Water, gas & heat

We ran out of gas for a couple of days when we arrived back from Dar, we have a 30kg gas ‘bomb’ (gas canister) which powers our stove. For a day or so we used a kerosene stove, which I burnt our popcorn on – not so good. Our generous neighbours (2 short term missionaries) have leant us their spare gas bomb, lovely clean gas heat!

While playing football at the back of our house our water pipe to the shower was broken. So I was showering outside under the guttering during thunderstorms (which I prefered to our normal shower) otherwise having a bucket shower or at our neighbours. Because of the broken shower pipe which can’t be fixed till we get glue from Mwanza we have a small but permanent leak, this means we run out of water faster. When we run out of water it has pumped, from a well at the back of our house up to a huge water container = running water for the house. Today however there was a bolt loose on the generator, I am too incompetent to be able to put it back in place and tighten it. Rather I am too scared in case it causes any damage to the generator or engine. Andy isn’t around to fix it and his worker has malaria so I decided I’d rather wait for him to get better than for me to attempt to tighten a nut and bolt. Really regretting not taking GCSE engineering! It rained this morning so we have kindly been given rain water from our neighbours to wash our dishes and flush our toilet etc. Wow, just goes to show how much I am taking for granted, running water, stove and shower.

I have successfully taught a load of students up at the secondary school how to play rounders! It didn’t take half as long as expected, that was a relief. They seem to enjoy it; I had a band of boys waiting for me when I went up the other day. I say rounders but it’s more like a combination of baseball and rounders because I introduced the rule three ‘outs’ and we swap fielders and batters. There’s a young lad called Jovine (not sure on the spelling) who can’t run so he’s the bowler, it’s one of the only names I have managed to remember because I shout it a lot. I shout his name because when the fielders have the ball they tend to through it to a guy on a base, for example 3^rd, he then sees the batter running to second rather than stumping his base he throws it to the second base guy to stump the batter out but the throw isn’t accurate so the batter can get a rounder no problem. So I shout to get them to throw the ball to Jovine, they are starting to understand. Jovine got hit in the head twice with the hard rounders ball and once in the leg, there was a mutual decision to revert back to playing with a tennis ball. He was more fortunate than another lad who received the bat to his mouth, accidental, but there was a deep cut on his upper lip. He got 7 stitches at the clinic which is a stones throw from the secondary school. After this incident I emphasised that the blue cone is where the batters line up, and that you drop the bat after you hit the ball (because we have only one bat).

On Tuesday I’m going up to Nairobi for AIM’s Kenya Conference at Rift Valley Academy (they have Rugby posts, so am packing a ball). Afterwards we are going down to Arusha for the Tanzanians Mens’s Retreat, which will be really good because I have met them already at the conference in Dar last month. So looking forward to a bit more travelling, bus journeys.

I am now a resident of Tanzania. Unfortunately it doesn’t get me a discount into the Serengeti.

Our shower has been fixed!

Secondary sport

On Saturday I went along with 130 other school students on a bus to a village a couple of villages away, where there were different sport games, basketball, netball, volleyball and football. We were told that the bus would be leaving at 2 so we arrived at 5 mins to 2, 2 hours later the bus arrives. The bus driver then tried to turn the bus around but got stuck in some sand so they had to dig the bus out.

The journeys were pretty squashed. The bus is like a normal sized coach. I counted 134 including me Arne, Marlene, 2 other teachers and the bus crew (guys who run the bus). One of the students has a vuvuzela, remember the world cup? There were a couple of students who had whistles and the boys chanted their songs while the girls shouted theirs. It was loud, actually loud is an understatement! On the way I sat on an aisle seat and a student sat on my shoulder, fortunately on the way back I was the last on the bus save the bus crew member who hangs out the door, so I stood next to him while he danced with death.

The netball game everytime there was a score that schools supporters would run on to the pitch dance, shout, scream and what ever else, then quickly run off again. Funny to watch. As the football game was drawing to a close, the bus started it’s engine. Then it started to move, the final whistle went soon after this and the students ran to the bus like ants to jam and it seemed as though they thought they wouldn't all get back on.