Sorry, I couldn’t resist the Sound of Music reference. Sorry again if the song is now stuck in your head!
On Sunday, 14 December, Sarah and I went to our friend Andrew Russell’s sending service at his church, Chang’ombe. Andrew is a USPG missionary (www.uspg.org.uk) from England who’s been here in Tanzania for the last three years working for the Anglican Church of Tanzania as the Project Officer for the Tanzania Anglican Youth Organization (TAYO). We actually met Andrew on our very first full day in Dodoma and we’ve been happy to have him as a friend since then.
The morning actually started in a rather entertaining way. Andrew’s church is not the easiest place to find. Andrew had told me that he had to be shown how to get to the church about three times before he was actually able to find it on his own and I can definitely understand why! We arranged to meet Andrew on the side of the road and then follow him to the church building. The last text message I had from Andrew giving me directions to the meeting point ended with the words “look for my bright blue beetle.” It felt vaguely spy-movie-esque. Vaguely. Work with me here.
Callum and Laura agreed to drop Sarah and I off at Andrew’s church before they had to get to the Cathedral to lead the music for the English service. We made it to the meeting place and saw the blue beetle (VW) with no trouble. We could actually see the beetle from quite a distance away. We then proceeded to follow Andrew’s car through more twists and turns than I could have imagined and we were glad that we were following him and not trying to make it to church on our own. We might still be trying to find it. We finally arrived at Chang’ombe just as the service was starting and were ushered over to the church door by an elder of the congregation. Callum and Laura tried to get the Land Cruiser to start again so they could get to church but the vehicle didn’t want to cooperate. We were led into the church before they got the Cruiser started again, so we tried to listen for the motor from where we were sitting, which was, of course, the front of the church. We finally saw Callum and Laura driving away about 10 minutes or so after we arrived. They made it to the Cathedral, but were about 10 minutes late for the service. According to a friend who was at the service, Laura went straight up to the front of the church and led the congregation in the first song! That's dedication.
Meanwhile back at Chang’ombe, we enjoyed a service that felt very much like an Episcopal service back in the US with one obvious difference of course - it was in Swahili. (Ok, two obvious differences, there were multiple dancing choirs at this service as well.) Thankfully, I’d remembered to bring my Swahili prayer book and hymnal with me so I could follow along. I had to listen carefully, but I could actually understand enough Swahili that I could pick up on the readings for the day so I could follow along in my English Bible. Aside from Sarah and me, some of Andrew’s other friends came to the service as well: Josh, an American who works for the Mennonite Church, Andy, from Switzerland (I can’t remember where he works) and Lianne, our friend who works at the Dodoma Deaf School and lives at the same housing compound as Sarah. Bernard, Andrew’s successor at work, was also there. We were happy to see him again as we’d met him during his first week on the job several months ago. He was the official photographer for the day and also helped translate for us.
Andrew was the preacher for the day and spoke in Swahili for a good 20 minutes with no problem. I can only hope that I’ll be able to speak Swahili that well at some point. I manage about a minute and a half now if I speak slowly. I didn’t catch much of what Andrew said which was unfortunate as he used on of my favorite passages as the basis for his remarks (Philippians 4:4-9 in case you’re interested), but I could get a few words and phrases here and there. I was even able to understand one complete sentence at one point. It was an exciting moment! The most entertaining moment of the service came when we had to introduce ourselves. We were all sitting at the front of the church and literally just as Lianne stood up to introduce herself it started pouring outside. The church has an iron roof which is held up by wooden beams. There is no insulation or anything between the roof and the ground other than the beams and air, so, as you can imagine, it was a bit loud. Poor Lianne got all the way through her introduction only to be told that no one could hear her! She tried again with a microphone, but between the static from the microphone, the noise of the rain and her rather quiet voice, no one was able to hear her. The rest of us where just told to shout our introductions. That seemed to work.
After the service was over (it was about 2.5 hours long), we moved to a room in a building next to the church and sat with the priest and his family, Frederik, the former priest of Chang’ombe (who had introduced Andrew to the church) and his family, and some other members of the congregation. Frederik had me move across the room away from Sarah, Lianne, Josh and Andy to sit by Bernard so we could sort of mix things up and not have all of the visitors just sitting together. So, Bernard and I chatted about where he’s from, the Diocese of Mara, his work and living in Dodoma. We also chatted about Barack Obama and the United States. It turns out that Bernard’s home diocese is actually linked with Andrew’s diocese back in the UK. It’s a small world.
