Sometimes the things that you take for granted in the States
are the things that mean the most here in Tanzania. It has been very hot here
lately, and we noticed last week that our fan wasn’t blowing out air anymore.
The fan was running and oscillating normally, there was just no air coming from
it. We were pretty sad to have lost the use of our fan, to say the least! We
mentioned it last night to Beth, and she asked if we had put the plug in upside
down. The fan runs on DC power. Apparently, plugging it in upside down caused
the fan to run backwards, blowing the air out of the back instead of out of the
front. Sure enough, when we checked our fan, that’s exactly what we had done.
What a wonderful relief to have a working fan again!
Running water is another luxury in the States. In order for
the guest house to get water, the four 3,000 liter containers on the ground
must first fill with city water. Once those tanks are full, the water is then
forced up into our 3,000 liter container. We had a wonderful 10 days with
water, but then the city water turned off. With the tanks not filling up, we
weren’t able to get water to our house. Thankfully, even though we may not have
running water, we still have water that we can carry into our house. On
Saturday, we got a wonderful surprise. When we turned the taps on, we had
running water again!
The kids have exams this week, and then they’re out of
school for just over a week for their mid-term break. Karen and I are hoping to
finish up our schedule and plan the activities for that week. We’re planning on
having several sessions of classes each day with the kids. Of course, the kids
will have some downtime too during the day, so we have some fun activities to
plan too!
