Msimu wa vuli

We are currently in the season of "short rains". The "heavy rains" will be later in the year, after Easter time. Although it is mainly hot and sunny, when the rain does fall, it is most definite! There is no drizzle in Dodoma!
Here are some before and after pictures:

Before the rains, the sandpit is a fun place for digging and building:


After the rains, the sandpit is a fun place for splashing and soaking:


There has been quite a bit of rain this week, bringing welcome relief from the blazing heat at midday. Meanwhile, Esther has continued to enjoy school. Ben has had a busy week at home, enjoying lots of painting (I am trying to teach him that not everything is the colour blue!). Andrew has been in Johannesburg, for flight training with MAF.
And as for Moshi: well, the poor kitten has all kinds of problems- tics being a major factor, as the rains encourage the grass to grow at an unprecedented rate and the tics leap with delight onto Moshi's fresh, new skin. It is extremely difficult to remove them and they can carry all kinds of disease. She has also been suffering from consptipation (!! sorry- very earthy details!!), which has left me at a loss: what does one do for pets in a place with no vets, no flea powder and no expert advice??

Cat food

This evening, I found myself doing a job that never would have occured to me before. After washing-up, and preparing Esther's school snack-box for tomorrow, I had to turn my attention to the stove -and cook the cat food!!!! There are no "Katkins" or "KittyKat" tins out here: no "GoCat" boxes on the market shelves- so the cat looks to me to provide her with her dinner, straight from my stove to her dish.
The cats here eat a strange mixture of cornflour with boiled water and then a handful of (very smelly) tiny fish called "daggar"(not sure about the spelling on that word, though!). I had to go to the market last week to buy a pile of the dried fish and store it in my larder, in a very tight-lidded old ice-cream tub.
There was something rather unnerving about throwing a handful of these fish into the bubbling, white mixture on the stove and seeing all those little fish-eyes staring up at me from out of the hot liquid!!
Still, Moshi seems to enjoy it and eats it up with relish!

First Day

Yesterday morning, Esther set off on a new adventure here in Tanzania- and started school! She was very excited. She set off bright-eyed and proudly carrying her new school bag, complete with packed lunch:


At the gate, we paused for a moment, before entering through into a new environment, with new friends and new teachers.


Esther's classmates are mostly Tanzanian friends, with alot of Swahili being spoken, although the stories and teaching are in English. Her Nursery class is next to Reception class and the 2 classes have playtimes together, which is nice for Esther as she settles in, as she knows some of the other children from the MAF compound in Reception class.

Welcome to Esther's new school!

Moshi

Last Thursday morning, we were excited to learn that we would soon have a new addition to our family! And later that very same same day, the new addition arrived-in the form of a very cute, mischievious kitten!


We have named her Moshi, which means smoke, due to her smoky colour. She comes from one of the other houses on our MAF compound and has settled in very well. Perhaps too well, if the scratch marks down our sofa are anything to judge by, as she streaks about the house at lightening speed and uses the furniture as a climbing frame!
Ben is very taken with her, whilst Esther was intrigued to find Moshi comfortably curled up asleep on her doll's bed...

Note on Tanzanian cooking lesson photos

If you had difficulties opening the Photo Album, Andrew has now worked on the problem, so hopefully you should now be able to access the photos of our cookery lesson. Click on "cookery lesson" on the right hand side of this page, under the "Photo Album" heading. We hope you're successful this time and can view the Parker chefs in action!

Moving In: The Photo Version

Happy Moment: There it is!! My washing machine!! Finally making it's way to our new home:


TaaDaa!! Here is our container, safe and sound!


Whilst the men work hard, the little MAF ladies relax in the garden:


A happy Andrew transports our goods the last few metres (not sure if it is the container's arrival or the driving of the tractor that makes Andrew so happy!)

Wecome to Kilolo

This is the village of Kilolo. I visited Kilolo in 2002 with a team from St Michael's church, London and we stayed in Kilolo one weekend as the new church there- also St Michael's- was officially opened in a large ceremony with the Archbishop of Tanzania. I returned to Kilolo a few weekends ago and this time, we were shown round by Ken and Diane, an Australian couple who now live and work in Kilolo alongside the Diocese. Diane teaches in the school there: St Michael's Secondary school.

