House-helping

I'm often met with surprise when people hear that I have a house help even though I'm at home all day so I thought I'd write a post about why we have one and what she actually does...

Mama Adelaida comes to our house every Monday, Wednesday and Friday - her official working hours are 9-1, although she is consistently 15-30minutes early! While she is here she does our laundry, including Theo's nappies (reason enough to hire someone, if you ask me), then our washing up then sweeps and mops the floors as well as any other jobs I need her to do if she has time.

reusable nappies - reason enough to hire a house help!

It might sound extremely lazy for me to have a house help when I'm at home all day, and in England I certainly wouldn't need one. However, here all of these jobs take a lot longer than in the UK! For example, in England, how long does laundry take? Maybe 5 minutes to put it on then 15 minutes a couple of hours later to take it out of the machine and hang it up to dry? We don't have a washing machine so Mama Adelaida washes all our clothes and Theo's nappies by hand before hanging them out to dry - this takes her at least an hour and a half to two hours, longer if Theo has been through more nappies than usual! The same goes for washing up and cleaning the floors - no dishwasher (or running water at the moment - it all needs to be brought in from our water buckets outside) or hoover! It's also very dusty at the moment and our windows don't currently have glass in them (the fundi* is actually rectifying this as I write - yay!), so it's important to mop as well as sweep, especially as Theo becomes more active and rarely stays on his playmat for long! Having a house help will become more and more important too - Theo will hopefully gain siblings at some point, who will take up even more of my time and once they start to reach school age I'll also need to start homeschooling. On top of that, I'd really like to do some part time Scripture Use for the Katavi project at some point, so it's actually quite likely that Mama Adelaida will become full-time in the future, adding things like cooking to her tasks as my workload increases.

Aside from my not having enough time to do all the housework as well as looking after Theo, it's very important from a cultural perspective to have employees. As we are comparatively rich, it would be seen as extremely selfish of us not to contribute to society in this way. It's also good for me to have a chance to practice my Swahili a little, as well as hopefully serving as a way in to relationships with other Tanzanians.

Now that we've been here a couple of months, I am getting used to having a house help - it is odd; as a Brit, I'm not used to having someone else in my house doing 'my' work and it takes some getting used to! It's also odd having someone in your house not as a guest - I have to fight against a natural instinct to 'host' and just allow her to get on with her work while I get on with my things on my 'to do' list. Even as I write this, it feels a bit wrong that she's doing my laundry while I type away on my computer! It's also odd from a perspective of child-raising – I’m very aware that the way we do things with Theo is very different to the way Tanzanians raise their children, although I don't know all the specific ways in which we differ. For example, Theo thrives on a good schedule of feeding and naps so I try to keep him to a pretty strict routine, even when he would rather play than nap because I know he will just get overtired and upset later in the day. This is a bit difficult when there's someone else in the house and, to the best of my knowledge, Tanzanian mothers don't leave their children to cry - even knowing that Theo will only shout for a few minutes before falling asleep, it's difficult to know where to strike the balance between being culturally appropriate and still  doing what I feel is best for him.

We're very lucky in that Mama Adelaida is fabulous! She's super nice and really good at her job - I guess having 7 children makes you a whizz at home-making regardless of country of origin. We've never had to tell her how to do something twice  and she always does her work better than I expect -what more could we possibly ask for? 

*fundi is the general Swahili term for a skilled tradesman. It can be more specific, so fundi bomba is a plumber, fundi cherehani is a tailor. Fundi by itself can refer to any trade.  

Water Days

One of the big differences between life in the UK and life here in Tanzania is water. Here in Mpanda, not only do we need to filter our water before drinking it but we also have to keep on top of our own water supplies. The mains water only comes on three times a week for just a couple of hours at a time so it's important to be ready to get enough of that water into suitable storage containers for us to use until the next time it comes on. We do have a water tank and an electric pump, which hypothetically means we should be able to simply switch the pump on when the city water is on and it will magically fill our tank.

Our tank and pump 

The tank is in turn plumbed into our house so we can turn on the pump whenever we want water to come out of our taps/showers/toilet cisterns (we have yet to decide whether to leave it on all day - those electric pumps are pretty noisy!). Unfortunately, it turns out that our pump is just a tad too far from the mains water pipe, and the mains water pressure is too low, for the water to reach the pump in order to get pumped into the tank. This means that until the fundi bomba (plumber) can work out a solution, we only get city water to our outside tap so every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday we have to take all our buckets out to the tap, turn it on and wait for the happy gurgle of city water to come on (this could be any time between 12 and 5pm, which can present a slight problem if I'm feeding Theo when it comes on and Olly is at the office...) then keep an eye on it, changing buckets and carrying water inside to fill up the big water butts we keep in our bathrooms etc...

