3rd Birthday

It was Caleb's 3rd birthday today. We celebrated with our neighbours with cake and sodas. Caleb has now spent more than half his life in Tanzania.

It's strange that in some ways our children know more about life here than they do in the UK. Bethany doesn't believe me that sugar is white because we hardly ever have white sugar. She also doesn't know what tights are! Why would she, it's not like you need them here.

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We are blessed to have a Swedish doctor here for a month.It has been very useful this week as Bethany and Joshua had a reaction to a jab and he has been able to advise. One of our group members recently did a first Aid course back in the UK. However, he said he's not sure how useful it was because the instructed kept saying things like, " by now the ambulance will have arrived and the paramedic will be there"- not in Dodoma. I think the instructor couldn't really get his head around a place where there is no emergency services.

Unfortunately, this week one of our staff members hit and killed a cyclist. Initially he thought the cyclist was OK, but he had a punctured lung and died later in hospital. I wonder whether with better medical care he wouldn't have died.

Last night the baby of one of the local Tanzanian ladies died of malaria and pnemonia, it was only two months old. It's such a shame because it sounded like with a bit more knowledge and better medical care the baby would have survived.

Living here you realise that the medical care you can get in the UK is pretty amazing, even with it's faults.

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If you have been watching the news you may know that the Tanzanian Prime Minister resigned this week along with a number of other cabinet members. I have no idea what this means for Tanzania but hopefully some good members will take their place and the country will move forward.