Greedy Cat

Joshua's reception class at school led the assembly this week with a play about a greedy cat. Here are some pictures of Joshua's class and Bethany watching the play. They always have assembly outside at 8am before it gets too hot. They have the Tanzanian flag flying and they sing the Tanzanian national anthem. It's a bit different to assembly in an English school. There is lots of praying and they sing songs out of junior praise.

There is also a picture of our greedy cat which Daniel must have downloaded whilst I was out of the room. She is currently sleeping in the cupboard in the hall on top of the towels. She loves spaghetti bolognese and evaporated milk. (She doesn't eat mice!)Being an African cat, she doesn't get special cat food, she just eats our leftovers and sleeps outside at night.

This weekend I really missed Starbucks. There are no coffee shops in Dodoma, although at least that avoids the moral dilema of whether it's OK to spend more than one days wages on a Cappaccino. (Rember that next time you're in Starbucks) A days wage here is 3,000 shillings and a Starbucks regular Cappucino is 4,000 shillings. Lots of things are cheaper here, like fruit and vegertables, but the shop where we buy things like cheese and margarine has the same prices as back in the UK or even more expenisve. Consequently it's almost exlusively a European haunt.

I am also missing places to go. I used to hate being dragged to places of scenic interest when I was a kid, but now I'm here I realise how spoilt we are in the UK with beautiful places to go, nice walks, museums etc.. and all within a short distance of where we live. Here there is nowhere to go except the MAF pool. If you drive in any direction it's all the same, desert. One direction if you stay on the same road for 6 hours, you'll get to Dar, and the other direction it's 9 hours to Arusha. If you get married here you get you photos taken at the roundabouts, because they're about the only thing which are actually quite pretty. If you do drive out anywhere to try and find anywhere to have a picnic you are immediately joined by lots of curious onlookers. We went to a MAF barbecue out in the bush a few weeks ago. For the whole time we were there, (over 2 hours) there were two crouds of Tanzanian children who sat and watched us the whole time!