During the course of the hour or so we all spent sitting and chatting together, we were asked some questions about Barack Obama by several people. It was an interesting experience, as so far everyone here has been very excited about Obama’s election. That didn’t really seem to be the case here. Basically, several people wanted to know if we thought Obama would do a good job and if we thought we could trust him. The trust question was specifically related to press about Obama and his relationship with Muslims. It was a bit awkward, but our responses seemed to be good enough. We were told, though, that if Obama does a good job we can rejoice, but if he does not, it’s our fault for electing him. So there you go!
After we’d chatted for a bit and everyone drank a bottle of soda, we went back into the church for the second part of the send off. The church had been redecorated and a table set up at the front for Andrew, the two priests and their families to sit at. This second part of the send off was a bit less formal than the church service, though really still quite formal all things considered. There were more speeches and opportunities for people who hadn’t spoken at the service to talk. I should also mention that the send-off was also for Pastor Frederik and his family as he is now working or studying (I can’t remember which) at St. John’s University in Dodoma.
The church women had prepared lunch for everyone-no small feat as there were about 100 people there! One of the women had baked Andrew a heart-shaped cake which was presented to him before lunch and then cut up into small pieces so everyone could have some. After lunch was finished, it was picture time. I have no idea how many pictures were taken, but believe me, it was a lot.
Despite the fact that the day was a bit longer than we’d anticipated (we didn’t get home until almost 4pm), I really enjoyed going to the service. It’s always great to meet new people and visit new churches here in Dodoma. Everyone was very welcoming and told us we should come back. It was also really great to see the relationship that Andrew has built with the congregation at Chang’ombe. Everyone wanted to say goodbye to him with a handshake, a hug or a picture-often all three. He’ll obviously be missed!
While it was great to be a part of Andrew’s send-off, it was also sad. Andrew was one of the first people we met here in Dodoma and will soon be gone. We certainly didn’t see each other every day, but it was nice to run into each other around town and have lunch together occasionally. According to my mother, I haven't liked saying goodbye to people since I was little. Obviously, I haven’t grown out of that.
I’ll have to figure out a way to convince Sarah to stay…
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Sunday Service at Chamwino Mjini
On Sunday, November 30th Sarah, Magi, Callum, Laura, Noel and I went to the 7:30am service at Chamwino Mjini, also known as Chamwino Urban in the Carpenter’s Kids world to help differentiate it from Chamwino Maduma which is another of our parishes. Interestingly enough, I have now figured out why we call the parish Chamwino Urban in all of our files. Mjini literally means ‘in town’ in Swahili. The things you learn when you study a language.
Anyway, back to the story. The priest of Chamwino Mjini is the Reverend Canon Philemon Sudayi who is the father of Mmoti, our Carpenter’s Kids Program Administrator. We initially met Canon Sudayi in August when the Reverend Ellen O’Hara, the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Pleasant Valley, NY which is linked with Chamwino Mjini, visited Dodoma as part of the ENDY pilgrimage group. Canon Sudayi is always happy to chat with Sarah and I whenever we see him in the Carpenter’s Kids office or around town. He’d invited us to attend a service at his church awhile ago and we were happy that we were able to find a date that was convenient for everyone.
Now of course we thought that we’d just come for the service, like you’d expect to do when you go visit a church, right? Not so much. Callum, Noel and I went out to see Canon Sudayi about a Carpenter’s Kids matter the week before and after we’d finished discussing that we talked about the Sunday service. Imagine our surprise when he said, “So, you will come to the service and you will do the readings, and you can sing and someone can preach.” Thankfully, Callum plays the piano and Laura sings, so the music part of that proposal was no problem. We figured that we could do the readings, but we didn’t know if anyone would want to preach. After a quick check with Magi and Sarah, we confirmed that no one in our group really wanted to preach, so we told Canon Sudayi that we could do a song and the readings.
We didn’t think to ask him when we were there at the church what the readings for the following Sunday would be-why I don’t know. I asked several people during the week but no one knew. Finally, on Saturday morning as we were driving toward Izava for a distribution, Noel looked at the chart in my prayer book and found the readings. It would be that easy. I tried to read part of the gospel lesson as we were in the car, but my stomach decided that reading while sitting sideways in a bumpy Land Cruiser was not the best use of my time. When we got back from our distribution, Magi told me that she had gotten the readings from Pastor Noah as well. It was nice to know that the chart in my prayer book was accurate. We’d also stopped by the church to confirm one last detail with Canon Sudayi when we’d first arrived back in town, and it turned out that we only needed to read 2 of the lessons for the day, the Old Testament reading and the Gospel. Since I’d already started to look at the reading from Matthew in the car, I volunteered to take that one. Foolish, foolish me. It was the longer of the two! Magi said she’d read the passage from Isaiah.