Water day

It's a bit of a faff but it's worth it to have enough water! It was a bit stressful at first when we weren't really sure how much water we would need to get us through until the next water day, but now we've been doing it a while it's not too bad unless the city water comes on while I'm feeding Theo and Olly is at the office or if it doesn't come on for long enough to fill all the buckets - that happened once and we did run out! Fortunately we were able to pay to have 80 litres of water brought to our house and transferred to our buckets - we think it must have come from a well or something because it was much cleaner than our usual water! Mostly we are thankful that we have access to mains water at all and can afford it - not everyone here can say the same!

On the Road

*this post is a bit delayed due to trying to upload photos to go with it...Sorry!


After a long journey we're finally here in Mpanda! We left Dar es Salaam on Thursday the 19th of July, having got Theo his 16 week injections the day before. The journey went pretty well, all things considered. We left at 5 am on the first day in order to miss the early morning city traffic and made it to our first overnight stop in Iringa just in time for the end of lunch, which was a welcome sight after 8 and a half hours in the car (although those hours did include a free mini-safari as we had to drive through Mikumi National Park and saw giraffes, zebras, baboons and impalas)! We stayed at River Valley Campsite for the night, which is where we stayed during language school so it was great to catch up with the owners and some of the staff while we were there. Unfortunately there wasn't a language class while we were there so we didn't get to see any of our teachers, but maybe next time!

On the road

Sleeping off the journey

The next day we travelled on to Mbeya - this was a shorter trip so we took the opportunity to eat lunch at Kisolanza Farm House, betwen Iringa and Mbeya, which cooks possibly the yummiest food we've had so far in Tanzania! The drive to Mbeya was okay, although a bit longer than we expected due to road works.

We stayed at a colleague's house in Mbeya for two nights before continuing the journey, which was lovely. Not only did we get to reacquaint ourselves with life outside the car, but we also visited Utengule Coffee Lodge in Mbeya for lunch and the afternoon - a perfect place to relax for the day!

Utengule

On Sunday we had the longest section of the journey ahead of us; Mbeya to Sumbawanga - it's also the section where the tarmac runs out (except in Sumbawanga itself). It took us 9 and a bit hours, including a fun time going around the queue to get into Zambia as we went past the border crossing. Olly had great fun with the unpaved road - it seems to be his favourite kind of driving. After a night in a guest house in Sumbawanga we began the last leg of the journey - Sumbawanga to Mpanda and Home! Again, this was mostly unpaved, except for the 50 km stretch through Katavi National Park (most of the animals were hiding, but we did see one giraffe and loads of hippos). We finally arrived in Mpanda at 3pm and saw our house for the first time 'in the flesh' so to speak. It was a great relief to find that it's as nice, or nicer than it seemed in the pictures we'd been sent and that some of our colleagues had very thoughtfully loaned us some armchairs to use until we could get our own. I'll write a proper post about our house later, when we've got some more furniture and unpacked a little....

Olly's favourite kind of road

A street in Mpanda

To Kenya and Back Again

We're safely back in Dar after our first batch of travelling around... We started our trip to Kenya on Saturday the 30th - we had originally planned on going all the way to Mombasa in one long drive, but as there was a terrorist warning in place until the 1st, we decided to break our journey in Tanga, a town near the border between Tanzania and Kenya. This turned out to be a good idea - we were definitely ready to stop by the time we got there and it meant that we wouldn't arrive at Rodger and Rachel's house completely exhausted from a 10 hour drive. It also meant we could leave at 9am instead of the crack of dawn, which for two non-morning people is a definite bonus!  We stayed the night in a basic but nice enough guesthouse before travelling the rest of the way to Mombasa, both legs of the journey took about 5 hours a-piece.

