A Different World

Our time in England already feels like a far-off dream as we now immerse ourselves back into life here in Africa.
Dodoma is so very different from England. Here are a few of the differences that we enjoyed during our UK Home Assignment...

Being close to family
Time with our extended family was a real highlight. It was especially great for the children to enjoy time with their grandparents. During the 8 weeks in England, we shared many family celebrations, including 6 family birthdays and of course Christmas!

Christmas Day itself we celebrated with my parents and brother- with a traditional English Christmas dinner, complete with a fat turkey!

Over the New Year we had a wonderful week with Andrew's parents:

Esther, Ben and Joel loved seeing their cousins in England! The 5 cousins enjoyed the times they had to play together. The boys looked super-smart in their a specially-made Tanzanian shirts which we brought back with us from Dodoma:

Transport
It was fun for all of us to enjoy travelling on trains that were fast, efficient, actually ran on time and which were more frequent than once a week! We had lots of travel to do during the 8 weeks, for various engagements, so it was great to be able to get around by train -a real novelty for the children in particular.

Tube travel in London was also different. The children have used the London tube before but now that they are a bit older, Esther and Ben had many more questions. They were really interested in how the tube works, how the tunnels were built, who travels on them, how fast they go, why we don't have a tube system in Tanzania and why isn't there a buffet carriage on the tube to buy a cup of tea, like on the Virgin Trains??

Escalators are also a novelty when you live in Dodoma!

Time with friends
Time with friends and family is precious when you know you don't get to see each other often. We so appreciated the opportunities we had to see and spend time with many our friends during this trip!

We even got the chance to make new friends... (!!)

 ...which leads me on to another big difference:

The weather!
From the heat and dry of Dodoma to the freezing cold of snowy England! What great timing to be there when snow arrived and to experience England's Winter Wonderland! Although I have to say, Joel was most UNimpressed by the cold, wet stuff that made him so uncomfortable! He just could not believe his eyes- nor the pain in his frozen toes!

Things To Do, Places to Go
We made the most of opportunities to take the children out. There is so much available in England for children and families to visit and to do! A stark contrast to Dodoma, where the culture, the obvious lack of funds, dry and arid location and a different outlook mean that there are no museums, parks, safari parks, water-parks etc. etc.

It was fun to visit some London museums. We met dinosaurs...

...Canadian bears ("watch out, Joel"!!)...

...and the mighty Blue Whale at real-life scale- who made the huge animals we have seen in Tanzania look like midget creatures!

There was also plenty to learn at the Science Museum:

Back up north, the children and I had a great day out with Nana +Grandad at the Museum of Liverpool:

Ben and Joel were big fans of the interactive displays at the museum; it was hard to drag them away!

Cold, wet weather outside meant that Esther, Ben and Joel became big fans of indoor play centres. Southport's "Play Town" was a favourite venue and within walking distance of the lovely flat where we were based for 6 weeks- which brings me to another difference between our UK and Tanzania experiences...

Homes

In Dodoma, we feel very much at home in our single-storey MAF house, where it is nice and cool in a hot climate. Our lounge leads through an archway to the bedrooms and the children rarely need to negotiate stairs. Our windows are all placed high up in the walls to prevent the glaring sun from shining in, which would make the house unbearably hot. This means the children are not tall enough to to see out of our windows, so if they want to know what's going on around outside, they pop outside through our fly-screen door. 

In Southport, where a very kind friend from our church let us stay in her lovely, warm, comfortable and wonderful flat, "home" for 6 weeks looked quite different from home in Africa. Imagine the delight of Esther and Ben when we told them that we would be staying in a flat on the 8th floor and would take a lift to get to the front door! We rarely encounter stairs here, never mind a lift! We had to establish an informal rota so that the children could take turns pressing the buttons to go up or down!

Wow! A lift!

When we got up to the flat, floor-to-ceiling windows meant incredible views across Southport and up along Lord Street:

 
As far as Ben and Joel (and Andrew!!) were concerned, the icing on the cake was the fact that these windows faced a very busy building site with all manner of mighty machines to watch:

And that's not all! Right next to this was the local Fire Station, where fabulous fire engines came and went and practised their weekly drill!! What better view could there be?

