Passing through the doldrums

I've written a small blog each day since Monday....but keep forgetting to save!! The ups and downs keep coming but slowly we are assembling our lives here. R has risen from her chagrin at the thought of life here for 5 months and is ready to share with the world again - blog coming soon. Hats off to our eldest daughter who has determinedly blasted through this week. The other 2 are taking small steady steps to becoming accustomed to Tanzania life.

School this week has had sports day, football matches & parents day (same as our parents evening but the parents all just rock up during the day). The nuns had to persuade R not to participate in too many races - fearing sunstroke & dehydration with athletics in the equatorial afternoon sun. She came 2nd in the 200m sprint and pulled off a 3 legged race too (must be all the practice she did with her BF for her sponsored 5mile 3 legged walk before we came, raising money for the Holy Family School). We had a good giggle on parents day looking through exam papers - she & L got dropped into end of term exams on their first week - both of them were a bit put out at being marked wrong on their English papers, when they were indeed right. I couldn't work out the answers for their social studies paper, nor most of their music. The science papers were interesting, impressed R knew modes of transmission for HIV, and maths was impressive - algebra is not on the cards back home yet. 

 

I have managed some work this week, now feeling comfortable leaving girls with our housekeeper. Made my first forays onto the hospital wards to review palliative inpatients. There's a lot of very late stage  gynae cancers here - pretty grim stuff with horrendous fistulas & abscesses. I feel very handicapped without the nuances of language to rely on - but I can interpret so much from the tone of voice & body language of the palliative care nurse H who is fantastic. Her main challenge is getting patients access to regular pain relief, as even if it's written up, the nursing staff infrequently give it. We're planning some training sessions for  the hospital medical staff & students. 

Our home routine has blossomed with the addition of daily rituals and school friends popping by after school. We're looking forward to a rerun of pudding night on Monday. Dance night on Tuesday had to be rescheduled due to the witching hour. Wednesday games night was hilarious - thanks to the MC family for the suggestion of the adverb game (brilliant). 'Aunty' S joined us & taught us an alternative version called the psychiatrist ( though I'm left wondering if my children need one of their own, what with the themes they chose!). Further details can be disclosed if required! We also had out first successful Tanzanian supper for all of us from Mama Africa....B ate something other than just pasta....cue fireworks & champagne corks. The meal in question we shall now need to eat every week - chapatis & beans - yum. 

Last but not least, movie night - upgraded with great oven skills to pizza & movie night.

L& B kneading our pizza dough

After school playdates

So here we are on Friday, 3 weeks from our arrival, and I have more than a glimmer of hope that this family can not only stick this out, but perhaps enjoy it as well...…

Loving our email & WhatsApp correspondence with news from home...keep them coming x

Things I am getting used to..

How quickly the strange becomes normal. I must capture the things that make me look twice....before I forget!

Taxis running out of fuel....twice this week. Learnt his lesson today & stopped to fill up with my fare money before leaving town!
Taxis also feeling like they might just fall apart on every bump...most of them have handles & bits missing.

The rubbish dump in the centre of town....just a massive heap which gets trawled through for plastic bottles. These are stacked up in huge nets for reuse. Our house rubbish I now realize gets put in a hole in the garden. We have a compost hole but still terrifying the waste we produce. Have at least converted our housekeeper to using our shopping bags instead of getting new plastic bags each time. Plastic is strewn everywhere here

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The stacks of chicken basket cages piled up by the rubbish dump.

The row of coffin makers next to the fish market....choice of regal purple covered or plain wood. They also make beautiful wooden beds.

The few Masai people selling their traditional wares ......elegant leather sandals & intricate beadwork.....need to sneak there on my own for some Xmas shopping. They themselves are taller, leaner, darker & elegant.

The feel of sweat slowly trickling off the backs of my knees.....no 'glowing' here!

The flour shops...each with small mill inside and sacks heaped along the store front.
Endless mobile phone kiosks...where you top up data.
The constant calls of bibi (miss) from the motorbike boys...all hoping you want a ride.
The ladies selling dried fish or deep frying chips on the top of barrels.

The sound of dawn...when the cacophony of bird & bat calls (which start at 5) get overtaken by the human onslaught of loud party music (who gets to choose, I want to know, it comes blasting from beyond the railway), motorbikes revving....all preceded by the mosque call at 4am. How the rest of my family sleep through it is astounding. 

The style of women's clothing.....so varied, according, I assume to religious background, though all fairly conservative. Fitted dresses (surely so hot) large floaty dresses (fear I would resemble a curtain) and then all the kangas (strips of cloth) which many wear over their skirts. Lots of head wear too. I am consumed by the desire to photograph all these every day details but I am wary of causing offence.

Dirty red feet...shoes or not...they are always filthy. The red dust is insidious..coating the floors and walls. We keep thinking of painting our rooms to freshen things up but I suspect they would rapidly revert to orange stained.

Tiny ants....eugh...I keep forgetting that the slightest hint of sugar and they arrive. If the bread is left on the side, or dregs of juice in a glass then  they are soon swarming.

Actually it seems there is still rather a lot which I am taking in...but now 3 weeks since our arrival.

Ruth: Stuff

Hi!!! Ruth's back!!!

Sorry I've not blogged for like ages, but I have got an excuse. Apparently I've just been through what's called the doldrums period. It's basically something that when you arrive somewhere very different to what you're used to, you get all excited but then sometimes the evil doldrums period can happen. It's when after the excitement of arriving is over you kind of gave a bit of break down because after all, it actually seems all rubbish and everything seems wrong. But that is not what I'm blogging today about , I think it'd be much more interesting than what we've been up to during my 'break down' and when I talk about it, it all seems far from rubbish! But before I talk about any of that I HAVE TO talk about what happened today, at the time it seemed like THE FUNNIEST THING IN HISTORY so hopefully you will at least find it slightly amusing!! So let's actually get to the point, we've discovered that all the school meals don't actually take to my fancy. Even the ones that taste nice, because there aren't enough plates for everyone in the school so once you've finished your lunch you you have to give your cutlery and plate in then some students on washing duty just give them a quick rinse to get any left over food off then they get given to the next person. Starting to see what I mean? So recently (since this Monday) I've been taking in my own packed lunch ,aka a jam sandwich, and eating it in Sister G's security's office. But this lunch at least 10-15 of her cats, she has a lot of cats, last time she counted she had 20 but that was 5 years ago now and her cat family has probably extended greatly now, just happened to be in the room. And when they saw me with food they all crowded round my chair in a big circle meewing their heads off. It was quite annoying actually. But now the funny part comes,1 of the cats  braved jumping on to the desk  once the others noticed they all jumped up. The secretary then chased them out of the room with a stick, but then they chased her back. Finally they all ran into sister G's office and jumped on her in the middle of her meeting!!!! On her lap, her shoulders and even on her head 😂