We are now half way through our time in Tanzania but things have not gone so well in the last two weeks. After such a fast start we suppose some set backs were inevitable. The major problem has been water; we still have not got it connected to the school and the vehicle that brought water in each day broke down. The result was that we completely lost 4 days building. We have now found a new source for water deliveries but it is still expensive. The problems of getting the water supply to the school have been very frustrating. There seem to be ever more breaks in the pipe and some repairs have had to be done more than once. Then, at the start of last week, our lead plumber just disappeared and we eventually discovered he had gone to Dar Es Salaam to deal with some family problem. We hope he will be back next week!! By the end of this week we decided enough was enough and told the Community Leaders to go away and identify all the breaks in the pipe so we could come up with a firm estimate to fix it – we will no longer pay for one fix at a time in an apparently endless list of problems. Otherwise we have threatened to connect the school to the main pipe at a more distant point where we know the supply is good - but it will also not give any water to the community. The other big change has been the weather. We have had some huge thunderstorms and rain right through the night for most of the last week. Everyone is wondering if the main rainy season, due in March, has started early. But it has settled the dust and encouraged Sue to get on with developing the school vegetable garden. If we could have just captured some of that rain we would have no water problems. We hope to start detailed planning for a rain water tank next week

Another source of frustration has been the Bank (in the UK). After last year’s problems we had planned carefully which Bank to use and how to make transfers in the most efficient way. But they just forgot to tell us a couple of the rules so that didn’t work. And just for good measure they have also locked up (electronically) the account where we were holding the money. Fortunately we had moved most of the money before we came so we have had to raid our savings and ask Andrew(son) to send the balance to us. We will sort it all out when we get back to the UK. In the meantime a complaint has gone into the Bank but guess what – they will only reply in writing to our home address. Is it all banks or just the one’s we chose that are particularly unhelpful?! But there have been good times as well. Last Sunday we had lunch with a UN judge who Sue met at church last year– from Uganda working on the Rwanda trials.

This weekend we had a very good Safari to Manyara with Haruma, the same guide as we had last year. The birds were wonderful and there were lots of Tembo (elephant) and Twiga (giraffe). We also saw the tree lions of Manyara for the first time We are staying healthy and the weight is coming off quite quickly now. We are both very brown. Sue’s back continues to play up from time to time but seems better than it was – maybe the result of doing rather less over the past two week – but then she gets bored and frustrated when doing nothing so we can’t win!! She has been knitting endless glove puppets (wool at 35p a ball) for all the local children. Our Love and best Wishes to you all

After last week’s rather downbeat note, we thought a more positive supplementary might be appropriate. At long last we have got water to the school. It is still not totally reliable and there are still some problems to be fixed but the community have taken complete ownership and are working very hard without any further help from us (we did agree to buy some pipe connectors and a length of pipe but nothing more). So great is there ownership that when a tap was broken last week they immediately said it was not our problem and that if the school broke a tap they must pay for a new one. All very encouraging and rewarding!!

And after a lengthy debate between the school committee and the staff we have also started to build a 50,000 litre rain harvesting tank. This week 3 young men have been digging a hole 4 meters across and to be 3 meters deep. It is really hard work for which they are paid the princely sum of 3,000 shillings per day (that’s £1.40 to those in the UK).