We are ending our 1st Semester Term for 2023. The date for the end of the 1st semester moved from June 16 to May 31st for some reason. That means my flight out is not until June 19 because I planned to be here until the end of the semester.

We have a lot going on. Let me start with the sad news. Cutie Pie, the puppy, has passed on. A dog’s life here is tough and puppies often don’t survive. Sometimes they don’t survive their owner, wild animals including some predator birds, or just things they eat or drink that is hazardous to them. She was with her family when she died so I am not sure what really happened. The student she lived with, the one who technically owns Buttercup and Max, is prone to embellishing the truth sometimes (read as often). She is missed but considering how many bug bites she had I am sure she was in pain a lot.

The rains have stopped in the village area, though the cities are still getting rain. One unfortunate part of the flooded roads is damage to the vehicle you don’t know about. I have spent the last two weeks getting mounts replaced and getting the transmission oil pan beaten back into shape. Nothing like spending 6.5 hours one day and 4.5 another getting things done then having to return the following week for another 4 hours. Most of this time there were two or three mechanics working on the car. While it was expensive for parts, the labor charge was around $40 for all the work.

At the school the kids are happy, learning and having fun. We are currently doing our end of semester testing through the end of the week. We have switched from rewarding just the top three students to focusing on students who get grades above 70 getting a reward.

Last week we had a challenge with another private English medium school to test our Class 3 students. I am still awaiting the results but hopefully both groups have done well. We also have had the girls scrimmage in a football match (European football). We had a lot of fun and this was the first real effort to implement girls sports which I have been harping on for a couple of years. Nobody here thought girls sports were important or needed but I kept pushing.

We also have received 65 trees from the sugar plantation near our school and they have joined with a local NGO (non government organization) to plant and water the trees. Unfortunately no one from the NGO or the school staff did any calculations about the amount of water needed to water 65 trees. Normally it is 5 gallons in the morning and 5 gallons in the evening depending on type of tree. With our dry air that is needed to keep them alive. 5 gallons is roughly 20 liters so they water 65 trees with close to 40 liters per day. That comes out to 2,600 liters per day or 2.6 times our small tank that they keep using to draw water from or half our large tank. They never thought it was going to be that much so they did not plan or prepare to fill the tanks as much as they needed to. So several days no shower and several days lunch or breakfast was late while they went to get fuel to run the water pump generator because we never stock extra of anything in Tanzania we always wait until we run out to start to think about getting more.