While Canon Sudayi said that we could do the readings in either English or Swahili, I thought it would be good to try to read in Swahili. Of course, when I first got that idea stuck in my head I’d thought I’d know what I would be reading sooner than the night before the service. Nonetheless, I decided that I was going to try to read the Gospel in Swahili. Why there are so many syllables in Swahili words, I’ll never know. There were so many long words in that passage! I think I read the passage in my head and out loud a good 10 times Saturday night. It sounded ok, by the time I finished practicing, but it was late and I was tired so maybe it really didn’t.
Sunday morning, we all piled into the car and made our way to Chamwino Mjini. I asked Noel to read the passage from Matthew aloud so I could hear how it was actually supposed to sound. He tried to read slowly, but it still sounded like it was coming at the speed of light to me! We arrived at the church and were warmly welcomed by Canon Sudayi and one of the church catechists and then shown to our seats, at the front of the church, of course. Noel and I went outside so I could practice reading again with him listening to correct my pronunciation. Canon Sudayi came outside to get us and told me that I could read it in English if I wanted to, but that people would appreciate me trying to read it in English even if I needed to stop and switch to English part way through.
The service was great. It was a traditional communion service complete with several choirs, including a great group of Carpenter’s Kids singing and dancing. Callum and Laura sang O Come, O Come Emmanuel to an appreciative audience. About a third of the way through the service, Canon Sudayi asked us to introduce ourselves to the congregation-in Swahili of course-and I was able to read a short note that I’d received from Ellen O’Hara to the congregation with Noel providing the Swahili translation. Everyone was very happy to hear from Ellen through us and was pleased that she remembered her visit to their church so fondly.
A short time after that, Magi read the passage from Isaiah in English and Noel went up with her and read it in Swahili. Then it was my turn. Thankfully, Noel went up with me and held the microphone for me. I was even more thankful that there was a podium that I could set the Bible on so that I didn’t have to hold it. Noel announced the reading in Swahili since I didn’t know how to do that. Then I started reading. I did ok for the first few sentences but then I started to get nervous. I made it all the way through the reading-I think it was about 11 verses long-but by the time I was done, I had started holding on the sides of the podium so people wouldn’t see how badly my hands were shaking. While my reading was not even close to resembling fluent Swahili reading, I think people were able to understand what I was saying and, if not, most people had their Bibles open and were following along so they could at least read it for themselves.
Canon Sudayi asked Magi to assist with communion and Sarah got some great pictures of her, which are on Magi’s computer so unfortunately I can’t show them to you. At the end of the service, Canon Sudayi asked us to say something to the congregation. I said something in Swahili, I honestly can’t remember what though. I think it was something along the lines of ‘Thank you very much for welcoming us. We are very happy to be here at Chamwino Mjini and see all of you today.’ It was much easier to say that than to read in Swahili! After we’d finished speaking, Canon Sudayi had us process out of the church with him and the catechist. Outside we shook hands with the two of them and then we shook hands with every other person in the church-about 200 people.
At the end of every service we’ve been to, with perhaps one exception, we go out the front doors of the church and shake hands. We do that back home too, but it’s different here. What happens is this: you leave the church and shake hands with the priest, the catechist, etc, then you get in line next to them so that the person behind you shakes the priest’s hand, the catechist’s hand and your hand before taking their place next to you in the line. So since I was the 4th person out the door, behind Canon Sudayi, the catechist and Magi, I shook hands with all 3 of them and then joined the line, with Callum, Laura and Noel following suit. Sarah was taking pictures so she missed out on the line. By the time the church was empty, there was a large line of people that curved its way around the parking lot in front of the church. It’s actually really nice, but you sure do shake a lot of hands!
After we’d finished shaking hands, Canon Sudayi invited us to tea at his house which is right next door to the church. We washed our hands before entering the sitting room and were then offered tea, coffee and hot chocolate as well as mandaazi and sambusas. Canon Sudayi was only able to stay long enough to thank us for coming and introduce us to his wife before he had to go back to the church for the second service of the morning. We were joined by Richard, the Carpenter’s Kids Communications Coordinator, who I believe may also be the Committee Chair, and several committee members. One of them looked very familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why. Then Magi introduced us to her. She’s Bishop Mhogolo’s sister! That’s why she looked familiar. They look a great deal alike. She was very nice and was quite taken with the song that Callum and Laura performed and asked them to sing it again so she could remember the melody. They did, and we all joined in so they didn’t have to sing alone, and then gave the Bishop’s sister the music and lyrics. We had a nice visit with everyone and took a group photo before heading home.
I’m sure we’ll go back and visit again. They have a very nice congregation and are very supportive of their Carpenter’s Kids.