It was a boy's paradise, right up in the clouds of the 8th storey! Although the children missed their Dodoma  freedom, where they can run outside whenever they choose and play in the African sunshine on the safety of the MAF compound, they also enjoyed the novelty of staying in a place that was so much fun by virtue of being so very different.

Finally, our 8 weeks in England also meant lots of speaking engagements, meetings and MAF events: a very different type of work from our normal family life in Dodoma. Of course, we made plenty of time for cake at those MAF events- including these amazing cakes created by a very talented friend in Burscough! 

Now it's back to the nitty-gritty of daily work and school in Africa. It is good to be back home again, to see friends here, to no longer be living out of suitcases and to get back into routine, but it's also good to have fantastic, happy memories to look back on of our 8 very different weeks in England.

First Week Back

Our first week back in Dodoma has passed! We are back into the school and work routines and settled back into our house. However, the initial week back home in Africa has not all been plain sailing!

The Journey from Southport to Dodoma
We had a smooth passage, picked up at the front door of the lovely flat where we were staying in Southport. We were ferried by mini-bus to Manchester Airport- a wonderful, free ride from very kind friends at our church in Bursough who organised this lift for us.
At Manchester Airport, we were well wrapped up in our winter wollies and still looked fresh, clean and ready to go! We also had the much appreciated help of my parents to manage our 12 suitcases, pram, 3 children and 4 pieces of hand-luggage!

Friday morning: By the time we got to Dar es Salaam, we were a little less fresh! We were overcome by the Dar heat, a little jaded after the farewells in England, surviving on a night of very little sleep and managing without the extra hands to help load the luggage:

 However, a MAF employee soon turned up to help Andrew to take the trollies out to our waiting car and load them inside and on the roof rack on top.

Then it was time to all pile in and drive the 8 hours to Dodoma...We enjoyed the English sandwiches I'd made the day before and stowed away in my hand-luggage (!!) and the treats we'd picked up from our flight. The food kept us going when  the tiredness threatened to overwhelm. However, shortly after lunch, poor Benjamin suddenly brought all his food back up, as we sped along in the car!! Needless to say, it was not very pleasant for any of us, particularly little Ben.

Arriving home, we were made very welcome, with a great sign on our front door courtesy of our neighbours:

 Our Swiss neighbours even had us over for dinner, which was much appreciated.
BUT later that evening, it was my turn to be sick!  Spending an evening in the toilet with a bucket on my knee and the mop at the ready was not my favourite home-coming! Poor Joel could not understand what was going on and yelled and screamed and cried, overwhelmed with tiredness, confusion and anxiety- but by 11pm, at last all was calm in the Parker home and we all slept and slept...

Saturday
Not feeling very well and still all rather tired, Saturday was not an easy day- and only got worse for me when I discovered that my much-cherished washing machine- a major bonus in Dodoma- had been destroyed by the constant power-cuts and power-surges of Dodoma. It's motor and element are burnt out and so my machine has come to a sad demise! :-(
Where my washing machine once stood now stand bucket-loads of dirty laundry waiting to be hand-washed:

 Thankfully, helpful neighbours stepped in to offer the use of their washing- machines to at least shift the worst of our clothes and car-seats that had been decorated by the vomiting bug! And on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have the help of Pendo and Jane to wash our laundry by hand until we decide what to do about  the lack of a washing machine.

Sunday
A calm day at home to recover and to start the big task of unpacking!

Monday
Back to school for Ben and Esther- and they were so keen to see their friends! They are thoroughly enjoying being back at school and enjoying the routine again after weeks of being moved around in England (having slept in 6 different beds over 8 weeks!).

It was out to town for me and Joel: time to restock the cupboards!
We had 6 visiting MAF guests from Dar es Salaam for lunch.
Then in the evening, we had an unexpected guest at dinner- another MAF pilot whose flight had gone differently from planned and who had ended up in Dodoma instead of Arusha for the night!

