Diversions

For the past couple of weeks, Dodoma roads were in disarray as work was carried out on the major roundabout in the town centre, which is on our route to school. My early morning route to school to drop off Esther changed without warning. Suddenly, one Tuesday morning, there were roadblocks across several roads and the roundabout was shut. I sought out new ways to get to school, but day by day, different roads were blocked off: just as I found one way to get to school, it would subsequently be blocked the next day! The roadworks seemed to extend to new areas each day.

The school run became quite a challenge! Some days, I decided on the easier option of cycling to school with Esther on the back of my bike. I could get the bike through the roadblocks and use the familiar route. Cycling was not always practical though, if no-one was home to look after Ben or we were giving someone a lift.

So I discovered more of the Tanzanian capital city over the 2 weeks of diversions! I also honed my 4x4 vehicle driving skills, as some of the city roads are more like the surfaces we expect in a rural location:


...and sometimes the dust of Dodoma made visibilty rather poor on the sandy roads.




I also saw more of the city in which we are living- the hustle and bustle of the streets behind the market, seeing new stores and learning about new places where I can go to buy certain goods.


All in all,the diversions brought about an interesting experience!
The roads are now back to normal- and I must say, I do appreciate the time saved on the journey across town and I am appreciating anew the tarred roads and the city roundabout!

Casualty

Just three days after the opening of our new MAF children's playground and already we have a casualty- who happens to be Esther!

Poor Esther had a nasty fall off one of the ladders this afernoon, after spending nearly all day in the playground and having lots of fun. Unfortunately, she lost her footing while descending one of the smaller ladders and fell straight backwards, landing on her back and hitting her head hard on the stony ground on impact.

There is no A+E department in Dodoma for us to rush her to! Instead, the patient was carried through our front door- which was easy, as our house is right next to the playground- admidst much crying and with a frightening amount of blood from her open head wound. We leapt into action with clean towels, a bottle of dettol, a tube of antiseptic wound lotion- and a couple of sweets for the poor little casualty.
It was thought by our neighbour, the MAF First Aider, that stitches would be needed, but we had to wait until the German nurse we know could finish work and come over to check Esther's wound.
When the nurse arrived with her medical kit, she confirmed that a couple of stitches would indeed be needed. So Esther bravely sat on Mum's knee and the procedure took place at our dining table- not sure what Health and Safety in the UK would have to say about that these days (!!), but we were VERY grateful for the medical help and are thankful that nothing more serious happened. Our brave casualty is now tucked up safely in bed with her head carefully stitched and the bleeding stemmed and she is happy and well. We are so thankful for the help we received in a place where getting prompt and correct medical care can often be a real challenge.

MAF Playground

There was great excitement amongst the children of MAF this week.
Over the past 10 weeks, 2 Swiss volunteers have been working hard to create a playground for the children of MAF. There is little in the way of entertainment centres for children in Dodoma, so the creation of a play area saw the completion of a dream for MAF families that have lived in Dodoma. Yesterday, we had the Official Opening Ceremony for 16 MAF children and 3 other children who live on the MAF compounds. Here is the finished play area:


The playground has been sealed off for weeks, while our friendly volunteers shaped the apparatus and created a play area to rival any. Yesterday, a yellow ribbon marked the boundary line where this playground seal has been.


The children gathered with eager anticipation to see whose name would be pulled out of a hat and chosen to cut this yellow ribbon- and so open the playground! However, before the all-important "Cutting Of The Ribbon" could take place, there were speeches and tea and a presentation for Ronnie and Ben, our Swiss volunteers.

It was quite an event!
At 4pm, we started with Musical Statues while we waited for everyone to arrive.
Then came a time to sit down and thank Ronnie and Ben, and present them with a personal book, literally "hand-made" by the children, as it contained a colourful collection of hand-prints of each child who will use the playground.

Next came jelly and ice-cream for all the children at their little tables (it's amazing how versatile our lounge coffee-tables can be!).




Finally, the big moment came when a name was pulled out of the hat! The little one who was chosen is almost 2 years old- she was a little confused by all the fuss- and even more confused by the enormous pair of scissors, which almost dwarfed her! However, with a bit of help from the older children, the ribbon was cut, while her miniature audience carefully monitored every detail of the event:


And then came the moment they have all been waiting for for many weeks! There were great cheers as the children stormed the new play area and leapt onto the equipment! A fun afternoon followed, while the children put each and every piece of playground apparatus to the test.




The parents seemed to enjoy themselves just as much as the little ones- except when the dreaded time arrived to prise unwilling children off the play equipment and convince them that they must leave for bedtime!

While Andrew flies through the skies of Tanzania and visits new places and people, Esther, Ben and I hold the fort here in the capital city of Dodoma.
Since the markert is THE place to go to find fresh fruit and vegetables, let me show you a few more photos (courtesy of Jacqui!) of what the market shopping experience can involve.