Anyway, back to the story. The priest of Chamwino Mjini is the Reverend Canon Philemon Sudayi who is the father of Mmoti, our Carpenter’s Kids Program Administrator. We initially met Canon Sudayi in August when the Reverend Ellen O’Hara, the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Pleasant Valley, NY which is linked with Chamwino Mjini, visited Dodoma as part of the ENDY pilgrimage group. Canon Sudayi is always happy to chat with Sarah and I whenever we see him in the Carpenter’s Kids office or around town. He’d invited us to attend a service at his church awhile ago and we were happy that we were able to find a date that was convenient for everyone.
Now of course we thought that we’d just come for the service, like you’d expect to do when you go visit a church, right? Not so much. Callum, Noel and I went out to see Canon Sudayi about a Carpenter’s Kids matter the week before and after we’d finished discussing that we talked about the Sunday service. Imagine our surprise when he said, “So, you will come to the service and you will do the readings, and you can sing and someone can preach.” Thankfully, Callum plays the piano and Laura sings, so the music part of that proposal was no problem. We figured that we could do the readings, but we didn’t know if anyone would want to preach. After a quick check with Magi and Sarah, we confirmed that no one in our group really wanted to preach, so we told Canon Sudayi that we could do a song and the readings.
We didn’t think to ask him when we were there at the church what the readings for the following Sunday would be-why I don’t know. I asked several people during the week but no one knew. Finally, on Saturday morning as we were driving toward Izava for a distribution, Noel looked at the chart in my prayer book and found the readings. It would be that easy. I tried to read part of the gospel lesson as we were in the car, but my stomach decided that reading while sitting sideways in a bumpy Land Cruiser was not the best use of my time. When we got back from our distribution, Magi told me that she had gotten the readings from Pastor Noah as well. It was nice to know that the chart in my prayer book was accurate. We’d also stopped by the church to confirm one last detail with Canon Sudayi when we’d first arrived back in town, and it turned out that we only needed to read 2 of the lessons for the day, the Old Testament reading and the Gospel. Since I’d already started to look at the reading from Matthew in the car, I volunteered to take that one. Foolish, foolish me. It was the longer of the two! Magi said she’d read the passage from Isaiah.
While Canon Sudayi said that we could do the readings in either English or Swahili, I thought it would be good to try to read in Swahili. Of course, when I first got that idea stuck in my head I’d thought I’d know what I would be reading sooner than the night before the service. Nonetheless, I decided that I was going to try to read the Gospel in Swahili. Why there are so many syllables in Swahili words, I’ll never know. There were so many long words in that passage! I think I read the passage in my head and out loud a good 10 times Saturday night. It sounded ok, by the time I finished practicing, but it was late and I was tired so maybe it really didn’t.
Sunday morning, we all piled into the car and made our way to Chamwino Mjini. I asked Noel to read the passage from Matthew aloud so I could hear how it was actually supposed to sound. He tried to read slowly, but it still sounded like it was coming at the speed of light to me! We arrived at the church and were warmly welcomed by Canon Sudayi and one of the church catechists and then shown to our seats, at the front of the church, of course. Noel and I went outside so I could practice reading again with him listening to correct my pronunciation. Canon Sudayi came outside to get us and told me that I could read it in English if I wanted to, but that people would appreciate me trying to read it in English even if I needed to stop and switch to English part way through.
The service was great. It was a traditional communion service complete with several choirs, including a great group of Carpenter’s Kids singing and dancing. Callum and Laura sang O Come, O Come Emmanuel to an appreciative audience. About a third of the way through the service, Canon Sudayi asked us to introduce ourselves to the congregation-in Swahili of course-and I was able to read a short note that I’d received from Ellen O’Hara to the congregation with Noel providing the Swahili translation. Everyone was very happy to hear from Ellen through us and was pleased that she remembered her visit to their church so fondly.
A short time after that, Magi read the passage from Isaiah in English and Noel went up with her and read it in Swahili. Then it was my turn. Thankfully, Noel went up with me and held the microphone for me. I was even more thankful that there was a podium that I could set the Bible on so that I didn’t have to hold it. Noel announced the reading in Swahili since I didn’t know how to do that. Then I started reading. I did ok for the first few sentences but then I started to get nervous. I made it all the way through the reading-I think it was about 11 verses long-but by the time I was done, I had started holding on the sides of the podium so people wouldn’t see how badly my hands were shaking. While my reading was not even close to resembling fluent Swahili reading, I think people were able to understand what I was saying and, if not, most people had their Bibles open and were following along so they could at least read it for themselves.
