Currently...

I realise that these currently blogs may give you more information that you really want to know about our family. However, they help me organise some thoughts when I feel like not much has happened here.

So here goes
Currently reading: Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller.

Reading this paragraph I realise I am not really embracing the whole African experience.

“I have fleabites up and down my arms and on my legs …they are small, familiar red bumps-almost friendly-and are less irritating than the swollen lumps from mosquitoes, or the burning place where a tick has bitten and needs to be watched in case of infection.”

Maybe I am just not cut out for bush living!!

Currently watching: Mcleods Daughters-sheep farming soap from Australia. Almost as far removed from here as you can get, I have never seen a sheep or a horse here, although they do have a lot of bugs, power cuts and hot weather.


Currently working on projects: Making Kitchen blinds. Who was it that said “necessity is the mother of invention”. I guess blinds are not exactly necessary, but they are nice to have when you live in a gold fish bowl with guards patrolling round the house all night. Really they don’t need to see me in my pyjamas, although it may liven up their night!


Currently enjoying: It’s raining it’s pouring. Today it’s grey and only 20 degrees C, by Dodoma standards it’s absolutely freezing and allows us to wear all manner of exciting things like socks and shoes and fleeces.


Currently not enjoying: Caleb is sick, hopefully not malaria. I did a blood slide yesterday and it came back negative. Amazing how it really doesn’t bother me now to squeeze blood out of my children’s fingers. He runs around on ‘Calpol’ highs and then comes crashing down again. (See photo of him asleep in the guards hut yesterday.)


Currently preferred food:Being spoilt westerners we very quickly get bored of the food here. We are a little bit ‘mangoed out’ and are longing for a nice apple. They are currently hard to find on the market and if you do find any it will cost a third of a Tanzanians daily wage for 1. When I’m eating apples I definitely feel rich.

Currently-most interesting quote“The church in the UK is going through a phase that is best called ‘gradualism’. Let me illustrate what I mean by telling you about a frog. When the frog was put into boiling water it understandably jumped out. But when it was put in cold water and the heat was increased gradually, it adapted to the temperature until it was boiled alive! We are in danger of being brainwashed by the world-not only by its post-Christian ideas but also by its lifestyle” Selwyn Hughes.

Currently praying for: To manage our time more effectively. Believe it or not the slow pace of life here is a myth. Things are pretty frantic here most of the time and there is a lot to fit in.

Currently challenged by:
Whether I should wear skirts more often here. Those of you who know me will know that I am not really a big skirt wearing person, however I have been thinking about the "one another verses" in the bible. Many of which refer to loving one another. I wonder whether wearing a skirt omes into that category. I know that I can get away with wearing trousers and I can easily argue my case, but is that really the point. Tanzanian culture really prefers women in skirts, so maybe I should comply. It's not about my rights, it's about loving other people. Maybe God is just trying to work through a rebellious streak in me!! Skirts are one thing, dresses are quite another!!! I don't think God has done a big enough work in me for that!!