About time too...

Hi all. Been a while since I have beaten Libby to the blog (or been forced at frying pan point to the blog :) ). It's been a pretty busy few weeks, as Libby has mentioned in previous posts. I was in Nairobi for a couple of training courses (Time Management and Performace Management) the week before last, and then last week was catching up on the management accounts - as well as being Acting Programme Manager.

This week is meetings, as well as catching up to where I would have been last week, if I hadn't been in Nairobi the week before that :( I have yet to find the time to apply my time management skills (I wish that was a joke).

[short pause while I go an look back at previous posts to make sure Libby hasn't said all this already]

Things are coming to a head with the TRA (Tanzania Revenue Authority), which is partly good and partly not so good - with the balance depending on how things turn out. (I don't want to say too much here, in case they're watching - you never can tell with these public blogs). Suffice it to say at this stage that I and representatives are looking at a good long term solution to our tax problems, but the difficulty will be delaying the local TRA while we try and put it into place. Undoubtedly more to follow...

It's fun being at the cutting edge of a developing tax regime though. [There will be few of you who will be able to understand that concept I'm sure! :) ].

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It's getting drier and hotter. We are starting to sweat in the evenings (and the afternoons and midday). In fact, this morning for the first time this year we were hot when we woke up. I quite like it. The downside is that dryness = power cuts. This is not so bad as a whole, because we have generators. The thing that is annoying is that every time the power goes off at work, there is a brief delay before the generator kicks in - and it always knackers up my e-mail system. Which takes about three reboots to get back to normal. The server alway seems to suffer as well, so everything ends up really slow.

Oh, well there have to be some downsides. :)

Speaking of which, the pool is still under maintenance - we are hoping it will be ready in the next week or so, so that our pending guests will get to swim. Last Saturday I was down there helping out - my and another guy 'acid-washed' the splash pool. A technical procedure which involves pouring battery acid into old oat tins, and then painting it on the walls and floor of the pool. Health and Safety although technically an important concept here, hasn't really become part of the underlying fabric of peoples' consciousnesses (praise be - one of the major advantages of not being in the UK. I much prefer being able to make my own judgements about safety, without having to do what some 'nana has dictated from on high, because person (probably while drunk) managed to hurt themselves while doing something stupid).

Not, of course, that any of the above applies to the aviation side of things. We have both and 'Director of Safety' and a 'Security Officer (as required) and safety is majorly important. The attitude to safety (and pesky things like preventative maintenance) is one of the main differences between MAF and many other operators here. We are safe in the knowledge that we provide a safe service.

Anyway, enough sales. Actually, enough everything. It's time for me beauty sleep.

The blog that Daniel should have written.

Last Thursday was Joshua's 7th Birthday. His third birthday in Tanzania. He didn't want a party this year, but spent the night in a tent with Caleb and we hired the data projector from the office so we could have our own home cinema.

Daniel arrived safely home from Nairobi with goodies. Coffee and chocolate, what could be more important. In some ways it is more exciting to live somewhere you can't get everything, so luxury items really are luxury items and it's exciting to get them.

Two weeks ago ( I forgot to blog it) our day guard Focus and his wife had a baby boy called Francis. (see photo)

I ran over a green snake on my bike on my way home from town one day last week. I think it was dead but it is the first snake I've seen here. Just in case you think we are overrun by snakes, they are quite rare. The same day I was driving back into town in the school bus and got caught in a dust devil. It's a bit like a dust tornado. It just comes at you swirling and swirling round and round, very bizarre. I just stopped and put the handbrake on until it had passed. When you are in the middle of it, you can't see anything.

Very exciting too and an answer to prayer, we now have a list of medical personnel we can call on in an emergency. We even have a paramedic who is here for a year who is on call for emergencies. Hopefully we won't have to call on them, but it is nice to know they are there.In the summer I wrote a list of prayer requests and started praying. It is amazing how they are slowly being answered one by one.

Just one other thing I thought I would share with you. I read it in my daily readings and it is quite pertinent in a place where you work and live so closely with people. Always remember that the people you relate to are part of God's purpose for your life. God wants to make us like Jesus, and one of the ways he goes about this is by using the people who cross our paths as tools to shape and make us more like Christ. The people in your life are hand-picked by the Lord to expose your temper, pride, stubbornness-whatever your struggles and difficulties might be. And running away from them is no answer. It's not worth it because God has many more such people to replace them. Relationships do not so much as cause problems as reveal problems. We need to look out for the lessons God is trying to teach us through the people, especially those that annoy us, he allows into our lives.

Monday and Tuesday: I was involved in doing customer care training for the operations staff. So far my free mornings seem to be filling up.

I have a problem with my balcony project for the flats because the facilities manager here says that it is not wise to get involved. He says if I start building and something goes wrong I will be liable. Anyway the whole building is illegal and the families shouldn't really be living there. Pray for wisdom for the way forward, how to help everyone concerned.


Wednesday:
One happy piece of news this week. One of our engineers is a refugee from Sudan and hasn't seen his family in over 18 years, presuming they were dead. Anyway, this week Daniel had a call from the program manager in Sudan to say that Tartisio's father and brother had turned up at MAF Sudan in Juba and were looking for him. It turns out that both his parents and a brother are still alive.

Wednesday night Caleb threw up all night and into the morning. He had the day off school, but his illness didn't interfere with his latest obsession of riding his bike. He had to keep taking breaks to lie on the sofa.

Thursday: Daniel had a business lunch with 3 of the other charities in Dodoma, to discuss a united front on the tax issues he is dealing with.

I got involved in another situation with a family of 5. Both parents have died of AIDS leaving a 17, 14, 11, 10 and 5 year old children. It is possible that all the children have AIDS too. they did have somewhere to live but now they are being evicted. Anyway I an trying to find out the whole story and then see if I can help them.

Friday: We were told that our Programme Manager will be Acting as Programme Manager in Kenya for a couple of weeks. That means that Daniel will be the Programme Manager here again (although next week Daniel is in Kenya himself for some courses, so someone else will be holding the reins in the interim).