Celebrations!

So, there have been a few celebrations for us in the last week!

Last Wednesday, Mark had his birthday which was quite a low key event but just how he likes it! We picked up Naomi from school and went out for a birthday lunch, then collected Abigail (who finishes two hours later than her sister!) and in the evening had a birthday dinner! Menu chosen by the birthday boy!

Just three days later it was Abigail's 6th birthday. On Friday, Jenny delivered some cakes into school at break time for Abigail to enjoy with her friends!

Her actual birthday was on Saturday ... which started very early, as two excited girlies couldn't wait for the fun to begin! Abigail opened a few little presents first thing in the morning!

Then at 10am (or thereabouts!) we had a small group of the girls from her class and their teacher (the lovely Miss Idowa) come for a party! It was meant to be 10am-12pm ... but some didn't arrive until 11am and some weren't picked up until 1pm! Very Tanzanian!

Abigail had very clear ideas about what the party was to include and helped with all the planning! So, we did something crafty, making paper plate crowns and straw necklaces. In fact, one of them was even wearing her necklace to school today (Monday!)

We also played some old-school party games, an egg hunt and pass the parcel ... and then enjoyed a feast of snacks together.

Since her 4th birthday Abigail had decided that she would have a Spongebob cake for this year ... yes that was two years ago, because she had already decided that there had to be a butterfly one last year! Abigail is not one to forget these things easily and although she is a girlie girl for the most part, she LOVES Spongebob. At her request we copied a really silly face cake we saw on the internet and then both her and one of best friends decided to try it out for themselves on the day! Beautiful!

In the afternoon, we gave her the rest of her presents but out here good presents are quite hard to find and being in a state of transition made it even more difficult for us this time round. Abigail however didn't seem to notice the more low key present giving this year which is something great about living in a less materialistic culture! 

One thing we did 'give' her though ... which turned out to be one of her favourite things, was her own email address! She loves writing to people, texts, emails, cards, letters and due to the nature of what we're doing, has family and friends dotted all over the world. Usually she logs into our accounts but now she has her very own one which was filled with messages from close family and friends when we opened it on her birthday. While she doesn't know the password and everything that goes in and out is checked by us, she is in her element! The downside for us is now she keeps asking us to 'check her messages' for her!

After a very restful Saturday afternoon (we were too tired to do anything else!!), on Sunday, the teachers from CAMS invited us out to lunch as a thank you for all we've been involved in at the school during our time here!

While this academic year our input has been minimal due to our imminent move, we have had the privilege of looking out for the teachers and helping out in lots of things at the school where Jenny used to work (and both girls love to go!). The staff are a great bunch and we're going to miss them all loads! We were really touched that they wanted to treat us to lunch!

It's been fun to be able to celebrate all these things! Now we have just 3 weeks left in Dodoma! Tick tock, tick tock!

Our Temporary Normal!

So the new normal is only temporary but it's our normal for now!

Our visas for Tanzania are only valid until late October, so it was a HUGE sigh of relief last week when our visas for Australia were granted ... for the next 5 years! So, since our exciting safari adventure a few weeks ago, life has been settling into the newest and last 'normal' of our time in Dodoma.

Both girls are now at CAMS. The new school year started at the beginning of August, with Abigail going into Standard 2 and Naomi starting in the Nursery. Both girls are enjoying being at school, Naomi in particular is loving being a 'big' girl now ... and Jenny is enjoying the space to get on with other things, like packing!

We did joke, that even though the girls will only manage to complete the first term of the school year, their teachers would need lots of prayer! This was the pair of them just before heading off to school on the first day of term!

A couple of Abigail's friends have moved on since the end of last year but she's enjoying her new teacher, Mrs Idowa and her classroom is the one that used to be Jenny's when she taught at CAMS! Abigail even got the class merit certificate the first week of term for being good at Maths. In Topic though, they are talking about themselves and as Abigail is a year ahead, all her peers are 6 and 7 years old, none of them could believe she was still only 5! She's literally counting down the days until her 6th birthday in September!

