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!

Natural Beauty

We are getting ready for Dry Season. The ground will become a uniform brown colour, the dry leaves will fall off the trees and the lack of rain will mean little relief for eyes weary of seeing the dusty greyness that will enshroud the semi-arid Dodoma region.
However, the rains have been good this year and lasted longer than usual, meaning that there are still many beautiful wild flowers to enjoy. Last weekend, we visited a place called Kongwa, out in the "countryside", or local bush, where it was wonderful to feast my eyes on all the pretty colours of the flowers which are still in bloom.
To remind me of these fabulous natural colours of sunny Tanzania, I took plenty of pictures. Now I will be able to enjoy these flowers through the dusty dry season and will be reminded that these lovely wild flowers will bloom again next rainy season!

Pasta

My dad always used to say that the one thing worse than finding a maggot in your apple was finding half a maggot. In other words, it was too late- you had already eaten the other half of the maggot!

I felt the same way about the pasta I bought in town a couple of weeks ago. One Friday evening, I was in a rush to make dinner. I created a creamy cheese sauce and hastily emptied half a bag of pasta into another pot of boiling water. Once it had boiled, I quickly drained it and added it into the cheese sauce, a little distracted by  keeping an eye on Joel playing at my feet and whilst answering a million and one questions thrown at me by a lively and hungry Esther and Ben...With relief, I served our hungry family. We all ate happily.

 Two days later, we decided to have pasta for lunch and Andrew offered to cook it- hurray! A break for me! I was set free from the kitchen! However, it was not long before a disgruntled Andrew called me into the kitchen, where he was busy examining the other half of the bag of pasta we had tucked into on Friday. The pasta was alive- with weevils!! They were not only having a lovely time scurrying all over the pasta shells in the bag, but they had actually built little homes in each individual pasta shell - each piece had a weevil firmly embedded inside! They must have been there quite some time and were very much at home. With squeals of  disgust, Esther and I took the bag outside to the bin, whilst Andrew was busy in the kitchen having a fascinating time, dropping escaped, live weevils onto the oven hotplate and watching them pop and boil!!

We realised with dismay that we had must have eaten the other half of the weevil colony along with our cheese sauce on Friday evening! Yuk! Weevils for dinner:

I suppose at least one consolation is that they had been boiled with the pasta and were not alive when we ate them, like the ones we sometimes find in our cereal! And another consolation could be the thought that we unwittingly added a bit of protein to our diet with our dinner that evening!

Honey

Whist on the topic of shopping, I thought I would add a little word about buying honey in Dodoma...
Since living in Dodoma, I have had to get used to the idea of buying honey at the local doctor's surgery. In Tanzania, honey is considered a medicinal product, with great healing properties. Thus, when I run out of honey, I pop across the road to the doctor's surgery where he also has a "duka la dawa" (literally, a medicine shop)...

...to buy a jar of tasty, locally-produced honey!

Esther and Joel can vouch for how delicious it is:

I just hope I don't get confused on our next trip to the UK and ask for a jar of honey at the medical centre- I might get some funny looks!!

Milk

Since Joel has joined our family, I have tried to cut back on my workload by only ordering fresh cow's milk on the 3 days a week when Jane comes to our house to help me with all the domestic chores. That way, I can ask Jane to boil the milk and wash up all the bottles, milk pan and sieves which is part of the whole process of boiling our milk. A kind friend in Burscough first inspired me with this wonderful idea on our return to Tanzania last June (thanks, Mel!!) and since then, I have followed this very helpful system.
For the days when the cow's milk runs out, I use either long-life milk or we make up jugs of milk using powdered milk + filtered water. These are both 3 times as expensive as fresh milk, but I consider it a worthwhile investment in terms of time gained to spend with the children, as well as freeing me up for the other home-based jobs.
It is not a fool-proof system though! Last weekend, the 6-pack of long-life milk I had bought in town and lugged home turned out to be a disappointment, ruining our afternoon cuppa with its unpleasant texture and nasty lumps:

It just so happened that these cups of tea were destined for Claire and Esther's teacher, Debbie, who had joined us for Sunday lunch- not a very nice drink to offer our guests! (Big apologies to Claire and Debbie!). I never knew that long-life milk could turn bad, especially when there were still 4 months until its expiry date and when it is from a well-trusted South African brand!