Canon Sudayi asked Magi to assist with communion and Sarah got some great pictures of her, which are on Magi’s computer so unfortunately I can’t show them to you. At the end of the service, Canon Sudayi asked us to say something to the congregation. I said something in Swahili, I honestly can’t remember what though. I think it was something along the lines of ‘Thank you very much for welcoming us. We are very happy to be here at Chamwino Mjini and see all of you today.’ It was much easier to say that than to read in Swahili! After we’d finished speaking, Canon Sudayi had us process out of the church with him and the catechist. Outside we shook hands with the two of them and then we shook hands with every other person in the church-about 200 people.
At the end of every service we’ve been to, with perhaps one exception, we go out the front doors of the church and shake hands. We do that back home too, but it’s different here. What happens is this: you leave the church and shake hands with the priest, the catechist, etc, then you get in line next to them so that the person behind you shakes the priest’s hand, the catechist’s hand and your hand before taking their place next to you in the line. So since I was the 4th person out the door, behind Canon Sudayi, the catechist and Magi, I shook hands with all 3 of them and then joined the line, with Callum, Laura and Noel following suit. Sarah was taking pictures so she missed out on the line. By the time the church was empty, there was a large line of people that curved its way around the parking lot in front of the church. It’s actually really nice, but you sure do shake a lot of hands!
After we’d finished shaking hands, Canon Sudayi invited us to tea at his house which is right next door to the church. We washed our hands before entering the sitting room and were then offered tea, coffee and hot chocolate as well as mandaazi and sambusas. Canon Sudayi was only able to stay long enough to thank us for coming and introduce us to his wife before he had to go back to the church for the second service of the morning. We were joined by Richard, the Carpenter’s Kids Communications Coordinator, who I believe may also be the Committee Chair, and several committee members. One of them looked very familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why. Then Magi introduced us to her. She’s Bishop Mhogolo’s sister! That’s why she looked familiar. They look a great deal alike. She was very nice and was quite taken with the song that Callum and Laura performed and asked them to sing it again so she could remember the melody. They did, and we all joined in so they didn’t have to sing alone, and then gave the Bishop’s sister the music and lyrics. We had a nice visit with everyone and took a group photo before heading home.
I’m sure we’ll go back and visit again. They have a very nice congregation and are very supportive of their Carpenter’s Kids.
Izava and Mayamaya
On Saturday, 29 November, we had our final distributions of the year in the parishes of Izava and Mayamaya, linked with the Church of the Good Shepherd, Granite Springs and the Church of the Good Shepherd, Manhattan respectively. All I knew about the two parishes was that they were very far away from Dodoma. So far, that we had to leave at 7:00am to get there-we usually leave around 8:30am.
So, 7:00am rolled around with Callum and me expecting to only see Willie and John Joseph picking us up from our compound. Well, that didn’t actually happen. Willie and John Joseph were there, but so were three other people: two girls from Itiso parish who are Carpenter’s Kids and go to vocational school in Dodoma and a committee member from Izava. Noel arrived on his piki piki about a minute after the Land Cruiser. Now when we are going to do two distributions on the same day the Land Cruiser gets pretty full because we have 100 uniforms, 100 pairs of shoes and 100 backpacks full of school supplies. So, we had all of that, plus the two girls’ suitcases and bags because their school was on vacation until some time in January, the two girls, the committee member, Callum, Noel, Willie and me. We hadn’t even picked up Sarah and John yet!
When we got to Sarah’s compound and she saw the number of people already in the vehicle, the look on her face was priceless. She got in and we set off for Msalato to get John. We got out at his house to meet his wife and see his puppy and then he got in, bringing the total number of people in the vehicle to ten plus lots of stuff. Thankfully, one of the girls moved up to sit in the front with John and John Joseph so there was a little bit more room in the back. Not much, but it made a difference. Then we began the long journey to Izava, which is one of the northernmost parishes in the diocese. It was also raining, did I mention that? Let’s just say that we now understand why we try to avoid doing distributions during the rainy season. Dirt roads and rain are not the best combination.
We drove north for awhile and then the landscape changed a great deal. There were mountains and a forest and everything was green. It was great! After about 2 hours or so, we got to Itiso and the two girls got out of the Cruiser. We said goodbye to them and continued on to Izava with more leg room, which we all appreciated a great deal by that point. We arrived in Izava by about 10:00am and were warmly welcomed by the priest’s wife. The priest was away for some reason, but his wife invited us to their house for tea and chapati. During the conversation, it somehow came up that Callum and I had Chigogo names, but Sarah didn’t. So, people thought for a minute and then gave Sarah the name of Mamvula which, loosely translated, means ‘when the rain comes.’ It was raining when we arrived, so it was definitely an appropriate choice. Rain is also seen as a great blessing here, as you can imagine, so that adds a nice additional meaning to the name as well. Of course, since we all had Chigogo names we had to use them in our standard introductions. This went over really well. Callum’s name made people laugh and clap. His Chigogo name means ‘Chief.’
