New School Term

We have quickly settled back into the school routine. Everybody seems to be happy to be back at school and Caleb has had a great week and behaved really well. The weather has been pretty hot the last week, so we have spent a lot of afternoons at the pool. I am trying to work a couple of days a week in the office for Daniel and on Wednesday I have started a new bible study.I know we are leaving in 6 months, but as much as possible I want to try and live here, rather than always having my sights on the next thing. Knowing we are leaving makes me appreciate the things I like about Dodoma and at the same time the things I don't like aren't so bad because I know I only have to put up with them for another 6 months.

Things I like.
Driving off road in a 4x4 I almost always enjoy unless the road is really scary and long. Bumpy, bumpy, bumpy gets a bit tiring after a while.

The friendliness of the shop keepers who always give me chocolate or lollies for the kids and presents at Christmas, let me off paying small amounts when I don't have the change, and are very happy for me to buy whatever I want even if I don't have any money at all. They just say, pay next time you are in, no problem, they don't even write it down it is so relaxed.

School finishing at 2pm so that the children have a good afternoon of playing at home or time to go to the pool.

The team of people here, all of whom I will miss when I go. Hopefully I will see some of them again, somewhere in Africa or maybe even back in Europe.

The quietness and safeness of Dodoma.

Not being bothered about my house or stuff, as we all have the same houses and the same unmatching crockery and mugs/glasses, scruffy kitchens and bathrooms. There is no pressure to keep up with anyone. In some ways I feel the pressure to do the opposite and have less stuff so that I don't feel quite so rich.

No DIY, MAF is repsponsible for the upkeep of the houses so we just call someone out if we need a repair job done.

The beautiful weather, sunshine everyday, 360 out of 365 days a year.


Things I don't like:
The lack of medical care. It is always such a stress when you are ill and need to see a doctor. The best case scenario is there will be a doctor in Dodoma at the right time, the worst case is that you diagnose your own illness and prescribe your own antibiotics. I have a cupboard full of antibiotics for just those occasions.

The lack of variety in the shops, particularly the lack of nice chicken. This of course is just a spoilt western thing. We are used to so much in the west, sometimes you just long for that variety again and the convenience food, like frozen vegetables and prepared meat like chops and chicken breast.

Living a days drive from an International airport, so it often takes two days to get anywhere. To a certain extent you get used to this, but it does mean you spend a lot of your holidays driving.

Being different and so much richer than everyone else around us.

The lack of things to do here, although this has improved since we have been here. However, even finding a nice picnic spot is a challenge, or rather spot without an audience.

Mosquitoes, and malaria or having to be aware of this all the time.

Kenya

You should all know that we have decided to move to Kenya to work for the MAF Program there. Our timetable for this year is that we will move to Kenya sometime in August and then go back to the UK for home assignment at Christmas. So if you were planning a Tanzania visit you need to start putting your bids in. Dodoma feels a lot more like Africa than Nairobi does, well to us anyway. So if you want a more 'African experience' you better get here quick.

Other highlights of the week include Caleb climbing into the taka taka pit (again) to retrieve a dead mouse that our cat had half eaten. I was not best pleased as you can imagine. Caleb and I are not working from the same page in the manual that reads how to keep you kids safe in Africa. In fact I think he hasn't even read the manual. Having just de-wormed him I hope he hasn't picked up any other kind of nasty.

We are in the last week of the school holidays and the kids are enjoying just playing around the compound. Collecting stones, sticks, swinging on the new tyre swing, making things with bits of wood and looking for bugs is keeping everyone amused. Playing lots of imaginary games with the neighbours is also very popular until it descends into compound wars.

All the children are very keen to go to Kenya. Caleb started to pack on Monday. he said "Mummy that's my school pile and that' my gun pile". I have managed to persuade him that it is a bit early to pack yet!

However we do need to start thinking about all the paperwork for moving to another country and think about what we will take and how!!

Kenya

We have just returned from a 'look see' visit to Kenya. The idea being to see what we think and feel about moving to the Kenya program in the middle of this year. It was a great trip, tiring and with the usual dramas of travelling with children. Bethany threw up all over me on the way to Dar, so I had to sit in puke stained clothes all the way to Morogoro (Half way to Dar). When we got to Dar airport we discovered our flight was via Kilimanjaro so was longer than expected. This meant we arrived in Nairobi quite late and had very tired children whilst we filled out all the immigration and visa forms. We also discovered, at the airport, on closer inspection of Caleb's itchy bottom that he had worms.
We finally got the children into bed at 11pm after Caleb had taken his worming tablets and promptly thrown them all up again. Yes I do travel with worming tablets. At least Caleb's small problem gave me ample opportunity to discover Nairobi's pharmacies which turned out to be very good and well stocked with de-worming medicine.

Nairobi was much nicer than we had imagined. Caleb says he wants to move there because they have nice breakfasts! This based on the fact that both times we have stayed in Kenya we have had been in places that provided pancakes and sausages for breakfast. I did try to explain that if we lived there it would be in our own house and that mummy didn't do sausages and pancakes for breakfast, but he remains unconvinced. Overall, Nairobi seemed safer than we were expecting and we felt fine driving around in the day and night. There are police road blocks at night looking for the usual drugs, weapons and dead bodies, but as we had none of these we were quickly waved on! The traffic too was not as bad as we were expecting. What surprised us the most was all the 60's architecture in the many compounds, Grey and ugly! I am sure there are beautiful houses in Nairobi if you can afford them, but many of them look like something out of Bracknell or Milton Keynes.

A lot of the flying out of MAF Kenya is in southern Sudan, so Daniel would have to fly up their a few times each year. Daniel spent a day in the office and was reassured that the work MAF Kenya does is really worthwhile.

Now back in Dodoma, we have to think and pray about whether Kenya is the right next step. At this stage it is looking quite likely.