Another great fortnight for me out in Tanzania. I just wish that time would slow down a little!

Rob arrived a fortnight ago to spend a week in Milly with me, which was just wonderful. The villagers were, as always, delighted to welcome another Mzungu and he was given a typical Milly welcome of singing and bum wiggling! He spent the week helping to build two new classrooms for the school here, which I think he found hard work and exhausting but, nevertheless, rewarding. These new rooms are very much needed at Milingano school, since many of the current classrooms are in a poor state of repair (one of the classrooms that I currently teach in has a deep crack across the floor, a blackboard that cannot be written on with seemingly any type of chalk and a roof which is deteriorating so rapidly that parts of it fall off at irregular intervals during my lessons!). Rob integrated into the Milly community very quickly and joined in playing with the kids, helping with the Maktaba and the evening lessons. At the end of the week we visited Yamba which, of course, Rob fell in love with - I challenge anyone to visit this magical place and not immediately be enchanted!

I think Rob was a little overwhelmed to see how much I have settled into my life here and how used to the customs and culture I am! I think that coming back to the UK is going to be a big shock for me after living in Milly for 3 months! I don't know how I will react when I see people walking around showing their knees and shoulders! In Milingano and Yamba, it is culturally forbidden to show your knees, to the extent that volunteers must check that the outline of the knees is not visible in any way through a long skirt or trousers.

Rob left last Saturday and me and Emma immediately settled back into our two person routine! It is amazing really to think that I have spent every day for 2 months with just one person, who back at the start of September I had never even met. I am incredibly fortunate that we get on so well - it could have turned out very differently!

The last fortnight has brought a great deal of torrential rain, which has seemed to imitate golf balls being launched at the corregated iron roof that we sleep below! As a result, I am just a tad sleep deprived! The rain is wonderful news for the farming communities of the Usambara mountains since up to now, there have been three concurrent failed harvests and the situation had become so serious that food aid had to be distributed in Milingano not long ago. The weather has disrupted my English teaching a little though!- one of the subjects on the Tanzanian curriculum is, of course, farming and so the rain has resulted in the last two school days being turned into 'farming lessons' at the school's shamba. It is a little disturbing to see hundreds of kids standing in a line in the torrential rain, shaking with cold and hoeing the ground as part of their education. I just hope that the crops grown somehow go towards the school's resources and not into the teachers' stomachs!

The highlight of this week was visiting one of my students, Patrisia, and her extended family in her home. As one of my favourites, I jumped at the chance to meet her family and see her living conditions. We were provided with tea and sweet bread and had a lovely afternoon, despite her youngest sister screaming with dread as we approached and seemingly attempting to throw things at us because we are Mzungus! Patrisia lives and sleeps with her two parents and six siblings in one tiny room of a mud hut with a straw roof. To us, these living conditions seem horrific and it demonstrates the poverty that the people of this village do live in. However, this is all that they are used to- and they are happy. Of course, they would rather have successful harvests so that they can feed their families; of course, they would rather be able to afford more than one set of clothes; and of course, they would like to be able to pay for their children to attend secondary school... but you never hear the people of either Yamba or Milly complaining or moaning. They are grateful for what they have and, despite their poverty, they are the kindest, most generous people I have ever met. There is a great deal that Westerners could learn from the people in this remote African village!

Anyway, that is enough rambling from me!