Travelling in a Tuk Tuk!

Highlight of the week...travelling in a tuk tuk! Most mornings we would usually travel into work on a dalla dalla but they are hot and smelly, full of people and very slow! They stop often to pick up passengers and it is not surprising when we start reversing down the road to pick up a passenger! There is a lot of competition between the dalla dallas for customers and so as soon as they see you they run to you and are determined that you will get on their dalla dalla!  Compared to that travelling in a tuk tuk is luxury! I feel like a princess in a chariot! It doesn’t go very fast at all but we get there a lot quicker and it is a lot less stressful!

A fantastic start to the new year

Hello everyone!

I have been back in Tanzania for a month now and it is scary how fast the weeks are going.  I absolutely love being back here and am now settled back into life here. It is very hot here at the moment and several missionaries are saying they can only remember one or two times that it has been hotter than this! It is also great to be back using Swahili! I absolutely love learning this language and get excited every time I learn a new word and find a sentence to use it in! Learning the grammar side of it is less fun but despite that, my Swahili lessons with Deb each week are a time I look forward to.

Rehema is doing well at the moment and there is a buzz of activity which is exciting! The workshop just feels so alive! Morning devotions with the Rehema women have started up again and reading the bible, praying together and singing is such incredible way to start the day.  Rehema has a new project manager, Mary, who is doing an incredible job and made such a difference already. It is such a blessing to have her at Rehema. Natalie, Mary and I also live together now so I would really appreciate your prayers that we can live and work together well and approach any challenges with patience and love for each other.

It was great to come back and see Sarabi. I never knew I would miss my dog as much as I did and I was excited to see her, until I actually saw her! It was dark when we got back and I went out to see her and she was jumping around completely hyper and so much bigger than I left her! I had a moment of panic that I was going to be scared of my own dog! Fortunately the next morning she looked slightly less scary and we are getting along very well together!

There is an awesome Go MAD team here for 6 months. They are a really friendly team and I have loved hanging out with them and really look forward to getting to know them better. 

It was such an encouragement when I was home over Christmas to hear that people actually read these blogs so I promise now to try and update you all more regularly! 

24 days to go!

24 days until I arrive back in the UK! 

I am sorry I haven’t written in a while, my internet has been very bad. I am very excited about returning home for Christmas and Christmas has already started here in Tanzania with the Rehema Christmas Fair! We had an amazing fair which lots of people came to support and a great time was had by all. There was a special Christmas menu, a fully stocked shop and a variety of fun games. My favourite game was ‘Santa’s shaving shop’ where one person has shaving foam on their face and their partner has to squirt it off before the other pair does. It was great fun and both adults and children enjoyed the challenge and mess! We all gathered together for some carols and it was lovely to have all the children singing together. It was also very special to be a part of the Rehema women singing silent night both in English and Swahili. Their voices are stunning and their enthusiasm to learn the English inspired me to try just as hard with learning the Swahili. The day was a huge success for Rehema and I now can’t wait to start planning the Easter Fair! See Rehema’s facebook page for photos!

As well as preparing for the fair Nat and I finally got round to painting the house! The whole house was yellow and neither of us are that keen on the colour yellow so have painted the living room and hallway and the kitchen will be next! Painting was fun to start with but then it just became a job that had to be finished! We have lived with it this whole year and maybe should have painted it sooner but at least it will be done ready for next year!

Sarabi is great fun to have around and I will really miss her for the month I am home. She is always hyper and sometimes really annoying but she is always excited to see us and is great at fetch and just adorable.

We had a bit of excitement on Friday afternoon when I received a phone call during bible study from one of the Rehema women saying a tree had fallen down, there was water everywhere and I needed to go there. We all jumped into the Go Mad truck and continued our study on the journey there! Where we had been there had been no rain so I thought Gracie had been exaggerating but she really wasn't. A very large tree had partly fallen down in a storm. Praise the Lord that no real damage was done. It could easily have fallen another way and hit the shop and cafe. It had pulled up the paving slabs and the root was huge! Quite interesting to watch the guys chop it down! Clearing out the water from the shop was less fun!

WOW I nearly forgot to mention one of the most exciting things to happen...I TOUCHED A HIPPO!  On Sunday a hippo escaped from the lake and Go Mad know the government guy who has to shoot them for safety reasons so they received a phone call to go and see it. We witnessed the shooting, got to touch it and then were given meat to take home! Just another normal Sunday afternoon here in Tanzania!

Below is the link to the current Go Mad team blog. Please read William’s story and if you feel led to then please support them through prayer or financial giving.

http://www.getjealous.com/gomadoct2014/journal/3485448/william039s-story.html

Exciting news about 2015!

