Goat Bikes to his New Home

Baaaa. We have just said farewell to Johnson our Goat. He left in style just as our Peppa Pig did … on the back of a motorbike. He didn’t seem terribly happy with the travel arrangements, but Louisa blew him kisses to cheer him up on his way.

Johnson is not impressed with his basket!

To Johnson's new home!

Goodbyes are a common and frequent feature about living here, but it never gets any easier! Yesterday we said farewell to friends from the Iringa Christian Fellowship, the international church here in town. It is sad to be saying goodbye to so many good friends who have been part of our lives here over the past few years (I was really going to try not to cry, but couldn’t do it!) but we all shared a great pizza lunch after the service, hosted by Andy and Angela which was lovely!

 

So our new year is feeling very much like a new year with all these changes abounding! We saw the New Year in with Matt and Amy Dixon in Morogoro; we had a lovely few days with them, so relaxing in the midst of everything going on here. It was just great to chill out with Matt and Amy … and they  spoiled us with amazing food, particularly treats from the UK! We were all very proud of ourselves for staying up until midnight on New Year’s Eve … although Tim needed a few nudges to stop the snoring! Amisadai and Louisa had a fantastic time playing with Elia and Finley. And while we were there Amisadai celebrated her tenth (no, I can’t believe that yet!) birthday. It was a real treat of a day as we all headed to a swimming pool at a hotel and had loads of fun with pizza for lunch. Later on we all went to Tony and Cath Swanson’s home (Amy and Matt’s unit leaders with AIM) with Steve and Ruth Lancaster (a couple who were recently studying Swahili in Iringa). The Swansons were wonderful, making Amisadai feel so special along with a delicious BBQ, party games and all round lovely time!



Happy 10th Birthday!

Amisadai relaxing on her birthday!



Birthday Fun



Warthog spotting on the way home



And a friendly giraffe

We came back to Iringa on New Year’s Day, and hit the final home stretch in packing and goodbyes.

The girls have been making a bit of a game out of parting with some of their belongings. We have transformed the living room into a shop, with sections for clothes, books, crafts and toys and games. People are stopping by to take whatever they want and the girls are enjoying taking in donations and writing out and stamping receipts!  

So I think that this will be our last blog post from Iringa. Today we said goodbye to the Bishop, and were then stuck in town until half twelve waiting for the Tanzanian president to pass and the roads to reopen! This afternoon we have a final sale in the “shop” and the girls are enjoying a play date with friends, on Tuesday we celebrate my birthday (Lucy is having a crash course with Mama Mariam on making wedding cakes, which gives me a good birthday cake!), on Wednesday we have an EI team send-off party and on Thursday we load up the Land Cruiser. We leave Iringa early on Friday morning and will arrive in Mwanza on Sunday afternoon. So with the next blog post we’ll all see what our new house looks like in Mwanza and how many of these bags and boxes we managed to drive up there!