Busy busy (again)

Sorry for the lack of blogs recently. We have been enjoying the slow pace of life in Africa (not).

On Saturday we had the wedding of one of our engineers. I was on piano/choir accompaniment duties, so have been out rehearsing quite a few nights. It all went OK (except for, in the usual Tanzanian style of great planning) arriving at 2.00pm to set up for a 2.30 pm wedding, to be told that there was another wedding due at 3.00pm...and another one at 4.00pm. The bride didn't arrive until 2.50 in the end. Of course, no one really minded - but even after two years here I can't really get used to it. I mean this is a wedding, for goodness sake!!

We have also had the MAF International 'Pastoral carer' (Tony Horsfall) out here for a few days. So we have been having intensive spiritual feeding for the past few days (i.e. bible studies morning and evening). This is great, and a nice change, but quite exhausting as well. This is my first evening in since Saturday. Interestingly, of all the MAF programmes, he said that he thinks Dodoma is the hardest place spiritually - because all of the others are based in 'real' capital cities - and there all have a big choice of 'good' International churches. Dodoma is a bit lacking in this regard!

Anyway, we now need to try and get all our preparations done for our Home Assignment. Our printer is out of cartridges (and you can't get the right ones in Tanzania). Unfortunately our Programme Manager (who has just returned from the UK) brought the wrong ones back :( So we are going to have to borrow his printer to print everything else we need to print. I also have a whole bunch of raw footage that needs to be turned into something watchable. All good fun, but all takes time. We then have to start thinking about all the things we have forgotten to do :) And then packing. And then mentally preparing ourselves for the journey (drive to Dar, fly Dar to Nairobi - wait in Nairobi, fly to Zurich, change in Zurich, fly Zurich to Dar....arriving in the UK stupid o'clock in the morning). We would value you prayers for this, because we are not feeling much like we have the energy at the moment.

We had some other excitement on Sunday afternoon (which I had forgotten about 'til Libby just reminded me). All the blokes were called out to the hangar mid afternoon for a bush fire which was raging on the airfield. It only got within about 10 meters of our fuel store :) It was actually quite fun fighting it, and reminded me of our time in Zimbabwe when we did the same kind of thing (except with wet grain sacks if I recall). There were actually two airport fire engines that turned up eventually - when it was mostly out.

The only other thing going on at the moment is Libby's 'street kids' project. She came home the other day and casually mentioned that she has agreed to feed all the street kids in Dodoma! She has hooked up with a group of Tanzanian's who have a heart to help the street kids, and has agreed to fund them one meal a day. She went 'down the railway tracks' to visit one of their haunts. This is going to cost about Tsh1m per month (around £400). The long term plan is to set up a farm (along with our neighbour who is a farmer by birth and calling) which the boys can work on to feed themselves and/or to earn a living. Anyway, I will leave Libby to give you more details.

Anyway, that's us. And why you haven't heard anything for a while. Hopefully we will post again before we leave for the UK, but if we don't manage it - see you soon!