Purple Patches

All along our journey from Mwanza to the Usambara Mountains -the landscape remained arid and dusty; yellows and browns the predominant palette. However breaking up the colourscheme throughout, the Jacaranda trees providing eye catching purple patches across the plains, mountains and valleys of Northern Tanzania. In the Usambara they flower against a greener landscape. They herald the yet unseen rains and will continue to flower until Christmas before returning to their usual green for another year.

Beautiful Bougainvillea

The rains are imminent – in fact three storms have come and gone – nothing on the scale that is to come, but a sign things are changing.

Even so the ground remains parched and yellow, dusty and dry – the exception being the Bougainvillea which is in bloom at this time and throughout the dryest time of the year and provides a welcome splash of colour to the garden.

 

The Road To Kigali

We departed Mwanza just after 5:30pm on Friday. Destination Rwanda! Our first stop was to be Shinyanga just three hours down the road but enough to shave off our journey to allow a realistic arrival at the border

As we travelled south we saw flashes of lightning indications of the oncoming storm. 

  
As night fell so did the rain but the road to Shinyanga was fine other than the extensive use of speed bumps and the insistence of most Tanzanian drivers to keep their lights on full beam. There were many Kamikaze frogs leaping out in front of us on the roads as we travelled.

  We finally pitched up in Shinyanga at 9pm and looked for the recommended hotel- not as easy in the dark. Eventually we found the Diamond Fields Hotel. Initial perceptions were good, the rooms were clean and the food menu was extensive. 

For three of us the food promise fulfilled expectations but the fourth meal, a cheeseburger was missing the vital ingredient- the burger. There followed a long discussion in Kiswahili about what actually constitutes a Cheeseburger, our waitresses and chefs adamant that the constituents should resemble a hot cheese roll. After over ten minutes of arguing  and resorting to google images we eventually got a burger! At midnight!

We resolved we would leave at 6pm forgoing the breakfast! Although our rooms were comfortable enough sleep was a little disturbed by the sound of the adjacent nightclub, alternating with the cacophony of croaks of the locals frog chorus and finally the local Imam who sounded like we was praying right outside our door for the morning call to prayer!

Our morning journey went well – the roads were good and we made excellent progress. 

  It was as we were nearing the border that the roads began to crumble. Speed slowed as we needed to negotiate significant pot-holes. The number of lorries (especially Petrol Tankers) did nothing to speed us on our way. 

The cars taking vicarious routes along the broken road.  

There were vain attempts to repair them with earth being used to infill the pot-holes. 

We reached the border late afternoon and waited for the officials to process our visa applications. 

The other side of the line there were changes. Rwanda is a much cleaner place, a ban on plastic bags contributing to a lack of litter. The roads are much better too as we climb through the hills to Kigali, passing rice paddies and other farms.             

       

 At 6pm we reached Kigali and our accommodation -Discover Rwanda Youth  Hostel. 

  
 

Grey-capped Warbler

This is one of a series of occasional blogs highlighting the wildlife (and often more specifically birdlife) which visits our Mwanza Garden

This recently discovered visitor is  the grey-capped warbler. A striking visitor as so many are – this one is also a noisy one.

Grey-capped Warbler

Grey-capped Warbler

Grey-capped Warbler

Grey-capped Warbler

Grey-capped Warbler

Grey-capped Warbler

Grey-capped Warbler

Grey-capped Warbler

Lakeland

When many people think of Tanzania, they probably think of the Serengeti with it’s arid plains teaming with Wildebeest and Zebra.

… or possibly Kilimanjaro’s snow capped peak.

… or maybe Zanzibar and it’s white sands and azure waters.

All these are amazing places and we’ve been to all three  (though we’ve yet to see Kilimanjaro’s peak personally), but Tanzania is as much defined by it’s lakes as anything else – more so in that much of it’s Western Border is Lake and a portion of it’s Northern Border too.

There are three Great Lakes here : Victoria, Tanganyika and Nyassa (more commonly known as Lake Malawi in the outside world – but not in Tanzania or Mozambeque which share it).

We have been lucky enough to visit all three in the past 15 months – in fact we live next to the largest (Lake Victoria) so we visit that one all the time.

Lake Victoria

Touching Bismarck

Shared Between: Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya

Area:68,800 square kilometers (26,600 sq miles)

Lake Victoria is the world’s second largest freshwater lake by surface area; only Lake Superior in North America is larger.

Victoria is Africa’s largest lake by area, and is also the largest tropical lake in the world.