I took the 6-pack back to the shop in town where I had purchased it. I was really happy when the kind shop-lady took it back and agreed to replace it with a large tin of powdered milk for the same value.
This morning, my cuppa with a spoonful of powdered milk was delicious, with nothing suspicious to put me off! (So "karibuni" Claire and Debbie- we promise to give you a nice cup of tea on your next visit!)

Fairy Liquid

Shopping in Dodoma can be a bit random. One week I can find all kinds of goodies. The next week, the shelves can be rather bare; I come home from the shops without finding many of the items on my shopping list. Some weeks, there is no cheese. Or perhaps no sausages or bacon. For months, it was impossible to find yoghurt, not even even a small pot as a starter to make our home-made yoghurt.
An important shopping list item is washing-up liquid. Back in England, my preferred choice has always been Fairy Liquid, so I was delighted when bottles of it appeared a few months ago on the shelves of the Indian food stores where I do my shopping! I bought a bottle and went home excited that I could now do dishes with quality Fairy Liquid!
However, my excitement was short-lived. Once that precious bottle of bubbles ran out, I went back to Dodoma town in search of a second bottle- but in vain- so when we went to Dar es Salaam in March, Fairy Liquid was high on my shopping list at the big Dar supermarkets. I bought 2 bottles and stored them carefully away in our cupboard on returning to our house.
Back home, I was surprised and pleased to discover more Fairy Liquid on the shelf of Dodoma's "2 Sisters" store! I thought perhaps I had better buy another bottle, just to add to my stock, in case it runs out again.
The following week, the same thing happened and I subconsciously picked up another bottle...It seems that I have now become automatically programmed in Dodoma so that when I see something I like, I quickly stock-up, just in case we don't see that product again for many months.
But I surprised even myself last week when I added one more bottle to my growing supplies... maybe I got a little carried away this time??

Poverty

When you live in one of the word's poorest countries, sometimes the poverty we see around us on a daily basis can unfortunately start to seem commonplace.
Occasionally, though, something happens that reminds me just where we live and what poverty can mean.

I have just returned from picking up Ben and 3 other little MAF children from school. On the way home, I stopped in the town centre briefly in order to buy some "daggar"- dried fish (cat food for Moshi!). A man on crutches, dressed head to toe in black, ragged clothes caught my attention as I stopped the car. I could not see his face, but his movements were strained and awkward. He seemed to be struggling as he hobbled along and then I realised that he was lowering himself gingerly onto the floor in the street in front of my car, next to the large, filthy puddle which was spilling out from the roadside shops and stalls.
I got out of the car, jumped onto a wooden board placed in the middle of the puddle and took another jump to land on dry ground by the food stall. I glanced over at the crippled man, who was now on the floor, supporting himself with his hands behind him, when, to my horror, I realised that he was defecating right there in front of us, right next to the puddle in the street. I took another look, as I could not quite believe my eyes and was equally horrified to see the green mass he had left behind on the tarmac. Not a healthy sign. I felt somewhat queasy because of what had been deposited in front of my car but also terribly, terribly sad that a person could be reduced to such terrible need that he had to squat down in the middle of a street in order to relieve himself.
He looked unwell and it took him several minutes to get himself back upright in a standing position with his crutches propped precariously under the rags hanging from his armpits. During this time, I was waiting for my daggar to be weighed on the scales, squashed into a small, black plastic bag and then I had to find the change I needed to pay.
When I hopped over the puddle again and climbed back into the driver's seat, the man was painfully making his way up the street. The 4 children in my car were oblivious what had just occurred but were happy to watch when I drove over to the side of the street to offer the man a packet of biscuits. He turned around as I called to him from the car window.  I looked into the face of an old man who seemed fully aware, but worn down with pain- and perhaps with the loneliness of coping by himself on those rickety crutches without anyone to assist. However, his face lit up as he reached out for his biscuits- with hands that were locked into a claw position, the fingers all folded into themselves so that he could not straighten them. It was a heart-rending moment: that a person could be so thrilled by a small packet of biscuits; that he could give me such a beaming smile through all of the suffering he must endure.
 I felt like a fraud- to give such inadequate help in a country of so much need... Sometimes I am reminded of where I live. Sometimes I am reminded of just how aware I should be of the thousands of blessings I have had- and have- in my sheltered life.