26 October - No 1 Staff House, Mtwara Teachers' College

Woken at 5.00am to the loudest call to prayer I’ve heard since we arrived in Tanzania. The voice is insistent yet soulful and strangely comforting considering the time and the lack of sleep. We’d better get used to it because we’re here for at least a year, so it’s early to bed and early to prayer for us from now on.

The call to prayer wakes up the roosters who live right outside our house. Our house has no windows, just mesh, so when the rooster crows, it’s like having him bed with you. You literally jump. Yes, Sarah, literally! We had a busy day planned and Francis did not disappoint.

First to breakfast at an idyllic hotel overlooking the Indian Ocean. The hotel is pricey and as a result Francis was the only African there apart from the staff. We had eggs, sausage, papaya, fruit juice and brown bread with ‘Blue Band’ and coffee with milk, all for £2.00.We watched women cockling at low tide and fishing dhous skimming the azure horizon in the distance. We were briefly on a rather clichéd film set.

Then to the hardware store where we bought a fan, a water heater, extension cables and a mop and bucket. Buying these was not easy. First we had to persuade the assistant to serve us, rather than constantly allow herself to be interrupted by others. Then we had to persuade her to let us see the product before agreeing to purchase:

“You want a fan? Yes, we have one. 40,000 shillings.... What you want me to drag it out from the back so you can look at it?.... Wait a minute...What sir? You want a toilet coupling?.....What?. Yes. Fan- 40,000 shillings. No, no discount. The bucket you have to collect from across the road....”

At this point I had to turn away for fear I would laugh in her face. We had to cross the road and disturb two elderly ladies eating snacks and ask them first to let us see the electric cooker they had in store and secondly to supply the bucket we had already paid for. The cooker was broken and they didn’t know the price. The bucket was somewhere else, so she got in our car...yes there were now five of us in a car, Caroline clutching a mop, whilst the elderly lady directed us to another store where we could collect the bucket. Such fun I had not had in quite a long time.

By this afternoon, boys had come round to assemble the brand new king size bed which the bursar had personally been out to purchase that morning, the fondi came round to mend the table, the light fitting and the mosquito net, Caroline and I scrubbed sinks and floors and two young girls, Rosemary and Doreen, came round to scrub our brand new pans. They would not accept the offer of even a bottle of pop for their trouble. When we thought things could not get any better, we heard a gurgling in the toilet, looked at each other in eager anticipation and shouted, “Yes! Water!”

We leapt into the shower, washed hair, filled buckets and thought ourselves very lucky people. Apparently the timetable for the availability of water is irregular. I pointed out to Francis that if a timetable is irregular, it doesn’t usually qualify to be called a timetable. Francis chuckled and said, “No. You are right.”

Of these wonderful events today, the most moving was the arrival of the post. The Bursar brought the letter round personally. Yes. I know we only arrived last night, but this afternoon we opened a welcome letter from Gerard with his regular prayer sheet for Caroline. It took ten days via Dar-es-Salaam. Getting post from home is easily the best way of making us feel we are in our new home.

It’s 6.00pm. We are both showered and cool. Students are playing basketball outside and we are going round to Francis’ house shortly where he will demonstrate the use of the charcoal cooker we have purchased this afternoon. Provided our bed has been assembled correctly and the mosquito net doesn’t fall down, today will have been easily the best day since we arrived in Tanzania.

Rosemary (left) and Doreen outside our new home.