The funniest part of the morning, though, came when John Joseph introduced himself. He’d been outside while the rest of us were introducing ourselves and came in just as we were about to start the distribution. He introduced himself and when someone asked him what his Chigogo name was, Noel piped up with ‘Mahikwi!’ Everyone started laughing. Well, everyone that is except Sarah, Callum and me. Our Chigogo is non-existent beyond maybe 5 words. A member of the committee told us what mahikwi meant and then we knew why everyone was laughing. It means pumpkin! I immediately decided to call John Joseph Mahikwi Lishe, a play on the term Mama Lishe (the women who take care of the Carpenter’s Kids), which made Willie laugh. John Joseph tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t.
The rest of the distribution went well. We went back to the priest’s house for a soda and a bit of a rest before heading off to Mayamaya. We thought that when we left Izava we’d be able to sort of stretch out a bit in the Cruiser since we’d have fewer people and not as much stuff in the back. We were wrong. Willie bought a huge bag of peanuts in Izava, but that went on the top of the vehicle, so that was fine. We gave the priest’s wife a lift to a neighboring village and wished her well. We were all just getting comfortable when we came to a village that was on the side of the road and stopped. Willie got out and walked over to one of the houses out of which a woman had just come. It turned out that she was from Dodoma and had worked at Furaha Hostel with Pastor Noah. He had dropped her off at the village on his way to do a parish review about a week earlier and then had arranged for us to pick her up. We waited for a few minutes for her to gather some things together and then Willie loaded the baskets and bags of peanuts and beans into the Cruiser. Then we were on our way again, slightly squished but not too bad all things considered.
We arrived in Mayamaya, met the priest and conducted the distribution with no problem at all. Everyone was very happy to see us and after we finished, we were invited to the priest’s house for lunch. Of course it was mid-afternoon by that time, but we had lunch nonetheless. In the course of the conversation, we learned that the priest’s wife had just given birth at a hospital in Dodoma and so we told the priest that we’d be happy to give him a ride to Dodoma. As we were getting ready to go home, we saw John Joseph and Willie loading large bags of charcoal on the top of the Cruiser. Four of them. So, by the time we said goodbye to everyone in Mayamaya we were almost as full as we had been when we first set off in the morning! I have to say, though, lack of legroom aside; I really admire the sense of community here. No one thinks twice about lending a hand when it’s necessary.
As we headed home to Dodoma, it started to rain again. We splashed through numerous large mud puddles as we drove. The Cruiser got a nice mud bath. We stopped at a big market near Msalato so John could get some meat from a butcher and then continued on. The only time we had a little trouble on the road was when we hit a patch where they’d obviously been trying to fill in some potholes with dirt. The only problem was that the dirt had just been put down all over the road and it was really soft. When combined with the rain, it created driving conditions similar to having soft snow and ice on the road. At one point we skidded to the side of the road and got stuck. Thank goodness for 4-wheel drive! John Joseph put the car in gear and off we went. Not everyone on the road was so lucky. There was one little car that was just stuck in the middle of the road. This prompted Noel to call the driver a ‘Shamba Boy,’ the Swahili equivalent to a country bumpkin, I guess, and Noel’s insult of choice when he thinks someone does something stupid. I should point out that he didn’t actually call the driver ‘Shamba Boy’ to his face, he just muttered it in the confines of our vehicle. No road rage here.
We dropped John off at home and wished him a good rest of the weekend. Then we dropped off the woman from Furaha Hostel at her home and then the priest from Mayamaya at the bus stop he wanted to go to in Dodoma. John Joseph and Willie dropped Callum, Sarah, Noel and I off at Callum and my compound before heading home for the weekend. It was 6:00pm. A long day!
So, 7:00am rolled around with Callum and me expecting to only see Willie and John Joseph picking us up from our compound. Well, that didn’t actually happen. Willie and John Joseph were there, but so were three other people: two girls from Itiso parish who are Carpenter’s Kids and go to vocational school in Dodoma and a committee member from Izava. Noel arrived on his piki piki about a minute after the Land Cruiser. Now when we are going to do two distributions on the same day the Land Cruiser gets pretty full because we have 100 uniforms, 100 pairs of shoes and 100 backpacks full of school supplies. So, we had all of that, plus the two girls’ suitcases and bags because their school was on vacation until some time in January, the two girls, the committee member, Callum, Noel, Willie and me. We hadn’t even picked up Sarah and John yet!
