We made it!

After a marathon trip, we made it to Muheza yesterday at 2pm after a 7 hour bus trip from Dar. All of us are jet lagged but otherwise well. It was certainly an easier adjustment coming the second time.

We have been out to the market twice to do shopping for the household and Simon was out early this morning to buy mandazi (local donuts) and bananas for breakfast.

The most noticeable change is that we have acquired a "donkle", the UK term for a mobile connection for the laptop that gives us internet access through the cell phone network. So if this continues to work, we can email regularly and from anywhere in Tanzania.

After a slow start this morning, we went for a walk and had our first full exposure to the heat. It was overcast and seemed only reasonably hot when we started but became too hot by the end and we still had to go to the market.

Thursday is big market day and today is also a holiday - Julius Nyerere day - the first president of Tanzania. The streets were full of sellers and buyers. We were looking for the new ATM we had heard was in Muheza and also a place to buy minutes for the dongle as well as a few things for dinner. We are making mchicha and a salad tonight and needed avocados and a mango - no mangos yet but we bought a papaya.

Although our Kiswahili is still appalingly inadequate, we did muddle along at the market and actually understood what the sellers were telling us when they told us how much they wanted us to pay.

As usual we paid too much but since we are talking the difference about 20 or25 cents an avocado it doesn't seem like being ripped off given what we would pay at home. Juliette the housekeeper thinks 10 cents an avocado is too much to pay.

The little children still yell at us as we walk by but it sounds more like a greeting and less like a cry of alarm this time.

Tomorrow we will hopefully touch base with Sister G and start planning what Simon and I will do at the school this time. We have so much less time than before.

Rose