Washing machine

Our washing machine has becoming increasingly noisy over the last 12 months. Well, the crunch finally came when it began to spill water at a rather fast speed - we had to mop - no, it wasn't fast enough - use a hand towel to mop up the water. Then, Glenn had to commit his weekend to finding and sorting out the problem. The problem was at least one hole, which he managed to find a short term soloution to. As we have to order a part and have it shipped, we needed an immediate short term solution, which was a little rubber nob that Glenn had amongst his 'bits and pieces' and he was able to glue this in and then attach the old part back onto the machine. (I hope this is not too much detail for you women, but enough for you men!) Now, our machine is working much better his Friday night and all day Saturday did the trick. It doesn't leak water and is a much quieter instrument to have in the house. When we first came here it was the first thing I wanted moved, as it was in the first bathroom, but Glenn suggested leaving it there as the plumbing (if not done carefully) could leave us with a very big problem flowin through our hosue. Hence, the washing machine is still in the first bathroom, right in the heart of our house.

Making Doughnuts - recipe included

At the end of last week I learned how to make doughnuts, with the help of an American friend. Melissa came here, armed with her dough that had been sitting overnight in the fridge, and was now ready to cut, rise and cook. So, that was what we did on Friday morning. Now, when I tell you that these doughnuts were good, I mean they were really good. Dunkin Donuts, eat your heart out!



We even had the proper vanilla glaze, which just make them even more delicious. The children couldn't get enough of them, and the holes that we cooked too - they were just of the 'melt in your mouth' variety.

So, guess what I'll have to do again this week? And again, and again.
Fortunately you can freeze them, so each time I'll freeze half and we'll eat half. However, you do have to remember that you should eat them the first day, or at least the second, as they are never as good after 24 hours.

The recipe is written below.


Doughnuts:
1 1/8 cup warm milk
1/4 cup sugar
2 and 1/4 tsp yeast
2 large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup blue band (marg) melted and cooled slightly
4 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
oil for frying

Glaze:
3 cups icing sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup cold water/milk
(I always use milk)
Don't forget to half your glaze amounts, if you're feezing half of the doughnuts. They should be frozen before you glaze them!

1/. Dissolve sugar in warm milk. Add yeast and stir to combine. Let sit for 10 minutes, allowing yeast to activiate. Add eggs to melted blue band, stirring constantly. Combine egg mixture wityh yeast mixture. Add salt and then flour in small amounts until dough is combined. Knead for 5 mins. Allow dough to rest for 10 mins. Transfer dough to an oiled bowl, cover with cling film and a clean tea towel, and refrigerate for 8 hours (at least) or overnight (very slow rise).

2/. Turn out dough on lightly floured surface. Roll out dough to 1/4 or 1/2 inches thick. Cut into rings with holes (I use a large glass/plastic cup for doughnuts and a child's plastci medicine cup for the holes). Place doughnuts and holes on a floured baking sheet. Cover with a clean tea towel and allow to rise in a warm place for 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours.

3/. Fry doughnnuts in hot oil (around 190 deg. C) Approx. 1 minute each side (about 3 at a time,depending on the size of your pan). Drain on paper towels. flipping once to remove excess oil from both sides.

4/. Glaze when cool enough and enjoy!

5/. Happy Eating!
It should make about 20 doughnuts, depending on how big your cup/glass is for cutting.

Hope you have fun. We sure did!

This week one of our Managers had an accident on the main street in the town. As I drove the school bus home with all the children in it, we came accross a large crowd of people on the main street, and this is what it turned out to be. The manager was a Tanzanian, which is probably very fortunate, and he phoned the workshop manager to ask him to come and join him. The Facilities Manager who was driving our MAF pickup is actually the first person that we would call for help if one of us were involved in an accident or some incident with the police (but that's another story).