When we got to Sarah’s compound and she saw the number of people already in the vehicle, the look on her face was priceless. She got in and we set off for Msalato to get John. We got out at his house to meet his wife and see his puppy and then he got in, bringing the total number of people in the vehicle to ten plus lots of stuff. Thankfully, one of the girls moved up to sit in the front with John and John Joseph so there was a little bit more room in the back. Not much, but it made a difference. Then we began the long journey to Izava, which is one of the northernmost parishes in the diocese. It was also raining, did I mention that? Let’s just say that we now understand why we try to avoid doing distributions during the rainy season. Dirt roads and rain are not the best combination.
We drove north for awhile and then the landscape changed a great deal. There were mountains and a forest and everything was green. It was great! After about 2 hours or so, we got to Itiso and the two girls got out of the Cruiser. We said goodbye to them and continued on to Izava with more leg room, which we all appreciated a great deal by that point. We arrived in Izava by about 10:00am and were warmly welcomed by the priest’s wife. The priest was away for some reason, but his wife invited us to their house for tea and chapati. During the conversation, it somehow came up that Callum and I had Chigogo names, but Sarah didn’t. So, people thought for a minute and then gave Sarah the name of Mamvula which, loosely translated, means ‘when the rain comes.’ It was raining when we arrived, so it was definitely an appropriate choice. Rain is also seen as a great blessing here, as you can imagine, so that adds a nice additional meaning to the name as well. Of course, since we all had Chigogo names we had to use them in our standard introductions. This went over really well. Callum’s name made people laugh and clap. His Chigogo name means ‘Chief.’
The funniest part of the morning, though, came when John Joseph introduced himself. He’d been outside while the rest of us were introducing ourselves and came in just as we were about to start the distribution. He introduced himself and when someone asked him what his Chigogo name was, Noel piped up with ‘Mahikwi!’ Everyone started laughing. Well, everyone that is except Sarah, Callum and me. Our Chigogo is non-existent beyond maybe 5 words. A member of the committee told us what mahikwi meant and then we knew why everyone was laughing. It means pumpkin! I immediately decided to call John Joseph Mahikwi Lishe, a play on the term Mama Lishe (the women who take care of the Carpenter’s Kids), which made Willie laugh. John Joseph tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t.
The rest of the distribution went well. We went back to the priest’s house for a soda and a bit of a rest before heading off to Mayamaya. We thought that when we left Izava we’d be able to sort of stretch out a bit in the Cruiser since we’d have fewer people and not as much stuff in the back. We were wrong. Willie bought a huge bag of peanuts in Izava, but that went on the top of the vehicle, so that was fine. We gave the priest’s wife a lift to a neighboring village and wished her well. We were all just getting comfortable when we came to a village that was on the side of the road and stopped. Willie got out and walked over to one of the houses out of which a woman had just come. It turned out that she was from Dodoma and had worked at Furaha Hostel with Pastor Noah. He had dropped her off at the village on his way to do a parish review about a week earlier and then had arranged for us to pick her up. We waited for a few minutes for her to gather some things together and then Willie loaded the baskets and bags of peanuts and beans into the Cruiser. Then we were on our way again, slightly squished but not too bad all things considered.
We arrived in Mayamaya, met the priest and conducted the distribution with no problem at all. Everyone was very happy to see us and after we finished, we were invited to the priest’s house for lunch. Of course it was mid-afternoon by that time, but we had lunch nonetheless. In the course of the conversation, we learned that the priest’s wife had just given birth at a hospital in Dodoma and so we told the priest that we’d be happy to give him a ride to Dodoma. As we were getting ready to go home, we saw John Joseph and Willie loading large bags of charcoal on the top of the Cruiser. Four of them. So, by the time we said goodbye to everyone in Mayamaya we were almost as full as we had been when we first set off in the morning! I have to say, though, lack of legroom aside; I really admire the sense of community here. No one thinks twice about lending a hand when it’s necessary.
As we headed home to Dodoma, it started to rain again. We splashed through numerous large mud puddles as we drove. The Cruiser got a nice mud bath. We stopped at a big market near Msalato so John could get some meat from a butcher and then continued on. The only time we had a little trouble on the road was when we hit a patch where they’d obviously been trying to fill in some potholes with dirt. The only problem was that the dirt had just been put down all over the road and it was really soft. When combined with the rain, it created driving conditions similar to having soft snow and ice on the road. At one point we skidded to the side of the road and got stuck. Thank goodness for 4-wheel drive! John Joseph put the car in gear and off we went. Not everyone on the road was so lucky. There was one little car that was just stuck in the middle of the road. This prompted Noel to call the driver a ‘Shamba Boy,’ the Swahili equivalent to a country bumpkin, I guess, and Noel’s insult of choice when he thinks someone does something stupid. I should point out that he didn’t actually call the driver ‘Shamba Boy’ to his face, he just muttered it in the confines of our vehicle. No road rage here.
