Why??

A frequently asked, yet little answered question here is 'Why?'

-Why do people tie their cows at the side of the road with a long enough piece of rope that the cow can in fact cross to the other side of the road and block all the traffic with that piece of rope?

-Why, in this cash culture, does NO-ONE ever have any change?

-Why am I the lucky one if someone turns up to do their job in the custom's department at the post office, meaning I can collect my parcel rather than having to return AGAIN on a different day? Surely that's not luck. That's what he's supposed to be doing - it's his job!!

There are many more examples of the 'Why?' but one of my favourite's is from last week, when on returning home after our Friday morning meeting I found the kitchen in it's usual shiny condition after our house help had been. Strangely though the toaster was up side down. "Odd," thinks I, "that will just leave crumbs all over the work surface." However, on picking up the toaster I see that there are no crumbs and that the toaster is in fact fairly crumb free. On closer inspection I see that the inside of the toaster is rather shiny clean and has water droplets running down the sides. "Surely not!" I think, but the conclusion is rather clear. Our house help has washed up the toaster! 'WHY?!?'

A productive weekend

After almost two years of living here, we finally got around to getting a sofa!! Any one who has visited us will know that we have been making do with two chairs in the lounge and the plentiful floor space we have.

Having visited friends in Uganda and seen their lovely homely houses (with sofa's) I told Rich that he had two weeks to get us a sofa (nothing like a demanding, nagging, pregnant wife!!).

Within two days he had ordered and collected one of our Island's famous string sofa's. Sadly these sofa's are not famous for good reasons but because they are generally extremely uncomfortable. With a lack of any other better options however, we bought a big mattress to pad it out a bit and now we finally have a decent-ish seating option for our guests :)

Not only did Rich get me a sofa for inside, but we decided to re-vamp the porch way just outside our front door. For the past year it has been BRIGHT pink and basically a dumping ground for bikes, shoes and other debris. We decided that if it were a less 'hot' colour we might be more likely to use the porch to sit outside and read/have a cup of tea/do quiet times and just generally chill out. So we painted it white, Rich built a bench for us to slob out on and I bought some pretty cushions and now it looks lovely! Perfect for morning or afternoon tea.

No DFS here. We had to put it all together ourselves. Here I am cutting the mattress down so it was the perfect size using a saw. There are some things that would just never happen in the UK!!

The string sofa with the mattress all cut to size and temporarily covered until I can get something a bit plainer, sometimes described as a little bit more 'mzungu' than African!

Our little outside chill out corner. Again just waiting for the fabric to cover the mattress, but doesn't it just invite you to sit, have a cuppa and put your feet up?!?!

Exciting times!

These last couple of months have seen huge progress in both the finishing of building work at our Vocational Training Centre and the beginning of using the teaching and workshop facilities there. As soon as we laid the floor in the workshop and had (temporary) power lines in, we have been swamped with people who already want us to service and fix their cars. The timing has been somewhat of a challenge as our team leader (and the actual mechanic on the team!) went home to Germany for 4 months. Ahhhhhh! However, Rich's 'bodge it' know how accumulated over years of tinkering with mini's and some local workers experience is tiding us over for the time being although we are having to limit the number of cars we get in.

On top of all this, we have recently started up some trial classes in computers and English conversation. Jason is our computer guy and he has spent ages looking over the curriculum and figuring out what to teach these guys. Although enthusiasm has certainly not been lacking, he has encountered other problems. For example, apart from the fact that some of the students have very limited literacy skills, these guys have absolutely no idea how a mouse works and even the simple navigation around the computer screen has been a huge challenge for them. In fact Jason told us that he imagined teaching a class of grandparents would be roughly equivalent!! Here are a couple of pictures taken during the second lesson ever!

Interest in the classes is HUGE and there are always people turning up to ask if they can join classes (in fact they tell us that they need to be in the class!). So our next task is to figure out when classes will start proper and get the application forms out.

As I said, these are exciting times but they are also a little overwhelming which is hardly surprising as we are trying to start up a school and a business! We are continually praying for wisdom and insight as we navigate local culture and politics whilst maintaining our goal of bringing high quality education to those on our Island who otherwise would not have this opportunity. EXCITING!!!

Adventures North of the Equator

We recently took a much needed break and escaped from our little Island for 8 days to Uganda. We know several people there and invited ourselves to stay with a friend who lives in Kampala. We had a really wonderful time although within 10 minutes of leaving the airport our friend was being hassled by the police, then we discovered that our camera was stolen at Dar airport.... As Leo says in 'Blood Diamond' "This is Africa!"

We eventually made it from the airport in Entebbe to the capital city of Kampala where we enjoyed many days of reading, relaxing and good food. We even made it to the cinema a couple of times (Shutter Island and Robin Hood) and Rich got to go White Water Rafting at a place called Jinja, a source of the Nile. Here are some of the pictures from Rich's rafting; as I was obviously unable to participate he made me official photographer for the day :)

I spent the best part of the day on a platform overlooking the river. Not a bad view really!

Rich and our host Andy. They let me take this photo thinking that no one would actually see them looking like this. Pole!

On the bus and ready to go. I had to go in a separate taxi to make sure I was in place for the following photo's.

Rich and Andy are the two in blue helmets (chosen specifically so I could spot them) at the front of the boat.

Having survived the first of the rapids, they get ready to head on to the next lot. Apparently they got bigger and better as they went. One they even had to get out and walk around.

'Amefanya drifti'

A constant source of amusement amongst our team (and indeed I would imagine any Mzungu who has spent any time learning and using Kiswahili) is the way in which it is possible to substitute the English word for any Swahili word that you are unsure of or simply don't know. The only rule is that you need to put an 'i' (pronounced like our 'e') on the end of the word and chances are you will be understood. Some recent examples that we have come across and have given us some amusement are 'lefti handi drivi' and 'drifti'.

This last example was one Rich came across yesterday while at the school. Apparently a group of boy racers like to speed past the school in their people carriers performing handbrake turns just in front of our gate. Yesterday Rich was in the office when he heard a loud bang just outside on the road. Assuming the worst and that it was one of our workers in a customers car, he went out nervously to inspect. He found that one of these boy racers, having attempted a handbrake turn, had lost control and totaled his car when it smashed into a row of shops just opposite the school. Apparently 'amefanya drifti', or he had been doing a 'drifti' when he rammed his bus of a car into the poor shop owners wall. From the look of the car he won't be doing it again any time soon and I doubt that there will be any insurance paid up... Gutted!

Tiny's progress

Over the past couple of weeks Tiny appears to have had a massive and very fast growth spurt, resulting in me not being tiny in any way now. Here are some pictures from the last three months which show just how the bump is progressing.

12 weeks just after we had the scan.

16 or 17 weeks and just starting to really show.

23 weeks and quite obviously preggers now!

We will be going to the mainland in two weeks to get our next peek at Tiny although we won't be finding out which gender our little one will be. Will post the pics then.