Some years ago my friend Emily gave us the book ‘Owl At Home’. It’s an early reader collection of short stories, and it’s become something of a classic in our family. In one of the stories, Owl makes himself ‘tear-water tea’ by thinking of sad things and crying until he […]
“Maybe we should just go home next year,” Arthur said to me. It was a question of how we can best use our resources. The money we raise for our family’s living expenses is maybe 90% of the entire national staff budget for TAFES. Nationally, there are about 20 staff. […]
This day last year, 14th March, we got the call: get to the airport, this is the end. There was a strong possibility Red Twin would die that night while we were making the 30 hour journey. Our family sat at her bedside saying in between her Cheyne Stokes breaths, […]
Kufa kwa wengi ni harusi means ‘For many, (a) death is a wedding,’ where wedding is representative of a big party. When I first heard this proverb, I assumed it was about people who die, that for them death is a happy thing or a release. It’s not that. The […]
Once upon a time there was a little dragon called Elliot. He lived in a lovely cave with his Mama Dragon, Dadda Dragon and toddler brother Callum dragon. Their cave had a wonderful big yard that the little dragons loved to play in. Before they lived in this cave with […]
I feel like the longer we are here, the more I see how much we have to learn. If we spent our first three years trying to get our heads around prosperity gospel, I have spent the last few years trying to get inside Tanzanian understandings of hierarchy, and it […]
I told Elliot this story on the way to school one morning. At the end I asked him if he thought it was just a story, or if the ending would come true. Once upon a time there was a little dragon called Elliot. He lived with his Mama Dragon […]
