Day 91 – Wednesday 28th April 2010

We have not had any water for three weeks now and our reserves are getting low. There is a huge problem with water in Tabora. It looks like the rains have ended, with the reservoirs very low and crops struggling to survive. It is going to be a hard dry season for everyone.

So what do we do? We wait and see if the mains water starts flowing again, or we head of down to the well with the rest of the town and our buckets. It really makes you think, but these wells won’t stay full for long either.

Armorel headed to the village of Kilungu today with the mobile clinic. It was a slight change of roles, which included being the nurse overseeing the vaccinations, but not actually doing them, and the paediatrician. This required Armorel to use her advancing Swahili to try to assess, treat and reassure the patients. She had a great day. I think they want her to become the clinic’s specialist paeds nurse!

I taught this morning and spent the afternoon running around town. Getting bottled water so we could drink, trying to fix the flat with a huge nail in it and trying to sort out our internet. We are relying on a mobile phone dongle connection which isn’t ideal, so few pictures I am afraid.

Tonight, Armorel is fighting tiredness and I am fighting the urge to eat more cinnamon rolls which have been baked today.

So you can be reassured, we aren’t suffering too badly.

Day 90 – Tuesday 27th April 2010

It has not been a particularly relaxing weekend and so the alarm was not welcome this morning.

Unfortunately, a couple of nurses were off and so Armorel was running the ward by herself today, and was busy. One irritating thing was that she had to administer eye drops to one boy every 15 minutes throughout the day, which kind of hindered everything else.

It did mean that Armorel couldn’t make netball club today which was a shame.

My teaching day was unproductive but I did finish my book, and then attempted to train the football team. Such a surface does not help with your basic skills. We might have a game on Saturday!

Armorel is currently on the phone to her best friend Helen, thank you so much for calling, we love it and appreciate it so much, and I am eyeing up the beans and chapattis for dinner. Then I think it will be bed time, as Armorel is off to the villages tomorrow, and will need all her energy for those adventures.

Day 89 – Monday 26th April 2010

Today is Union day, a national holiday to commemorate the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar.

Unfortunately, the others needed to be back early so we have a 7am start. I was thrown the keys to navigate the bumps, bikes, buses and a band of mongoose.

With the early morning light creating horrible shadows across the road I manage to land ourselves in some large holes. We survived and I handed over the keys about 40km outside of Tabora.

Luckily we both had nothing to do, so enjoyed a long afternoon cycle around the town before heading out for an early dinner. Or so we hoped.

We have a flat!

In the dark and with various improvised tools we managed to change the wheel and get to dinner for 8pm, and treated ourselves to a meal each and shared a pizza. It had been a long weekend.

A fascinating insight into the church of Tanzania and some real lessons to be learnt by the UK, the element of fun, the sense of community and the pride in welcoming new vicars. However, there are some other elements that the UK seems to do better, mainly the timing. But I leave you with some remarks the Bishop made at the end of the service.

“I am sorry to our visitors from England for the length of the service, but you need to remember that you have too short services and not enough singing in church, which is why your church is not growing.”

Bishop Sadock Makaya – Bishop of Tabora

Day 88 – Sunday 25th April 2010

We slept well, only being woken a few times by the screeching of nesting storks. There is a tree in the centre of the compound which is just amazing. I have no idea what type of tree it is or why I feel it is so amazing but it gives off this feeling of true power, which must be sensed by the huge numbers of birds taking refuge in its branches. I took lots of photos of it and this is the screeching stork.

The church was only 10 minutes down the road and we headed off in high spirits after a filling breakfast and a guessing game of service length. They ranged from 3 to 6 hours.

Little did we know!

The noise was deafening! The certainly love their speakers turned right up. Asking George later why they enjoyed this noise he replied, “Tanzanians prefer noise to music. It sounds better!”

As we stood looking for the quietest location we were grabbed by the hand and led to the front. We were guests. We sat with all the dignities and various clergy. There was no escaping from these seats.

The first two hours were fascinating. Several choirs sang, there was dancing, including us and the Bishop! I have never seen a Bishop get to the front of the service and dance. Now that is leading from the front. There was also lots of cheering, waving things over people, (any item of clothing was used, as a sign of encouragement. Women would just appear from the congregation at random and dangle a hankie on your head.) and interludes of techno music. Amusing and fun.

The next two hours the service started to drag. It was still very interesting but our interpreters were getting tired and so were we.

We then had communion. That is always at the end of the service.

