Real life in Africa

For those of you who remember Focus our day guard in Dodoma, please pray for him and his family. On Monday night his 6 month old daughter Felista died of pneumonia. This comes only a few weeks after Frank's (The guy who worked with Daniel in the finance office in Dodoma)3 month old daughter also died. Also yesterday one of our staff in Juba (Sudan) had to return to Uganda because his wife had died suddenly. Life here is, for some people, very hard.

Monday also saw the medevac of the Tanzanian country director to Nairobi as he slipped and fell and did something nasty to his leg. He will have an operation today.

And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering.....
And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. Romans 8 23 + 26

Final weeks of school

Not so much to report here. Wind in the Willows was a success, although I did struggle to understand all the accents. (Most of the children are not English). I had to go both nights as Bethany was outraged that no one was going to watch the second night. I found the script in Joshua's bag and that helped me a lot to catch all the words. I enjoyed Joshua's bit the most although he didn't believe me. ("You're just saying that mummy because I'm your son). Still it was long days (leaving at 7:30am and getting back at 9pm- school provided dinner) and I am glad to have a relatively normal week this week.

Daniel has gone to the UK for a finance conference and has managed to avoid the parent-teacher conferences yet again. I have done two lots this year already and said it was his turn this time-sigh! Anyway I think it has been a great year school wise, I have been hugely impressed by the schooling here.

This morning I went with Caleb's class for a supermarket visit. They had 100 shillings to spend (about 80p) so they could learn about money and change. They all had their own small trolley to push round and it was fairly chaotic trying to bring order to a long caterpillar of small children with small trolleys. Still a fun learning experience and you can actually get quite a lot for 100 shillings - Scary coloured juice and an equally scary coloured lolly, 2 note books, a ruler, a rubber and a pencil sharpener. The kids loved it especially the bit where they got to pay for their own stuff.

Next week is the last week of term, which in my opinion can't come soon enough. I seriously need a break from making snacks, driving to and from school and being organised enough to get 3 children out of the door, complete with uniform, lunch, reading folders, games kits, swimming kits, homework and various other things that small people need on different days, by 7:30am!

Bits and pieces of news

Well it is busy busy busy here, but at the same time not really that Blog worthy. It has now been decided that we will move house in August (see attached picture), which in spite of the rats will be much better for the children because it has a big garden to play in. There is also enough room for a dog, so we are inheriting a 3 year old black labrador called Rhum. Finally after 35 years I get to have a dog. The Kenyans think she is quite scary which is good. Actually she is basically a dog version of Caleb, only black and fatter.

In other news:

I found a snake in the garden and Daniel laughed at me because I sprayed it with Doom. (The stuff I use to kill cockroaches) Well I don't have much experince in snake killing so didn't know what else to do. Anyhow it slithered off and hasn't been seen since. I was not sure whether to tell Caleb about it or not. I wanted to warn him to be careful but I also didn't want to initiate a snake hunting expedition. In the event he seemed quite worried about the snake. I think this is because the big boys on the other compound have teased him about cobras so now he is a bit wary of snakes. This has to be a good thing.

Caleb has now switched to school lunches as he says bread makes him vomit. Having found out that they weren't as expensive as I first thought I said he could try it for this term. He is loving it. If you can read it I have uploaded one weeks menu. I am wondering about eating there myself.

Bethany and Joshua are busy rehearsing for a production of Wind in the Willows which opens next week. If I can, I will film it for any grandparents that are interested.


That's all for now.