Holidays begin!

Exams are over and graded (all of our students passed their classes this first term -hallelujah!), and the holidays have begun!

Sarah and I left on Monday for our week in Paradise/Zanzibar and just returned last night. It was beautiful, fun, restful - all of the best parts of a vacation! We went snorkelling one day, and I kept thinking 2 things: I HAVE to watch Finding Nemo again, and wow! Isn't God an amazingly creative God?! I know that, but seeing some of those fish, I just would have laughed, if I wasn't afraid of drinking in too much (Indian) ocean water! I have always imagined Him saying to the angels about the stars, planets, galaxies, "Just wait till they see this one!" Or when He created zebras, "How cool would white with black stripes, all the way from their manes to their tails be?" Now, I could just hear Him chuckling and saying, "That black and white thing worked so well on the zebra, let's do it with fish!"

That day also included about 4 hours sailing on a boat to and from snorkelling and was just so relaxing. We had lunch on a private part of the beach, met people from Holland, the UK, Sweden, just very international. It also fit in with my theme of having seafood at every meal except breakfast (only because I couldn't convince them to make a shrimp omelette!)!

The next day, we took a spice tour and a Stone Town tour. I had done both before, but our guides were very good and very informative, and I enjoyed both of those again.

The next day, as Sarah said, we just "relaxed." That was so funny to me because that's what we'd been doing all week, in one form or another! I mean, we didn't sail the boat or drive the cars for our tours or even have to memorize dates and names of plants and sultans! So, relaxing was something we pretty much had down!

Every breakfast we ate at our hotel, since that was included, and most lunches we ate at little local places but with lots of different options (as long as you wanted chips-french fries- or rice as your sides!) and local prices, as well - under about $5 for seafood dinners! Some dinners we also ate at those or at one of the beach hotels. One part of almost evry day was a trip to a shop for ice cream! After all, we were on vacation, at the beach! Hmmmm... wonder if that's how I gained a kilo in a week! Good thing I also did water aerobics every day, walked, kicked my fin-encased feet for an hour snorkelling, or I'd have gained 2 kilos! (I dreamed in kilos one week at Karanse! We eat rice for every lunch there, have chapatis for morning tea, which are mostly fried dough, and have bread with our soup for dinner. But, one night I dreamed I lost 6 kilos in one week! Aside from being physically impossible, all of my Australian, British, and New Zealand friends thought the funniest part was that I dreamed in kilos!)

We just got our latest and final mentor today. Her name is Shelley, she's from NZ, and she will be Sarah's fellow mentor in Magugu. That puts our household at 6 women for now. Joanna gets married in just under a month, and she'll be moving out then. More on all of this later. I will try to download some picture from the last week soon.

Seasons they don't tell you about in Tanzania!

Everyone knows about the "rainy" season, and most people not brand-new to TZ have heard the difference between the "short rains" and the "long rains" (we're having the short rains now, FYI), but there are actually several other "seasons" I have found out about!

Back in September, just as we were coming into spring/summer, the winds really picked up, and so did the dust. Especially since we live just over the hedge from a dirt road that is used quite frequently, everything in our house got covered with a fine layer of reddish-brown dust. One week when I was heading to Karanse, I closed my bedroom windows in an effort to minimize the dust, but the wind blew so hard that dust came in through any available space where windows weren't sealed properly. When I got back, I had to wash bed linens, wash window sills, sweep my closet, of all things, and vacuum my floor. This was the "dust season."

We pretty much always have our windows open; thank goodness for screens! We also have several doors to our house that someone is always leaving open, and they don't have screens. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a big increase in our fly population in our house. Joanna said this was "fly season," the weeks before the short rains come all the way up till Christmas! Today we had team lunch at our house, and I was so irritated by all of the flies that I gave Janet a job (since she was here early). I told her she couldn't eat until she had killed 10 flies! Joelle got in on that as well, and between them they killed about 30 flies!! Yuck!

I was telling Joanna last night my new discoveries of the seasons, and she said, "Just wait till locust season!" Oh, boy!!!

7th grade graduation and Christmas preparations...

and end of term, grading exams, etc.!

Last Wednesday was such a long-awaited day: Standard 7 graduation, our second at Karanse. This is such a monumental thing for this community, to have so many students graduate with the hope of secondary school before them. Before the coming of our school, something like 7 children had ever left Standard 7 and gone on to "high school." Now, we have 2 classes and something like 40 students from our scxhool along going on to "further education." Many important dignitaries were on hand, lots of parents, the whole school, even though they were technically on holiday, our students teachers, Godsave and Isack from Imara, and Joelle and me. The skies went from blazingly bright to drizzling over the couple of hours, but it was well worth it. Lots of food was served to everyone later, and a good time was had by all. I took video, not pictures, but I know Joelle took pictures, so I'll see if I can get some to put on here.

Then Thursday and Friday the student teachers took their exams, and Joelle and I (with Perimeter paying) took all of the teachers from Karanse out to lunch on Thursday to thank them for a job well done this year. That was a big deal for everyone, and we enjoyed it, as well.

Back to En Gedi on Friday, running errands on Saturday, church and the pool on Sunday, then it was time to start "marking" exams. It's hard to get used to the grading scale (we consider 50 passing!), so it was easy to feel a little discouraged seeing all of those 60%'s, but that's like a C, so they'll be fine with it!

Last night I went to my friend Isack's house for a visit and dinner since I haven't been there this trip at all, shocking as that is! Of course, the power went off just at dark, so we ate and visited by the light of one candle and 2 flashlights! However, I love his family, and have known them since before Ebenezer, the oldest, was even born. Now there are 2 of them, just live wires, and we had a wonderful time.

Today is the staff Christmas party for our workers and their families: 40 workers, maybe 80 children, spouses of many - it should be a big deal! Games, food, presents, a proper party!

Have I mentioned I'm off to Zanzibar next week?! Sarah, a fellow mentor, and I leave Monday and get back Saturday. We're so looking forward to it! It's summer here, though not as hot as it will be in January, so going to the beach is perfect for December! I hear it's very cold at home, so maybe this sounds good there, too!