An exciting opportunity to serve these people in a practical way is presenting itself. Basically the island has been without power for a week and it is predicted to be without power for at 3 more weeks (Africa time - so multiply that by a number of your choice!) The knock on effect is that very few people have water.
Julie & I are well, very relieved to be finishing the first stage of language school tommorow. the situation is providing a much needed opportunity for Alex to do some project management which is a real breath of fresh air after being no good at grammar!
The day to day frustrations aren't any easier so we are seeking to exercise extra grace and patience, we are however making some good friends so that is a plus point.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
Stomach bugs and no electricity
Sorry for the delay in posting we've been away (Sarah R)
Well this last week Julie has had her first bout of illness, a stomach bug picked up from some of the children on the team led to a few days in bed and lots of visits to the bathroom. It did also give us the chance to check out the malaria diagnosing facilities here as she was running a fever and malaria is always the first thing to check for, thankfully no malaria and we can report the test facility is great. Since Wed last week we have had no electricity, This is a real pain as you can't fill up your water tank without power and the tank will only last you for a couple of days. We managed to scrounge the use of a generotor for a couple of hours to re fill our tank though so that is wonderful. Whilst it is a massive inconvenience for us it is really devastating for the locals, the government is having to provide water drops for people and we see ladies queuing for hours for this. Also many trades, carpentary etc rely on power for completing work and with no power they have no way to take money home for their families. So once again we are so thankful for the provisions we have.
Our May update was sent out in the last couple of weeks, if you were expecting it and didn't recieve it then do check your bulk mail or send us an email and we will resend it. If you would like to recieve it please post a message with your email address and we will make sure we add you to the list.
Well this last week Julie has had her first bout of illness, a stomach bug picked up from some of the children on the team led to a few days in bed and lots of visits to the bathroom. It did also give us the chance to check out the malaria diagnosing facilities here as she was running a fever and malaria is always the first thing to check for, thankfully no malaria and we can report the test facility is great. Since Wed last week we have had no electricity, This is a real pain as you can't fill up your water tank without power and the tank will only last you for a couple of days. We managed to scrounge the use of a generotor for a couple of hours to re fill our tank though so that is wonderful. Whilst it is a massive inconvenience for us it is really devastating for the locals, the government is having to provide water drops for people and we see ladies queuing for hours for this. Also many trades, carpentary etc rely on power for completing work and with no power they have no way to take money home for their families. So once again we are so thankful for the provisions we have.
Our May update was sent out in the last couple of weeks, if you were expecting it and didn't recieve it then do check your bulk mail or send us an email and we will resend it. If you would like to recieve it please post a message with your email address and we will make sure we add you to the list.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Visit from John
We have had a wonderful weekend with John our homegroup leader from Bristol who was on a flying visit to see us and the rest of the team here. It was such a joy to spend some time with him. He also brought out so many goodies from people at home and we are just blown away with the generosity- THANK YOU so much to those of you who put together all these wonderful suprises.
On other things we are in our 3rd out of four weeks of school and feel totally saturated with grammer and rules and vocab, but are so encouraged that by some miracle seem to be learning it!
On other things we are in our 3rd out of four weeks of school and feel totally saturated with grammer and rules and vocab, but are so encouraged that by some miracle seem to be learning it!
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Language learning
Well this has been quite a hectic week, we arrived at the State University at 8am on Monday and started our formal Kiswahili education at quite a pace, there is a break at 10am for half an hour where we gather in the small cafe with other students (many from Libya) and practice our language, this is lots of fun (if you can ignore the swam of flies and stray cats) and we are meeting lots of new people. Lessons continue from 10.30 until 12pm and we then have about 2 hours homework to do before it starts all over again the next morning. We have taken massive amounts of notes, and look forward to putting the theory into practice in the afternoons when there is time to go to the market and talk to people as well as at home with Subby. We were in a class with just us for 3 days and then put with a German girl for the rest of the week as there is a shortage of teachers. Alex amazes me when he asks questions like, “so what is the prefix for that noun class” and, “is that imperative and polite” anyone who knows Alex well will know his dislike of language learning and worry at not being able to pick it up, but it is me who needs things explained twice and Alex takes great delight in telling me when I have got it wrong. We have really enjoyed learning together and mostly do find that when one doesn’t know the answer the other does! We have been really impressed by the quality of the course and the teaching has been great, which is a big relief. Having this new structure at this stage is helping us alot to consolidate what we already picked up and it is great to be meeting more people.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Beds, and language learning!
