Ok so I am currently sitting in Dar airport again waiting for my flight to take me home for another visit. So I figure this is the best time to update my blog. And I am sure I haven't done a blog for a wee while.

I can't remember exactly when my last blog was as I have no Internet connection right now so I'll just fill you in on the month of January, and if it turns out I haven't written anything about Christmas and new year yet then I'll edit that in later.

We'll it has continued to be a quiet month in as much as a lot if people were still on holiday or had visitors or for some reason were wanting to wait to get back to a normal routine here. So I haven't actually been back to visit Buguruni school for the deaf or the orphanage this year, although the other ladies went last week for the first time this year but I haven't been feeling well this past week so I decided to give it a miss. I always found the orphanage quite difficult to do because the children are screaming, they hit you and throw stuff at you and cover you in their food. And it seems now that Instead of going to both the orphanage and Buguruni on a Wednesday we are now going to do only the orphanage on a Wednesday and go to Buguruni on a Tuesday afternoon instead. Which causes me a slight problem in that my cleaner, Mary, comes in a Tuesday afternoon, so I will have to change her days. But it is a good change because we are now going to be able to teach the deaf children English on a Tuesday afternoon so it will mean we are able to make a difference whereas before we just went there and mingled with them. Now we can actually help them. The collection of clothes, shoes etc has started again too. I was able to help, just this past couple days, to wash a couple loads of clothes and fold/iron and sort them. I quite enjoyed doing that and really hope I am back to Dar in time for them to be distributed again.

Well my friend, Sadia Turner (wife of Keith Turner who works with Paul and is also our neighbour) has finally come back to live in Dar full time. Unfortunately Keith suddenly had to go back to Houston after she's only been here two weeks. But I have spent this past two weeks trying my best to get her out there, meeting people, making friends, and getting involved. And she's done very well, much better than I did, so I think she will be fine with her husband being away and now I am gone too. But we have had fun. We had a couple dinner parties, one in our apartment, then one in their apartment, which was the first time Sadia had ever cooked a proper meal, and she did great. Lots of things learned I think too. So I think I will be asking for her help when I return because she'll have really got into a routine by then!!

We also joined the gym, just after Christmas haha. Decided enough was enough, although it's not made much difference. For the first 3 weeks I was doing something every day, sometimes twice a day, just to get our money worth, as it cost $208 for me and Paul for 1 month. We started playing squash too, turned out I am rubbish at it but it is fun just to bat about the ball and really gets a good sweat going!! I also started doing Zumba classes (only did 2) which also made me realise I have absolutely no co-ordination and I cannot dance haha!! But it was fun too so I will hopefully be able to continue with that when I return. And after all that exercise, on the 3rd week Paul had a cold so he barely went, and on the 4th week I caught his cold and so I have not worked out all week and I feel very fat and lazy again all of a sudden and I didn't lose ANY weight grrrr so annoying!! But when I get back I am hoping our complex gym and pool will be open so I won't have to pay for gym membership again and I can just use the complex stuff and also there is a clean swimming pool, full size, nearby (2 minute walk) so I might use that and do more swimming to be kinder on my body. I need to get back into shape as its doing my nut in, hardly any of my dresses for me any more, and most of my clothes are uncomfortable tight!!