Back in 2002, the secondary school was just a few walls, so it was wonderful to return and see the thriving school community, with 300 students attending lessons there. We also met these 2 ladies who are responsible for cooking the morning porridge for the boarding students. The ladies were very happy to be in the photo below, showing you the stove where their hard work is carried out each day.

Kilolo has really changed over the past 8 years and is developing from a sleepy village into a larger community. The wooden/mud house we stayed in in 2002 no longer exists and the buildings around the school have been replaced by brick buildings. It was interesting to see how much can change in a few years.

The school:

The church:

Making the porridge:

With Ken and Diane, outside their Kilolo home:

Images from Tanzania

En-route to Dodoma from Iringa, we stopped and I bought a straw mat for our home, selected from one of these "basket trees"


We saw many amazingly heavy loads on the backs of bicycles, but this cyclist had one of the tallest loads!


Village view in Rainy Season: lots of planting of seeds takes place in December and the land looks lush as plants start to grow on the local "shamba" (farm)


We met this Massai Herdsman when we stopped by the roadside to eat our sandwiches on our way home from Iringa, to Dodoma, at the end of January. I'm not sure who was most surprised: us to meet a herd of bellowing cows just as we'd arranged the food, the cows who are not used to strange people blocking their route to their water-hole, or the herdsman who was just doing his everyday job, not expecting to see a carload of foreigners in the middle of the bush! However, he was quite happy to pose for this smart photo.

More pictures... Friends in Iringa

The Richardson family: after coming to Iringa with Crosslinks mission in 2002, they are now returning to the UK. (Philip and Fiona were at Durham University with my brother, Stephen)


Andrew meets Jackson Mwidowe,General Secretary of the Ruaha Diocese,at Jackson's Diocese Office. The Ruaha Diocese has strong links with St Michael's church, which Andrew and I attended in London -and also where we met and got married!!


Lunch at Jackson's home,with wife Jane

Photos of Tanzanian Cookery Lesson

To see pictures of out Tanzanian Cooking Lesson, inluding Andrew's moment of confrontation with the doomed chicken, right up to the finished meal being presented to the Riverside Campsite students, click on "LINKS" to Photo Album, on the right hand side of this page.

Images from Iringa: Language School Part 2

One of the six snakes we had the dubious pleasure of meeting at Riverside Campsite


Look what was running round the bedrooms at night! This rat was caught by the Cousleys and left in the kitchen to be "dealt with". The staff were very relaxed about it being there and our breakfast dishes were diligently washed up, dried and stacked right next to Mr Rat.


Just to make me feel at home, I saw this bus- and am now convinced that Liverpool's popularity is international!! We drove behind this bus into Iringa town


Esther + her friends on her birthday: the Cousley children: Esther, Benjamin and Joshua (with such great names!!) (our MAF neighbours in Dodoma who joined us for 2 weeks at Language School)


Esther's 4th birthday cake

Home Sweet Home

A nice English cup of tea, a plate of HP beans on toast, an original-recipe, Scottish shortbread biscuit... all enjoyed by the Parker family, after it all travelled thousands of miles to reach us in an orange container!!
Yes, the container has not only arrived safely, but all has been unpacked and our home has been arranged just as we like it. Not a scrape on one sinlge item- everything was intact and we are truly thankful!! It is wonderful to see our familiar homely items! Esther and Ben have been overjoyed to find their toys, Andrew was excited to at last have access to his new power-drill and as for me- well, the English tea has to be a big bonus, and the boxes of convenient English food, but as I type this, the whirr of our washing machine in the background gives me great satisfaction!
We also had great fun when we eventually unearthed our Christmas presents and the children's birthday presents. Later in the week, we all sat down together and had our first "Christmas-in-Febraury"!!
It has been an extremely busy week, and our house has been a jumble of boxes, cardboard, and furniture in all the worng places, waiting to be moved. We have been very busy returning all the items belonging to MAF back to the storehouse for the next new family to use on their arrival here, and then sorting out our own household goods. At last, we are organised, and now we are settling into our Tanzanian home!