In my last blog I mentioned something about making sure I take a proper break next year, so I guess I should begin this blog by explaining myself a little! The exciting news is that after going home for about a month in December I shall return to Tanzania in January 2015 to work another year with Rehema. I do not know when I consciously made this decision but I think deep down I always felt this would not just be a year commitment and more recently, as this year is coming to an end, I feel I have so much more to give and I just cannot imagine going home for Christmas and not coming back out. I absolutely love what I do here and the women I work with. Working at Rehema has been great fun and very rewarding in many ways but it also has been very challenging at times and these challenges I believe have actually been good in developing me as a person. It is exciting to see all that has happened at Rehema over this past year and how much potential to grow that it has and I really want to continue to be a part of that. I have also learnt so much more about God and I love being able to serve Him in this way. It has been tough at times when I’m surrounded by suffering and people constantly asking for help and it can seem a helpless situation. In these times the faith of the Tanzanians is truly inspiring.

 Many people tell me that I should be thinking about the future, going to university, working to save money and start a pension! These are all fair points but they are the world views rather than actually trusting and relying completely on God. There will be times in life when we want to make our own plans and follow our own path especially when that is the easier option but listening to God and following His plan for our lives will lead to far greater things than we can ever imagine. For those of you who know me well you will know that a couple of years ago the thought of me living in Tanzania would just have been laughed at and actually up until then the idea of living here never even occurred to me. God works in ways we would never imagine! 

Life is pretty good here at the moment. At Rehema we are busy preparing for Christmas and starting to plan a Christmas fair which is exciting! I have also been able to spend a bit of time with Go Mad which I love. There is a team of three out here at the moment and I get on really well with them. There is also a girl staying with the Vink family who I also get on well with so we have all been getting together for meals, crazy games of articulate and just hanging out together.  I feel so blessed to be able to meet so many new people and being able to make really good friendships with them.  Last week we went to the Market Garden which is a Go Mad project that I was involved with on my trip and it was amazing to see how much progress has been made and how well it is doing. It looked completely different to when I last saw it. Today we started a water tank and then went up to Kyamajoje. I had been wanting to go up there for some time as I kept hearing about what the teams were building and wanted to see it all! It was just incredible to see how much has been achieved. The health centre is looking amazing and the doctor’s houses, toilets and a big water tank are all underway.

The other exciting news is that we have a puppy! On Tuesday our little German shepherd puppy, Sarabi, arrived! She is so adorable! It’s good to have a dog in the house again. For some of you it may be more shocking to hear me say I have a dog than it is to hear I am going to live in Africa for another year! 

My trip to Nairobi

I’m writing this sat on my porch whilst holding an adorable baby. TIA! A woman who is helping fill up Go MADs tank brought her baby to work with her. Yesterday we saw the baby lying in the Go Mad house just chilling in blankets on the floor and today as the mum walked past our porch she handed the baby to us to look after whilst she goes back and forth fetching water!

The most exciting thing to happen recently has been my trip to Nairobi. Rehema had been shut for two weeks but i really felt i hadn’t had a break. I was just exhausted and so had lost any motivation to work. When you are exhausted that is when the wobbly moments happen and i just had a wobbly moment of if this was what God really wanted me to be doing now. I also started worrying about the future and what i was going to do rather than trusting that God knows and will reveal the plan in his own perfect timing. So when the opportunity came up to go to Nairobi for a week, i went! It was a really good time away to just to have some space to think and pray things through and also just to switch off! The place i stayed in was beautiful and the perfect place to relax and being able to walk barefoot through lush green grass was such a good feeling! I did venture out to a shopping centre which was an interesting experience. It was great to go to Planet Yogurt, Subway and KFC (very food orientated!)but i just felt so out of place among all the shops and city life. It felt more normal seeing the security guards walking around with huge guns than it did shopping! There was a massive supermarket that had everything from Clarks shoe shop to beds, bbqs, a bakery and whole aisles of food, toiletries, toys, tools...everything! I normally go crazy in a shop like this in the UK but in Nairobi it totally freaked me out! I did buy a couple of treats to do me for the next few months but i couldn’t wait to leave! Even going in a lift and using nice toilets and hand dryers felt weird. I think it won’t be as big a culture shock returning home as it was going to Nairobi as in the UK you expect it, but in Africa that was just crazy. It was a fab time away and i have come back ready to put my all into the rest of this year. Living here can be so emotionally and physically draining and i just hadn’t realised the importance of taking a proper break. I am definitely planning one in for next year!

It has been buzzing at Rehema recently. We have had some amazing people take Rehema items home to sell and so far we have had amazing support and encouragement from the UK. It is exciting to be able to go in to work and tell the women that are products are being well received in the UK. We have also just started preparing for Christmas! I never understood why adults got so stressed out about getting ready for Christmas but now i think i do! I am stressed in a good way though! It is exciting seeing all the work needing to be done and knowing the women will be getting a lot of work. It is also a good excuse to make lists! I love lists! I know it is only just September but i have a feeling that these next few months will speed past and Christmas will soon be here!

Another TIA moment to end on. We were very excited to see work being done on the track to our house. It is a bumpy ride down the track (when we are fortunate enough not to be walking!) so we thought it was very exciting. We walked a bit further on and saw all the water pipes dug up and destroyed and realised it wasn’t such a great thing! We only have the water that is left in our tank and so we are using it carefully. That means washing up less often! Yay! Hopefully it will be sorted soon but that is doubtful so at the weekend we will find someone to fetch water and fill up the tank! Living in Tanzania definitely has its fun moments!

