A Room With a View

We are now well into Hot Season in Dodoma. Every day feels drier, hotter and dustier than the day before. The ground is covered with greyish brown sand and dust. Trees are stripped bare as their sun-scorched leaves turn brown, shrivel up and fall to the ground.

Despite the rather dull aspect in Dodoma at the moment, despite the dust and the flatness of Dodoma, we have special access to beautiful views of majestic mountains, shimmering lakes, refreshing sea views and flowerbeds bursting with life and colour!

This is thanks to our Parker Postcard wall, furnished by you, our far-off family and friends! It provides a beautiful vista every time we visit the (windowless) "smallest room" in our home! :-)

Living On The Edge...

...of the Airport!

Our home at in Dodoma is unique, even by MAF standards, as our MAF home is situated right on the edge of the runway and Dodoma's airport. Not all MAF bases have their staff housed quite so close to the aviation action! A woven-wood fence and the long, white building which is the MAF hangar are all that separate our house from the runway, where all aircraft flying into Tanzania's capital city whizz past for take-offs or landings.

We often take our unique location for granted, but this week we spent a moment appreciating the excitement of living so close to an airport. It's great that the children are able to see so many aircraft up close from the fence at the end of our MAF compound (although Joel seems more interested in all the stones he could pick up from the rocky ground!!):

 Although we live in the capital city of Tanzania, Dodoma's airport is domestic flights only. It is usually pretty quiet over at Dodoma's airport terminals: Arrivals (on the left) and Departures (on the right):

 Somewhat different from airports in other capital cities!! However, we often take a walk over there, as it's interesting for look at the airport fire-engine and to see any helicopters or planes that may be parked on the apron. Andrew knows most of the airport staff, so it's a friendly little walk as they all exchange greetings, and  it is nice to have a stroll just around the corner from our home.

Being close to the MAF hangar can also provide a bit of family entertainment. When Andrew is working on flight following in the hangar office (which overlooks our back garden and house), we can pop over to say "hi" and take him a cup of coffee:

 On quiet weekend days, Andrew can take the children to the MAF hangar to look over the plane he flies. Last Saturday, Ben was very excited to have the chance to sit in the "captain's" seat and pretend to fly the plane:

We also enjoyed showing new friends around the hangar last weekend. I took a moment to pose by the plane Andrew usually flies with my new UK friend, who has recently arrived here:

Sometimes I forget the novelty of living so close to an aviation base. It was good to take stock this week and enjoy the privilege of being part of MAF and appreciate the opportunities we have on our Dodoma doorstep! :-)

Return of The Noise

He's back!! And, if it is possible,he is louder than ever! Mr. Noisy down the road has started his pre-dawn broadcasts again, much to our dismay. He is once again dictating the time that the Parker family have to wake up each and every day- a dark and early 05:30.
Our new windows are not proving to be as sound-proof as we had hoped. They do help to soften the blow a little but do not stop him from waking us. We can just about drown him out if we shut out all the fresh air and turn on our noisy fan- which also helps to prevent us from suffocating indoors in the stifling heat which is now building up as Dodoma's Hot Season gets underway!
A noisy fan and closed windows don't really produce a restful atmosphere for us to get back to sleep, so we once again find ourselves losing our evenings, as we have to get to bed early to get enough sleep before the daily wake-up blasts us out of our beds. It looks like we're in for a tiring time in the months ahead- unless anyone has any good suggestions to help???

Tailor-Made

In Dodoma, we are far removed from the convenience of High Street clothes shops, where one can buy ready-made clothes to fit all sizes. There's no Dodoma equivalent of "Marks and Spencer's" or "Next". Nor do we have the option of clothing catalogues or internet to order clothes, with the luxury of home delivery.

