Bruce's trip to Rushonga

Wednesday March 30th
I'd managed an excellent night's sleep so woke up feeling somewhat refreshed. The day looked like it was going to be fine at first, but then a thunderstorm arrived at about 9.30, much later than usual - they often seemed to start between 6 and 7. This time the rain persisted until the afternoon.
Filipo and Daniel came for breakfast, which we didn’t eat until 10 am - cold rice and chai as usual - and despite the tablets, I still felt very nauseous and only managed one cup of chai and a few spoonfuls of rice. Usually I'd drink anything up to four cups in the morning, knowing that there'd probably be no more fluids until dinner time unless I drank some water. Pastor had been out early and had bought some fish, but he didn't eat any breakfast; mama told me it was his day for fasting.
Bruce visited Fideli in the morning, and found out that his mother had been diagnosed as having severe malaria, jaundice, and dehydration. She had returned home the night before. We had news that Chris Hamilton might turn up so we were really looking forward to seeing her.
Lunch was quite late, 3 pm, and consisted of fish and rice - really yummy. I was starting to feel much better.
Bruce and pastor left after lunch to go to Rushonga, and got back around dusk. Bruce had bought a bit more time on the phone, so I was able to text a few people to let them know how we were. However, as he'd only bought two 500-shilling vouchers, I had to ration texts as I didn't know when we'd be able to buy any more. We heard from Michael Kikumbo, our Tanzanian son in Dar es Salaam, that he’d passed his English exams, so we were really pleased.
Whilst the men were away, a lady came to visit mama, and I went out to join them for a while. When she left, I chatted with mama for a while about all sorts of things. It was really good, and I was so pleased to be able to sit up for a while without feeling too tired.
Mama is really concerned about Rosemary's future. She says that the secondary school is a terrible place of immorality, and many young girls, even 12- and 13-year-olds, fall pregnant each year. She’d like their daughter to be able to attend a Christian secondary school like Harvest, but the huge drawback is the fees charged. Most families struggle to put their children through the government secondary schools – I think that nationally only 10% ever get to attend – and a private school becomes out of reach for all bar the rich or those able to get sponsors.
Dinner was really nice, we had sweet potato as well as fish and rice. Pastor joined in this time, which was good. Unfortunately I still couldn’t drink a full cup of tea.
The night ended up being a bit disturbed. Pastor had set his alarm for 2 am for prayers - we often heard him and mama waking up in the early morning to pray together. Just at the moment that the alarm sounded, a rat fell off one of the poles supporting the plastic over our bedroom right onto my chest! I let out a small shriek - but was rather relieved that the rat ended up abruptly on the floor and didn't do any running around on the bed! It made it rather hard to get back to sleep, because every time I heard another one on the wall or on the rafters, I got scared that it might fall off again and land on me!
We didn’t have the protection of a mosquito net on this visit. On our first visit in 2006, at 4 am on Christmas Day I was rudely awoken by a mouse just dropping in to say “Merry Christmas”! It landed right on my nose, but owing to the net, bounced off straight away.