A whole week in Dar

We had a great few days in Dodoma last week with the family and friends. Though we lived there for over a year we never managed to do the main tourist activity of climbing Lion rock, but we managed that this time, well Edith, John-Luke and Paul. Paul had done it once before when he was on a visit to Dodoma on another occasion. Whilst there we were able to see most of the staff as this may be the last time the family will see them. We had a good drive up and back with the Ayling family, so it was great to spend some time with them.

Last week we also had a change of programme manager. Andy and Margaret Stratton left after almost a year in the chair, Andy had also been in and out of the programme over the past few years in other roles. We welcomed to Tanzania and Jez & Carina Simpson who originally was due to come and take over from Paul, but is now going to take on the role of programme manager. This has made a change for Paul as with Andy leaving Paul has been made accountable manager for our air operators certificate due to his experience in Mongolia as PM and accountable manager.

The children are back at school this week so have started their last term at Hopac and continue to enjoy school. They our often ready around 6.30 am to head to school and if they do not arrive before 7am they say they are late. Edith continues to help with the swimming at the school as well as this week she was in the MAF office helping Paul with the staff wages preparation, which was a great help to Paul as he had two weeks of Dar work to catch up on.

This week Paul has to complete the TZ 2013 accounts for the Tanzanian auditors who will be in Dodoma this week. He then needs to finish off both the January and February accounts, though most of the work is done he has to complete the actual accounts pages and send them out. There is also a back log of emails from being off last week.

As for the news from MAF UK unfortunately that was not as we had hoped, but thanks to MAFI and EMIUK we will now be able to apply for Edith's visa, so we are now waiting for the items to come in the post so please pray that these will arrive very soon.

Thank you all for your prayer and support we would not manage without them.

God Bless and lots of love from us all.

Paul, Edith, John-Luke and Gabriella