However, Dodoma does have row upon row of small, wooden shops where we can pick out and purchase materials of many colours and textures:

And Dodoma does have Philippa:

Philippa is one of the many talented tailors who sit at the side of Dodoma's streets, busy creating clothes to order, with their sewing machines buzzing away and their measuring tapes constantly to hand.
 Each day, the tailors, both men and women, set up their machines and their clothes-racks in assigned places around the centre of town. Andrew's sister Claire discovered Philippa over a year ago. Philippa does such fantastic sewing that she is the one we go to whenever we need a new item of clothing. (Thanks,Claire, for the above photo!). She created a great African-style outfit for my Mum on her visit in March. Over the past year, I have been taking material to her whenever we need new clothes for Family Parker.
A few weeks ago, I found a beautiful blue "kanga" material in town, so after some thought and consulting with creative friends at MAF, I came up with an idea of what I would like to have created from this material. It is sometimes to difficult to know what kind of clothes I would like to have made, since I have never needed to think up designs before Tanzania! It still feels like a novelty to be able to choose material and I appreciate advice on what to have made from friends who are far more gifted than I in creative clothing design!
I decided to go along with a popular Tanzanian theme of having a matching outfit made for mother and daughter. Next, I paid a visit to Philippa- and a week later, picked up the matching items. They may not be very "M+S" or "Next", but these clothes are cool to wear in the hot African weather. Last Sunday, Esther and I enjoyed being "twins" for the day in our matching outfits!

The Language Challenge

Tomorrow morning, Mama Kambenga will come to my house at 9am to assist me with the ongoing challenge of learning Swahili. Mama Kambenga is an excellent language helper. Tomorrow, she will be testing me on 12 different words we can use in Swahili to say "which". One short word in English. Twelve words in Swahili- and there are even more ways to say "which" if I delve even deeper into the intricacies of Swahili! However, my tired brain can't bear the thought of even more work, so I will be content to try and master 12 of the "which" words!
Trying to better my Swahili whilst spending most of my time at home in an English-speaking environment is a constant challenge. I frequently make very silly mistakes. One of my most memorable mistakes was when I muddled up "dhambi" (sin, or fault) and "damu" (blood). Instead of asking Jane to clean up the blood in the fridge which had leaked from a bag of beef, I asked her to clean up the sin in my fridge!! No wonder poor Jane looked at me strangely and seemed very confused!

Since I often end up feeling very daft, often embarrass myself and often amuse my Tanzanian friends with my Swahili errors, I find that I get really cheered up when I see silly errors made by other people in English. I know it should make me sympathetic, but it is oh-so-reassuring when I come across language errors in English, made by non-English people!! It helps me enormously to be reminded that we can all make mistakes- and (unintentionally) cheer other people up in the process! Recently, I have come across a couple of labels on local products that have brought a big smile to my face:

• for cashew nuts...

• for "exotic" scented soap:

Well, I must dash now. Just enough time to go and swot up on those "which" words before I head to bed...

Mysterious Culprit

Last Wednesday afternoon, poor little Esther came up in a sudden, nasty rash. By the evening, she was having difficulty breathing evenly and normally. By 10:30pm, she was still awake and feeling quite distressed, so we got her up to give her an antihistimine tablet and bathe her sore skin. By now, she was covered in  bumpy, red, itchy patches, which seemed to be appearing before our very eyes.
On Thursday, the rash was so bad all over, so we kept her away from school and emailed London doctors at Interhealth with some attached photos to ask for some medical advice. They confirmed that she had an allergic reaction and that we were following the correct course of action. It is so helpful to have professional doctors at the end of an email connection! My confidence in the advice I may be given from the local clinic in this incidence is very low, so it was good to have trusted advice from afar.
However, the mystery still remained about what exactly caused such a violent skin reaction.
Here's a small example from her arm:

The cause has not been found, although I suspect it could have been some strange East African creepy-crawly lurking in the bushes in the school playground?!? By Friday, Esther was completely better and back to her sunny self, so off to school she went - and lets hope she remains well clear of the mysterious allergy-inducing culprit in the future!

