(be sure and click on “see images” to see all the cute pictures)
A Hodge Podge of Happenings
I went out walking around our new neighborhood this afternoon and some neighborhood boys wanted to walk with me. Of course they did, I had candy! They had made a little rolling stick toy and were laughing and having fun the whole way 
They can make the cutest toys out of nothing and have just as much fun as if it were store bought. I thought you might like to see the home of one of our closest neighbors. That is Neema’s new green roof just peaking up in the back of this home below.
Arusha may be a modern city of 1.6 million people but many Africans still live in houses in the city just like this. It does make us wonder how we can get so concerned about not having new furniture or a new car or whatever is the current “must have” in our lives at the moment. I would love to really live the motto “Live Simply so others can Simply Live” but I am afraid I am just as “must have” as the next person.
One of our Maasai babies, Nengai, whose mom died at her birth had a visit from her grandmother on Friday. The father’s new wife came with her. I asked the driver if she was twelve years old and he said no, she is eleven. Oh My!
Since we gave up our room at Neema to make room for the crawlers and have been staying out at the new property in the widow’s home, we are able to see the progress at the land as it is happening.
The baby home is basically finished, just a few odds and ends left to do but we are waiting to make the big move until we can drive the trucks up to the side door to unload furniture. They were packing the gravel bed down today and will start laying the paving stones on the driveway tomorrow. Those of you who bought bougainvillea I hope you can see your money growing beautiful in Africa along the drive way there.
On Saturday, we were cutting down a small hill by hand and hauling dirt to level the playground for the children. We still so need that tractor with a blade! Surely there is some farmer out there whose heart could be touched by the need of a tractor for this incredibly precious work of saving babies in Africa.
We ate lunch with the men building the new Neema on Saturday, lunch was quite delicious, a spicy tomato meat sauce poured over rice.
One lady cooks for all the workers, anywhere from 20 to 50 men depending on the different jobs going on at the time. Jamie Huddleston do you see how much rice she has cooked? Cooked over an open wood fire in a huge aluminum pot, it was still fluffy and wonderful.
We have had to say goodby to some great groups of volunteers in the last few weeks. But the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. We gained Taylor Wittel, Hannah Loban and Linda Johnson. We took them out to Moivaro Lodge this evening for a coke. We felt like we had driven up to the movie set of “Out of Africa.”
Maria Halapi and Ashley Berlin are coming in this next week and the architect group of 25 to 30 from Minnesota will be coming in tomorrow to begin building the UCare home. It will be a busy place around here for the next few weeks.
Our 41 Tanzanian employees got a raise this month. That usually means lots of dancing and trilling from the nannies. We had been promising to pay their transport to and from work when we could and since we will no longer be paying rent we thought it was the right time for our hard working nannies, guards, cooks and drivers to get a raise. Thank you to all of you who support this work and made this raise possible.
I’ll end this hodge podge of Neema news with a picture of two of our little Neema buddies, Rusty and Joeli. Our volunteers have taught us a new adjective to describe our babies. They tell us, these two are just too stinkin’ cute!!
