Dar es Salaam and beyond...

Over the past week we have done a lot of travelling and experienced more of the beauty of Tanzania.
Andrew booked a few days leave this past week so that we were able to give our friend Jacqui a lift to Dar es Salaam for her departing flight from Dar, and also to meet up with Andrew's sister Claire, who arrived there on Wednesday morning from London. We hit the road at a bright and early 7am on Wednesday morning with Jacqui, for our 8 hour car journey.

The long road to Dar:


Lunch on the road to Dar es Salaam:


Two visitors in one week has been a real treat! Since Claire and Jacqui's visits overlapped by 2 days, we decided to all spend time together at the beach, about an hour's drive from Dar.

The beauty of the East coast of Africa is stunning- we felt privileged to be able to enjoy such beautiful surroundings:


A lone fisherman heads across the sunset-lit bay:


Ben admires the "dhow" fishing boats as they silently sail by- a familiar sight off the East Afircan coast:


We had a final lunch together before Jacqui set off for her flight to Manchester:


The following day, it was time for us to visit Dar es Salaam, where we had a night in the SIL guest house (Wycliffe Bible Translators) and then set off to bring Claire back to Dodoma on another long road trip. We look forward to sharing our Dododma life with her over this coming week.

Happy Easter!!

Pasaka Njema, as they say in Swahili!

There are no Easter eggs in Dodoma -but there are plenty of hen's eggs, especially in our fridge as we are currently looking after our neighbour's hens for a few days and we have been allowed to collect their eggs. So Esther and Ben set about decorating their own Easter eggs to celebrate Easter day:


We also enjoyed scrambled eggs for Easter breakfast, with our friend Jacqui who is visiting us from London for a week:


Then it was off to the Anglican cathedral in town for the English-speaking service:


Lunch was shared at home with Jacqui and our Swedish MAF friends from the other MAF comppound nearby.


After lunch, the children went into the garden with Easter baskets (made by Esther and Ben) to find some M+Ms sweeties which were posing as Easter eggs and also some plastic version of "Kinder-Surprise" eggs which I eventually found in town yesterday.
Lots of fun was had by all, and we even got to share a bag of genuine "Cadbury's" mini-eggs, kindly given to us by a UK visitor who is here from England to spend time with family in MAF over Easter. There is nothing quite as good as "Cadbury's", so we were very excited!
Happy Easter to you all and hope you've had a lovley day!

MAF Conference: Ben was there too!

Ben was also there ( Jenny, you spotted him well, in his new blue shirt from the local Saba Saba market on the Sunday, but here he is in his "safari" T-shirt on the Saturday!).
Here are E + B after finishing icing and decorating biscuits with the other children during the conference weekend:

MAF Conference: from the children's perspective

A few pictures from the weekend's activities for the smaller children of MAF staff:






At lunch, all the children, young and older, joined us in the hangar for lunch:


But for some, all the excitement was just too much:

MAF Conference

This weekend was the National MAF Conference for Tanzanian staff and their families.
Here are a few glimpses of the events of the weekend, here in the Dododma MAF hangar-a mere stroll from our front door, so no excuses allowed for being late for any of the meetings!

This way to the hangar:


Lots of meetings and MAF reports...


...team building exercises...


...and time for singing, with help from the children too.

Update on Moshi

Our little cat is turing into a mischievious Moshi, with quite a wild streak, although she also likes a bit of relaxation:


Her stomach is thankfully much better since Andrew returned from South Africa with a bag full of "Whiskers" catfood from Johannesburg. She can't swallow this gourmet catfood fast enough, although it is starting to run out -but help is at hand, as Andrew's sister Claire is soon to join us for a few days and assures me she has purchased some more cat food in the UK to bring out to us! A de-worming tablet in her "Whiskers" also seems to have helped.
The ticks are still a bit of a probem, but once again, Claire will be able to assist us, as she may be able to bring some anti-tick and flea medicine. This will be a relief all round, as the ticks are most disgusting and swell up to giganitic proportions as they feed off the cat and make me feel quite ill! I am very grateful that Andrew is willing to remove them and they end their days flushed down the loo!

Moshi has also claimed her first prey and killed a poor little bird in our garden. Her hunting skills are already well honed, so we wait anxiously to see what she captures next... a blue-headed lizard? a rat? a snake??
Here she is, licking her lips in anticipation:

Shopping Locally

Earlier this weeek, as I munched my way through my breakfast of Weetabix and weevils (the weevils are a complementary addition to Dodoma's cereals), I was making a mental shopping list of the food we needed and planning when and where I could buy everything.
Although many goods need to be bought in town or in the city market, some products can be bought locally. It is always pleasant to stroll to the local "duka" (shops) to meet the sellers and practise our Swahili: so I thought I'd let you see some of the locals on our doorstep where we do some of our shopping.

This is the local duka, where my early attempts to buy "Blue Band" margarine in November caused such hilarity. I have a little more Swahili now, which definitely helps!


Ben helps out, as he passes our friendly shop-keeper the money for a bar of soap. This shop-keeper tells me that he is a Liverpool Football supporter (sorry about that for you, Ian + Stephen!!)


For bananas, carrots, onions, mangoes and tomatoes, I can nip down the road to Mama Patricia's duka, not far outside the MAF compound:


On Friday mornings, we have a visit at the MAF compound from Mama Kevin, who brings fruit and vegetables for us to purchase. She arrives with her basket sedately carried on her head and supplies me weekly with cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans and a variety of fruit or other vegetables, depending what is in season. For a few extra shillings, it is worth paying in order to have fresh supplies brought directly to our front door. One week, we even had rhubarb, which made a very nice crumble and really made us feel at home!

New Arrivals

This has been a week of Arrivals.
On Monday, a friend from St Michael's Church in London arrived on a MAF plane from Nairobi. Rosemary joined us for a couple of days, as part of a work-related trip in East Africa, and shared our everyday life: school runs, shopping, mums and toddlers Get-Together amongst the MAF mums on Tuesday, Ladies Bible Study group on Wednesday and also a meal with our Swedish MAF friends at Wednesday lunch.
Then on Tuesday, we heard the very exciting news of a New Arrival in the Benge family, as my nephew Samuel Andrew Benge had been born! Esther is now the oldest girl in a family with a younger brother and 2 boy-cousins for her to boss around! It is at times like this though that one can feel very far away from family in England, as they meet and greet the new baby far across the other side of the world.
Then, finally, the last arrival, eagerly anticipated in the Tanzanian Parker household, as Andrew arrived home after 2 weeks in Johannesburg. We went to pick him up from Dodoma's bustling, dusty bus station a couple of hours ago. He is now recovering his energy after a hot and speedy bus ride from Dar-es-Salaam!
This arrival also means a shipment of goodies from South Africa, including tick-medicine and constipation tablets, which we hope will help the youngest member of the Parker home with her various feline problems! Here's hoping Moshi will soon be tick-free and relieved of difficulties in her stomach!

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!