House Help

A few months ago, I read an excellent novel: "The Help", by Kathryn Stockett. This novel focuses on the lives of the African American ladies who worked as house helpers in the homes of white families in America's "Deep South" in the early 1960s. It was a fascinating read and one that caused me to reflect on the way I relate to the ladies who come to help out in my home here in Tanzania.
Having "House Help" was a new concept that I have had to get used to living here in Tanzania. When we first arrived in Tanzania, I was told that most overseas families employ a local lady to come in and help around the house with all the extra jobs. To choose not to employ someone would have 2 main implications: being seen as too proud to offer employment to local people who need the income of a steady job, and secondly, meaning that I would have so much housework to do that I would be doing very little other than working in the kitchen or cleaning.

With this in mind, I "inherited" the help of Jane, from a MAF family who were leaving Dodoma. Jane has been working for us since November 2009 and has been a big help around the home. Joel enjoys having her around on the 3 days that she comes in to our home to help us and she is very fond of him, chatting to him in Swahili and delighting in Joel's daily progress. One of Jane's main tasks is baking our bread. She is whizz at whipping up the dough, never needing a recipe, unlike me, who has to reach for my Delia Smith Cookbook and turn on my Kenwood food mixer to cut corners with all that kneading!

In May this year, Jane suddenly became very ill with a mystery illness- swellings on her face, a fierce fever, vomiting (Jane filled me in on all the gory details and told me that it was all bright red...most worrying) and an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion and weakness. Several visits to doctors and hospital could not enlighten us further and Jane spent a miserable month feeling very unwell. She stayed at home for the entire month.  I found it a real struggle to keep up with all the jobs at in my home. I employed another lady part time, but found someone who was available to help me long-term...Pendo:

Pendo was able to come in 2 mornings a week to help me out with the tasks that were building up. When Jane returned to work, I asked Pendo to stay on, as Jane was still weak and unable to carry out some of the more physical household tasks. Now, we have settled into a rhythm, with Pendo coming to assist Jane on 2 mornings a week.

For me, having house help is a mixed blessing.

On the one hand, I so appreciate the work of these lovely ladies. I would struggle enormously with having to do all the extra work which comes along with living in a developing country- kitchen work I would not need to do in the UK: baking all our bread, making food from scratch (want chips? budget in time for cleaning spuds, peeling them, chopping them... want pizza? budget in time for making dough, chopping the tomatoes,creating the topping... want biscuits? budget time to bake them, as well as trying to locate the necessary ingredients in town), cleaning wheat to mill it for flour, checking flour for bugs, boiling the milk, making yoghurt... the list of kitchen jobs could go on and on...
Meanwhile, hot and dusty weather means piles of dust daily to wipe up, dirty concrete floors that need mopping, bugs on clothes that hang outside to dry, creating oodles of extra ironing, louvre windows that need wiping pane by pane so that we can actually see out of them....
I need Jane's and Pendo's help to manage these overwhelming tasks!

On the other hand, I often struggle with the necessity of having other people in my home; with the lack of  privacy and space. It can be a strain having non-family knowing and seeing all aspects of your family life, chatting together about your children (albeit in Swahili!) and knowing all the ins and outs of your home-life.
 I relish the days we do not have House Help- my Mondays, Wednesdays and weekends, when I don't need to rush around in the early mornings, organising the list of household jobs, the equipment and the extra meals my House Help ladies will need. The days when I can play with Joel on the floor and chat on the phone without other people watching or listening in. I find that it is a mental strain and sometimes I want to close all the doors and just have my home to myself and my family!

This means I live with the contradiction of needing and appreciating the help and friendship of Jane and  Pendo, while also struggling with the lack of privacy. Just another aspect of life in Tanzania!

The World's Biggest Chocolate Button??!!

Last weekend it was my birthday and in the post I received from England a specially requested packet of Chocolate Buttons (THANKS, Anna!!). Chocolate has to be one of my favourite things and chocolate buttons are high on my list as some of the tastiest chocolate.

