Dodoma Tourist Trail

Dodoma is not known for its tourist attractions, but we always seem to find plenty to show our guests as they take a peek into our life in Tanzania. It has been lovely to have Alison here over the last few days, before she departed yesterday for Arusha and we enjoyed showing her around Tanzania's small capital city, on our Parker-made Tourist Trail of Dodoma.
A big "Thank You" to Alison here for allowing me to use several of her photos on this blog! It is much appreciated! Here are some of the places and events we took Alison to...

Sunday morning at Dodoma cathedral:

Food shopping at Dodoma's market:

Andrew gave Alison a tour of the MAF hangar:

A taste of Tanzanian food cooked by our Househelper, Jane, of traditional "pilau" rice with meat:

 A visit to "Saba Saba" (Swahili for "Seven Seven")- the clothes/ second-hand goods and cloth market -which is open 7 days out of  7, hence the name. Here we are visiting the stall of Elizabeti, one of our Tanzanian friends:

 I even managed to get a surprise purchase on this shopping trip, since, bizarrely, there was a large selection of woolly gloves for sale, despite the boiling midday heat surrounding us! This stall holder was also named Elizabeti :-) She was delighted to sell me 3 pairs of children's winter gloves, as I thought I may as well snap up a bargain purchase of gloves ready for our planned trip to the UK in December this year!

 Another morning took Alison, Joel and I for a wander down Dodoma's main shopping street (One Way Street), where all manner of cloth is available to buy. Alison bought a Tanzanian "kanga" - a large piece of material with a Swahili proverb written across the bottom. These are the ladies who hemmed the cloth for her on one of the street-side sewing machines, which are situated all along the length of One Way Street:

 Traipsing up and down One Way Street in the hot sun can be tiring, so we ducked into this local cafe for some mango juice and a "maandazi"- a Tanzanian treat which tastes a little like a doughnut:

 Over the course of the week, we also managed to fit in a party, with a fun afternoon celebrating at the 1st Birthday Party of  the daughter of MAF friends, introducing Alison to several of our Dodoma friends.
Dodoma does not have an art gallery to visit, but we got the chance to visit a stunning Art Display at Esther + Ben's school on the last day of term, seeing the amazing art work created by the pupils. Esther was proud to show off one of her models admidst the fabulous displays of work:

All in all, we had a great week with Alison and enjoyed showing our guest around as a tourist!

Endings and Beginnings

All good things come to an end.
This is how we felt this month when our good friends and neighbours packed up their home at MAF Dodoma and left Tanzania to return to their native Sweden.
There were several farewell events to say our goodbyes- and it became harder and harder to keep dry eyes as we prepared for another painful parting of paths.
A family farewell with friends:

And the MAF staff farewell in the hangar:

Esther will especially miss their eldest daughter. Before she left, the 2 girls shared a fun "sleepover" weekend at our home and had a fun morning at the Dodoma Hotel in town:

Ben will miss boyish antics with their eldest son:

Joel will no longer have the 2 youngest boys to play with, including little David who was born just 2 days before Joel- and I miss my good friend Mirjam. Goodbyes are harder here, somehow; perhaps because the likelihood of meeting up again is so slim.
The week our friends departed, Andrew also did some travelling. We took him to Dodoma's busy bus station to wave him off on the bus to Dar es Salaam: 

 From there, Andrew went on to South Africa for a week's training course with MAF. Whilst he was away, my friend Alison arrived from England- bringing with her a most exciting suitcase of UK goodies just for us!! I had so much fun unpacking this amazing treasure trove at the beginning of Alison's visit!

 So many treats!!! Gifts from Mum + Dad sent via Alison, with a Jubilee theme to keep us in the loop of events in England...and many essential gifts from Alison, specially requested, such as Tesco washing-up sponges, dishcloths, English tea-bags, English chocolate, decaff coffee for Andrew, a drinking beaker for Joel to replace the one he threw down the toilet (!!)...and Alison also kindly brought many goods we had ordered online and had sent to her address- shoes for the boys, leggings for Esther, DVDs in French to keep the French language alive in my fuddled brain...An exciting beginning for me at the start of Alison's visit!

