Christmas Photos

Christmas in Dodoma

Christmas Eve we went out to the house of some friends. They are Americans who we don’t know greatly well, but we have been round there for a few ‘occasions’. I don’t know if they are typical of Americans, but they have the most amazing house, and the most amazing stuff. Their house is a bit like a show-home, but they are such lovely people you really can’t begrudge them anything!

There were about 7 families there. We mosied round the garden for a while (the kids playing alternately on the bouncy castles, rope slide, siwngs, trampoline, tree house (which doesn’t even begin to describe it)). Then we went inside for food (good food !), and then we played the ‘white elephant’ game. If you haven’t played this before, it’s a bit difficult to describe – basically it involves a whole bunch of ‘presents’ (i.e. everyone brings their old junk), which people ‘steal’ from each other. It’s a great laugh, and everyone ends up going home with something they don’t need. Except we seemed to do OK, with toys for the kids they were actually happy with.

We got back late from this – the kids didn’t get to bed until about 9.30 – probably the latest they’ve been to bed since we’ve been here. We then stayed up until 11.00 wrapping stocking pressies (which is probably about the latest we’ve stayed up since we’ve been here!)

We were very blessed on Christmas morning, because it was a very grey morning with thunderstorms and torrential rain – probably only the 4th time it’s rained this rainy season (i.e. since around March). This meant that the kids didn’t bounce out of bed at 6.00am having been woken by the sun, but actually slept in until 7.15 – Caleb slept in until 7.45! This is about the best Christmas present we could have got! It also meant that, lying in bed at 7.30 listening to the downpour, I almost got a bit of that ‘Christmas feeling’. It’s a bit hard to get into the Christmas spirit in 30+ degrees, but the rain really helped. Good job really; after the late night I think I’d have been a bit of a scrooge otherwise.

We had the usual stocking opening when Caleb roused himself from bed. We also opened the few presents that we had (Libby’s parents are coming at the beginning of January, so most things are coming then – we think J). Then I set up my old Playstation (which was one of the presents we had given the kids). We brought it when we came to TZ, and I have only got to play on it about twice since we arrived. I kind of figure that if the kids ‘have’ it, and it is out in the lounge all the time, I’ll probably get more chance! They (and I) had fun playing ‘Ready to Rumble Boxing’. Libby went over to a colleague’s house to help out with getting ready for the Christmas meal while we played.

Around 12.30 we all drove over there for the ‘mass MAF Christmas lunch’. We did something like this last year, but only around 20 people came. This year everyone who was in Dodoma decided to come, so we were around 45 people. This meant that Libby’s organising was a bit more work! It was all worth it though – it was a really good time, and the food was great – a bit over-catered on the first course – we probably had around 10 chickens left! Afterwards the kids (and most of the blokes) watched ‘Cars’, while the rest of the adults chatted. We got back around 5.30. The kids didn’t get to bed until 8.00-ish though, as we are in holiday, ‘not-needing-to-get- the-kids-on-the-school-bus-by-7.20’ mode.

Today we are dealing with the aftermath of two late nights – but it will hopefully be a nice quiet ‘normal’ Boxing Day – playing with presents and watching loads of TV’ (or DVDs in our case).

I will be enjoying 4 days without even thinking about work – and hopefully another 4 after that without two many work-related interruptions! Libby will be enjoying moral support on the ‘home-front’. The kids will be enjoying not being at school; playing with their new stuff, eating their new stuff and generally being kids on holiday.

We hope that you all have an enjoyable and restful Christmas and New Year period, and get time to reflect on the amazingness of God, Creator of everything, making himself the nothing of a human baby, so that we who are nothing, get to share in God’s everything.

Happy Christmas.

Sintaklass

Last weekend it was Dutch Sintaklass day. A very important day for the Dutch and the day when Dutch children receive presents. We were invited by our Dutch neighbours to join in the celebrations. Traditionally Sinterklass arrives on a white horse, but this time he arrived all dressed up on a motorbike with two sacks filled with presents. Sinterklass read from his big red book to see if the children had been good before giving them a gift and all the adult gifts came with poems.I thought Caleb might be scared of the big man with a white beard, but he loved it. SintaKlass has a helper called black Pete, who was unable to be there. That is why the children have black face paint and are wearing funny hats to dress up like black Pete. They love those hats and have been wearing them all week since. Like we don't attract enough attention to ourselves. The nice thing is that we still have Christmas to look forward to!