The lake is an average of 40m deep and its deepest point is 83m deep. It is therefore quite a shallow lake.

Named after Queen Victoria by it’s European discoverer John Speke it is known as Lake Nyaza in Bantu languages.

Sadly the lake’s ecosystem has been decimated by the introduction of Nile Perch and eutrophication. Thus hundreds of native cichlids have been driven to extinction in the past 50 years. The perch have no natural predator and have destroyed the natural food chains which existed. Increased algae have further choked the lake and the drop in fish population has severely damaged the fishing industry here.

The lake looks lovely but you wouldn’t swim in it’s toxic waters. Raw sewage is dumped into the lake by factories and settlements and increases the eutrophication further.

Bilharzia snails are present in high quantities and as a carrier of Shistosomiasis a potentially fatal disease if left untreated. Sadly locals do swim and wash in it, having no choice but to do so.

It’s sad that this massive body of water on our doorstep is so polluted.

Lake Tanganyika

Shared Between: Tanzania, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia

Area:32,900 square kilometers (12,700 sq miles)

We visited this beautiful lake over half term, staying near Kigoma at Jacobsen’s Beach.

It is estimated to be the second largest freshwater lake in the world by volume, and the second deepest.  It is 570m deep on average and at it’s deepest it is 1470m deep. Only Lake Baikal in Siberia is deeper and has greater volume.

It is also the world’s longest freshwater lake.

The name “Tanganyika” means “Great Lake spreading out like a plain”

Located in the Rift Valley the lake is relatively unpolluted. Over 250 species of cichlids live in the lake and 75 other species too.

Fishing is a major industry here and has impacted upon the fish.

No lake in Africa is free of Shistosomiasis but it seems to be low level/ risk  in Tanganyika unlike Victoria. We will take praziquantel to be certain but you have to wait a couple of months.

Lake Nyassa (Lake Malawi)

Shared Between: Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique

Area:29,600 square kilometers (11,400 sq miles)

We visited this lake in the summer travelling from Mbamba Bay in Tanzania to Likoma Islands on to Monkey Bay in Malawi.

It is the ninth largest lake in the world and the third largest and second deepest lake in Africa.

It has a depth of 292m on average with a maximum of 706m.

It’s over 1000 species of cichlids makes it very bio diverse. It has in fact the most variety of species of any lake.

The lake is subject to a border dispute with slaw I claiming the entire lake up to the shore of Tanzania whilst Tanzania claims the border is in the middle of the lake.

It is probable that the lake contains Shistosomiasis and slthough we were assured otherwise and although we did swim in it’s clear waters at both Likoma and Monkey Bay we have taken medication to be safe.

Three Great Lakes – all different in their own way and all part of Tanzania.

Sizing Things Up

Maps of the world give a distorted view of things. The countries nearer the poles are enlarged relative to those nearer the equator and so if you look at a map of the earth Tanzania looks much smaller than it is in reality and the UK and USA look much larger than they really are.

There is an interesting website that attempts to rectify this error and I have used it in this blog to show how big Africa and in particular Tanzania are. The website called

http://thetruesize.com/

superimposes a scale sized map of one country onto another.

The maps below were created using this site.

Here is a map of the UK  for reference

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Having spent 14 hours on the road yesterday traveling from Kigoma to Mwanza it is worth looking at how far it would mean in Britain – the map has been rotated to fit the journey.

On this scale a journey from Mwanza to Kigoma is like traveling from Lincoln to St Austell (in Cornwall) via Brighton.

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A trip from Mwanza to Dar Es Salam is equivalent to a journey from from John O’ Groats in the North of Scotland to Thanet in Kent.

Luckily we can fly to Dar  at a reasonable cost.

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Our travels from Mwanza to Mbale and Jinja via Bukoba and Kampala at Easter (including  Murchison Falls in the North) were all taken by bus.

This would be the equivalent of a journey from London to Middlesborough via Bristol, Liverpoool and Manchester with a hop across to Northern Ireland.

Notice that Lake Victoria fills most of Southern and Central England.

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A trip to Moshi where we will meet the Mums at Christmas is like a journey from Edinburgh to Southend via Ayr and Blackpool.

We will fly this December but we went the opposite way by bus in the summer.

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For our epic journey of Eastern and Southern Africa – a map of Britain won’t do so instead a map of the USA

We traveled from Mwanza to Zomba then to Livingstone (Victoria Falls) and back again.