1 hour later and we are stilling going and then we get called out to be welcomed and introduce ourselves. After 5 hours of sitting in immense heat with limited water and only a tiny pack of sweets we were feeling the effects. I needed the toilet and Armorel felt faint. This better be quick!

At 2:45pm the service ended.

“Now we have a short break before the next part.” Said the vicar interpreting for Armorel.

He wasn’t lying. Food was served for all 500 people, and again we were sat on the top table. It is very strange having 500 people watch you eat (the view below is from our table), let alone some men videoing you, and the fact you have no cutlery and are trying to eat a boiled potato with some semblance of decorum. I failed dramatically.

Luckily for us the Bishop announced that his party had to leave at 4:15pm to make sure they got home that night. We saw our chance and slipped away.

9am until 4:15pm is a new record for me. Who knows what time it actually finished.

Shattered, hot and sweaty we arrived back at the guest house and fell into the freezing pool.

Wonderful!

I can’t really remember what the evening entailed, I was just thankful we were staying an extra night.

Day 87 – Saturday 24th April 2010

Armorel had to pop into work this morning but we managed to have a lazy morning and she didn’t head in much before midday. The plan was to leave at 2:45pm for Nzega.

We are going to be late. The car has a puncture.

It is now touch and go as to whether we should leave today or not. It is 4pm.

We really don’t want to be driving in the dark, but decide to go for it and pray!

We picked up our fellow passengers; Dr Ruth, George (who works at the clinic and would be our guide) and David and Claire. They are from the UK and out here for 12 days with an organisation called SOMA, which stands for something about overseas mission.

The drive was long, dusty and very bumpy, tiring driving which I shared with Ruth. We arrived at just after 6:30pm as dusk was falling at the Pentecostal guest house. It was fantastic!

We found a beautiful compound, quiet and spacious, with excellent rooms and dinner waiting for us on the table, AND.... a swimming pool!

This has been a good choice!

We jumped in the pool quickly to cool off, George had never swam in or pool, nor could he swim so a quick lesson ensued.

We had a fun evening, taught George how to play scrabble, which he and Armorel won. She is becoming a bit of a scrabble shark. We then headed for bed.

The service starts at 9am.

George enjoying the swimming!

Day 86 – Friday 23rd April 2010

Happy Birthday to my brother, and a Happy St George’s Day to you all.

The plan was to head to work this morning but then in the late morning go and sort out our driving licenses.

First stop was to buy a small booklet which will hold the licenses. After a small confusion over language, stage one was complete.

Stage two – Passport photos. We headed to the photo shop were a man greeted us outside. We sat on a bench as his two friends held a purple curtain up behind us and with his 1960’s Nikon camera our photos taken. One hour later and we had six passport photos each, all for £3.50.

Stage three – The eye tests. The plan has come unstuck. They are shut until Tuesday.

Nothing we can do but start again on Tuesday. At least two stages are complete, only another 4 to go!

Tonight we are entertaining. John and his family are coming over for dinner. We are having spag bol and garlic bread, with ice cream for pudding.

It was a great success, and great for our language skills. They have very little English so we ate with the dictionary with us. First time for spag bol and garlic bread for them but they seemed to enjoy. The ice cream was a real hit. We enjoyed sharing photographs of back home and our wedding and finished the evening showing them a planet earth.

I have a wind up penguin which I had given Baraka, the youngest at 3 years, to play with as we talked. They had no idea what a Penguin was. David Attenborough kindly showed us about penguins and the poles. Watching them see these weird strange creatures was just priceless.

This is why we are here. For moments like this, we will go to bed tonight beaming.

Tomorrow we are heading to Nzega, a three hour drive away. We have been invited to an ordination service on Sunday, and as Monday is a national holiday we are making a weekend of it. We have no idea what to expect, all we know is Nzega is a small town and goggle doesn’t have any real pictures!

We will fill you in on our return.

A parcel from the UK brought some Dairy Milk delight. John had no intention of wasting any as he licked the wrapper clean. A real treat!

Day 85 – Thursday 22nd April

I am sorry to say I am still grumpy.

However, Armorel had a great and unexpected miracle today.

You may remember a few days ago we wrote about a young girl who had drunk kerosene. Well our prayers were answered, she came into the clinic today with mum well on the road to recovery.

A real miracle!

Tomorrow we have a date with Tanzanian bureaucracy. We are attempting to get driving licenses. You can use your UK license for the first three months but subsequently need a Tanzanian one. First stop is the eye test. It could be an interesting day.

With my sneezing continuing and my mood not helping I will leave it here and bid you a pleasant evening.