Emergency

Thursday started as a normal day in the hangar but at 11am I got a call from Daniel to come and join the emergency crisis team because one of the planes our engineering team maintain was heading for Dodoma but was unable to get the landing gear down.(don't worry I wasn't involved in the technical side of this, my job was to document everything that happened, action taken, decisions made etc..

Soqui the pilot had done several take offs and landings already that morning with no problem, but when she tried to land in Mahale (to pick up some passengers) she could not get her landing gear down. The nearest place to land which would have some kind of emergency response team was Dodoma, so she decided to divert to Dodoma, another 2 hours flight away.

She was flying a 210, but had no HF radio in the plane and so we had no way of working out where she was and what time she would arrive. The crisis management team rushed around calling the fire engine (there are only 2), getting a doctor; setting up an extraction team; calling the control tower; getting one of our other planes on standby to do a medevac if necessary and so on. Without the landing gear she couldn't land on the runway, so we took the pickup to check out the grassy areas on both sides of the runway to find a place for her to land.

We could only manage to communicate with the plane when she was very near the airstrip. By this time she had been flying for 5 hours and she was not sure whether she was going to make it. Her voice was very wobbly and quiet. Stephan (one of our pilots and former German secret police) went to the control tower to talk her through the landing) He was excellent, explaining the landing procedure to her and trying to get her to relax and keep her head together. We thought the problem was due to a fluid leakage from the hydraulic system, so he told her she needed to get some fluid into the system and manually pump, to get the landing gear down. Any liquid, water, coffee or if you're desperate, urine! It was very tense because she couldn't put the liquid in until she was a certain distance from the airstrip. Stephan wanted her to gain more altitude to give us more time to think if the liquid didn't work. She didn't mange to gain any altitude because, we found out later, she was so low on fuel. She reported (about 6 minutes before reaching Dodoma) that the landing gear light was on, but only faintly. However, the landing gear had fully deployed. There were a lot of people praying that plane down, and she managed to make a safe landing at Dodoma. She had a very big reception! Many MAF staff were around, as were both fire engines, at least three trucks of police and a whole bunch of airport staff and even some press! We do not at this stage know the reason for the problem that occurred, but we can all thank God for his mercy in saving both Soqui’s life and the aircraft. It was an exciting, adrenaline filled morning but I am glad that that doesn't happen too often!!

Mud ride

(We are having real problems getting blogger to work at the moment, this is the first time in two weeks it has worked. This is last weeks blog)

Christmas time is almost here, although the clues here are very different.. The flaming red Christmas trees and the small red christmas bugs the children love to collect. Talking of small creatures, this week saw the tragic death of a chameleon, run over by a car at school, very sad. The children were planning a funeral!

We had a big thunderstorm on Thursday night and today is grey and humid and the clouds are threatening, might still go for a swim though as there really isn’t much else to do round here. Joshua is currently involved in another of his projects. This one is to make Santa’s sleigh. I’m sure it will look right in place on compound B. The children take Christmas very seriously and would quite like me to put up the decorations now. I on the other hand find it very difficult to take Christmas seriously when it feels so unchrismassy here.

Caleb is learning to ride without stabilisers. I’ve actually never seen anyone learn so fast. He just decided to do it and then got on and was away. Unfortunately he doesn’t know how to stop and crashed into the sand pit. This afternoon we have been practicing with a helmet. Caleb’s swimming is really coming on and he is good enough now that I don’t need to watch him that much. I’m always a bit nervous the first few times without armbands. All three children have been practicing their diving. Caleb is improving, but many of his dives turn into bellyflops. Why does that not hurt kids?

Work permit permitting I will officially start work on Monday. Please pray my permit comes through soon. I have the official mobile, the laptop and the key to the office, so it’s serious now. I’m planning a meeting with the finance manager to help me get up to speed with everything I need to know. Where airstrips are, what we do where, new proposals in the offing, how to use wingman and so on. Hope I can manage it all.

Sunday afternoon Daniel and the children and other like-minded people went for a mud ride. Not much else to do here on a wet Sunday afternoon. Two hours later they arrived back, very wet and very muddy and the car too. They only had to pull one of the cars out of a ditch twice. Apparently it was an excellent afternoon and I should go next time!!