After dinner, it was our turn on the MAF rota to host the MAF staff meeting, so 10 of us met in our lounge from 8pm. It was a good chance to see our colleagues after our time away!

Tuesday
Time to greet Jane and Pendo, as they came back to work at our home. It was nice to see them again, although I must confess to being a little taken aback by Jane's greeting as she exclaimed to me, "Oh, you've gone so fat! It must be all the food you ate in England!"

I was feeling ever so efficient on Tuesday morning, as Joel and I had driven the car round the corner to a local shop to buy a huge, heavy bag of flour, so that Jane could start again on our bread-making. By 10am, this new 25kg bag of flour was in my larder and I had poured it out of its sack and into our flour-bin.
I was now looking forward to getting back to the incompleted job of unpacking our 12 cases.

This feeling of efficiency, as it so often the case here in Dodoma, was short-lived. Jane soon called me into the kitchen, where she was standing with her elbows deep in a bowl of bread-dough. "Look, Mama," she said, "this flour is FULL of "wadudu" (= insects)!" I looked and sure enough, in her floury sieve, a party of Evil Weevils were having a fabulous time, crawling about, looking even fatter and better-fed than me! ARGH!!!!! After a moments consideration, I decided that we must take the sack back to the shop and try to get another sack. 33,000 Tanzanian shillings (£13)  and 25kg of flour could not be wasted! But I would need help to carry the flour and evidence of the weevils...
So after a bit of faffing, Jane and her sieve full of (now-squashed) weevils, Joel and I and Gadi (who works in our garden 2 mornings a week), carrying the bin full of flour, crowded into our large vehicle and drove around the corner back to the shop. We were met with great surprise by the shop-keeper, but after considerable discussion and a good look at the flour and the weevils, I was really thankful that he took the flour back and returned my money.

We then found a different shop selling the same type of flour- but it was 5,000 shillings cheaper ( a day's wage out here) and wonderfully weevil-free!! I parked this sack in my larder and told the tale to anyone who would listen. Ben was smiling too when he got home from school, as a Mum without weevils in her kitchen is a much happier Mum than when she is on a weevil-killing mission!

It was a good result but frustrating that it took up most of my morning!!

On Tuesday afternoon, a friend brought her 3 children came to play. It was all fun and games until the children discovered this new plant in our hedge:

Surprised by the sudden appearance of this intruder in our hedge and lured by the bright colours, Esther and Ben and their friends started to pick at the plant. Later, Joel joined in, picking a nice bright red "flower" -and then sucked his thumb.
 That was when the trouble started. Joel gave a scream of shock and burst into tears, opening his mouth and saying "sore! sore!" My friend Meg informed us that these pretty red plants are actually the hottest chillis that are grown in Tanzania! Their name is "bird-poo chillis", as birds drop the seeds into other plant beds and these chillis sprout up unexpectedly.
 Poor Joel drank about a pint of milk and sucked on an ice-stick but it still took quite a while for the effects to wear off!

Wednesday
Wednesday was a jolt back into reality for me and Joel, as we stopped off at Dodoma's main market after driving the 07:20 MAF school bus, to drop off Esther, Ben and their school mates. The market is always a bit of a shock to me after time away. The noise, the dirt, the mud, the mice and coping again with the language are all factors that bring me back down to earth with a bump after all that gliding around with a trolley on pristine floors in English supermarkets!

In the afternoon, we had more fun and games when another good friend brought her 3 children to play. We had a great time catching up and were also joined by a couple of other kids off the MAF compound. In fact, the children had so much fun that Andrew, on returning home from work, stood shell-shocked in the doorway, surveying a lounge and garden that had been turned upside-down: cushions everywhere, chairs lined up like trains, toys galore, dens in the corner created by a washing-horse and picnic blankets, clothes, discarded princess outfits, dirty tea-sets, puddles of water and asked, "Has there been a tornado passing through here this afternoon??"
"Oh no," I calmly replied, "just 8 children having marvellous fun, making up for all the time apart over the last few weeks !"

