Nana's Second visit to Dodoma

As we mentioned in our Christmas post. Jenny's mum came to visit us again. As well as celebrating both Christmas and New Year's with friends, here's a bit more about her trip!

She got up to all kinds of mischief while she was here, baking with the girls ...

Putting the Christmas face paints to good use ...

Having her hands sawn off during a play dough session ...

Lots of giggling and snuggling ...

We were able to introduce to her to many of our friends ...

This time round she had a go at tailoring her own African outfit, instead of having one made ...

As it was the school holidays for this visit, we all got to go away to the beach for a few days together in Dar Es Salaam which was wonderful.

  

We did a little bit of touristy shopping ... and went to some 'real' supermarkets, with shopping trolleys (seriously, when you live in Dodoma, that it REALLY exciting!!).

The choice of restaurants in Dar is huge compared to Dodoma too and the girls were really keen to go back to the Ethiopian where you don't have to use cutlery, to show Nana what it was like!

We had the chance to catch up with some of Nana's friends in Dar one afternoon too which was nice ...

And then, all too soon we had to say goodbye again and we drove back to Dodoma, while she travelled back to the UK.

First Christmas in Tanzania

As we're on January 2nd ... we thought we'd fill you in a little on our first Christmas here in Dodoma! To be fair, the essential parts were not all that different from what we would do anywhere else in the world!

There was the nativity play at Abigail's school. Form 2 put on a great pantomime-style production. Lots of fun!

The MAF family Christmas party at the hangar ... with a chance to meet some of the spouses and children of Mark's colleagues, complete with games and food.

Family coming to stay. Jenny's mum arrived for her second visit to us here in Tanzania.

Our traditional family un-traditional Christmas Tree, Christmas Cake. It had a collapsible issue that we hadn't previously experienced so we had to take the photo quickly before the landslide of chocolate cake began!

Christmas stockings with goodies waiting for the girls on Christmas morning.

Christmas presents of the more traditional variety (thanks to our container!) and also those that are a little different to what we usually give out!

A traditional Christmas meal with friends. We had 3 families, 13 of us all together, all sharing out the cooking.

We found Christmas crackers in Dar Es Salaam during our October visit ... and introduced our Swiss friends to them. Pop!

One thing that was a little bit different from previous years (apart from the heat of course!) were the Christmas bugs. They come out around December-time and are thumb-nail sized, red and fluffy looking. Rather cute for a bug!