Stalls to visit:

...for onions and potatoes...




for our greens...


for pineapples,mangoes and oranges...


for dried kidney beans and also for cat-food: one of the many stalls selling dried "daggar" fish, measured out by the kilo- it should then be well sealed in a plastic bag to keep that fish-odour safely away from the fresh veg and fruit!


After sourcing the fresh produce needed for the home, there is also plenty of opportunity at the street stalls near the market to stock up on plastic containers, so that we can store our food and keep out unwelcome visitors of the 6-legged- or even the 4-legged- variety!

Dabia

This week, Andrew has been busy building his flying hours and has now achieved the required 12 hours of supervised flying. This means that he will be flying solo as a MAF pilot next week.
The days can be long and hot for the MAF pilot. On his working days this week, Andrew left Dodoma early in the morning and flew out with his colleagues to remote villages where MAF partners carry out their work. Andrew waited on the ground until the work was completed at the end of the day, before flying the partners back to Dodoma.
Despite the wait in the relentless heat of the African sun, the days are full of interest. Here are a few photos from Andrew's flights on Thursday of this week, in the village of Dabia, where MAF's role was to bring a medical team and a group of evangelists. This is a regular medical safari, which happens in Dabia on the first Wednesday of each month.

Just arrived in Dabia; the team of evangelists come to work among the people while the medical team carries out its work:


The local children appear very happy to see the evangelists and enjoy a few games with them near the MAF plane


The village church from the outside...


...and the inside


The village water supply- the spring, where the young girls fetch the water for their families, as it trickles down between the rocks:


The medical team sets up a Mother and Baby clinic under the trees near the few houses which make up the remote village. Medicines are dispensed under one tree, where a temporary "pharmacy" is set up.
In this photo, the scales are hung on another tree and a "kanga" (a typically Tanzanian piece of material) is used for the babies to lie in. As you can see, many mothers from the surrounding area brought their babies to be weighed and checked, and their babies weight was entered on a chart (held by the man on the right-hand side).

In My Dodoma Kitchen

Whilst I am on the subject of routine and getting used to kitchen-based tasks in our Tanzanian life, I'm going to take this opportunity to use some of Claire's photos (thanks, Claire!)to illustrate some aspects of life In My Dodoma Kitchen.

*I am learning how to make yoghurt. Once mixed, the newly-made yoghurt has to sit on our roof for a few hours (in the Blue-Band Margarine tub we use to store it in), before it is ready to eat. I still find it amusing to climb up on the hot metal roof with our yoghurt and let it sit there under the burning sun! From experience: if I leave it too long, the yoghurt is wobbly and sharp. If I don't leave it long enough, it is runny and powdery! It's a tricky art to master and I still have a long way to go!


*Coconuts abound in the local market and we have the privilege out here of being able to use fresh coconut in our baking and cooking. But there is a catch- it needs to be grated first, using an ingenious contraption called an "mbuzi ya nazi" (mbuzi can also mean "goat"!). You sit on the wooden stool and use the sharp arm of the stool to cut open and then scrape out the coconut filings, which then need to be dried out in my oven. Here, Jane expertly shows us how this job is done:


*In November, I was taken aback by the large 5kg bag of flour I was encouraged to buy for our bread-making and baking. Now, we have progressed to a whopping 25kg bag of flour! It is then transferred to a mammoth blue bin in my larder and I am surprised by how quickly it goes down, since all our bread and cakes are home-made. Andrew is the only one strong enough in our family to carry it from the car to the flour bin:


* I am still getting used to other tasks, such as having to wash and sterilise all our eggs, fruit and vegetables and even wash out all our precious plastic zip-lock bags each day, so that they can be used over and over as bread bags etc. It looks strange to see plastic bags hanging on the washing lines, next to our clean washing!

Meanwhile, In My Dodoma Kitchen, Esther and Ben are honing their skills as Little Chefs and enjoy helping Mum and Jane with the daily tasks!

Settling into a Routine

Claire has made it back to England! She is now safely back in London after all her travels up and down the long road from Dodoma to Dar es Salaam! (We couldn't post this news earlier, since alot of Tanzania has had no internet connection most of this week).

We waved Claire off last Saturday from the Dodoma bus station:


Off she goes on the bus...


There were some other interesting buses to be seen, including this one which travels between "Dod and Man"- but I'm pretty sure that could not be Dodoma to "Manchester"!! Our recent visitor, Jacqui, could have travelled overland all the way here at Easter, if that were really the case- but I can only imagine how long -and adventurous -such an epic journey would be by bus!

(N.B. In Swahili, the letters L and R are similar-sounding, hence the slightly confusing bus slogan!)