Thursday:
A day to get think about being healthy as Joel helped Jane to sort and clean the brown wheat, so that we can mill it into brown flour and start to bake bread with some brown flour next week:

Also a good time to spend with MAF friends for Joel as I, as we cycled over to compound B and had a lovely morning at a friend's house- probably the calmest and most sane time since we've been home!

We had 2 MAF friends for lunch- our short-term next-door neighbours who come from England. It was Janet's birthday, so we thought it would be nice to have them over to join us for lunch!

Friday
 Joel and I enjoyed going to our very small but much valued "Toddler" get-together group. Every Friday, a group of up to 6 of us Dodoma Mums get together with our pre-schoolers. We take turns to host in our homes. It's such a good opportunity for Joel to get some socialising with little ones his own age, since there are no suitable nurseries or Kindergartens in Dodoma and no creche on Sundays at church, so we both enjoy this time together with other tiny tots and their mums!

In the evening, we joined some MAF friends for dinner at Dodoma's one and only Pizzaria. Back to the old routine of making the children wear long sleeves, long trousers and socks despite the heat and covering them with insect repellent! Mosquitoes are a constant worry as soon as it starts getting dark. Better to be overdressed, hot and sticky with repellent than be bitten by a malaria-mosquito.

Saturday
Back to the 9am Ladies Keep Fit class, led by neighbour Margaret! If Jane is to be believed, I need to attend every Keep Fit class I can find!! ;-)

In the evening, I discovered that my computer is broken!! :-(
 I am now using Andrew's work laptop, but I am very, very sad that the battery and powercable on my 7 year old laptop seem to have given up. How on earth I am going to get a new laptop in Dodoma I have not yet worked out. And there's still the issue of the broken washing machine. They say that events like these often happen in threes- I am not usually superstitious, but I can't help wondering what will break next...???

Sunday
Back to the cathedral for the English-language service at 09:15. It was my turn to teach Sunday School. It was great to teach the children again, although I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do with 6 little Tanzanian girls who turned up half way through and couldn't speak a word of English, at the English-speaking Sunday school!! A bit tricky to keep them focused when teaching the other children in English, whilst also competing with the VERY loud Swahili singing being blasted from speakers in a nearby room!!
Still, as a friend said to me this week, life wouldn't be any fun without the challenges, would it??!! Welcome back to Africa!!

Back in Tanzania!

After 8 wonderful weeks in England, here we are back in Tanzania!
Still settling in, sorting the house out, adapting to the heat and catching up with friends...but watch this space for more Tales from Tanzania...

Ben's Birthday Bash

Ben is 5!

To celebrate, he had a very special birthday party last week, with 7 little friends and his brother and sister.

The party theme: "Fire Fighters".

The venue: Ben's Fire Station

 The decorations:

The special surprise that we had organised in advance for Ben's party was a visit from the "Airport Fire and Rescue" truck! Ben was delighted as we all rushed round to the MAF hangar to see his party visitors:

 The fire services staff were most kind and helpful and let the children climb on board...

...and visit the roof to see all the ladders and fire equipment.

 Even Joel was excited, despite the roaring noise of the powerful engine and the very high steps to get into the cab. He posed happily with his personal "Fire Fighter Joel" badge!

 The staff then took the children to the edge of the MAF hangar to see the hose pipes in action- and kindly let them all have a turn!

Back at the house, we had time for a few fire-fighter themed games, time for toasting marshmallows on sticks on a BBQ in the garden and then Dad stoked up the BBQ to make some impressive flames. Ben-Birthday-Boy then extinguished the fire with our garden hose!

There was also time for a party tea, of course, and a fire-themed cake!

Now Ben is proud to be 5, after a day of fiery fun to celebrate!

Look...

...what Andrew killed last night!!

This snake was slithering around the MAF compound in the early evening. Andrew's quick-thinking reaction meant that this green reptile didn't stand much of a chance- the head was soon severed with the help of a long stick- which broke in the decapitating process!
Whilst Andrew regretted having to kill it, the potential danger to the residents and especially the children on our MAF compound is too great a risk to leave the creature free and easy. So the beheaded snake spent the night on our patio, after a photo shoot next to my shoe to give a sense of scale!

