Bits and bobs (Libby)

It sounds like the FA cup outside our house at the moment. The waste land next to compound B is used as a football pitch and we are having matches every night at the moment. It’s strange hearing the English football chants coming across the dust. I’m glad we’ve managed to import something of such value!

Talking of chants, Caleb seems to have picked up the Tanzanian national anthem and when he thinks I’m not listening I can hear him quietly singing it. He actually managed to sleep through the night last night (long may it continue) and has transformed into a colouring fiend. Even Joshua is impressed with Caleb’s colouring. He colours at every opportunity, even in the car and always colours within the lines. I guess I’m biased but I think he’s pretty good for a two year old!

I went to the high school this week to sort out secondary education for some of the children we sponsor. I saw the sign for Jubilee high school but all I could see was a lot of dust and a few cows. I drove down what Sarah assured me was a road ( I think because many Tanzanians don’t drive, if they think it’s a road they don’t see why I have a problem driving it.) Anyway bumpty bumpty, 1st gear all the way ( I haven’t quite got the hang of four wheel drive yet, although I know it’s bad for the car if you use it when you don’t need it) we arrived at the ‘High school’ . It seems like a nice school. The headteacher is a Christian and actually won the Commonwealth games for long jump in the 1970’s. If you remember the attacks that happened a few weeks ago. Well a few weeks before, this school was broken into and the guards killed. It was found out subsequently that the same people carried out both attacks. The police caught them red handed breaking into somewhere else, followed them home and found evidence linking them to the other crimes. I think it’s really an answer to prayer to have the case solved.


What else has happened? Last Friday morning a lady came to see me asking for a job. Her ‘witch doctor’ husband had left her and she had no job, no food and no money- the usual story! After talking for a while I took her into town and bought her a train ticket to Kigoma. That’s where she comes from and where the rest of her family is and hopefully once she is back home her family can help her. To be honest with a witch doctor husband lurking around I was pretty happy to pack her off to Kigoma, a 24 hour train ride away. Maybe I should have thought of it as an evangelistic opportunity!!

After the station I proceeded to pick up two street boys and their blind grandmother. I brought them back to my house for chai and to talk to them. The boys basically spend their days on the street with their blind grandmother in tow (for the sympathy vote) begging for money. The rest of the family (to my knowledge) consists of a younger brother and a blind mother. So yet again I have involved myself with another family and feel a responsibility to help them. Every time I do this I say I’m not going to do it again because it’s agonisingly difficult trying to work out the best way forward. For the last few days I have been buying them food whilst I try and work it out. If anyone would like to sponsor three boys please let me know. (there is also a younger brother) I really would like to help them. The best thing I think would be to send them to the Christian school where Sarah’s children go. However I have no guarantee that they would not drift back to their life on the streets. I still feel everybody deserves a chance and sometimes a new start can make the difference. If anyone is interested the fees are roughly £100 per child per year + uniform. That’s less than £10 a month in charity speak!!!

Bugs, Beggars and Bananas (Libby)

We've all (except Bethany) come down with a sickness bug this week. Joshua and Caleb are recovering and Daniel is in bed.It's our first bug since August last year, so I don't think we're doing badly. Joshua also seems to have ringworm, what is it with our family and skin conditions?

Joshua actually managed to 'pull a sicky' on his birthday so he was pretty happy as by this time he was convalescing and driving me crazy. We had his party on Saturday because school days are so rushed. I love the fact that you never have to worry here whether the weather will be good enough to party outside. You have 99.9% certainty of sunshine almost everyday. Dodoma probably has one of the best climates in the world. Hot and sunny, but without the humidity.

I am again challenged by what I can do to make a difference here. I went into town this morning to stock on supplies for the sick, coke and nice soft toilet roll!!!!! and got talking to one of the boys who I often see begging in town. He usually begs on behalf of an old blind guy by leading him around town. He is one of my regulars, so we often have a chat. Today I found out that he is 15 and has never been to school but would like to. However, he can't afford to go to school and if he does how will he earn any money. I'm wondering if I could pay for him to go to school and or apprentice him to someone to learn a skill like mending bikes. He is just one of many with no education, no money and no job. To be fair there aren't many jobs in Dodoma. There is a surfeit of unskilled uneducated people and not enough jobs for all of them. However, I realise that I can't pay to educate the whole of Dodoma, I need another plan!

On a more positive note, Sarah's daughter Frida graduated from Primary school last weekend. Graduation from primary school is a big deal here because it's as far as most people go in their education. Only 6% of people in Dodoma go to secondary school! We are now trying to arrange for her to go to secondary school. I am very excited to see how a good education will work out for her in the long run. Hopefully she will eventually be able to go onto further training and at least for herself break the cycle of poverty most Tanzanians are trapped in.

Completely unrelated to this as I was driving through town this morning I saw a guy cycling with 50 bananas on his head. OK not exactly 50, it may have been more,it looked like a whole banana tree, but it was a lot and I wanted you to get the idea of more than a couple of bananas on someones head! I wish I could have taken a photo, but I was driving and had no camera. A little bit further along the main road in town they are digging up the road (not sure why), anyway there was a mound of earth in the middle of the road that I had to drive round and someone had planted a tree in the middle of it!!!! I wonder if it will still be there tomorrow!Maybe it's new traffic calming measure! They do actually build speed bumps here sometimes, but they only seem to last about a week before they've worn away. The pedestrian crossing markings have also worn away, so it takes a while to work out where they are! Driving can certainly be intersting here!!

Daniel for a change

Hello All. My turn this week. Sorry we didn't do this yesterday, but for some reason we had a power outage last night, which as usual meant the network went down - so we had a computer-free evening. (Actually we had an everything-free evening, as we were so knackered we went to bed at 8.15.

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A couple of photos - the first was my view to the left when I went to work/took the kids to the school bus - Tanzanian-style parking :)




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And one of Caleb, dressed up as a Masai warrior (they had friends over, and were all at it!)



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In the throes of finalising the 2008 financial plan at work -hopefully it will be more accurate than last year (when we didn't have a clue what we were doing :) ), but still a lot of crystal-ball gazing (not literally!). I guess it's a similar problem to all organisations - costs going up, without the income going up. The only difference is we are trying not to make the income go up, because we don't want to make the flying more expensive to those we serve :( Never mind - I guess that's why I'm here!

Other than that we are a) planning Joshua's birthday party, which will be on Saturday (at least Libby is) and b) planning the staff conference which will be in mid-October (I am chair of the committee, for my sins). We are also looking forward to my Mum & Dad coming out at the end of September - and trying to get as much stuff into their suitcases as possible! (Having said that, I think they're pretty much maxed out - so please don't send them loads of stuff to bring!) (if you were thinking that)!

Anyway, time for bed I think - we've been trying to go to be by 9.00, in the hope that we might catch up on some of the last 6 years sleep-debt. Not working yet :)