Cuppa?

Any one for tea?! Recently we saw this, adverting "fine tea". Have you noticed its registration?! Good eh!

The cow is 'dry' so we're drinking lots of black tea this week, finding it rather refreshing, helping us through what feels like a mountain of various tasks, wearing a variety of 'hats'. With our local and international finance staff members gone Jez has been number-crunching, sorting/authorising/paying bills and local staff salaries (not as straightforward as one would think, writing budgets and re-presenting properties for sale to the open market, along with the other jobs awaiting more attention. Our computers have been giving us grief, losing whole swathes of contact names and addresses ... similarly our marvellous-MAF support-team back in Folkestone office seem to be in short supply of the addresses too. No prizes for guessing what we shall spend the weekend fixing/updating. Praise the Lord for a capable hubbie! Now did you know Jez used to be an aircraft engineer, first in the RAF and then at Yorkshire Light Aircraft, based in Leeds? I expect he'd like to pop that 'hat' on too, just for good measure! (ooops looks like he's forgotten his safety boots!)

Our poor ol' gardening helper has been off sick: typhoid and malaria, so there's been little attention given to the hard, dry ground along with dead, crunchy leaves which blow and swirl all around us, through the mozzie window screens+nets and into the houses/beds! After an hour or so one can write names on the table and shake out a pillow or two: achooo!! Even so we do love the lack of rain here and the continuous warm temperatures (for now anyway, whilst it's still bearable!), providing us with lovely fruit - here's some that hasn't reached the mouths of those precious Safina children: passion fruit! Blended together with avocado it makes a delicious and nutritious drink, highly calorific I don't doubt. Our avocado trees are lovely and leafy but no sign of fruit yet; the mango tree has loads of small fruits forming - the wind frequently knocks them off and onto our tin roof making a right ol' clatter!! We did, rather amazingly, have a short and oh-so-sweet downpour a few days ago, according to the locals it was totally unheard of in Dodoma at this time of year, at least until late November : "maybe God is changing things" we've heard said!

And this picture's here just because the colours match - and yes, folk do say it here, though more often than not its "hamna shida" but means basically the same!

Onwards and upwards then my friends!
May God bless your weekend.
From Jez and Carina with love