This was the equivalent of a journey from the North of Ohio via Washingston DC to Southern Alabama and on into Texas.

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This shows how vast Africa really is and perhaps how much smaller the USA and UK are really.

If you want to see how big your country is compared to any other part of the world check out the site for yourself

http://thetruesize.com/

Election Fever

It’s almost upon us – in three days time the country will decide and so will end months of rallies and political speeches.

The country will vote in local elections, for MPs and for a new President. There are a number of parties (including ACT) but in reality there are two main parties CCM and Chedema. 

    
 The ruling party CCM have never lost an election and have governed Tanzania since independence in 1962 – Nyerere’s party is probably likely to win again but….

 
 
 
  Locally Chedema is popular and won the election  5 years ago. Mwanza is firmly in opposition territory and along with Moshi, Mbeya and Arusha are likely to vote the same way again. 

Indeed a former leader of CCM has defected to Chedema and has made this election much closer to call than anticipated.  

 

 It is difficult to know what might happen after the results are announced  next Wednesday. Last time there were some problems in town and many ex-pats are leaving for the week – traveling overseas or to quiet parts of the country. We too are heading out of town (but in country) of which more in a later post.

As I write here a noisy rally is taking place nearby- in fact the two Presidential candidates have spent a lot of time here in the last fortnight. Each day trucks loaded up with speakers troll the roads blasting out messages from as early as 7am.  

      

  

 The crowds at both Chedema and CCM rallies have been joyous and good natured from what we have seen so far but will that change when inevitably one of these parties lose the election. Some doommongers predict dire consequences in the post- election fallout others are more relaxed feeling nothing will happen. In reality it will probably be somewhere in between.

Out of Contact

We have emerged from a dead zone where internet connectivity was limited or non- existent. This has been both refreshing and frustrating in equal measure.

Our sister blog has suffered as it has not recounted the dailtbtravels over the past 5 days.

We have traveled across Tanzania crossed Lake Victoria into Malawi and now are in Monkey Bay. You can read more on our blog VictoriatoVictoria 

Victoria to Victoria

We’re soon going to be going on our travels as the Summer Holidays begin. Our plan is to travel from Mwanza to Livingstone in Zambia (Victoria Falls)  and back taking in Malawi (and Kenya!) on route. The Kenya bit of our journey is a late addition as we need to be in Nairobi in early August to drop my son off for some work experience, resulting in an extra loop.

Our journey will be entirely on public transport – following the success of our trip to Uganda at Easter, plane, coach, train all the way there and back again!

This blog will continue and will summarise our journey once back and some of the more mundane living before, during and after, but we wanted more of a daily travelog as we travelled along on our journey.

You can find all about our trip on a separate blog Victoria to Victoria which will be our travelog – feel free to subscribe.

Weekly Photo Challenge : ROY G BIV (Birds in the Garden)

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “ROY G. BIV.” A follow up to my previous post on the Garden. I have narrowed the field to include only birds which have visited the garden in the past five days.

Firefinch (Red)

African Paradise Flycatcher (Indigo)

Spectacled Weaver

White Browed Robin Chat (Orange)

Maricor Sunbird

Purple Grenadier

Red Cheeked Cordonbleu (Blue)

Most birds come in a multitude of colours so I have selected the main colour or at least one of the main colours. The African Paradise Flycatcher is a bit of a cheat as it’s head is blue/black which to my mind is close to Indigo.

The Green Winged Pytilla is almost ROY G BIV in itself

A Little Luxury!

You can get most things in Mwanza if you look hard enough – but some things come at a price.U-Turn is the overpriced supermarket here in Mwanza – the place all ex-pats have to use (to keep sane) but love to hate due to their somewhat high prices.

Porridge is our staple breakfast here – it’s relatively inexpensive at 5000 TzS (£1.50) a tin., which lasts us about a week. We have had porridge most days since we’ve been here – but porridge can get a little boring after a  while.

Every so often U-Turn do a BOGOF  (Buy One Get One Free) deal.

Take for example Rice Krispies.

Don’t be fooled by the price label. The price in the Supermarket would be equivalent to nearer £4 normally. So only when there is a BOGOF does it become affordable, though you do have to check the sell by date!

I never would have thought of the humble Rice Krispie as a bit or luxury, but here it is in a bowl. Time for breakfast!

