Tim goes up a mountain ...

After missing our usual weekend blogging, there seems to be so much to share! Tim enjoyed an overnight visit in Uhambingeto which I will let him write about! But I just have to say that he went up a mountain and up there in the middle of nowhere, asked a Tanzanian to please do his ironing!! (He meant to ask him to take a photo! The difference between "piga picha" and "piga pasi.")

  

The girls and I have enjoyed learning about natural dyes, looms and weaving, and after visiting Tanzanian artisans at work are looking forward to working on our own crafts at home! This has also been a good opportunity to learn our colours in Swahili!

The girls and I have been twice this week to a neighbouring house to play with some local Tanzanian girls. Amisadai and Louisa have enjoyed doing crafts and playing with hula hoops and skipping ropes with Alice (10), Grace (7) and Miriam (4). It is great for Amisadai and Louisa to pick up more Swahili! And on the subject on playing outside all the time, the girls have never had such messy legs! Dirt, cuts, scratches, scabs, bites and now ringworm too! It's quite the procedure at bedtime, cleaning and creaming! 


Saturday bike ride round the block!

We cannot let a blog go by without mentioning kuku (chickens) ... and the good news is that we have now had three eggs! For the past three days our big black hen, now appropriately named Furaha (Happy) has laid an egg!

We have bought a solar light! This should help us in the frequent events of power cuts! We have had numerous and various problems with our electricity recently ... this has created minor hassles for things like showering and cooking (especially when the electricity goes out in the middle of these activities ... which has, in both cases, happened!)
 

And now to Tim: Being invited to go to Uhambingeto to take part in surveying a water project installed 15 years ago was a great privilege. It so happened I had a week off Swahili, as I had no teacher. We left the village at 6:30am so we could climb our mountain before it got too hot. Never have I taken such interest in pipework! I was the official photographer, and filled our memory card with photographs of pipe joints (many of which were broken) as we journeyed up the pipeline to the springs. Unfortunately these sources of water are not giving the amount of water the village needs in the dry season.

Following the pipe

 

Praying for rain