Tanzanian Experience - Hakuna Matata

Oops, sorry. I wrote this a month agq and somehow it appears that it wasn't published . I only discovered this when I finally got internet to post the next edition so will send it now. Hello. My post caption is a favourite saying of the Tanzanian business manager at the school, when things don't seem to make any sense. It has been expressed a number of times in the past couple of weeks. Examinations are well and truly past and most of the students left yesterday for a months holiday. The remaining 70 have won a regional competition for  Akwata  ( a Christian group in Secondary Schools)) and now will represent the school at a conference/competition in the capital, Dodoma, next week.  This weekend.hey are spending most of their time practising - plenty of harmony and African drums.                                                     ...

How disillusioned can one be. I imagined that after all this time, I would have no trouble fitting everything in our luggage. WRONG. The so called necessities no longer covered the bed but the entire floor of one room and so the culling began again. What to leave behind. Our first check through security necessitated one bag having to be opened. not surprising as it was completely full of weapon shaped items. ( a very generous donation from our church) It is a bit taxing on an x-ray machine to distinguish a gun from a drill of which there were a few. The problem - the rechargeable batteries were not attached to any tools -was easily solved and onto the luggage conveyor  goes the bag and disappears from view. After all the weighing, it seems we have excess luggage and are asked if we can rearrange the contents or leave one bag behind. NOT POSSIBLE -  as another bag disappears from view on the conveyor. From there we are taken to the airline office so the excess bagg...

Yes, we have our feet back on home soil again after a very exhausting three and a half days of vehicle and air transport. The worst part was the nine hour trip to Uganda to the airport in pouring rain until just before the border. I was so grateful that it stopped about six miles before the border crossing as we would have all been like drowned rats for the next seven hours of the trip. We even managed to stop at the equator for a photo.     At the Equator. We would like to thank everyone who journeyed with us via the blog, supported us with your prayers and encouraged us in times of challenge. We truly appreciate it. Just in case you are interested - some of the Form Four boys came to visit me and were interested in Australian food. They then decided that they wanted to bring me dinner from the school kitchen so I could try their food. There’s no saying, “ No” so they duly arrived with a plate of Ugali - ground corn cooked in water and allowed to set.  The best d...

November 6th. Do you remember the saying “Darkest Africa”from a long time ago ? Well, while I don’t hold to that , I was beginning to believe it could literally be true with all the power cuts we have been having. The longest one lasted for three consecutive days. That’ s when you have to drink the ice cream from the freezer if you are fortunate enough to have some ( which we didn’t). No power  means no internet which is intermittent at the best of times. It has been interesting to say the least as it also means that no water can be pumped and with almost five hundred students plus staff on site 24/7 a few tanks of water don’t last very long. But on the bright side we did have some very heavy downpours for a week or so and so we collected plenty of water to drink. We seemed to be the only ones dashing in and out with buckets and dishes but it served a good purpose. Dining hall and covered walkway from the kitchen With the exception of a couple of small doors, the dinin...

21st October, 2018 The week following the Primary School Graduation was extremely busy with preparation for the Form Four graduation at school. This is a huge all day event with parents relatives and all and sundry in attendance. A huge effort was put in by Kevin and his workers to have the extension to the dining area to a stage where the church service beginning the days activities  could be held. It was great to see all the students gathered together for this special event and very satisfying to see how much use it has been given since . The Service Following the service, the activities moved to the football oval for the graduation itself. The students are escorted to the oval in great ceremony. The clouds started rolling across and just as they came onto the oval it started to bucket down. Did they scatter?  No - the show must go on.  They just kept dancing forward. After a while the sun came out  and everything continued  as if ...

This week has had a few unexpected twists and turns. The English Lessons that were planned didn't happen because  as expected it took all week for the students to arrive back. They just come in dribs and drabs,have to register at the office and have their luggage searched before going to the dormitories to settle in, so formal lessons for many classes are a non event for a few days. This coming week doesn't hold a lot of promise of work for some as it is Form Four Graduation Day next Friday and that is a huge event which lasts all day. Despite the change to plans, I still had a very busy week trying to sort out dilemmas for students and covering and repairing heaps of books in the Library.  This week Evina, the young lady in charge of the Library was offered a place at a college near Dar Es Salaam to do a further two years study in Librarianship so she will be leaving in about ten days time. She was so excited and literally nearly swept me off my feet when she found out. ...