Ups and Downs

Its been one of those weeks. Very wearing.

We started with a long weekend in Dodoma. We stayed in a Guest House owned by the Mission Aviation Fellowship which was a very nice, self contained unit. Irene enjoyed the swimming pool and had about 10 hot showers!!!!! Very clean.

We enjoyed a dinner at a near-by hotel – fish and chips and a steak which were excellent. One down-side is that they warned it would take about 25 minutes to cook but it took about an hour – still, we didn’t have much else to do.

Another down-side was that Irene’s back was bad so she couldn’t walk or travel far. Whilst she was recuperating by the pool with the rather large lizards, Malcolm went with the Walton’s to a village about 2 hours away to visit a friend from Mvumi who is now a pastor. We took gifts a maize and bananas – but left with more – a live cockerel (now consumed) and a sack of rice grown by the pastor’s family. We didn’t know rice could be grown in dry soil as we’ve usually seen it on TV in Chinese paddy fields. They put on quite a spread – much of it grown by the family – the rest bought especially in Dodoma the previous day - a long and uncomfortable bus journey.

And then, the second posh meal at the Dodoma Hotel which has a smart Chinese restaurant. Total cost about Tsh 70,000 for 4 – or £7.50 each including dinks and tip

It has been a tiring week at work. On Wednesday Malcolm attended a 6 hour meeting to prepare recommendations to the Health Board to change the Hospital structure. The Board met on Thursday – the meeting started at 10 a.m. and ended after 8 p.m. – the Tanzanians have some constitution. The decisions made about the Hospital were possibly seismic in restructuring the schools and making about 15 staff redundant, but are necessary to improve the quality standards and start to balance the budget.

Malcolm had to leave early to meet the Tax Inspectors who will be visiting the Hospital next week to audit PAYE. This was a routine discussion but the results of the audit will be difficult as they will not only assess that the Hospital has significant amounts of unpaid tax (as no sums deducted from salaries were submitted to the Tax Office for 2 years) but that staff have also had too little tax deducted. This means for some there will be arrears of tax to recover – more unhappy people.

Personally the major down was that we heard our dog, Ulyssess, died over the weekend. This was a surprise as although he had heart problems he was only six years old. It sounds as if he was healthy and happy but suddenly he had a heart attack. It’s a shame for us – we only hope not too traumatic for the family who were looking after him to see what owning a dog was like, and had realised how much they become part of the family.

The ups for Irene include:
- being given a hole-punch. This is after six weeks trying to fix papers into files using pieces of string through holes made with a screwdriver – try it and you will find out how wonderful a hole-punch is
- being able to speak a whole sentence in Swahili
- picking up her new outfit from a ‘fundi’
- swimming
- hot showers

Looking forward to next week:
· tomorrow is the graduation ceremony for one of the schools – only lasts for about 10 hours – we don’t think we will stay for it all (we don’t have the Tanzanian Constitution!!!)
· a Farewell celebration for Simon and Laura at the Hospital – a more manageable 2 hours
· the Tax Inspectors come on Tuesday
· still have to carry out a stock-take
· Malcolm picks up a new shirt from the ‘fundi’
· probably a long week-end in Dar es Salaam