Eating chocolate buttons in Dodoma is a bit different from eating chocolate buttons in England.
In England, I am able to eat the chocolate button by button.
In Dodoma,  the African sun has had its melting effect whilst the chocolate was in transit, so I end up with ONE gigantic, very tasty button! The world's biggest and arguably most tasty Chocolate Button:

Confirmation

The young man in the suit, above, is called Brown and is the grandson of our househelper lady, Jane.
 On Monday this week, Brown was confirmed at his local Anglican church by the bishop of Dodoma.
 On Tuesday, the family had a large celebration to mark the event.
In Tanzanian culture, family celebrations are hugely important and become a time for the whole community to get together and have a party. Church confirmation is one of those occasions. Jane invited us to go along to her home and be part of her family's celebration on Tuesday afternoon.
Jane was so proud of her grandson and was in her element, surrounded by family, friends and neighbours:

The event was set up outside, to accommodate lots of guests, with old cement sacks sewn together to make an awning. A white sheet hung on the outside wall to make a pretty background for the "stage", where Brown and his "best man" (a good friend dressed smartly to support him on this special occasion) sat on the outdoor step of Jane's home. Strings of plastic flowers added further decoration, along with strips of material  wound around the outdoor pillars of the house. Many chairs had been arranged for us guests to sit on (spot Andrew with Esther, Ben, Joel, on the left of the photo, given special seats as Jane's boss) and watch proceedings:

There was even a Master of Ceremonies employed to announce events and introduce the family, the guests and mark proceedings. Inbetween the MC's annoucements, loud music was played from speakers set out on the step.
One of the Important Moments was the arrival of the Confirmation Cake, carried round the back of the guests and then through the middle of us all by the younger sister and friends of Brown, whilst Brown's aunties followed behind with graceful dance moves, all accompanied by the booming music (some of the smaller children found the music a bit too loud and were covering their ears for protection, which was also what Ben had resorted to!!):

After formally receiving the cake, there followed the Cake Feeding ceremony! This is when the Important Person of the day feeds pieces of cake to honoured guests: a very significant part of formal Tanzanian celebrations- weddings, graduation ceremonies...etc.  Brown was fed first by his friend, then Brown fed pieces of cake to his Dad, Mum, sister, Grandmother Jane and then other family members. Here is his little sister receiving her cake off the end of a cocktail stick:

Andrew and I were also included in receiving cake, which was lovely for us to be given such an honour. We climbed up onto the step and were fed a slice of tasty cake:

Next there was a time for us all to stand up one by one and take gifts to Brown, as he stood on his stage to receive them. For those who did not bring gifts, the MC strongly encouraged them, by name, to come forward and place money in a plate set in front of Brown! A concept very different to our western culture, where such demands for gifts and money would seem shocking and embarrassing, but are a normal part of Tanzanian celebrations! I was relieved that we had come with a couple of gifts for Brown, although I had made a cultural "faux pas" of giving Brown one of his presents when we had first arrived, as I would do in a western setting! Thankfully, I still had one gift in my bag that I could take forward and place on the growing pile of presents for Brown at the correct time, so I did not have to go through the embarrassment of being called forward individually to present money or gifts while the guests looked on curiously to see how much the foreigner would give!
I noticed later that the money was wrapped up and given to Brown's mother, which seems fair enough, as it would help defray the costs of such a generous celebration. The family are not wealthy and this Tanzanian way of raising money to help pay the cost of traditionally welcoming a large number of guests seems sensible, in a country where many struggle to pay the bills and do not have the luxury of disposable income to cover the costs of big celebrations.

After gifts came food! We were all invited inside Jane's home. A lady poured warm water over our hands to wash them as we filed past, then we were all given platefuls of tasty Tanzanian food: pilau rice, roast goat, boiled potato, fried cabbage. Delicious.

After food came home time, as it was getting towards dusk, when mosquitoes start biting, so we wanted the children safely home and under their mosquito nets. Jane tells me that the celebrations continued until late into the night, with many more neighbours popping by after they returned home from work. She had a wonderful time and loved having lots of family to stay with her this week, including 7 children, all relatives, who joined them in Dodoma for this special family occasion. I'm glad she included us in the happy celebrations too!

