Yesterday I had the chance to have a good laugh with two very different sets of ladies!
In the afternoon I had arranged to visited Jane (middle in the photo below), who used to be my classroom assistant, when I was the Standard One teacher at CAMS. She hasn't been very well over the last year or so and we've had trouble meeting up but finally we managed to work something out.
The other two ladies in the photo, Esta (left) and Rose (right) are still on the staff at CAMS. Esta has been the school secretary for 25 years and taught me my Swahili when I was teaching here! Rose has been teaching in the Nursery for a long time too and has been really looking forward to having Naomi in her class for the next academic year (which may or may not happen now!)!
Getting together with these three special ladies for an hour or two yesterday was a lot of giggles from the start. Picking up Esta and Rose to drive to Jane's house and both of them getting me lost was just the start of the fun! Catching up and sharing photos, them all telling me I needed to be more Tanzanian and have more babies and so the list goes on!
Earlier the same day I was having more giggles with two other very different ladies in my car ... however this was much more unexpected!
I got stopped by the police on my way through town. You never know what the police here are looking for or how they are going to try and catch you out, usually for some kind of payment, so as I pulled over I was trying to imagine what it was going to be this time! They are usually very businesslike and quite severe!
The policewoman who pulled me over took her time ambling up to my passenger window, so I thought I'd get my licence out ready for checking. When I looked up, a second police woman had appeared at the drivers window making me jump out of my skin and both of us burst out laughing!
Without any questioning whatsoever, both ladies then asked me for a lift to the other side of town, where I was going anyway, so I let them hop in. They fell in love with Naomi straight away and spent the whole journey in a mixture of Swahili and English (or Sw-inglish!) commenting on how well fed and healthy she looked, asking if I gave her vitamins and when I said no, just fruit and vegetables, asking me what type and how many times a day. They were really determined to get as much information out of me as possible in the space of the short journey!
It was so funny, so unexpected and so totally random that we all found ourselves giggling away and once we left them on their way, Naomi kept referring to them as "Mummy's New Friends"!! I think if we get stopped by these two again, we will only have friendly faces at the window to greet us!
Experiences like that are part of the highlights and quirks of everyday life, living here! Part of the adventure that we're on as family ... and so totally unlike living anywhere else we've been so far!
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