Feeling Finnish ... and other things

After our overnight get-away for some peace and quiet outside the city, we returned to celebrate Tim's birthday in the midst of the packing! The birthday treat was burgers at a local hotel! And later on, we had homemade pizza and birthday cake with our good friends, the Nzogere family. Please continue to pray for them ... on top of other things going on, as I mentioned in the last blogpost, they had an awful experience when thieves broke into their house the other night while they slept.

Lunchtime!



Five minutes down the road from where we stayed

Birthday Burgers

Birthday Cake (he asked for a standing giraffe cake, but got a coffee cake)

Celebrating with friends

People have been asking us if everything is now resolved after our accident. Everything has gone very quiet, but nothing has actually changed. The police still have Tim's license and the paperwork we need to get; they have not closed the case after saying that it must go to court. But we have not heard anything about a court summons! We met with our good friend in the judicial system yesterday, and she advised us to continue to wait ... she doubts it will go to court, but is talking to the powers-that-be about resolving the situation and closing the case. In terms of the actual events of the accident, we feel we have come through the other side, and thank God for his grace in all of that. We are very aware of the dangers on the road here, and appreciate your prayers for safety! Tim travelled Tuesday-Wednesday last week to Geita (about a three-hour drive west of Mwanza) with our good friend Huruma Nkone, and I confess to being a nervous wife at home!

I am sitting here now in rather a state of chaos in our living room. We were all set to move in the morning with the car loaded up and the kitchen packed up except for some bits for breakfast .... then a phonecall ... The front door lock is broken on our new house, which in light of recent events is rather a security problem! The landlord is saying to be patient and they will fix it. Apparently it is a Finnish lock however and they are struggling to do so! Maybe Friday. So the pressure is off for tonight, but I haven't the heart yet to unpack what we need for the extra day! But here is a little peek inside ...

The above picture is Kitchen 1 (with an electric oven with working bottom part). Adjacent to this room is Kitchen 2. This comes with gas oven (with working top part) and in case two ovens is not enough, we also have an old Aga! Hot!

Our Finnish living room, with its corner of wood panelling from Finland, paintings and photos of Finland and obviously very Scandanavian chairs! Feeling very Finnish.

 

 

Here are some "friends" we hope don't move along with us! This huge creature was inside Amisadai's shoe yesterday - a good reminder to always shake your shoe before putting it on!

 

And these little friends are a constant source of frustration around here. ANTS! They are just everywhere! Armies of them marching all over the place. You leave a single crumb for a minute, they head that way. You leave a lid just slightly loose, they all head inside. This is our peanut butter pot the second time that the lid wasn't tightened properly. They've been in the margarine, the bread, the cookies ...  and even, to the great distress of several in this house, the Special British Marmite. The nerve. I guess all this extra protein keeps us healthy.