Wag Hill Wildlife

Wag Hill Lodge is just a few miles outside of Mwanza, the rough roads make it about half an hour by car, but in reality it’s a few miles.  So close and yet so far – this applies to the environment too. The area is forested and landscaped with a number of lodges surrounding central buildings and a pool. We stayed there last weekend for two nights and had a great time. One of the great attractions of the place is the wildlife and in particular the bird life. Here are some of the wildlife we encountered

Skink

Swamp Flycatcher

Swamp Flycatcher

Hamerkops

Vervet Monkey

Fish Eagle

Jameson’s Firefinch

Common Bulbul

Grey Headed Kingfisher

Mwanza Flat-Headed Agama Lizard

Yellow Mantled Weaver

Mwanza Flat- Headed Agama Lizard

Scarlet-chested Sunbird

Vervet Monkey

Swamp Flycatcher

Swamp Flycatcher

Mourning Doves

Rock Hyrax

Swamp Flycatcher

Scarlet-chested Sunbird

Swamp Flycatcher

Wagtail

Carpenter Bee

Slender Billed Weaver

Grey Headed Kingfisher

Swamp Flycatcher

Scarlet-chested Sunbird feeding

White Browed Robin Chat

Hamerkop in flight

Hamerkop

Mwanza Flat- Headed Agama Lizard

Rock Hyrax

The next best thing!

Here in Tanzania there are many things we have to go without entirely – cinema for example (although rumour has it the new shopping mall will have one). Other things have needed to be substituted.

Anita and I used to enjoy a ‘coffee’ at Costa while in the UK, but the nearest Costa is thousands of miles away.

There are some good coffee shops in Uganda – notably in Jinja and Mbale, but what about Mwanza. Here at home the next best option is the Coffee Shop in the Gold Crest Hotel. Here you can get a Mocha Shake and Iced Spiced Macchiato, Cappuccino etc.

   It’s not Costa but it’s the next best thing.

NCLC

After six months here we have settled into church and attend NCLC which meets just up the road at Isamilo Lodge Hotel. The church is a plant of Newcastle  Christian Life Centre. This church is part of Hillsong family of churches worldwide,and the Assemblies of God locally, here in Tanzania.

The other church plants are based in the North East of England (Teeside, Newcastle and Newcastle North), so Mwanza is a a little off the beaten track!

Isamilo Lodge / NCLC

The Pastor and his family are from the UK, and founded the plant back in 2011. This followed more informal links between NCLC and Mwanza for a number of year.

It was the first church we visited back in September and having tried another church for a few months we started going to NCLC regularly in November. We have felt very welcome there and enjoy the services week by week. Anita has joined the women’s group which meets fortnightly and my daughter has just started helping out with Kids Church. We are open to see in what ways be can be of service in the months and years ahead.

It is good to be part of a fellowship again, having left St Mary’s in the UK, our spiritual home for 0ver 20 years ( in my case 26 years to be precise).

The church consists of about 40 people with many children, there are a good mix of expatriates from UK, US, Canada, Kenya and Ethiopia as well as local Tanzanians.

The worship is lively and the sermons are always thought provoking and challenging ( in a good way). For those who know, is is similar to

Initially there was just one weekly service, jointly in English and Kiswahili, but recently the church has split it’s morning services so that one service is in English (at 9:45am) and the other in Kiswahili (at 11:15am).  For us, although it was good to worship in both languages, it is certainly easier to follow a sermon in English solely without the obvious pause for the translation.

Between the services there is Chai (Tea) and a chance to meet the other congregation. In addition once a month there is a joint Baptismal service in which the swimming pool is utilised as a Baptismal pool. Each month there has always been someone who has wanted to be baptised.

We are very happy to be part of this church and look forward to being so for our time in Mwanza.

Visitors

Today we welcomed our first visitors from the UK since our arrival in Tanzania. Although we did not know Steve and Judy well, they were members of our old church in Milton Keynes.

They are in Mwanza for a month visiting various NGO’s whom they support in their charity Wabia Network. These organisations within Mwanza and the surrounding areas are Tanzanian run but supported through their organisation.

We spent about three hours chatting over tea. It was great to hear news from the UK as well as to share some of our experiences here and to hear about their work too. All too soon it was over but it was a good time. For those at  St Mary’s, we have given to them a gift for you, which they will bring back when they return, we hope if will find some use and remind you of us.  

For now we have welcomed our first guests and though I appreciate we are off the beaten track here, hopefully we will have other visitors from home over the years.