I had to give the baby back half way through writing this as she wouldn’t stop crying. It definitely wasn’t my singing that started her off!

Highlights of the week

It’s been a pretty awesome week this week and so I thought I would share a few of the best moments with you...

Let’s start with the most important. I found dream white chocolate with biscuit in. For ages in the UK you couldn't find it anywhere so when I came here I was most excited to find dream white chocolate. Imagine my excitement then when this week I discovered this new creation! Of course I had to buy a bar or two!

I absolutely love to go to the orphanage and this week I managed to go 5 evenings in a row. We get back from Rehema about half 4 and then I go and spend an hour and a half playing with them, bathing them and then getting them into their pyjamas! It is the best way to end the day, especially when Alexi and I have Swahili banter. Now, whenever one of us says kwa nini (why) in response to a statement the other responds’ kwa sababu’ (because) then  ‘kwa sababu nini’ (because what) and we go round in circles until one of us gives in! That is as much banter as you can have with a Swahili speaking 4 year old and a white person slowly learning swahili! Bathing them is great fun, especially with the older ones. They finish their food and then come over to me, some undressing whilst walking and others walking with their little arms in the air needing some help! Alexi can be a little monster in the bath tub and turned the dial so that the water shot out of the shower head and onto me. His laugh though is so cute that I can’t help but laugh! They love bath time so much and so it is great to be able to give them that little bit of fun, even though I get a few looks from the mamas who just want to get them into bed and even if it gets them a little bit hyper when they should be calming down! When they are all changed into their pyjamas and i’m cuddling them and putting them into their own beds, i could almost forget their horrible pasts, they are just like any other child being tucked into their beds and for that split second i forget they are living in the orphanage.

Some of you may find this next highlight a bit of a weird one. I absolutely love cleaning, tidying and sorting and this week before Rehema reopened after our two week holiday we needed to do just that. It was so much fun! It is such a satisfying feeling when you see what you have achieved. It was a great start to the week and it was such a good atmosphere cleaning with the women. I especially loved Flora and I cleaning together in the workshop, although I really hated all the spiders!  We are very like minded when it comes to cleaning which was fab! Being back at Rehema has been really good and busy and it has been lovely to see all the women again.

Great end to the week...holding a baby that was just 15 hours old! One of the Rehema women had a baby this morning and this afternoon after work I went with some of the women to have a cuddle! It is such an adorable baby. So tiny! I had a moment of panic (much to their amusement) as she was handed to me, as I have never held a baby that young before but her cute facial expressions, tiny tiny hands and feet and watching her sleep in my arms was something special and I thank God for this precious new life.

It’s something like 4 months 9 days until I fly home. I seriously cannot believe how fast this year is going!

Catching up in Kyamajoje

Just a quick update! Nat’s family have been here to visit which has been great fun and lovely to meet them. One day we hired a truck to show them around the different Go MAD projects and of course we went to Kyamajoje! It was amazing to see the progress that had been made on the health centre. The mural the team painted on the side of the health centre, of John 3:16 written in the shape of a cross on a hill created by handprints, is beautiful and it was great that a child i was holding pointed out her hand print! The current team are now working on houses for the doctor and nurses to live in. We then went on to see Mtani and his toilet and water tank. The toilet looks great and the mural they painted on it is also beautiful. It was awesome to see Mtani so happy!  When we arrived he wasn’t at the house but then we turned and saw him whizzing down to us in his bike which was great. I then showed her family into his room. His bed was neatly made and in the centre of it was his bible. I asked him if he has been reading his bible everyday and he said yes and smiled. He is such a great guy.  From the top of some rocks in Kyamajoje there is the most spectacular view so we did what you would never dream of doing back in the UK, we asked some barefoot children to take us up the rocks, with them going ahead on the lookout for snakes!

We also visited Anifa and her family which is always fun. We didn’t have a translator and i loved having to use the Swahili i know to communicate with her. Obviously my Swahili is way off being amazing but i also loved that i am so comfortable around these people now that it doesn’t matter if we laugh at the mistakes made. We are patient with each other and eventually, after rephrasing sentences with words i know and after some acting, we figure out what we want to say!

Rehema has been shut for two weeks to give all the women a well deserved and much needed break! It has been great to have a couple of weeks to sleep, go to the beach and go and play with the children at the orphanage! I also went out with Go Mad to start a water tank in Kyamajoje which was good.  Whilst Nat’s family were here we went over to Lukuba Island. It is so beautiful there and a great place to relax for a couple of days at the start of a two week holiday! It’s just 40 minutes away from Musoma but you just feel like you are in the middle of nowhere which is amazing! Slightly less amazing was the snake that popped his head out of the roof above our heads as we are eating breakfast!  TIA!

There have been a few snakes around recently which is quite unnerving. There was one in the workshop at rehema, one on the beach, two at Lukuba and then the biggest was found on our compound. It was a forest cobra that was over a metre long and that was found outside the house opposite and then chased before being killed. It was fascinating to see it but has made me more conscious of them!