Our Temporary Normal!

So the new normal is only temporary but it's our normal for now!

Our visas for Tanzania are only valid until late October, so it was a HUGE sigh of relief last week when our visas for Australia were granted ... for the next 5 years! So, since our exciting safari adventure a few weeks ago, life has been settling into the newest and last 'normal' of our time in Dodoma.

Both girls are now at CAMS. The new school year started at the beginning of August, with Abigail going into Standard 2 and Naomi starting in the Nursery. Both girls are enjoying being at school, Naomi in particular is loving being a 'big' girl now ... and Jenny is enjoying the space to get on with other things, like packing!

We did joke, that even though the girls will only manage to complete the first term of the school year, their teachers would need lots of prayer! This was the pair of them just before heading off to school on the first day of term!

A couple of Abigail's friends have moved on since the end of last year but she's enjoying her new teacher, Mrs Idowa and her classroom is the one that used to be Jenny's when she taught at CAMS! Abigail even got the class merit certificate the first week of term for being good at Maths. In Topic though, they are talking about themselves and as Abigail is a year ahead, all her peers are 6 and 7 years old, none of them could believe she was still only 5! She's literally counting down the days until her 6th birthday in September!

Naomi's work is less strenuous! Singing, dancing, colouring, painting and playing in the playground. The Early Years Centre at CAMS for Nursery and Reception is a really fun place to be. Abigail loved it when she was in Reception and Naomi's teacher in Nursery is Mrs Vincent, an old friend of Jenny's, who Naomi loves!

As you can see though, for someone who had stopped having her afternoon nap a few months ago, school is so much fun, that most days Naomi misses out on a hour or two of the afternoon!

With no MAF bus anymore and apart from one other little girl in Nursery, no more MAF children heading to CAMS, Jenny makes the trip across town to school twice (sometimes 3 times) a day. Thankfully though with the increasing number of new roads and road repair in Dodoma, there is now a slightly better, quicker route, missing out the town centre completely which is great!

In the hangar things are continuing. While there are still some final bits of paperwork to complete the handover to CAS, Central Aviation Services, a new maintenance business run by the former MAF Chief Engineer, we're pleased to say it's all going ahead. Last week Mark came off fixing planes and along with the others, started the big inventory of all the remaining MAF property in order to sell it or ship it to another MAF programme. Everything needs to be counted, even down to the last rivet. Not the most exciting of tasks but all part of closing the programme.

At home things have started looking a bit different too. We are slowly sorting, selling and packing all our belongings once again ... made all the slower by the fact that for customs purposes, every item in every box needs to be listed. We started packing properly just over a week ago.

The good news that we would be definitely moving to Australia added a little bit of focus this weekend and has allowed us to be able to label each box with a destination! We are now 34 boxes and 3 suitcases down ... goodness only knows how many more to go!

We will continue to pack and to spend time with our favourite people here in Dodoma over the next few and final weeks. School will finish for the girls on October 3rd ... and so we foresee the big move to Australia sometime in the week or two after that. Already we are looking at the properties to rent in Mareeba online, but won't commit to anything until we actually get there. 

It seems slightly crazy to think that we're moving again so soon and to be honest the Australian visa news is still sinking in because it came as such a surprise to us. We had no idea that anyone had been assigned our immigration case or that the authority that needs to recognise Mark's qualifications and experience had even approved us! But we're definitely not going to argue with the decision!

At the end of the day though, the one thing we can be certain of is that God is in control and that Beckwith's Big Adventure is soon to be moving continents once again!

Southbound for a Mini-Adventure

With our visas renewed for a final three months, we had the chance to take what will possibly be our last opportunity for a mini adventure in Tanzania ... and it was so much fun!

The road from Dodoma to Iringa is almost complete and so instead of an 8 hour drive as it would have been just a couple of years ago, now takes just under 4, with very little traffic! Although, there are still a few unfinished stretches! Check out the dust cloud we left behind us on one of them!

We spent one night in Iringa and had the chance revisit the Amani Christian Training Centre where Jenny was part of a Soapbox Team in 1997, building a house and doing some work with street kids. 17 years later the house is still standing and being used ... amazing!

The next day, we drove down 'The Never-Ending Road' to Ruaha National Park. A couple of hours drive, with very little (no) tarmac in sight! It was definitely worth it all though!

We were only in the park for just 24 hours but it was amazing! The views in Ruaha are incredibly breath-taking and totally impossible to capture. Ruaha is vast and each area looks completely different ... and then of course there were the incredible animals that we got to see on our two safari drives! Below are just a few of the photos we took! (check out the Beckwith's Big Adventure album Our Mini-Adventure in Tanzania on Facebook for more photo's of the whole trip but especially the safari!)

Foxes River Lodge where we stayed was amazing. Literally staying by the river amongst the animals. Waking up in the morning we discovered that hippos had been wandering around our little banda during the night! 

There was also a pride of lions who were hanging out round the camp too (about 7 or 8 apparently!). At meal times we had walk a short distance (less than 5 minutes) to the restaurant which was set high-up on a rock with amazing views. 

We were advised that for the evening meal we drive there, as although there were Masai guys employed to walk us to and from our room, there was concern that our girls, being quite small, maybe a little too tempting for the lions!! Yes, really! The photo below shows one of the young males, about 4 or 5 years old who wasn't going to get the opportunity to snack on our girls!

Having done lots of driving over 3 days. We did one more stint on the road to stay at Kisolanza for a few nights R & R! We got to stay in a beautiful cottage, eat wonderful food and be completely looked after ... and be a little bit silly too!

One of the highlights there for us was ... wait for it ... feeling cold!! The elevation is a lot higher than Dodoma and being in the southern hemisphere it is 'winter' time. We really had to wrap up warm and it felt wonderful ... as did the need to use the log fire in our cottage! For those wondering ... it was around 10 degrees celsius (50 degrees fahrenheit). It's amazing what you get used to, it honestly felt freezing at times!

We explored a little bit around the farm and took a walk along a mini-dam. It all felt decidedly English and familiar ... so it was with great reluctance that we packed up and returned home!

On the way home we popped into Neema Crafts in Iringa. An absolutely amazing place where we had stayed on the first night of our trip. They provide handicraft training and employment to people with disabilities. The things that they make are beautiful (the girls next bedroom will be sporting some of the African bunting below!), as is the yumminess we were served in their cafe, which is run by deaf people, so the menu even includes some sign language you can use! To run something like this in a country where the majority of the staff would be marginalised because of their disabilities is truly inspiring! (Read up on the history of it on the link we shared!)

It really was a wonderfully timed break away from absolutely everything! Our favourite family adventure to date and we feel really privileged that living here in Tanzania, we have had the opportunity to do it!

Now the clock is ticking while we wait to see what comes next! ;)