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A year ago this is what I was blogging

Year in the Life of this Humble Blog – Thankyou

A year ago today I started this blog – Valentine’s Day 2014 right at the beginning of our transcontinental odyssey. To begin with we catalogued our preparations for moving out. Very soon I started  peppering the blog  with submissions to the weekly photo challenge (run by word press and a way of getting noticed as well as being creative with the theme of the week) and put in a section cataloging our earlier travels.

The blog has been my way of unfolding our story and has acted as an online diary for me.

Once here in Tanzania it began chronicling our new lives here and our experiences and travels.  We also decided to list the wildlife here. One of the driving forces behind the blog has been communication with those in our families who aren’t on Facebook and have no desire to be. A way of informing them of our lives and activities and share the people and the town we live in.

Along the way others have followed our journey and it has been amazing to see from where these people have hailed.  As of this moment this blog has been viewed by  no less than 54,936 times, received 1,603  comments with visitors from 137 countries.

The two newest countries are at extremes China (at long last) and Vanuatu (tiny Pacific islands). The most, of course, have come from the UK, then USA and hot on their heels (and soon to take over) is Tanzania of course. Canada and Sweden lead the chasing pack, followed by Italy, Ireland and Australia. The full list is below  and shows views not visitors (Google skews this in favour of the US on visitors – see right panel) .

 

In truth the blog has seen a downturn in views as we have become more established here (our peak was in August and early September). Even so to those who’ve stuck with it (even if not every day) – thank you for viewing, thank you for commenting and above all thank you for taking an interest, whether you hail from the UK, US, Tanzania or China, Vanuatu or Gabon or somewhere in between  Karibuni (you are welcome).

The blog will continue and in coming weeks I will add links to a year ago for my reminiscence and others close to us.

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Today is the one year anniversary of this blog –

here is what I wrote a year ago today

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Scale (of Insects)

A submission to this week’s photo challenge : scale.
In the tropics insects come big like this (sadly dead) bee from right here in Tanzania …….

… and small like these ants in Vietnam, feeding on a glob of jam.

Guest Post – Life Comparisons: UK and TZ

This is a  guest post  by Bex

I am a student in a school in Mwanza and have been a student in various UK schools. This new school is a lot smaller than my previous school and the amount of people in my year group in the UK are the amount of people in the of Secondary. Despite it being smaller and the lessons being shorter, School runs from 7:55 until 3:15 whereas in the UK it was 8:30 until 3:15. This means we have more lessons, 5 a day is now 7 a day. Lessons are signaled to a close by a large bell which is rung by various year 8’s although it is often early. Lockers are bigger here although you have to bring in a padlock and key to keep it secure, but in the UK we had designated lockers and were given a key. We are also allowed to take bags around with us but in the UK we were only allowed to take books needed for the lessons you had before break or lunch.

My New School Grounds

Monkey on the Compound

Because of the school being that much smaller it allows time for being social. I have made friends with people in various year groups – not just my own – younger and older. I mix a lot with the other children on the compound and we play games like my version of Cricket, and climbing trees and many other things.

My Birthday

My life in the UK was boring, hardly seeing friends and forever relying on technology. Although I do use technology I prefer to do things outside and talk with people. I am older than most of the other children who live on the compound so I normally see it as my job to look after the younger ones.

Our House

I love living here it’s so different to my old life – I feel much better and much more relaxed and all the holidays that I have been on are so much more than I ever had in the UK.

Weekend Away at Wag Hill

Elephants in the Serengeti

Star Fish on the Beach in Zanzibar

Prison Island Zanzibar

Dolphins

I hated the idea of coming here, I cried and did not want to leave at all, but I came and I am so glad I did. I like it here more than I ever anticipated. I obviously miss my friends and family terribly but this is an experience that can never be repeated.

Goodbye to Family

Old Friends

 

Girls Day Out

For our a long time I wanted to have a girlie day out.  For various good reasons there wasn’t a free day until today….

So off we set…

Neither of us had eaten breakfast, so we stopped for chai + mandazi (african donuts + sweet black tea).

Bex has been saying for weeks how she wanted a new hairstyle, so we walked down to Talapia, where Guddy, a ‘Toni + Guy’ trained hairdresser works on the off-chance she might have a space, and sure enough she did and so the transformation began:

It was now lunchtime, so we stayed at Talapia for refreshment

Then we walked back home (via the supermarket that sells sweets!)

Upon arriving back at the compound, Bex + Graham spent some time together doing ‘Sporkle’ quizzes online – which takes great concentration:

In the evening (Matt was out babysitting) and we invited Bev, a neighbour on the compound, over for games – Mahjong + Black Queen.

