Long Time No Blog

Well, unfortunately this is not the first, and probably not the last apology I will be writing, but it is sincere. I am sorry for the lack of blog posts recently. Life in Tanzania has definitely been changing and busy lately!

A quick re-cap of the past few months- the kids went on break in August which gave us some much needed time to re-organize as well as visit many of the kids in their respective villages. It was great to meet some new relatives and see the children in such a different environment! They went back to school at the end of the month, and have been busy studying, playing, losing teeth, learning and growing since then. Our Class 7 kids; Nancy, Richard Francis, Simon, Dicklucky, Happiness, Irene, and Richard Augustine all graduated and started a new Pre-Form 1 program we started with Usa River Academy and a tutor in Lushoto (for Simon and Richard F.). The Form 2 kids took their National Exams and have gone home early after a grueling few weeks of studying and preparation. We've had Visiting Day with Christmas Carols, and countless Doctor's Appointments for new glasses (Violethi), pulled teeth (Mathayo) and all sorts of interesting "issues". However, everyone is healthy and happy and excited for break on December 5th!

In the office, we've had a lot going on as well. We said goodbye to Alley Brindza, our amazing Scholarship Program Director (and my wonderful roommate), and hello to Fratern Tarimo, our new Managing Director. Fratern has jumped into his role running and has been an awesome addition to the TFFT team. Plus, he loves pizza (like Alley) so we get along well! We saw our two tutors Franco and Amani head off to University, which was exciting and brought on two new tutors, Lobulo and Daniel who the kids love. We have also been experiencing new power "rations" which boils down to no power every day either during the day or evenings and so...(hold applause) we got a generator! Life in the office has changed dramatically (as evident by this blog) since our new purchase last week. It's been great to continue working in office even when we don't have power and great to have some light in the evenings when I'm stumbling around the house.

Otherwise, we're settling into a nice rainy season with daily showers or downpours depending and much greener surroundings. The Jacaranda's are slowly dwindling, but still in bloom and the speed bumps out to school are being filled in- shaving at least 10 minutes off our trip each day! So life is good over here in Tanzania.

I'm going to see if I can't get a few belated blogs up as well. I'm back in the game!!