Yesterday I had a meeting at Elliot’s school. He’s fine, there are just some extra strategies to implement at home. And I came home and could not cope with my life. Dinner was avocado on toast. Arthur got the boys through the bath. We aborted family prayers halfway through. I […]
I’ve been benefiting from listening to a Swahili women’s podcast ‘Wanawake wa Imani‘ (Women of Faith). One of the recordings is a talk on John 4, Jesus’ encounter with the Samarian woman at the well. I was especially encouraged by the comments made about the bit where the woman asks […]
One way we help our boys to process their lives is by telling them “Elliot the Dragon” and now “Callum the Dragon” stories. We just make them up according to what seems particularly pertinent at the time. Someone heard me tell one to Elliot the other day and suggested I […]
My grief counsellor showed me this diagram: It’s about ‘grief work’, which is a combination of doing two things: feeling the loss, and working out how you will go on. Healthy grief work is like a pendulum. You swing between the two, and the swings are big at first and […]
“We always assume our way is normal,” I told the group I was teaching on cross-cultural communication last week. This thought was still bumping its way around my head as I thought about the birthday cake I was about to make. Five of the TAFES staff are September birthdays, and […]
Yesterday I ran a session for university campus workers on crossing cultures. I was the teacher, but I learned heaps too. For example, I learned that the way people treat children is a key way in which you can judge their character. I knew that interacting with children is very important […]
Since we moved to Dar I’ve been pretty isolated. I can’t get a work visa, but being a stay at home mum is not really a thing in middle-class Tanzania, so it’s been hard to even find people to be friends with. I had an American friend who worked full-time […]
Meet Jesus at uni 