“This is such a heavy burden. May God give me strength to bear it.” This is what people say when they have been elected to Christian leadership in Tanzania. During elections, people are very reluctant to put themselves forward, always waiting for someone else to suggest them. Even the most […]
One of the common laments for westerners living in the majority world is how long it takes to do things. It’s often hard to work out why, so every now and then I record all the steps it takes for me to fix things. For example, it took me this […]
Since we moved house, I have joyfully returned to having house help. (The story of why is for another day.) Mama Pendo is a grandmother who comes twice a week to clean the house. This week she said to me very kindly, “Kama kuna tatizo, usinyamaze.” It means, “If there’s […]
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: […]
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 […]
