Tim was visiting us from England and was the only one with an umbrella- sensible man!
Dressed in raincoats, we hurried out to the cathedral for their English-speaking Christmas service, after checking that Santa had been to fill Esther and Ben's stockings ( horray- he had been all the way to Tanzania!!).
Although a little late, we arrived before the service had started and there was chaos at the cathedral, as the congregation from the earlier Kiswahili service were trying to exit the cathedral carpark in the teeming rain, dodging the ever-deepening puddles, while cars and people for the next service tried to enter the carpark: quite a traffic jam!
When the service did start, Esther and Ben were a little restless, so we decided to leave, discreetly, a little before the end of the service. We chose a nice, quiet prayer time to sneak out without disturbing anyone... Unfortunately, we hadn't anticipated that Benjamin would encounter a large, black hen in the aisle as he exited his pew! Little Ben screamed in terror as the hen, half his height, came clucking towards him! Ben took off towards the altar with great shrieks of horror, closely pursued by the confused black hen and followed by Uncle Tim, who came to Ben's rescue - and the peace of Christmas morning was shattered in Dodoma cathedral!!
Once the drama was over and our laughter subsided, we enjoyed Christmas lunch at the home of a kind MAF couple, from Germany, who invited us to join them. Lunch this year included Tanzanian savoury bananas, a large ham, salad, German-style vegetables and a Christmas pudding all the way from Morrison's supermarket in Ormskirk, which travelled out here with me in my suitcase.
Esther and Ben thoroughly enjoyed their day and were very spoilt with kind gifts- a large proportion of these also came in our suitcases in November! So it's been a Happy Christmas out here for us. We hope you enjoyed your day too.
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