Tumechoka! (we are tired!)

We are writing this in the middle of a 3 week literacy workshop in our soon-to-be hometown of Mbeya. We have taken some time out of language school to travel 5 hours south-west to help at our future place of work. There are two workshops taking place; the first has seven language groups learning computer skills and translating booklets about various topics into their mother tongue, and the second has two language groups producing basic literacy primers to teach the consonants from their language. The participants are mostly pastors (‘Wachungaji’) from the different areas. We are full of admiration and thanks for these guys who are working in 3 different languages-their mother tongue, Swahili and English! It has been great to see so many people enjoying doing this work and being excited about helping others read and write their mother tongue!

In the small amount of spare time we have had here we have been exploring the town. Despite being one of biggest towns in Tanzania (4th or 5th biggest maybe), it does not feel like that. Mbeya is a sprawling town with many inhabitants but there is little money and so the town centre is small and laid back. This makes it a very pleasant place to live, if a little difficult to get hold of even basic things! Despite being on the main road from Tanzania to Zambia it is 800km from Dar Es Salaam and so it takes a little while for goods to get here!

Being at 1600m, the climate here is very pleasant at the moment. It is still rainy season so we have frequent storms, but when the sun is out it is warm; a lovely result of this combination of factors is lots of beautiful flowers!