When I saw it was a MAF vehicle I stopped to see if someone was hurt or if I could help in any way. The unlucky Facilities Manager told me briefly what had happened; that there had been a pikipiki (motorbike) coming flying down the road, as he was crossing in the pickup. He told me he stopped the pickup, but the pikipiki did not have time (or perhaps brakes ?) to stop and had crashed into him after he'd stopped (there were no skid marks on the road!). Unfortunately for the poor rider this is his second accident on his pikipiki, and the second time to break the same leg. Alas, nothing is to be done by the police, until they hear how he is doing in the hospital. We have heard that when they find out how he is, they will then know whether to prosecute the MAF manager with careless driving or the pikipiki driver with speeding/careless driving. Apparently it depends on his progress - as to what happened in the accident. Our manager went straight to the police station with his friend from MAF and filled in many forms. He was allowed to go home, but had to return the next day, when he was eventually released on bail. However, to do that, his friend had to pay some money and produce his own house deeds. What a to do! We were told that had MAF been mentioned, then the bail money would have been higher, and extra costs incurred. As it was, the family decided to press charges, on hearing about MAF. Unfortunately, when people hear that you are western here or work for westerners (the colour of your skin can cause many problems too), costs always go up. They seem to believe that if you are white or come from the west then you must have lots of money and can afford to pay extra costs.

I was told later that often people are lynched for causing some kind of accident, so it was a blessing that this didn't happen. We need to continually remember to ask Him for guidance and protection on the roads.

New School Term

This was the first week for the boys to start back to school.
So, Monday morning, we got up before 6.30am and there was much excitement to be back to school. After a breakfast of fruit, cereal and toast, they got their school bags with their 2 snacks (morning and lunch) and headed off down the compound to the gate, to wait for the bus. The bus rota was sorted so that all the mums (and some of the dads) shared to bus driving to and from school. There are 2 runs in each morning, and 2 out. This then covers the children who go to nursery, reception and school. Start times are 7.45am for school (so the bus leaves at 7.20am)and 9.00am for nursery, and finish times are 12.00 for nursery and 2.00pm for school.

There was another goodbye this week, and the boys were very sad to say farewell to their good friend Luca and his little brother Noel.


They have moved to Dar-es-salaam so that Martin will fly for MAF from there. However, although they are still in Tanzania, it changes things a lot for the family, as they have just moved house (yesterday), city, and school to name but a few of the dramatic changes that they will all be dealing with. Joshua and Benjamin now have a new friend on our compound called John-Luke and he is 5 years old and in Standard 1 at the school. They are glad to have him here, and they do still have one little friend on the compound. However, all the other children are younger than John-Luke, so Esther is happy to have friends here. The only problem for her is that they all go to school - and she can't, as she hasn't yet turned 3 - not 'till October. So, we are busy doing things, cycling into town together, building jigsaws, reading stories, dressing up...


playing games and with playdough, fuzzyfelt, magnetic shapes, etc. and just keeping busy at home. Aside from being busy with Esther, we've been having an average of 2 days of dinner or lunch guests each week, since we returned to Tz. This is company for those who are serving here by themselves, a way of catching up with how friends are since we last saw them and a time of fellowship for us. There is very little time to see people, as they are busy with work, we have to be up early for work and school and bed time is early to allow for rising early.
Then, there is the bread to be baked, cakes and biscuits too, so that there is always something to go into the snack boxes for school (where is Tesco's when you need them?)

On Monday we bought another 25kg bag of white flour. To get brown we have to grind our own. Then we can have to husk and everything left in. This is good for making granola and various breads. Fortunately (for our teeth) our 25kg bag of sugar lasts a lot longer than the one of flour.

Earlier, Esther was outside riding her bike, so I have put a photo in of that too.


This morning she was also playing with her little friend Aleah (who is Swiss) and also not at school.

Some of the people we met in July - N.I.

During our time in N. Ireland, we caught up with many friends who we hadn't seen in years. We saw many people at the various meetings that we had, and then other times when we went to peoples homes, the park, and out for food to catch up with our friends. Maybe you'll see someone you know - maybe you'll even see yourself!


Joshua, Benjamin and Esther had a lot of fun at a friends home - a farm outside Moneymore. Here with their friends Emily, Holly and Peter Brown.


Some of the members of Bangor MAF Prayer Group.


A good friend from University days. Susanne and Hannah.


Some friends from the 80's in Tanzania - still interested in MAF. Great to have you along - still looking great!


Some quiet time in the Library!


Catching up with Paddington Bear at Paddington Station. We had to pass through here to get to Interhealth. Who said that medicals weren't exciting? The children were delighted to meet him, at his own station. We were there!

June in N. Ireland

The last 2 weeks of June were spent in Enniskillen, where we were based in a house out the Tempo Road. Joshua and Benjamin spent this time in school, and thoroughly enjoyed their time there. They settled in immediatley, remembering friends from previous trips, and they were remembered too - the boys from Africa! They loved their friends, their school and their teachers - even the uniform was a treat. What wasn't there to like!


