I just need to make sure they don’t spend it on anything else. Elizabeti also has a small shamba (like an allotment) in the area called Dodoma rural, it’s about 15Km from here. Here she grows a small amount of maize to feed her family. Last Saturday she cycled two hours to the Shamba, worked for 4 hours then cyled two hours back. The people here are so tough and have incredible stamina. No wonder the Africans are so good at long distance running!

It can be very emotionally draining living here, with people always asking for money for food, medical costs, bike repairs, funeral expenses, the list is endless. Everytime someone asks you have an emotional dialogue with yourself trying to sort out your feelings and what’s the right thing to do. I fluctuate between feeling very altruistic and wanting to help and then on other days I just feel very annoyed. I was reading in Lamentations this week, the verse that says, “his compassions never fail, they are new every morning” (Lam 3 22-23). It’s a good job really because I use up my supply pretty quickly. I think I am aware here how little I can do myself, I think it is very easy to find yourself running on empty and burning out very quickly. Here more than ever I have to stay connected to my source, “for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15v 5).

The children break up from school next Wednesday (20th Dec) and are off until the 29th January. Daniel has all next week off and on Boxing day we’re off to stay on an island off the coast from Dar. It’s very nice having such exotic locations to visit and for the price of a basic B&B in the UK. There is also the prospect of visiting a small supermarket, about half way from here to Dar, that sells exciting things that we can’t buy here, like yoghurts and hopefully some ground coffee. I am back on that awful instant Africafe they sell here. Not pleasant for me or anyone else who comes in contact with me early in the morning!

Finance and frogs.

This has been quite a week - I've had the 'East African Financial Controller' with me. She was the temporary MAF Kenya Finance Manager, and when they found a permanent one, they had to make up a new job for her, as she was too good to lose!

She has been helping me address some of the things that need looking at before the audit (which is in February). It was also interesting finding out all the things that we do differently to the other MAF programmes.

Also had a bit of a scare this week, as we received confirmation from our lawyer that he thinks we may have been breaching the Tanzanian Banking Act, in some of the services we provide to our customers. This had me sweating Wednesday morning, as the penalty is up to five years in prison for the officers of MAF (that's me!) I think we're OK though, and we immediately put a stop to any service which might be 'offending', while we try and establish exactly what we're allowed to do!

[Sorry, that was a bit boring].

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It continues to rain, and there is something about the rain that brings out all sorts of creatures - flying termites in their zillions; huge green grasshoppers, and this:

which narrowly avoiding getting squished by overexcited children. Still, rain is really good here, and we pray for more. This is a bit of an academic exercise for me, as I'm still too English to actually be able to think of rain as a 'good thing' in my gut. I guess that will come eventually!

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Quick techie spot on the way of my brother:

If you have not installed Internet Explorer 7, think very hard about doing so. Microsoft have done their usual "Let's have make a product and then give it to the customer to do our testing for us" job (I think it's still legal to criticise Microsoft).

I have installed it, and have to use it like I'm handling china - clicking the wrong button will crash it without any effort whatsoever.

Unfortunately, Firefox is also causing trouble, so I'm a bit stuck.

Don't you just love compueters

(...almost as much as people writing about them on their blogs...)

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I cannot believe it's almost Christmas - it feels like we only just got here, and anyway, it's too hot to be Christmas. I have no idea what a hot Christmas is going to be like. I don't think I've ever been outside the UK for Christmas, so it should be an experience. We are going away for a holiday on the 26th, which will be equally weird! It will be good to get away for a bit though, Dodoma doesn't have much to offer when it comes to holidays.

A Photo

Sarah making pitta bread with Bethany and Caleb.

Sorry, this was going to be a few photos, but it's proving difficult to download them.

Microloans

The kerosene lamp flickers as we sit listening to our downloaded preaching from the internet. Which century are we in? At night when the electricity is cut, it's pitch black. It makes all those bible verses about light shining in darkness much more meaningful.
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I've been thinking about microloans and put it in my prayer diary as with a big '?'. I was also re-reading something I wrote down to the effect that God wants to work through us, rather than us rushing around trying to do things for him. In effect all God wants is for us to place ourselves at his disposal. We should expect God to use us and be alert to what is happening. However useless we may feel, God wants to use our lives to bless other people.

Having been thinking and praying along these lines, I had an interesting week. For those of you read the blog two weeks ago, we have given Elizabeti her loan for her shamba (farm). Part of the money is a gift and the rest she will pay back when she starts to make a profit.

A few days later I was talking to my house lady Sarah about her house lady (Everyone has a houselady). I asked her how much she paid her. The answer was 7,000 shillings a month which is equal to about £3.50 (Three pounds and fifty pence, just in case you thought it was a typing error). That's for a whole month. She has 4 children and no husband.

Just to put that in context, a litre of milk costs 30p and Ugali which is the basic staple costs around 30p/kilo and she would need 3-4 Kilos per day! Life is fairly tough for my house ladies and I pay them £35 per month. It boggles my mind how you can even begin to live on £3.50/month. I've encouraged Sarah to increase her house lady's wages a little, subsidized by me. My other plan is to help both Sarah and her house lady set up small businesses selling things. Samosas, doughnuts, chapatis etc.. I can't pay them any more because we already pay very good wages for Dodoma, so the best way to help them is to help supplement their incomes. (Although Daniel calculated that their wages only represent 23% of what we actually pay them if you include medical, school fees and other gifts). For such a small amount (to us) - maybe only £5-10 - I can set them up in business. Don't worry this isn't an appeal for you to donate money, although it sounds like one.

Yesterday another lady called Eunice turned up at the gate asking for money. She comes every month and I normally give her something. She has 7 children and an absentee husband. I didn't want to give her any more money, not because I didn't want to help her, but because it doesn't seem fair just to hand out money when there are so many others in the same situation who are actually trying to earn a living. I invited her in for Chai (tea) and I proposed to help her set up a small business. The result she has gone away with 5 litres of parafin and 100 boxes of matches to sell in her village. I've told her to bring back the capital and any profit she makes next week. I'm not so optomistic about this situation because I'm not sure how keen she is to work and how much of her tale is true. But I figure she at least has to work to sell the goods before she sees any money which seems better than just handing her the cash. Please pray that she will make a go of it.

A big thank you to everyone who supports us financially. It gives us the means to help people here. Your money is really making a difference!