Happiness is...

Happiness is a plate of home-made chocolate chip biscuits- and some lovely new zip-lock bags to store them in! 

Chocolate chips are a rare delicacy in Dodoma and cannot be picked up at the local shops, so I was thrilled with this gift of real, white chocolate chips, all the way from America! A much appreciated gift from a visiting MAF family (who will be coming to live here in Dodoma in February next year). There was much excitement when I received the above bag of chocolate chips! Out came my recipe book- and the baking began! The happiness continues, since I have so far only used half the bag and there is still opportunity to bake some more delicious chocolate chip biscuits!

The zip-lock bags also need a mention. Ziplock bags are a well-preserved treasure in the kitchens of Dodoma ex-pats. We use them, wash them carefully and hang them out to dry- and then use them again! Several times over! The bags I brought with me to Tanzania from England 18 months ago are starting to look a little ragged- and smell a little stale inside!! So I am very happy that I can now add some sparkly new bags to supplement this rather tired-looking collection of ziplock bags below, hanging up to dry on my washing line:

Meanwhile, whilst happiness to me is new ziplock bags and chocolate chips, the children are made happy in Dodoma with a tasty ice-cream on a hot day! 

Contradiction

Here we are in Dodoma and outside in the scorching sunshine of our garden, my thermometer reads 39'C.

Inside my lounge, it reads 30'C.

It is hot, hot, hot and so dry and oh-so-dusty!

However, in my mind, I am gearing up for our very exciting trip to England for Christmas, where the weather will be anything but hot, dry and dusty. It will be more like freezing cold, wet and muddy! Conscious that we no longer possess the clothes for such a contrasting climate, I went off to Saba Saba second-hand market in hunt of some warmer gear.

Despite the sweat trickling down our faces and the sun burning us overhead, Saba Saba market seemed to have a wealth of extra-warm winter clothing! It baffles me how such warm clothing ends up in such a hot place as Dodoma! I can't imagine how stall sellers could gain a profit selling wolly hats, gloves, coats and scarves in the sweltering African climate of Dodoma, but there I was unearthing some nice, cozy clothes ready for England! :-)

Here are my bargains, as modelled by the mini-Parkers: a hat for Joel (he just loves the novelty of a fluffy hat!!), 2 sweaters for me (a very appropriate name for these items when I tried them on outside at a Dodoma market stall!!), a winter coat for Esther and one brand new item- a nice bright scarf for me to wear. The colour will remind me of the blue skies of Africa whilst I enjoy the change of weather under the grey Lancashire skies!

In Training

We have only had one afternoon of rain so far this season. Dodoma is once again overwhelmingly hot, dry and dusty. However, we live in hope and anticipation of more rain soon!
When it does rain here, all the children get so excited that they rush out to stomp and play in the rain, then rush home to fetch toys to take outside, dirtying my floors with wet, muddy feet on their travels through the house!
In preparation for this, I am training up my boys to use their muscles and give a bit of a hand to clean those dirty floors!

Joel just loves to sweep and mop and is always charging about the house rather dangerously with my broom, so when I recently found this set of mini-broom, mop, bucket and dustpan in town, I snapped it up quick! It's not often that we find suitable toys for sale in Dodoma, so I was very excited! I bargained hard and got a bit of a reduction. It was worth all that time haggling over the price, as I now have a willing helper in training with his own tools -and my own broom safely where I need it! A win-win situation!

Peace at Last!

The noise has STOPPED!!

It is amazing to wake up in the light, to wake up when we choose, to wake up to peace and quiet! I have been having long lie-ins this week, until 6:25am!!
Not only has the noise stopped, but the speakers broadcasting loudly across our neighbourhood have been removed!
 I went around there yesterday to enjoy the view of the roof without the huge, 4-directional speakers that have caused us so much tiredness and stress. What a lovely sight!

It's Here!

The rains started today!! :-)