Joshua was the most excited boy in the class when on his 3rd day there, they went on a class trip to Tesco's bakery. He had a great time, though some of the others didn't look just as thrilled as him. He returned home with a little sample parcel of pancakes, which he had for his lunch the next day. On his last day at school he showed a little slide show to his friends (power point) of his life in Tanzania. Boy, would I have liked to have been a fly on the wall in his classroom that day. His teacher said that he stood up at the front and was very confident - sharing about the pictures with the children gathered in front of him.

Benjamin had a great time at school too. He asked could they stay, as there was so much in the school - inside and out, and the toys were just great too. He seemed to have lots of friends to play with when we dropped him off in the morning, and he appeared to be the honey, with about 4 little girlie bees buzzing round him, ready to play a game.


One of the highlights for the children was the Fun Night at the Model Primary School. They all had a blast, with the fire and police services being there with engines and buses, bouncy castles, pony rides, cart and pony rides, face painting, nail painting, bbq, chocolate fountain, bric-a-brac stall, and lots more to be done and seen. They remembered going to it last year, and just couldn't wait for this year's event to begin.

N.I. to Tanzania - Return Journey

We have been out of Tanzania now for the past 4 weeks, and had a rather exhausting journey (and eventful too) returning to Dodoma. We arrived back quite late on Monday 19th July, and were welcomed by other MAF families, back to Tz. Someone had prepared food for us too, so that was also really lovely. It was great to be back again, and great for the children (and adults) to see their friends again. The time off compound was good, but you know they say it's good to get back home again, and it really is.

Our return journey began on Saturday morning, when we were told that we didn't have a 'through' ticket, but that it was 2 separate tickets - which meant that BMI didn't follow the allowance of luggage that BA had given us - costing us a lot of stress, effort (at Heathrow where we had to go and collect our luggage and check it in again) and money too! After standing at the check-in desk for about 45 minutes, where the ladies were very sorry, but neither they nor their management could do anything about it for us, we then hurried on through to the gate where there was a small 40 seater plane waiting for us, the last people to be boarded.

It was a challenging start to our journey, but we carried on regardless - we had another flight to catch you know. Well, once into Heathrow, we bagged our luggage, hauled it onto 3 trolleys (oops, there were only 2 adults) and went straight down to catch the train to get to Terminal 5. We had 11 large suitcases, 3 small trolley ones, 4 backpacks (relative to size of person) and one laptop bag. Once we reacher the posts through to the platform, we began running in and out (we still had to supervise the children who have no experience of public transport) between the trolleys and the platform. There was then an announcement that the train would be coming in at the far end of the platform, followed quickly by another one to say that passengers should stay away from the edge of the platform - guess where our little travellers had been peering - over the edge. Well, we legged it down the platform (I hope you're getting the picture) and got some help from a Russian sea captain for a big company that sails between N.I. and England - who was flying over. He helped us with our mammoth job, and we all finally made it onto the train, which arrived before we had got all the luggage to the end of the platform. In these days (in which we are now living) people are very cautious of children being left alone, but the challenge was really there - how do we do this without letting go of them - at least a little? Thank God, we did catch our train, and got more help at the other end too - getting off. We went up to Terminal 5 and continued our journey - the only other points worth mentioning were leaving a small child's backpack on the trolley at the other end of the tunnel, and losing a pink dolly, either on the train or whilst waiting for the missing bag. We went back both times!

We had a good night flight, and all the children slept fitfully. Needless to say, Mummy and Daddy were pretty tired in the morning.

After 1 night stop in Dar, we climbed into our car for the return journey (6-7 hours) to Dodoma. The cash point was being difficult that morning, and we found it rather a challenge to get some cash 9 and we live in a cash society!) Anyhow, we eventually got on the road, and were about 2 hours outside Dar when we had a blow out. Now to a person who knows very little about cars, it sounded like one of the hard plastic suitcases had dropped off the roofrack and still tied on, was banging along the road behind us. What a racket! We stopped as quickly as we could and emptied the car of people and luggage so that Glenn would be able to use our little jack to change the wheel. We were very thankful that God was with us and helped Glenn to hold onto the car - he had to fight to keep her on the road - and that we were able to stop safely, just off the road. With trucks and buses passing at high speeds, it was really good to be off that road. As it was, cars and horns were used as people passed by, thinking that we were too close to the road and warning us to stay off.