We had a great time staying with R&R! We spent most of the time just chilling together at their house; after a couple of weeks in transit it was really nice to just spend time in a home that we felt comfortable in with no to do list to accomplish! We did have one exciting trip out though - to say thank you for having us we took the Kahindis to a nearby restaurant called 'Mamba'. Now, if you know any Swahili you'll be aware that that's the word for 'crocodile'. No prizes for guessing what the main meat dishes contain! It was actually really tasty; people always say that strange meats taste like chicken, and this was no exception. But it tasted like really really nice chicken - lovely and juicy and delicious.

After our r&r time with R&R, we headed a little bit further up the Kenyan coastline to Turtle Bay Beach Club where the annual UTB conference is held. We were among the first to arrive as most people were travelling from Tanzania or Nairobi that day, which is a much longer drive than our 2 hour trip! It was so good to see most of our friends from language school again and for Olly to catch up with people from his previous assignment in Musoma. Conference consists of a mixture of worship/teaching sessions, sharing times about the past year from every member with some branch business thrown in. Oh, and a certain amount of leisure/fellowship time as well as yummy food and drinks laid on. All in all, it was great! I especially enjoyed catching up with friends and meeting people from Musoma who I'd heard about but never met. 

Theo has been doing pretty well with all the travelling and transition - he got back into a semblance of his routine at R&R's house, which was great for us after an uphill struggle while we were in Dar. He was also pretty happy at Turtle Bay, although it was difficult to get his naps properly as our baby monitor didn't reach as far as the meeting room or restaurant and he's not so good at napping when there are so many interesting things to look at in the vicinity. He's also chosen this time of transition to learn a lot of new tricks! Since we left England, he's learned how to roll & wriggle around(not so fun when you're using a wooden cot supplied by the hotel and hear him moving around in his sleep, followed by a clunk and a scream as his head finds the wooden bars!), how to grab things (including a glass of wine as his very first success, which ended up all over the table), the beginnings of giggles (supercute), a high pitched squeal (not so cute, even when it's a happy one). He's also started to try and crawl, but isn't so good at it yet - he currently uses his legs and face to move around, which, unsurprisingly, he doesn't particularly enjoy, although that doesn't stop him doing it! It's very exciting to see all these advances, even though we might have preferred for him to wait until we were in our own house... 

We're now back in Dar Es Salaam following an extremely long trip - for the journey back we decided to do it all in one go, which ended up taking 12 hours. We've now discovered that T's limit for car travel is about 10 hours... Fortunately, that should be the longest journey we have to take - I think the longest leg we have left is about 10 hours and that's not for a while now so we have time to recover first!

We'll be in Dar until the 19th of July in order to get Theo his 16 week injections on the 18th, after which we'll begin the trip home to Mpanda - hurrah! We plan on taking 5 days to get there: Dar-Iringa (8ish hours), Iringa-Mbeya (4ish hours), rest day in Mbeya, Mbeya-Sumbawanga (10ish hours) and then finally Sumbawanga-Mpanda (6ish hours). We'll be convoying with another family who live in Mpanda, which will be nice both from a reassurance in case of car troubles point of view as well as the fact that they actually know the way, which we don't after Mbeya! We're very excited to finally get there and set up house. In the meantime, we have a couple of jobs still to do in Dar - we're hoping to get our car resprayed as well as do a bit more shopping for things we can't get/will be more expensive in Mpanda, including a better phone for easier internet access and possibly a sewing machine so that I can make our curtains and bedding etc. - as well as it being nice for me to have a something to do while Theo's napping. 

Dar...

We've now been in Dar for five days and are gradually working through our 'to do in Dar' list. Yesterday was by far our most productive day, having spent most of the weekend settling in and dealing with the fact that Theo hadn't yet...

As of yesterday we have done the two most important things, which is to apply for our driving licences and for Theo's dependent's pass - now it's just a case of waiting for them to be ready! Theo's pass was the easiest - for us - all we had to do was fill in the appropriate form here at the SIL office and give the immigration officer his documents and she will do the actual trip to the immigration office. In fact, I believe she's doing that right now. It will take a few weeks to be processed but should be ready well before his tourist visa runs out.

Our driver's licences took a little bit more effort on our part. Because we had to have our biometrics (fingerprints and photo) done we had to go to the appropriate office in person. This was much faster than we expected as a colleague put us in touch with a contact of theirs who helped us to skip a couple of the queues so the process only took us about an hour, which was a great relief as we were a little bit worried about how well Theo would cope with standing around in queues for an extended period. As it was he fussed for a little bit before vomiting down my arm and falling asleep in the baby bjorn! Anyway, they said they'd be ready the next day and Olly has just got back from picking them up so we're officially Tanzanian drivers- hurrah! Now our only important jobs in Dar are to arrange T's 16 weeks injections for after we return from conference and pick up our car.