Nane Nane 2012

 This is the entrance to "Nane Nane"- Dodoma's large, annual agricultural show, held each year on the 8th day of the 8th month- hence the name, as "nane" means "eight".
This year was Andrew's first visit, although I went last year with the children (see 2011 blog!). The children were very keen to go back and see the African animals and experience some of the fun of this major annual event, unlike anything else we have in Dodoma. So we set off mid-morning, joined by our MAF friend Gladys who works as an engineer in the MAF hangar. The 8th of the 8th is a national public holiday across Tanzania, in recognition of farming, so the children all have the day off school (despite only starting their new school year 2 days ago!!) - and everyone seemed to be at the Nane Nane show today...

This year, we visited the Bee-Keeping tent and display and learnt about bees, honeycombs and hives- and about the "stingless bee"- something we had never heard of! These little bees create a wonderfully sweet honey which we were all able to sample in the bee-keeping information tent.

Then we moved on to look at the larger animals- a great opportunity for me to learn some new Swahili vocabulary for animal names. Unfortunately, this creature was so tightly curled up that I could not fathom what was in the cage and the Swahili sign did nothing to enlighten me! I had to look this word up back at home and discovered that we had seen a sleeping civet cat!

The crowds were immense and I imagine it must actually be very stressful for the poor caged creatures with all of us peering in and exclaiming over them, along with the noise and the heat. The poor hyena in the cage below was pacing unhappily and it felt mean to snap pictures of him. Instead, my photo was to picture the crowds around his cage, of about 5 people deep, all fascinated by his every move:

In stark contrast, the huge lion seemed totally relaxed. He was still King of the Animals, even when on display in a small cage in front of thousands of visitors. He seemed to be having a wonderfully relaxing sunbathe, one paw outstretched against the bars of his prison, showing off his sharp claws and strong legs whilst snoozing in the afternoon heat:

 The lion's sheer size made Joel look very vulnerable and small, even when Joel was standing several feet away:

I think the Swahili name for this shy porcupine is such a fabulous word!

 This next cage brought everyone to a standstill. Inside was an enormous, and rather active, python. Esther and Ben were fascinated, but its National Parks Keeper did not seem too concerned about the enormously dangerous creature slithering and sliding about just inches away from her!

The python seemed to be intent on looking for a gap in the metal to try and make its escape; we didn't hang around too long, I would not want to be nearby if it succeeded!

 
There are roadways filled with visitors, leading to various agricultural displays. There are hundreds of stalls lining the way, selling everything you can think of,  from food to underwear to carpets to kitchenware, plants, toys, shoes... you name it, you could probably find it if you had the inclination to push through the ever-thickening crowds and put up with the burning heat as the sun rose higher in the Dodoma sky! Throngs of people had flocked to Nane Nane today along with us and I took the photo below as we pushed our way along the dusty roadways. The noise was intense at times, with everyone announcing their wares on loud speakers, like the one pictured on the top right of this photo:

 We climbed up the bank at one of the roadsides and found a shady spot by this fence to have a short rest and a drink of water!

 Refreshed a little, we set off to increase our agricultural knowledge...Ben was fascinated by this tall, green machine, which takes sunflower seeds, squashes them into paste, then into oil, filters the oil and finally produces the golden sunflower oil which Dodoma is famous for producing:

 Then it was time for Farmer Ben to try out the seat of this John Deere tractor:

 Esther had a turn too, much to the amusement of the onlookers:

Finally, after all the excitement, we headed back to the car, with a brief road-side stop to buy some hot chips cooked in the Tanzanian way:. Esther paid the chip-seller and made sure she stood well away from the hot pan and coals!

 We watched as the sliced potatoes were tossed from a bucket of water into the scorching heat of this pan full of oil, cooking on hot coals...

 ... then deftly removed from the frying pan in this pink colander, then portioned out into the smaller frying pan, ready to be bought and kept warm on these hot coals:

The chips were served in a black plastic bag, were liberally sprinkled with salt and were absolutely delicious! A great end to a great outing! :-)