Naomi's work is less strenuous! Singing, dancing, colouring, painting and playing in the playground. The Early Years Centre at CAMS for Nursery and Reception is a really fun place to be. Abigail loved it when she was in Reception and Naomi's teacher in Nursery is Mrs Vincent, an old friend of Jenny's, who Naomi loves!

As you can see though, for someone who had stopped having her afternoon nap a few months ago, school is so much fun, that most days Naomi misses out on a hour or two of the afternoon!

With no MAF bus anymore and apart from one other little girl in Nursery, no more MAF children heading to CAMS, Jenny makes the trip across town to school twice (sometimes 3 times) a day. Thankfully though with the increasing number of new roads and road repair in Dodoma, there is now a slightly better, quicker route, missing out the town centre completely which is great!

In the hangar things are continuing. While there are still some final bits of paperwork to complete the handover to CAS, Central Aviation Services, a new maintenance business run by the former MAF Chief Engineer, we're pleased to say it's all going ahead. Last week Mark came off fixing planes and along with the others, started the big inventory of all the remaining MAF property in order to sell it or ship it to another MAF programme. Everything needs to be counted, even down to the last rivet. Not the most exciting of tasks but all part of closing the programme.

At home things have started looking a bit different too. We are slowly sorting, selling and packing all our belongings once again ... made all the slower by the fact that for customs purposes, every item in every box needs to be listed. We started packing properly just over a week ago.

The good news that we would be definitely moving to Australia added a little bit of focus this weekend and has allowed us to be able to label each box with a destination! We are now 34 boxes and 3 suitcases down ... goodness only knows how many more to go!

We will continue to pack and to spend time with our favourite people here in Dodoma over the next few and final weeks. School will finish for the girls on October 3rd ... and so we foresee the big move to Australia sometime in the week or two after that. Already we are looking at the properties to rent in Mareeba online, but won't commit to anything until we actually get there. 

It seems slightly crazy to think that we're moving again so soon and to be honest the Australian visa news is still sinking in because it came as such a surprise to us. We had no idea that anyone had been assigned our immigration case or that the authority that needs to recognise Mark's qualifications and experience had even approved us! But we're definitely not going to argue with the decision!

At the end of the day though, the one thing we can be certain of is that God is in control and that Beckwith's Big Adventure is soon to be moving continents once again!

Southbound for a Mini-Adventure

With our visas renewed for a final three months, we had the chance to take what will possibly be our last opportunity for a mini adventure in Tanzania ... and it was so much fun!

The road from Dodoma to Iringa is almost complete and so instead of an 8 hour drive as it would have been just a couple of years ago, now takes just under 4, with very little traffic! Although, there are still a few unfinished stretches! Check out the dust cloud we left behind us on one of them!

We spent one night in Iringa and had the chance revisit the Amani Christian Training Centre where Jenny was part of a Soapbox Team in 1997, building a house and doing some work with street kids. 17 years later the house is still standing and being used ... amazing!

The next day, we drove down 'The Never-Ending Road' to Ruaha National Park. A couple of hours drive, with very little (no) tarmac in sight! It was definitely worth it all though!

We were only in the park for just 24 hours but it was amazing! The views in Ruaha are incredibly breath-taking and totally impossible to capture. Ruaha is vast and each area looks completely different ... and then of course there were the incredible animals that we got to see on our two safari drives! Below are just a few of the photos we took! (check out the Beckwith's Big Adventure album Our Mini-Adventure in Tanzania on Facebook for more photo's of the whole trip but especially the safari!)

Foxes River Lodge where we stayed was amazing. Literally staying by the river amongst the animals. Waking up in the morning we discovered that hippos had been wandering around our little banda during the night! 

There was also a pride of lions who were hanging out round the camp too (about 7 or 8 apparently!). At meal times we had walk a short distance (less than 5 minutes) to the restaurant which was set high-up on a rock with amazing views. 

