Tilapia, Coffee and Cheese



Three girls are happy to have Tim back again! After his return from Dar (as I wrote the last blog), Tim then headed off again, this time to Mwanza with Andy and Andrew. It is almost 1000km to Mwanza, so a long 2-day drive there and then back again after three days. But they all enjoyed their time together. Andy went to advise a Canadian team on water projects. Andrew and Tim went to meet with TAG (Tanzania Assemblies of God) church leaders about the possibility of us moving there to partner with them. They were well looked after by the church and their host, Godwin Makasi (who cooked a mean tilapia!), and were even able to explore possible housing and school options. Exciting times!



Three Men and a Dirty Land Cruiser

In the meantime, the girls and I have been busy with all kinds of educational fun! We had a great time doing pottery with Lexa at Neema Crafts last week and returned yesterday to take the finished work out of the kiln (see the girl's blog for more on that).


Maneno examines his pottery in the kiln

Finished jars of clay!

We had a fantastic time at Masumbo with David Moyer who gave the girls (and me) a lesson on the coffee process ... watch this space on the girls' blog for more on this super interesting outing later! This all ties in with out rainforest study which is providing us with a wealth of interesting facts! We are reading a fascinating book by Michael Dawson who grew up with the Yanomamo in the Amazon rainforest. He went with his parents and nine brothers and sisters and the book is full of his amazing adventures with 30m anacondas, toe-biting piranhas and jaguars!



David teaching the girls about coffee

We are continuing to learn about cheese and although feeling rather "cheesed off" with today's mozzarella disaster, I was very happy with our latest cream cheese. With it, we made cream cheese icing for cinnamon buns with Lucy. Yum! We are hoping Lucy may be able to start making these delicious buns to sell around Iringa. The sewing afternoons continue and we are busy starting projects, again for Lucy to sell for some income support for her children's school fees. And lastly, we are making slow progress on our keyhole and bag gardens. We are finally ready to plant seeds next week after a lot of digging and waiting for the rain to stop!



Working hard in the garden!

Now we are enjoying being together before Tim dashes off yet again! He's off on Wednesday, back to Dar es Salaam to finish sorting out his bad tooth before returning on Good Friday. While keeping busy with preparing for the new stoves project when he is around, he has also had a varied month of preaching in both Swahili and English. A sermon for a small Pentecostal village church, another for an international city church, then to a small Anglican village church and finally an international church made up of mainly expats!