whoa, it's been a busy month

The blog doesn't say so, but it was a busy August. We still haven't gotten permission from the government and university to do the research that we were supposed to do this summer, but we had lots of other tasks, like visiting organizations and government officials, and furnishing the project house. Here are some events and pictures from August:

Three times we drove (Justin drove, we were passengers) south to visit other towns in the region for work. Njombe is a large town, far enough away that we had to stay overnight. Once, we broke up the trip and stayed on a farm in between Iringa and Njombe.

Lucky us, the staff made a mistake and upgraded us to a luxury cabin.



We took the day off and hiked around the farm, stopping to see their crops, cattle, and lakes.




On one of the trips to Njombe, we stayed with some new-found Danish friends, on their farm. They had tons of fowl, goats, sheep, and cows




as well as a bunch of pigs. These little piglets were just 4 days old.




Njombe has a club that was once the British colonial club, complete with a library of old books and a snooker table. It's a bit like pool, but the table is huge.



Part of our work-related travels were documented in a Tanzanian newspaper!






Back at home, we put our fireplace to use. Yes, it is cold enough in Iringa to have fires!




Juma roasted hot dogs over the fire, and invented a new dish: chocolate hot dogs. He claims it was good. Later, Justin has a metal worker make a grill for the fire, so we can cook lots of yummy stuff.




Since we moved into an unfurnished house, Justin has been having a carpenter build us furniture (Iringa region produces timber). Here's a view of the empty dining room



and now with our 8-chair table.



We also bought some tables that are serving as work desks for now in our once-empty living room. (We still don't have couches or anything.)






We also had beds made, then fancy mosquito nets.




Right now, we are in Zanzibar for the end of our trip. We got to see the new baby boy of our friends we met last year. Meet Nuh (Arabic version of Noah).