We were advised that for the evening meal we drive there, as although there were Masai guys employed to walk us to and from our room, there was concern that our girls, being quite small, maybe a little too tempting for the lions!! Yes, really! The photo below shows one of the young males, about 4 or 5 years old who wasn't going to get the opportunity to snack on our girls!

Having done lots of driving over 3 days. We did one more stint on the road to stay at Kisolanza for a few nights R & R! We got to stay in a beautiful cottage, eat wonderful food and be completely looked after ... and be a little bit silly too!

One of the highlights there for us was ... wait for it ... feeling cold!! The elevation is a lot higher than Dodoma and being in the southern hemisphere it is 'winter' time. We really had to wrap up warm and it felt wonderful ... as did the need to use the log fire in our cottage! For those wondering ... it was around 10 degrees celsius (50 degrees fahrenheit). It's amazing what you get used to, it honestly felt freezing at times!

We explored a little bit around the farm and took a walk along a mini-dam. It all felt decidedly English and familiar ... so it was with great reluctance that we packed up and returned home!

On the way home we popped into Neema Crafts in Iringa. An absolutely amazing place where we had stayed on the first night of our trip. They provide handicraft training and employment to people with disabilities. The things that they make are beautiful (the girls next bedroom will be sporting some of the African bunting below!), as is the yumminess we were served in their cafe, which is run by deaf people, so the menu even includes some sign language you can use! To run something like this in a country where the majority of the staff would be marginalised because of their disabilities is truly inspiring! (Read up on the history of it on the link we shared!)

It really was a wonderfully timed break away from absolutely everything! Our favourite family adventure to date and we feel really privileged that living here in Tanzania, we have had the opportunity to do it!

Now the clock is ticking while we wait to see what comes next! ;)

School Holidays in Dodoma

The 5 week break from school is almost over! Yes, really! It began at the end of June (when we made our trip to Dar for medicals!) and school starts again on August 4th, so it seems strange when we hear about all our friends in the UK, just finishing the school year, as the girls get ready to start again. BOTH girls ... Naomi can't wait! 

In the meantime, with MAF officially closed, Mark and the few remaining engineers have a whole pile of extra unexpected work. We're pleased to announce however that a new company run by the ex-chief engineer and providing work for many of the ex-MAF, is well on it's way to being set up in the hangar. We're so happy that many of Mark's former national colleagues will still have employment even though MAF is gone!  

There is currently still no news on the Australia front, but Jenny and the girls weren't going to let that dampen their fun over the school break, although you have to get creative here as there is not much to do in Dodoma and nowhere to 'go'! As well as catching up with both ex-pat and Tanzanian friends, there have been play dates, birthday parties and sleepovers ...

Makeshift camps in the living-room, material and second-hand clothes shopping, and meals out, like the yummy Zanzibar mix and samosa's shown below!

Jenny and the girls also set themselves a crafty challenge ... to do some different kind of craft every day, which isn't so straight forward given the resources available here! From playdough to paper flowers, paper plate crowns to welcome home posters, birthday cards to paper lei's, heart tree pictures to paper plate weaving, straw necklaces ... the list goes on! Here are some of the photos we took ...

The lovely thing has been that with each project, the girls have always been thinking about who they can give each of their new creations to! Many of which they have allocated to some of their friends who are in the process of leaving. Below is a photo of Naomi with 2 of her friends, the one on the left will be here till the end and the one on the right left earlier this week with her family to a different part of Tanzania.

The girls have also been enjoying riding their bikes a little more too, to get rid of some of their energy after all the craftiness! Naomi has really cracked it (with stabilisers!) this holiday and never wants to stop! It's been fun to watch them improve as they cycle up and down our compound and we're really grateful that we were able to bring both bikes in the container with all our stuff last year!

There is just one week of the holidays left now before both girls head to school. We're pleased to be able to share that our temporary Tanzanian visas have just been renewed once again and we are not having to plan to leave the country in that final week ... but have instead planned a little adventure of our own to a different part of the country! Watch this space and we'll update you when we get back!