Since Claire left, life is settling back down into a routine, after a wonderful 3 weeks of visitors from England and Easter holidays. Esther returned to school for the final term of the school year-


And household chores continue at home, starting daily with our early morning milk delivery and first Swahili exchange of the day-



then sieving and boiling our milk-


and removing the cream-

...before the cooling process and finally placing the milk in the fridge. Takes rather longer than the simple process of collecting our milk in England and popping it straight into the fridge!

Licence to fly- at long last!

Yesterday, Andrew finally received his long-awaited Tanzanian Flying Licence, which allows him to fly for MAF in Tanzania. It has been a long wait, preceeded by language training, Tanzanian exams to convert his pilot's licence from a South African one, a medical test, training exercises in South Africa -and several long bus trips to Dar es Salaam. Then came the long wait for the papers to actually be issued and signed by the correct authorities. The paperwork for these things can take time...

Meanwhile, Andrew's services have been employed by the MAF office- helping out in the hangar, or with MAF Operations working with the flight following team:


This week, Andrew was able to assist with a medical evacuation of a poorly lady, from the north western corner of Tanzania across to the hospital in Dar es Salaam:


However, after 12 more hours of supervised flights, Andrew will- at long last- be able to take to the skies as a fully fledged Tanzanian-licensed MAF pilot!

Still Stranded

The airlines may be open for business once again, but Claire's Wednesday flight to London was cancelled. Her stay with us in Dodoma has been further extended. The next available flight from Dar es Salaam is Sunday morning.
So Claire will embark once again on the 8 hour trip, on the Long Road to Dar es Salaam on Saturday. This will be the 4th time she has done the 8 hour trip along that stretch of Tanzanian road, during her 19 day visit!
Hopefully, she will able to get her flight and return to England, rather than face another cross-country bus ride...
Here are a few pictures from her road trips:

On The Road Again


Toilet Stop Location for Claire + fellow bus passengers (the actual long-drop toilet is in a little room just out of view of the photo- a toilet without the luxury of a closing door or wash-basin to clean your hands afterwards: makes motorway service station loos 5* luxury affairs!!)


Views from the bus window

Ups and Downs in Dodoma

There have been some great moments here in Dodoma this week.
One of these was the arrival of our mail, after a long period of having a barren and empty post box, despite the fact that many letters have been sent to us from the UK (they just never seemed to get here).


We also got a very exciting parcel, all the way from Oxford, which caused great excitement in the Parker household!


However, on the down side, we experienced again one of the challenges of living here in Dodoma: namely, the lack of reliable medical care.
Poor Ben has been suffering from a nasty, itchy rash which has been getting steadily worse over the past 3 weeks.


We took him to the local medical centre, where we were told he needed anti-fungal cream, but after a few days, this did not seem to make any differece and we doubted the diagnosis. We then emailed some photos of his rash to Interhealth in London and the doctors were very helpful and suggested an antibiotic as he appeared to have a skin infection. We could not find the first medicine they suggested, but did find a type of alternative.
However, before I started to adminster it, we heard that an American doctor "just happened" to be staying in the MAF Guest House on our compound! He was extremely kind and came round to examine Ben- and confirmed Interhealth's diagnosis, but was able to elaborate -having seen Ben in person!- and pronounced that Ben has scabies! He duly prescribed the correct medicine and Ben is already improving.
This doctor is sometimes called "The Angel Doctor", because he has a reputation for turning up just when he is needed. Appropriately, he works for an organisation called "Hope of the Nations" and also pilots their helicopter, which was parked at the MAF hangar overnight:

He also brought that hope to us, as he helped us out with Ben and we are very grateful that he was sent along at just the right moment.

Meanwhile, Claire has been having an adventure this week. She set off for Dar es Salaam on the long bus ride on Thursday morning, to join her flight to London. We all waved her off, wondering when we will next meet...
A few hours later, we heard about the volcanic eruption in Iceland and flight restrictions and began to wonder if Claire's flight would be affected. Well, to cut a long story short, Claire got to Dar, discovered that her flight had been cancelled and had quite a time on Friday morning at Dar es Salaam airport, and then across town at the BA office, trying to rebook her ticket. Lots of taxi rides later, she checked into a cheap boarding house, all alone, exhausted and hungry, with a ticket now issued for Wednesday morning- 3 days late AFTER the start of her school term! Her Y3 class in London will miss her next week!
Hearing of her plight, all alone in Dar, we urged her to come back to Dodoma. So Claire turned around, jumped on the next bus (which happened to be the "budget" bus and was in itself quite an adventurous ride!!) and travelled another 8 hours across Tanzania to arrive back at our home last night!!
Who would have thought that a volcano in Iceland could have such an effect on us here in Africa?? Just goes to show, you never know what might be around the corner...