Teeth, Rats and Chickens

After a rather unpredictable week, Tim is back with us again! Plans were made at the beginning of last week for him to travel to Dar es Salaam on Wednesday to visit a dentist. The girls and I then decided to go with him as far as Morogoro to stay with our friends, Matt and Amy Dixon (school has been rather difficult to keep routine recently, so it seemed like a good idea just to go for it)! We packed accordingly on Tuesday night ... after another un-routine day with a good EI prayer day. But we awoke on Wednesday morning to find that Amisadai was sick, rats had made themselves at home in our bathroom and the new guard we were expecting to start that day was in Dar. So we made the quick call that the girls and I had better stay behind. So after a hurried attempt to seal up the gnawed hole in the bathroom ceiling and all holes under the outside roof and then a lovely team lunch celebrating Angela's birthday, Tim departed. I laid out traps and secured all toothbrushes away (eww yuck... but no, this is not related to Tim's teeth problem!) and stayed close to home.

Tim had an infection under a tooth where he had a root canal done years ago. They drilled down and added medicine and told him to come back in two days. While he waited, he took our car in to get the AC fixed. An expensive job! But a very welcome one as temperatures in Dar soared even at 7am! The wait in Dar also made it possible to get some oats. Not so expensive but also very welcome, especially by our porridge queen, Amisadai! He went back to the dentist on Saturday and had a temporary filling put in, was given medication to clear the infection (good news) and needs now to go back in two weeks (not such good news). But during the trip he was able to spend time with Matt and Amy en route both ways, and also time with other friends, Martin and Esther Shaw, who have recently arrived in Dar.



Martin and Esther with Esther's Mum

He arrived back on Sunday afternoon. We were all very pleased to see him back (Amisadai had recovered by Thursday afternoon) and we had a great welcome planned! We finally had chicken again! On Friday, I had been to the Diocese and picked up eleven chickens from Mama Masawa, not all for us, and yes, they were all dead! So we roasted a little bird and ate with all the trimmings. And to top it all off, we bought apples in the market (a very rare occurrence) and had apple pie and fresh cream for dessert!

Elephants by the road on the way home