It was wonderful to have Alison with us. She was here when the school year ended for Esther and Ben. Ben has now ended his first year of school and will be starting Reception Class in August, whilst Esther has left Year 1 and looks forward to a long 5 weeks of holiday before starting back in Year 2.
We went for ice-creams at Dodoma's "ice-cream parlour" to celebrate the ending of the school year and the beginning of a 5 week school holiday:

4,500 miles away

A British friend in South Africa once told me that the longer you live abroad, the more patriotic you feel towards your "home" country. After almost 9 years of living abroad in 4 different countries, I feel that he may have been correct in his observation. We may be living over 4, 500 miles away from England, but I felt very frustrated at missing out on England's great national celebrations for the Queen's Jubilee last weekend! The English girl in me was all geared up to wave my Union Jack and to join the celebrations from afar!

To feel included in some small way, we tried to keep up with events via the BBC news on the internet and even got to watch some of the flotilla on BBC Live TV on Sunday afternoon, at the bishop's house: it was a treat to watch TV and to see events unfolding as they happened all those miles away!

On Tuesday afternoon, after the children had been at school, we had a small Jubilee Tea Party for Esther, Ben and Joel and 3 of their  little friends. It was lots of fun! Esther and Ben worked hard making some paper and string celebration bunting, which we hung up in the house as decoration. We all dressed up in patriotic red, white and blue- even the children's Swiss, American and NZ friends!
There were crown pictures to decorate:

...followed by a made-up game of hiding the Queen's Jewels...
...and of course a Jubilee Tea, complete with Union Jacks on sticks to decorate the sausages, cucumber sandwiches and red, while and blue jubilee cake!! (I was not ambitious enough to attempt a Union Jack for the icing decoration!!)

Joel did not fully grasp the point of the tea party, but that did not stop him enjoying the occasion and he had his eye on that cake as soon as he sat down with his mini, blue plateful of jubilee food!!

Get-Away

A couple of weeks ago, we had a family "get-away". It was a great opportunity to have some time away from what had become a very stressful environment in Dodoma, with the tension and tiredness caused by the 05:30 broadcasts.
We went away for 4 nights to stay in a simple Guest House situated about an hour away from Dodoma, at St Philip's Theological Training College, in the rural area of Kongwa.
It was wonderful to have a break away together. It was wonderful to wake up to the sound of silence - not to have any tension knotting our stomachs, as we knew that no-one was going to start shouting loudly into the pre-dawn darkness and waking us up!
There was quite a bit of planning involved in this self-catering trip, as I planned all our meals from Wednesday to Sunday and needed to take all the food we would be using...and drinking water...and powdered milk...and tea-towels..and tupperware to keep any little nasties off our food...and cleaning products! I didn't quite take the kitchen sink, but I did take my own washing-up bowl!

 It was great to be in a different environment. We enjoyed walking around the grounds of the college at the base of the Guest House- the upstairs part of this white-washed building:

 The children really enjoyed being in an upstairs place- we have very few 2-storey buildings in Dodoma, so staying in a place at the top of a flight of stairs is a novelty for Esther and Ben! It was also lovely to look out on hills:

May is peanut-season in Kongwa, so Esther and Ben spent quite a bit of time sitting at the top of the stairs shelling and eating bag-fulls of locally-grown peanuts (a gift of a kind resident at the college):

 We enjoyed being in the Great Outdoors- exploring the hills and trees...

 ...and the fresh air, which can tire out little people like Joel:

 For Andrew, being a MAF pilot gave him instant "street-cred" with the local kids, who were very excited to meet a real pilot of a plane! Andrew gained even more respect and admiration among them when he spent time showing them how to make paper aeroplanes...

 ...and how to fly them!

 Esther and Ben joined in a few of these paper-plane-flying activities and fun was had by all.
Over the few days, we also got to watch a football match between the students of St Philips and students of a visiting Dodoma college, Msalato- and there was also time to have a tour of the college campus:

 ...which included the chance for Esther and Ben to try out the college's water pump:

All in all, it was a lovely "get-away". There was only one very little, nasty surprise which made me scream aloud- no nocturnal visits from rats (see previous blog on our visit in 2010!), but just a very happy, gigantic cockroach in a bowl-full of old flour that had been left in a kitchen cupboard! Andrew dealt with him swiftly!

We had a wonderful few days. To crown it all, it was also the time that Joel learnt to walk! He took his first independent steps in Kongwa, delighting us all with his enthusiasm as he walked across the lounge of the Kongwa flat!
Since we got home, his walking is going from strength to strength. Joel loves every minute of his new-found freedom, having great fun and getting faster and faster every day back in our Dodoma home!