So a great day – definitely one to be repeated.

What A Year! 2014 (Part 2)

As the New Year begins  I continue to reflect on 2014 a year in which I (and my family) made the dramatic move to Tanzania, month by month. Part 1 is here.

September

As September we settled into our new house and I began so did my new teaching career. Lessons began on the 1st and it was time to get to know new students, new systems and a new environment. Teaching ICT in a land where power cuts can happen at short notice was never going to be easy but actually things weren’t too bad. A new projector was a helpful addition and within a week or two it felt like we had always been there. The kids settled in to the school too and Anita began to explore Mwanza and quickly signed up to language classes to improve her already impressive Swahili. I too got to know my new home town and having decided not to buy a car (yet!) we did a lot of walking which was no bad thing. Running was more of an issue with the heat and the hills!

Purple Grenadier

We adapted to new routines and got to know the folk on the compound and flats both old an new colleagues. In all there had been six families who had moved out, along with four singles. This included two new heads of primary and secondary both settling into their new roles. Weekly events like Boy’s night and Bridge were part of the routine, possible because the smaller classes at school meant less marking and so a little more social time.

We began to look into churches and settled on two possibilities MIC and NCLC, based in different towns in the city. We also got to know some of the expat NGOs working in the community. The compound grounds were full of strange and exotic bird life and the odd familiar bird too (sparrows are common here!). The school also had it’s fair share of exotic visitors with monkeys jumping through the trees and raiding the bins.

October

The rains weren’t due until mid-November but we had had some heavy downpours throughout September and October was no exception with some immensely heavy downpours in the mornings turning roads into rivers and bringing down trees. The rain never lasted too long and soon it turned hot and humid.

One of the first things we did this month was to join the Borders on their Weekend Camping Trip up the coast. We had a great weekend by the lake and got to know some of our colleagues even better. The lake was stunning but sadly you could not swim in it as it was infested by Bilharzia, small snails which harbour disease.

Late in the month we also travelled a little bit further up the coast to Papa’s a restaurant on the lake recommended by many as a good place to visit. It was nice to leave the confines of Mwanza on both trips but we had seen very little of Tanzania.

The school week continued to rush on at a pace and before long it was nearly half term and our first Safari in the Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater. This was an  amazing three days of wildlife including all the big 5, but sadly no Cheetah. Even so our sighting of a Leopard on the last day was a definite highlight.

November

The month began with birthday celebrations galore. Not only Anita and Bex, but many of the staff and their children had birthdays – so much celebrating to be done.

With so many celebrations at once a number of us booked a weekend at a secluded resort complex called Wag Hill, The place was close to Mwanza but a world away from the city, secluded and quiet, a group of  15 of us booked the cottage out and had a fab weekend, wallowing in the pool, wandering the hills and seeing new creatures Hyraxes and a Gennet, along with different bird life.

As November wore on the rains really began and we realised exactly how heavy and prolonged rain can be here. The roads were turning to mush and wearing away fast.

The school ran its annual Charity Fair in aid of Saturday school and it was a great chance to work together with my tutor group to run a stall. Anita and Bex both got ill which was less pleasant – they missed the Fair!

I paid my first visit to Saturday school as part of a hectic Saturday which saw me at a number of events and parties. Social life does get busy here and it is one of the great things about ex-pat living. Even so it was great to see what the school are doing to help the poor and underprivileged in Mwanza.

My tutor group produced what I think was the best assembly – a play they had written on the plight of girls in education – I am biased but it was good!

November was full of Parents Evenings one or two per week at times, along with report writing this was taking up a lot of time but it had to be done.

The term was running out fast and before long it was the end of November.

December

The term here finishes earlier than in the UK so we only had a fortnight in school. Both kids had lead roles in the School Production – The Importance of Being Ernest. Rehearsals were taking their time but it was worth it in the end as they both did outstandingly.

The last week of term came and went with parties and gatherings of various sorts and then it was time for Zanzibar.

Our long-planned 8 day visit to the island was well worth it. Glorious white sand beaches, warm turquoise seas and amazing wildlife on land and in the water it was a fabulous time.

All too soon we were back in Mwanza for Christmas.

The Rains continued and brought flooding to Mwanza on Christmas Eve, our compound Christmas dinner relocated into our living room where 18 of us shared a meal and some games into the early evening.

As the year ended we again gathered for a New Year Celebration, 2014 was an amazing year I wonder what 2015 will hold?