Grief is …. a slow crush from all sides. …. the tsunami I am holding back until some of the other things settle down a bit and it can break. …. the pea under my mattress, as I wake each morning, surprised that my body isn’t showing the bruises of […]
There was a discussion on a TAFES whatsapp group… should we impose fines for those who post irrelevant, off-topic or offensive material? The senior associate who suggested it was aiming at improving the quality of the group’s traffic. The fascinating thing was that the responses all spoke of whether or […]
We had three friends – a Kenyan, a Ugandan and a Tanzanian – come into our house for a visit and they were amazed at the children’s books on the coffee table, the basket of toys in the living room, and the posters around the house of daily routines, calm […]
As Arthur was dropping a colleague to the bus stop after she had come to do a sympathy visit with us, she told him that they really wanted to support and care for me. Was there anything else they could do? Arthur tried to work out what she was offering: […]
With my current lack of brain power, I expected my Swahili would take a hit, that the sluggishness I feel in English would mean remedial Swahili. Yet, the opposite has been true. I am unable to focus in English. (Posts like these ones which posted recently were written before Red […]
Our TAFES colleague Mr Seth came around for dinner a while ago. His wife wasn’t able to make it because she was organising things for their daughter’s kitchen party as she was about to get married. Just before the wedding it’s customary to have a ‘Send Off’, which the men […]
When you look at how Tanzanians manage money, it’s easy to conclude at first glance that they don’t have savings. To be sure, to have a savings account is still considered somewhat unusual. Even uni graduates and the middle class seem to have cash flow problems. It’s common for a […]
Meet Jesus at uni 