In Theo news... He is doing pretty well, all things considered. He adjusted immediately to the time zone for feeds, but more slowly for sleeping, which has meant a lot less sleep for us. It did take us a day or two to realise that he was still taking his naps, just 2 hours late (by the time you've been trying to persuade a 3 month old to nap for two hours, you're a bit beyond working out patterns or reasons). He is getting there though and has now adjusted to within about an hour of his sleep routine and is much happier as a result. Hopefully we won't have to start it all over again every time we move to a different place, otherwise it's going to be a fairly tedious month, routine-wise! 


Finally, in case you have been following the news and are concerned about our trip to Mombasa, we have decided to go a day later in accordance with the advice given by the US embassy. We are now planning to travel to Tanga, near the Kenya-Tanzania border on Saturday, stay overnight there and then travel on to Mombasa on Sunday. This has the added bonus of a two shorter car journeys (5 hours a-piece) instead of one ridiculously long day, in fact, I can't think why we didn't plan it that way in the first place!

We're here!

I'm writing this from the SIL guest house in Dar es Salaam, which should tell you all you need to know (as should the title of this post) - the 3 of us have arrived safely with all our luggage - hurrah! Well, when I say all our luggage I mean all the things we remembered to pack - we realised last night that although my (Cat) glasses case was in the bag, my glasses were still in England! Fortunately, Olly and I have almost the same prescription so I can use his if I need to see something in the middle of the night without having to put my lenses in. I just have to be careful not to look down, otherwise they'll end up on the floor!

The journey was surprisingly stress free. It started off badly when we got to check-in and realised that Theo's passport had been left in the scanner at Olly's parents' house so we had to send his sister back through the M25 rush hour to fetch it. Thankfully God gave her a helping hand and she made it there and back in record time so we still managed to make our flight, although it was the first time I'd ever been late enough to hear the "last call for boarding" announcement! After we'd boarded and managed to stow our excessive amounts of hand luggage (BA staff were very nice about the amounts, even though they did have to take one of the bags to the hold and juggle a few things to fit the car seat in) things went swimmingly! Theo had a feed as we took off and then slept for most of the flight, only waking up for one more feed and then for the last hour or so of the journey before, very conveniently, dropping off again for landing and immigration.

I was very encouraged to discover that, although my Swahili vocab has big gaps in it from leaving Tanzania straight after language school and being kept too busy by T to really keep up with it very well in England, I did understand most of the Swahili I heard around us at the airport - it gives me hope that I will actually be able to communicate, which was a big worry!

We're now in a month of transition - we'll be here in Dar until the 30th of June, doing jobs like applying for Theo's dependent's pass to replace his current tourist visa, getting our driver's licences and getting our car. After that we head to Kenya to stay with Rachel, Cat's Doulos cabinmate who is now living in Mombasa, before heading a bit further up the Kenyan coast to the UTB yearly conference. Once conference is over we'll come back to Dar from the 12th 'til the 19th of July to get Theo's 16 week jabs before finally starting the 3-4 day journey to Mpanda and our new home. We're very thankful that we have a house ready and waiting for us thanks to our wonderful colleagues who are already living there - it's so nice that we can be going 'home' rather than having to do house hunting from a guest house/friend's house before we can really begin to settle in!

Long time no blog...

The reasons for this are  twofold: Firstly, this blog is really for posting about our day to day life in Tanzania to fill in the gaps that there isn't space for in our newsletters and since we haven't been in Tanzania for the last 6 months the blog hasn't really been needed. Secondly, we've been a bit busy - Theodore Paul was born on the 20th of March and is somewhat time consuming, as babies tend to be! As we're now in the process of booking flights to return to Tanzania in mid-late June and are more in the swing of things with regards to parenting, it seemed like a good time to start blogging again, hopefully I'll manage to do so regularly!

Finally, for those of you who haven't seen these on Facebook, or enjoy repetition, here's a mini photo summary of our time in the UK:

3 months pre-Theo! When this was taken I felt so fat - now I can't believe how svelte I was compared to a couple of months later!

First photo

First night

1 month old 

First family photo

Teen-Baby

2 months old