Getting you up to date

Well, apologies for not writing more. I will try and get you all a bit up to date with what we are up to so far. It is a great place, we are having a good time and we are keeping busy. There is so much to tell and show you.
I have taken some pictures of our new home so that you can see things and also try and give you a bit of a glimpse into what life looks like for us.

We are living in the admin centre of the Village of Hope. It has four rooms that can be used as bedrooms or rooms for use with microindustry, an office, a big open area that encompasses the part that we fondly call the kitchen and then there is a bathroom. We have as 'our space' one of the bedrooms. It has a bookcase that we store our clothes in and a makeshift string that supports coathangers, though we only have two at the moment so not much is on that. Some things are still in one of the suitcases - things that we don't need at the moment but we will need. The bathroom is good, with a sink, a very large shower area that makes it easy not to get water everywhere and a flushing toilet.



Of course, the shower only has one temperature of water, it is operated by a knob that resembles the thing you turn on a gas bottle. The cold water isn't a problem as it is hot and we normally have a shower in the afternoon and so that is fine. The harder part is that the water is not predictable, it is most common to start to have a shower and the water cuts out, it usually comes back! We are very appreciative of the flushing toilet especially since about the second night I had the runs and vomitting. It was not very pleasant. We share our accomodation with Luke who has been here for about 6 months I think. The reason I mention this is because the admin centre has no ceiling i.e. no sound proof - everything (and I mean everything) is heard throughout. Fortunately, Luke wears earplugs because he doesn't like hearing the dogs in the night - he was saved from some awful sounds in the night!
The kitchen area has improved as we have gone along. It was a table full of lots of stuff. I have been able to clean a whole lot of this up and a beautiful buffet has been bought. This holds the food, cutlery and crockery. It is important to put all the food safely away, of course we have a friendly rat - not that I have seen it yet, just seen evidence.
The big room is used by us and the children. In the afternoon they have dancing and singing. This can be very pleasant and sometimes also very very loud. It has also been a good meeting place for the team and the children. We are working on boundaries for the children. Luke and the other couple who were here did that and it is becoming very obvious that we need to. The most iconic thing that happens in the day is that usually just as soon as I am about to sit down to do something the children come and say "we have come to mop". This is the process of putting lots of water on the concrete floor and dragging a rag over the floor. I have worked out that it is much more effective if I have swept first, so I try to keep the floor swept all the time - just in case.
Outside the admin centre is a banana palm. I have never seen bananas grow and every day we are able to see a difference in the fruit as it grows. We are not sure if they are going to be green or yellow bananas. We are hoping for yellow and that they get long enough to grow big and nice. You can see Luke in the photo as well.

As I write there are children around me, Ron's computer has just run out of battery and so they have moved to me. They want me to type their names. I have with me
Peter, John, Sharon, Sam, Paul all here.

I will publish this now, as we are heading off to a final dinner with the team but I will put more pictures and write more tomorrow. Sorry about the ramblings.
This is the car that we have bought. It will make getting around a lot easier and cheaper in the long run. It will also mean that we can take children, mothers to places that are necessary as well as pick up food as necessary. We are aiming to use it as little as possible and to keep walking lots.

As I now add to the previous post it is now just Ron and I here at Village of Hope as far as Mzungus are concerned. Luke has gone with his family for a trip to Kenya and Zanzibar as well as to climb Mt Kilamanjara. The rest of the team have left. We are now about to find out about life as it will be.

Ron is busy with a number of local people finishing off the house, so that the roof can go on as soon as the container is here. This house has certainly gone up quickly.

Of course there is more that I can write and I will very soon.

Anne