Sitting on one long bench! Kids from 4 MAF families after our giraffe visit.

 

These are big animals. This giraffe is standing roughly at the same level as Caleb.

Gross

 

Whatever will they do next??

Half Term

 

We had a few days holiday this week for half term. Today we took the kids to see giraffes.

Fun in the sun!!

 

Today we spent the day here to celebrate Caleb's birthday. It was great fun. The person coming down the shute is actually Bethany, although it is hard to spot. This is definitely a different sort of Africa!!

 

6 Years old

 

Caleb's 6th birthday.

Nothing much...

Seems like a while since I've blogged :( Not that there isn't a lot happening, but not a lot that is blogworthy.

We've been back about a month, and I've just about caught up with myself at work, and working on implementing system improvements apace. That's the fun stuff :) Also supposed to be preparing year-end accounts for the auditors, but that's not as much fun, so is slightly on the back burner.

In case you don't follow these things, Omar al Bashir (the President of Sudan) today acknowledged the results of the Southern Sudan referendum on independence, and said that the results (99% for seccession) were 'accepted and welcomed'. This is really good news, and pretty much eliminates the risk of all-out civil war. There are still localised skirmishes in some areas in the South and along the border, and we have had to do a few evacuation flights, but all-in-all everyone is very happy and impressed with the way things have gone so far. Although things are pretty quiet for flying in Sudan at the moment, we are gearing up to increasing our presence in Juba, in anticipation of a huge development effort once things have stabilised and Sudan becomes independent (in July). Exciting times!


Had a fairly 'African' experience a couple of weeks ago (our life is generally fairly 'un-African' by Dodoma terms, but occasionally Africa creeps in...). In order to get my Airport Security pass, I needed a 'Certificate of Good Conduct' (roughly equivalent to a CRB check in the UK - I think there was a post in the past about out efforts to get one in Tanzana). This involved a trip to CID, in the North of Nairobi. All we knew was that we needed our passports; a copy of our passports, and 1,000 shillings. I went with Alan, our Programme Manager, and a Kenyan guy from the Stores Department. We arrived at CID and followed the signs to the 'Certificate of Good Conduct' Office. There was a massive queue outside, and to the left a little window with a couple of African mamas. We were led to this window, where we were supposed to pay. Unfortunately, we discovered that we weren't able to pay until the copy of our passports had been certified.

So we had to go to the main CID building and ask for a particular person, who we found eventually (after the guy at reception had ignored us for a suitable period of time in favour of serving other people). We then sat in his office for another suitable period, after which he inspected our passports and the copies minutely, and then stamped and signed the copies. He also made another copy of something, but I forget what.

We then had to go back to the paying place; pay and get our receipt. We then joined the end of the long queue. It didn't take us long to realise that the rest of the queue were clutching forms. On enquiry we found out that we had to squeeze to the front of the queue, go inside the building and collect the form from someone inside. We duly did this, and then completed the sections we could. Then back to the end of the queue...

Wehn we got to the end of the queue, we found that this was the queue for getting your receipt photocopied. (CID have obviously worked out that this both saves money - on duplicate receipt books - and is a charging opportunity, as they charge you to photocopy the receipt...).



Now with our passports; copies of passports (certified); letters of introduction; receipts; application forms; copies of receipts...we joined the end of the next queue. This was quite entertaining, because this queue was a queue to get a seat at the back of about 10 rows of seats. Every 5 minutes or so the first row would stand up and go and join the next queue, and the second and subsequent rows would snake forward one row...etc, etc. It was interesting to wonder how many buttocks had rested on each seat in the course of the day...(the room was packed - maybe up to 200 people, with everything indicating that this was its normal state).

Eventually we reached the front row, and were then called forward to one of the 'fingerprinting' tables. Here we took turns inking up the roller (presumably another cost-saving measure) while the guy folded our forms in the appropriate manner. He then took our fingerprints in record time, and miraculously without seeming to get any ink on his own fingers. Once this was done we then joined the next queue, which was to have our receipts attached to our forms, and both the form and the copy of the receipt stamped with our reference number. This all still with completely black fingers...



Eventually we escaped outside, where we found there was actually a sink with two taps, each dribbling a tiny amount of water. This was (as you might expect) well attended. There didn't appear to be any soap, but people were using stones from the floor, and the side of the stone sink to attempt to clean their hands (from the look of the outside of the building, walls were also a favourite method).

After all that, we were quite glad that we didn't have to go back to collect the actual certificates (a job which involves at least another two queues...), as we have logistics staff who do that kind of fun thing for a living. However, after that lot, we had to go back to the office via the bank, which involved a whole load more queueing...

Word to the wise: don't come and work in Africa if you don't have a fair supply of patience...

Anyway - all's well that end's well:

Cockroach

Just so you can see how gross these things are. The average one here has a body about 5cm long.

 

The winner!

 

A happy swimmer!

Swimming

 

Take your marks, get set, go!

Swimming gala

 

This afternoon, year 1 and 2 had their swimming gala. It is quite a long afternoon, but the children love it. Not much else has been happening here. I have had a war against the cockroaches trying to kill them all. One day last week I managed to kill 30!! I don't mind them outside but I really don't want them in the house. In other news, Joshua left this morning on a 3 day camping trip with school. I was really proud that he was so keen to go and not bothered at all about being away from home. He obviously feels pretty settled here to go away with a group of people that 6 months ago were strangers. Bethany is camping on the school field on Friday night, she'll get to go away properly next year.