18 October

The Amabilis centre where we are staying is run by the Mgolole Sisters. It is beautifully clean, built in a square around an open courtyard, in a Spanish style; with short corridors housing six rooms, each with two beds in each wing. Two toilets, two wash basins and two showers serve each wing. Each room has an electric fan and each bed has a mosquito net. When the electric fan in one room broke yesterday, an electrician was called quickly and the fan was mended by the end of the day.

The same can’t be said for the water. In each shower and in each wash basin there is at least one tap that drips. Last week, water was running down the tiled floor threatening to enter our rooms. When the plumber was called, he stopped the drips but failed to install the taps correctly so exactly the same thing will happen again in a few weeks time. I won’t go into the need to take a large bucket of water to the toilet to ensure all waste actually leaves the building! Suffice to say it uses a lot of water. In the garden, an outside tap fed from a natural spring in the mountain above us, runs – not drips – continuously; this in a country where water is scarce and where most travel long distances carrying water precariously on their heads or the back of a bicycle.

Continuing the review of kiswahili words with an uncanny similarity to English, we have “foleni” (full lane) for traffic jam, “baisikeli” for bicycle and my favourite today, especially for my son Peter, an electrician ... a “spaki” (pronounced sparky)!

17 October

Up early this morning to catch a glimpse of the wild animals in the Mikuni National Park. Our coach was here at 5.00am, the nuns had packed a superb breakfast of samosas, hard boiled eggs, bananas and bread and jam and we raced to the park gates to be there before the animals could wake up. We were not disappointed! Giraffes, elephants, wildebeest, buffalo, and warthogs abound; but on a tip-off on a mobile phone we headed for the water hole where a submerged hippo was basking in mud and on the other side under the shade of a twisted tree, lay four very sleepy and very full lions – three cubs and the lioness. Next to them was a half eaten zebra, presumably snatched at the water’s edge.

Both days this week-end Morogorro – a town of 100,000 people – has been without electricity. Shops with small generators could just about carry on business but most places had fridges out of order. The fact that so few places have air conditioning anyway is perhaps one reason why people accept quietly this disruption, which in Europe would probably bring people on to the streets. The power cut didn’t stop Caroline nor the many hundreds with her, attending the fourth mass of the day at St Patrick’s.

Later.......

I’ve just returned from our regular outing at 8.30pm each evening. We visited Elvis’ bar or “e-pub” as Elvis’s barmaids’ tee shirts proudly pronounce. It’s easily the best bar in town and five minutes walk from our centre. It’s run by a huge and hugely impressive bloke called Elvis whose dad was a fanatic for “The King” and Elvis has tried to cash in ever since. The music is country with some easy listening thrown in and the TV is always on. Tonight, the TV was screening east Africa’s very own version of Big Brother. It was just as dire and depressing as the UK version and perhaps, even more depressingly, a collection of local Tanzanians, wearing Arsenal shirts, whooped and cheered throughout. Hardly any mzungo (Europeans) frequent this bar and we are always looked after because we tip well and the atmosphere is very friendly. I haven’t witnessed any aggressive behaviour since I arrived here two weeks ago – early days I know, but this bar in any small town in England would be stopping fights every Sunday night.