Ups and Downs in Dodoma

There have been some great moments here in Dodoma this week.
One of these was the arrival of our mail, after a long period of having a barren and empty post box, despite the fact that many letters have been sent to us from the UK (they just never seemed to get here).


We also got a very exciting parcel, all the way from Oxford, which caused great excitement in the Parker household!


However, on the down side, we experienced again one of the challenges of living here in Dodoma: namely, the lack of reliable medical care.
Poor Ben has been suffering from a nasty, itchy rash which has been getting steadily worse over the past 3 weeks.


We took him to the local medical centre, where we were told he needed anti-fungal cream, but after a few days, this did not seem to make any differece and we doubted the diagnosis. We then emailed some photos of his rash to Interhealth in London and the doctors were very helpful and suggested an antibiotic as he appeared to have a skin infection. We could not find the first medicine they suggested, but did find a type of alternative.
However, before I started to adminster it, we heard that an American doctor "just happened" to be staying in the MAF Guest House on our compound! He was extremely kind and came round to examine Ben- and confirmed Interhealth's diagnosis, but was able to elaborate -having seen Ben in person!- and pronounced that Ben has scabies! He duly prescribed the correct medicine and Ben is already improving.
This doctor is sometimes called "The Angel Doctor", because he has a reputation for turning up just when he is needed. Appropriately, he works for an organisation called "Hope of the Nations" and also pilots their helicopter, which was parked at the MAF hangar overnight:

He also brought that hope to us, as he helped us out with Ben and we are very grateful that he was sent along at just the right moment.

Meanwhile, Claire has been having an adventure this week. She set off for Dar es Salaam on the long bus ride on Thursday morning, to join her flight to London. We all waved her off, wondering when we will next meet...
A few hours later, we heard about the volcanic eruption in Iceland and flight restrictions and began to wonder if Claire's flight would be affected. Well, to cut a long story short, Claire got to Dar, discovered that her flight had been cancelled and had quite a time on Friday morning at Dar es Salaam airport, and then across town at the BA office, trying to rebook her ticket. Lots of taxi rides later, she checked into a cheap boarding house, all alone, exhausted and hungry, with a ticket now issued for Wednesday morning- 3 days late AFTER the start of her school term! Her Y3 class in London will miss her next week!
Hearing of her plight, all alone in Dar, we urged her to come back to Dodoma. So Claire turned around, jumped on the next bus (which happened to be the "budget" bus and was in itself quite an adventurous ride!!) and travelled another 8 hours across Tanzania to arrive back at our home last night!!
Who would have thought that a volcano in Iceland could have such an effect on us here in Africa?? Just goes to show, you never know what might be around the corner...