Campfires, hippos and fleas

Camping!

We have just returned from a great weekend away at Masombo with about thirty adults and children from the Iringa Christian Fellowship – an English-speaking group! We all stayed at a lovely site managed by one of the families, beside a river just about 20km away from our house. I really enjoyed driving our beast of a land cruiser down the bumpy track to the river! I can finally drive it now that the clutch has been sorted out somewhat!  The gears do crunch terribly and it is often pretty hard to get into second gear, but it is great on these roads! With the river and lack of bridges, it is actually quicker to get to other nearby places near on foot, and I also had a go on the high swing-like zip-wire that has been rigged over the river for a quick crossing. It was great – just stopped short of the high bank on the other side which meant tugging on the rope to haul myself to solid ground!

Crossing the river!

The whole weekend was really good fun – and guaranteed sunshine! There were sessions of Bible teaching and worship for the adults and fun activities for the children. There was lots of time to chat, great meals together, games in the evening and some fun Scottish dancing! And campfires with marshmallows!! At night, we listened out for the hippo that roams the river there (there was evidence on him on the path next to our tent, but we didn’t hear or see him!) We did hear the bush babies chasing about though!

We arrived back home late this afternoon and are now getting ready for Swahili lessons and homeschooling this week! We had a bit of a panic when we got home and went to feed the rabbits. Amisadai left the hatch open and “Mouse” escaped, and ran off very quickly and was chased up and down the garden by four hungry dogs! Amidst the screams, Daddy came to the rescue and scooped up the rabbit and put her safely home! And if that wasn’t enough, a little later, the girls were cleaning out the tortoise box outside when the dogs suddenly ran over to the tortoises! This time, Mummy came to the rescue and got the dogs away while Louisa put the tortoises safely in the box!

Now to make a list for the market! Number one is to find something to deal with the fleas! The dogs, we have just discovered have fleas, and Louisa’s head very unfortunately was full of them! I am now itching all over with the thought of it! But now to finish on happier things, we shall also get some yummy pineapple, big, soft avocados and huge aubergines! How delicious is that?!

The view from our garden!

The girls exploring in our garden!