Mvumi School Trust

I am better able to get the odd podcast now and have just listened to Bunny Guinness talking about the recovery from the hard winter in gardens in England.

We are watching crops wither and die in all but the best soils. The rain just won't come.

Walking to a home visit I saw sheets of card in the air which at first seemed to be enormous birds but so high it was bizarre. They were immediately over us but tracing them down and realizing there were also branches and rags in the twisting air we slowly and stupidly concluded we were walking beside a whirlwind. The spooky part was that the air around us was quite still. It ripped a roof off a house less than a hundred yards away.

Another night recently an electric storm grew up inside a huge bank of cloud that became a screen showing awe inspiring varieties of lightning - there were even colours. Disney and Beijing couldn't outdo it. We all watched it with our mouths open. There was no thunder, and no rain only total silence - eerie.

After another home visit but this time in the car, the sun was very low and blinding and I saw a huge dust cloud on the horizon. There was a dark base line to it and my first thought was that it was a herd of hundreds of cattle. But of course in this semi-desert no one moves hundreds of cattle at once. It was hundreds of people. They were processing and drumming and singing and ululating in a gaggle behind a totally straight row of witchdoctors at the front. They were dressed in black and had painted faces and looked only straight ahead as they marched (thank goodness for that - it was calculated to be, and was, very intimidating). They were reacting to the drought. Anyone they blamed for the rain not coming would have my sympathy.

The visiting dignitary for Graduation Day was a Tanzanian MP of 15 years who originated from here and from poverty. He remembers there having been frosts in winter and of course it was all heavily wooded ("Jungle Doctor" was here). He was involved with Kyoto in some way and he said they had no real idea how quickly the effects of global warming would come but we are clearly heading to become not just semi desert.

It all seems apocalyptic and yet on we go with our routine.

The famine looks to be more than likely. There will have to be registered food distribution points and probably that will be Father John again.

My new sponsored students are all a total joy and two of the boys curtseyed when they were given some of the things we give now automatically at the start of their time, possessions being a new thing for them. They mix with a few privileged and even spoilt children from modern homes who come here for our cheap fees and perceived safety because of the remoteness. It must be bewildering at first. But not one of them complains and not one of them stops trying.

Am missing home but am horrified by the financial misery the media are wallowing in. Chin up! All will be well!