I am actually writing my first blog in real time while at the site

I realize many of you will not realize what a big deal that is, but is Mt. Kilimanjaro big.  For my entire six years as a missionary, I have had to travel to a larger town and type my blog in while I was somewhere that either had wifi or at least cell phone service.  As of this week we now have cell phone service in Kiruani.  

This comes with some ups and downs as well.  First the government moved ahead with their promise to cancel all  phones not registered using their new national id system (yes that is a thing here).  Since I only have a visa I could not get an id and my phone number I have been using was cancelled.  The local pastor is letting me use one of his extra phone numbers (most Tanzanians in any real position have 4 or 5 phone sim cards and numbers).  Using that phone card and the new tower, I have made a phone call home from the site without having to stand on one leg over the sewer pit like I used to do at my other site that would get me a minute and half of connection before it would die again.  I even watched a short show on Netflix at the site.  While all of this is great I will miss not being connected throughout the week.

There are other changes since being back at the site.  The rain has lessened so that the roads are no longer flooded all the time.  However the water is still up beside the road and it would not take much to flood again.  Possibly the 6 hour rain we got Saturday night may have done it.  It has been hot and humid ever since I got here which is very unusual this time of year.  

That picture is almost 9 at night with the temperature still 89 degrees in the house with the fan going.  It normally goes down about 4 degrees by morning.  It has bee so hot and humid that my bread lasts about 2 days before going moldy.

The kids are great and we have over 120 enrolled at the moment.  They are running two trips to pick them all up with the bus.  There are still a couple of kids I have not seen yet, but Haji, Grace, Kindness, Nice, Princess, and Ebenzery have all been clinging to me like they are afraid I will leave again.

We had our first Reading with Barnabas program Wednesday.  I am reusing some of the stories I showed last year, but I hope to break up the routine and start doing a separate video set for the older kids that is a little more educational than entertaining.

Please continue to pray for all of our students as they head into monthly testing this week.