Day 32 – Sunday 28th February 2010

Our peaceful night of sleep juddered to a halt at 6:30 this morning, when the church choir over the road started a sound check.

We are awake!

We ourselves headed off to church this morning, again to the English service. One section today was a bit different to normal. Someone had brought some corn with her and had put it in the collection bowl as her offering. Lovely, we thought and then we then had an auction for the corn!

We giggled, and didn’t win!

The rest of the day has been a bit lazy, reading books and doing some Swahili. I went into the garden for some wildlife spotting. We have so many lizards around here, and they are so colourful.

‘Shall we make some flapjacks?

Why not we decided! We had to use honey instead of golden syrup, and guess on all the quantities, so they look a little runny but still very tasty with an afternoon cup of tea.

The night is now drawing in. Tomorrow is a new week and a new month, lets see what fun and games she has in store, after watching an ER of course.

Day 31 – Saturday 27th February 2010

Today was a national holiday in Tanzania so again we were both off. We had a lazy morning, reading our books and drinking tea.

It was a little chilly this morning, so I think we must be getting acclimatised.

We had then been invited out for lunch to the Orion, the site of the missing pizza last weekend. We were going with Jim and Margaret, who are heading back to the UK this month, Dr Ruth and a US couple Tim and Kim. You will pleased to know that all food arrived and we had a lovely lazy lunch.

We also found that the hotel also make bread. It is phenomenal and worth a weekly trip to the hotel just to buy bread. After a wheel change on Jim’s car we headed back home and took part in some rigorous exercise. Continued plumbing complications had meant that our water tank wasn’t filling. So I climbed up to the tank, about 15ft up, and balanced on a small ledge, enough room for one foot. Armorel, Dr Ruth and our security guard then proceeded to pass up buckets of water so we could fill the tank up. Thirsty work!

The afternoon soon passed and a fish and chip dinner was calling.

We had a quick visit from two local vicars. They wanted to pass on the services information for the next month, as we seem to both be preaching next month. Luckily in English!

Day 30 – Friday 26th February 2010

The question I asked as we headed off to work this morning, was would I actually have a half day at school today or not. Armorel wasn’t too bothered about it, and was more focused on her next round of training on patient hygiene, including mouth care.

As you can see, fun and games for the nurses.

I had completed the Bishop’s presentation and all I had to do was transfer it onto a disk. I started this process at 9:45am.

I finished at 3:20pm. I love IT!

So although I had come home at 1pm it didn’t feel much like a half day at all. I finally headed over to hand the Bishop his completed presentation to find he was now out, so instead passed the next hour with the diocese general secretary and another vicar talking about everything and anything. They were fascinated that we didn’t have any children.

Armorel’s training seemed to go well and she arrived home not long after me, but she still doesn’t believe me that my day was busy.

As Friday evening is movie night we settled down to our film, ‘Frost/Nixon’ with off all things a fresh pineapple. I think that was a first.

Day 29 – Thursday 25th February 2010

We are both exhausted as I write this.

We did not get in till just after 7pm. Not because we were working too hard, but as we were leaving work we were told,

“Oh, sorry we forgot to tell you. You have to come to Canon Isaiah’s leaving party, it starts now.”

So off we headed.

An interesting experience, in which we listened, sang, danced, ate cake and said goodbye, with occasional interludes from the DJ, who would randomly play music. We really don’t know why, but a fun evening in which we giggled and laughed.

I took the camera into school today to take some photos for this presentation I am doing for the Bishop. The kids found it fascinating.

The question for you today is can you spot the white man?

Day 28 – Wednesday 24th February 2010

Armorel left early this morning and headed out to Kilungu village, about an hours’ drive away for a mobile clinic.

She spent her day injecting and weighing babies, and having a fascinating time. Though, I am not so sure she was a fan of the screaming. My day was far less exciting, with the highlight being a game of body part hangman.

With Armorel not planning on being home till late, I ventured home on the bike. All was going well, I was getting a little warm but received many friendly shouts of encouragement, I think, and then I heard the sirens.

I looked up to see flashing lights and man waving a gun at me and shouting.

He was not stopping, so I had one option, head for the ditch.

I managed to stay upright, and then proceeded to witness a 15 car entourage for the President. Most cars were filled with gentleman reading papers, apart from one with a man smiling and waving.

I waved back.

It was the President.

I was not expecting that on my journey home.

Day 27 – Tuesday 23rd February 2010

We had a wonderful night sleep, with nothing, not even music to disturb our sleep. If the alarm hadn’t gone off who knows when we would have woken.

it was a frustrating day for Armorel as the training session she had spent last night organising didn’t happen. The clinic was just too busy and so it has been postponed, annoying but not unexpected.

I had another day of teaching, making sure the students knew all the body parts. I have also been asked to prepare a fundraising presentation for the Bishop. He flies off to the USA for a month’s trip and would like to have a presentation he can show to potential sponsors for the school. He leaves on Saturday so I guess I will be busy over the coming days.

We finished work and headed home on hectic roads, the prime minister was in town we are told. There were police everywhere, just standing.

Tea and biscuits were had when we arrived home, when suddenly the sky went black and we had an almighty storm.

We must have been here a while as we sprung to our feet and grabbed our buckets to fill with rain water. We are preparing for the dry season. As you can see I also need to do some repair work to our guttering.

Day 26 – Monday 22nd February 2010

It is chucking it down and has been for half the night. Today we are even taking our coats to school.

We spent our second night in our bed under the new mosquito net, only to be woken by cracking and us both rolling into the middle. I think my carpentry skills are needed for more than one job now!

Armorel had a busy day at the clinic, doing some translating of antenatal charts, which caused some serious brain ache. She also did wound care on a young girl with an impressive size wound. I will leave out the details as when Armorel was recalling them earlier I felt decidedly ill.

Today I was called into teaching action. No sooner had I arrived at school than I was thrust in front of 36 expectant children to teach them the structure of greetings. Did you know we had a structure?

A very different experience to teaching in the UK, firstly no one seemed to understand me, which I am sure is a new experience, and secondly no one would speak. My dancing around the room did get some quizzical looks though, so no change there.

Lesson 1 completed and it must have gone well as I was asked to repeat the lesson to the other class straight away. I was exhausted by the end. Just under 3 hours of non-stop teaching.

Tonight we enjoyed a wonderful homemade pizza, thank you Monika, and Armorel worked away on preparing some teaching materials. She is running three training sessions a week with the nurses and staff at the clinic.

We go to bed tonight thinking about transport. We have no car which is making us feel isolated and very dependent on others, but can’t really afford or justify running a car. We are not sure what to do.