Weekend

This weekend has been like a good holiday. There's a lot going on at the secondary school, and it is good to have a break from it. The headmaster is helping teachers and students work together to get through the worst of it. I am still on the sidelines to some extent. If i start explaining there'll be no end, so please be content with these snippets of information, and keep us in your prayers.

Meanwhile I have been staying with some friends who live near the river, so I have been able to have a daily dip, as well as some fun on a picnic by the river, floating down the stream on inflated motor tyres. They had constructed a clay oven and then baked pizza in it, and I thought to myself 'I don't deserve this life'. God has been very good to me!

'O' level exams

This is the first year St Michael's school has done 'O' levels! The science teacher, Diane had pneumonia just before she was meant to get all the practicals set up, and there is no technician to help in the laboratory.

Guess what! I had a flashback to one of my previous lives, the one where I worked as a medical lab technician in NW Tanzania, and had some fun making and marking various coloured fluids and bugs. Thankfully there were no complaints, and I'm just going to have to resist the temptation to get more involved. Have to keep the bible school as my top priority...

Recovery

Last Friday I decided to go to the police station and ask for my old laptop back! Normally stolen items are kept until the case is finished, so they can be used as evidence, but they agreed I could sign them out until needed. That was a great relief, but I'm still unable to do internet because my old laptop seems to be lacking. Maybe I can get it fixed.

Meanwhile I went to a camping retreat last weekend run by the Iringa Christian Fellowship (ICF) and feel quite refreshed and restored. This last week's teaching has been fun, and I am beginning to get a feel for each class in the secondary school. The Bible school has just started again, with 10 students, and I am finding it easier to memorise names now. Not everything is new!

Hope and Anna arrived in Ngara (the opposite side of Tanzania from here) on that Sunday (28th) after a three day journey, and the family had waited for them for the funeral. That is unusual, but Hope is now the senior member of the family. They came back to Iringa yesterday (Friday) after a dramatic journey. Just as they were nearing Dodoma on Thursday the front wheel of the bus came off and it lurched to a halt, just missing a ditch. If it had rolled it might have been a different story, but as it was no one was injured. It happened mid afternoon, and as the darkness came the police took all the women and children to Dodoma for safety, leaving men and luggage with the bus (Brave men!). Fortunately later that evening mechanics managed to get the bus back on the road, so the journey continued. My two friends changed buses in Morogoro and came on to Iringa.

We had an electric storm in Iringa yesterday, and I was in the middle of an email when everything went dead, and I had to abandon it. Now at a generous friend's house updating this blogsite.