From one extreme to the next!
Well I have been home jut over 2 weeks now and I am loving the English weather! From the mid 30's + high humidity to 0 degrees centigrade - quite a change but so much nicer - believe me!
I have put up some photos with various explainations so won't write too much here. Alex and I are half way through our time apart. He has been very busy with lots of paperwork for the vocational training school and a ground beaking ceremony (finally after 3 years) happening on the 24th Jan (for photos and a short video follow the link to Roxannes blog) in fact she is much more gifted that I am at keeping these things up so reading her pages will give you areally good idea of what life is like in coastal Tanzania!
Alex is now in his last week before leaving for Kenya for a conference with the rest of the team and some relaxation time, he flies home (horray) on 21st Feb landing at 5.20am (very inconsiderate)
I have loved my last 2 weeks, I get to wear proper maternity jeans (thanks mum) rather than holding my normal jeans together with elastic bands! I have had a great time catching up with friends and family in Guildford and Bristol, my lovely girlfriends in Bristol threw me my second baby shower so I am truely spoilt. I am living with my parents and brother at the moment as he has just handed in his masters dissertation, I don't think mum ever thought we would both be at home again, but we are all enjoying being together. I have also seen a midwife for the first time and with only 7 weeks to go it is not a moment too late, Everything is fine with the pregnancy and the baby so we praise God for that.


My gorgeous team girls threw me a surprise baby shower. Alex had managed to keep a secret, I was totally surprised!
The amazing food, consisted of BLT sandwiches (you have no idea how precious bacon is – thanks Rich) peach iced tea, tortilla baskets and proper cadburys chocolate – amazing – oh and chocolate cake with creamy icing for dessert!



A baby shower - complete with pressies – I am so spoilt



Lovely ladies


The Girls!


My last Sunday in Africa, one week later I had a lot more clothes on!
Megs (great friend who runs a volunteer program, Roxanne, me and Paula


The Last day
It was Paula’s birthday the following day so we threw her a little surprise birthday party – choccy cake and pressies! (This is our lounge)


The Official Team Photo
Back Row – Rich, Alex, Jason, Hans, Anneli
Front Row – Paula, Romi, Julie, Roxanne and Annikah, Doro, Nasia
(this photo is missing baby Joel)

Subby – our house help – who can spot the marmite!!

Alex and his language helper Ati!

The road to our house – this is when the puddle is small!!

The language school where we will spend the next 4 weeks.

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!!

House

Another very welcome addition our own car- A Honda CRV

I think it is pink, Alex says purple, but most importantly it is a 4x4, has air conditioning and was cheaper than our ford focus!

This is our house – if you look closely you can see Pumba on the veranda

This is one of those advertisement shots!

You can see the disadvantage of only bringing 4 bags with us and this is after being here over a month!

Random room that houses the fridge with lots of lovely photos of all of you on it.

Kitchen + units - at last – notice the bleached lines on the floor, that was me having fun with hydrochloric acid (sold here as toilet cleaner!)

Dining room + complete road map of Africa- just what every house needs!

Our bedroom is basically one big mossy net – Alex designed and made it all by himself – those 4 years of an engineering masters were definitely worth it