Well it has been a relatively uneventful week, our main challenge was trying to fit a 6ft bed through a 5ft door, Alex had to use all his Engineering skill and ingenuity to dismantle part of the bed (it’s base is string so works on tension) and then reassemble, think; many bits of wood to make levers and Julie’s fingers getting trapped when the lever slips!!! We start school on Mon, with varying degrees of excitement – well Alex is excited and I am dreading it. It will entail being in a classroom by 8am and leaving at 12.30 every day for the next 4 weeks. We hope it will give us the much needed motivation to continue KiSwalhili study and force us into more intensive learning. It would be great that this would be the case and it wouldn’t (as I fear) be sitting in a room bored out of our brains by a teacher (loosest sense of the word) who couldn’t care less if we learnt anything or not as long as they get paid, ok maybe this is a little harsh out of 7 teachers we have heard of only 5 are like this we are hoping for either of the other 2!!
I am finding communication with Subby (our house help) a challenge, she chats away (which is great) but I can catch probably 5% of the words and have almost zero understanding of what she is saying. She laughs at my attempts to speak Swahili but mainly we play charades! We seem to have settled into a routine when she comes though which is far less stressful than it was 2 months ago. Please do remember her even though I can’t actually say truths to her yet!
Our friends Paula and Rich are all set to join us in Oct and have their final interview on 20th May. We are so excited about them being out here, Paula and I were at university together and she was one of my beautiful bridesmaids. She is a primary teacher and Rich a civil Engineer and a mechanic for a hobby.
This is now our 5th month away from home and we have so much to be thankful for. We haven’t heard from our tenants in Bristol (which we hope is a good thing) so we presume all is ok with our house (no need for 2am call-outs yet Chris!) we have family coming to visit in the summer which we are so excited about, the house is starting to feel like home, even Alex is impressed with the kitchen transformation, we will post photos when it is complete. We counted how many new contacts we have made that could be meaningful and it is well over 40 and I learnt how to tell the time today!!! We do really miss home and news of close friends engagements and pregnancies makes us miss it all the more, we often fall into the trap of wondering what we are really doing here, but we know this is part of a big plan and feel peaceful as we start each new day looking for guidance and people He would have us meet across our path.
Thank you so much for all the thoughts and support and parcels!!
I am finding communication with Subby (our house help) a challenge, she chats away (which is great) but I can catch probably 5% of the words and have almost zero understanding of what she is saying. She laughs at my attempts to speak Swahili but mainly we play charades! We seem to have settled into a routine when she comes though which is far less stressful than it was 2 months ago. Please do remember her even though I can’t actually say truths to her yet!
Our friends Paula and Rich are all set to join us in Oct and have their final interview on 20th May. We are so excited about them being out here, Paula and I were at university together and she was one of my beautiful bridesmaids. She is a primary teacher and Rich a civil Engineer and a mechanic for a hobby.
This is now our 5th month away from home and we have so much to be thankful for. We haven’t heard from our tenants in Bristol (which we hope is a good thing) so we presume all is ok with our house (no need for 2am call-outs yet Chris!) we have family coming to visit in the summer which we are so excited about, the house is starting to feel like home, even Alex is impressed with the kitchen transformation, we will post photos when it is complete. We counted how many new contacts we have made that could be meaningful and it is well over 40 and I learnt how to tell the time today!!! We do really miss home and news of close friends engagements and pregnancies makes us miss it all the more, we often fall into the trap of wondering what we are really doing here, but we know this is part of a big plan and feel peaceful as we start each new day looking for guidance and people He would have us meet across our path.
Thank you so much for all the thoughts and support and parcels!!
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