We dropped John off at home and wished him a good rest of the weekend. Then we dropped off the woman from Furaha Hostel at her home and then the priest from Mayamaya at the bus stop he wanted to go to in Dodoma. John Joseph and Willie dropped Callum, Sarah, Noel and I off at Callum and my compound before heading home for the weekend. It was 6:00pm. A long day!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
On the road again…with an unexpected passenger
I realize that it’s been awhile since I’ve written a post for my blog, so sorry for the silence! It’s not deliberate by any stretch of the imagination, but things get really busy and I put off non-work related things for when I ‘have time’ or for when I’m ‘not tired’. Before I know it then, it’s been over 2 weeks since I last wrote something. So, here it goes…
The last few weeks have been busy. We’ve had distributions in Nzuguni, Chinangali B, Mchito, Makanda, Mnase and Hombolo Bwawani over the past 3 weekends. These all went quite well. We were warmly welcomed in each parish and I enjoyed meeting more Carpenter’s Kids and seeing parishes that I hadn’t been to yet.
Nzuguni and Chinangali B are very close to Dodoma and we were able to travel on the paved Dodoma-Dar es Salaam road almost the entire way to both parishes which was a great treat. Most of the time we are on unpaved dirt roads that make me feel like I’m at an amusement park playing bumper cars. I’ve hit my head on the roof more times than I can count when we go over bumps. We always take our older Land Cruiser when we do more than one distribution on the same day and though it’s a sturdy vehicle for the most part, it isn’t the most comfortable as those of you who’ve visited us will undoubtedly remember. There are two seats in the front (the driver and the front passenger) and the back consists of two benches that can sit 5 people each, though I’m sure we could probably cram more people into the back if we had to. Needless to say, leg room is not exactly plentiful and Sarah and I have quickly learned not to sit across from each other as we both have long legs. We often put boxes of school supplies and bags of uniforms inside the Cruiser as well, with the shoes on the top, so it’s a bit cramped. We’re always relieved when we head back to Dodoma in an empty Cruiser and can stretch out a bit.
Our November 15th visit to the parishes of Mchito and Makanda was more of an adventure than we’ve had in awhile. For one thing, it was one of the longest days we’ve had in quite some time. We left at 8:30am and got home at 6:30pm. Most of the day was actually spent in the Land Cruiser, I think. At least, that’s how it felt! The trip to Makanda, our first stop of the day was 2.5 hours. We did have to make a stop at a parish to drop something off, so while we technically had a short respite after an hour of driving I don’t really think it counts as the car stopped for literally about a minute and then we were off again. Pastor Noah had warned us that it was going to be a long trip, so I brought a book with me thinking that it would be a good way to pass the time, right? Wrong! I discovered, to my great disgust, that I could only read for about 5 minutes before I started to feel nauseous. Not a good way to feel when you’ve got another hour plus to drive, let me assure you. Usually, I can read in almost any environment, but apparently not while sitting sideways in the back of a Land Cruiser going along a bumpy dirt road. So, I put my book down and looked out the window.
We finally arrived in Makanda and distributed the uniforms, shoes and school supplies to the kids. We were then invited to have lunch at the priest’s house. Lunch wasn’t actually ready, so while we were waiting, Pastor Noah talked to the priest and the chair of the Carpenter’s Kids committee about how the program was going. Sarah, Willy, John Joseph and I entertained ourselves outside by watching the women make ugali, chasing chickens, attempting to have conversations in a mixture of Swahili, English and gestures and throwing seed pods at each other. I think you had to be there. Lunch was finally served and I had my first taste of ugali. It kind of looks like homemade playdoh and is much easier to eat with your hands than rice, a fact for which I was extremely grateful as there were no forks to be seen. Willy and John Joseph enjoyed that immensely.
We took our leave of the priest in Makanda and headed back in the general direction of Dodoma to Mchito. It took about an hour and a half to get there from Makanda and when we arrived there was a church full of people waiting. Apparently, they’d thought we were coming in the morning so some people had been waiting since 9:00am. We also found out that some people had walked 10 kilometers to get there! Needless to say, we felt bad that we’d kept them waiting as it was closer to 2pm than 9am when we arrived…The distribution itself went very well. Mchito is new to the Carpenter’s Kids program, so it took a bit longer because there is a time for people to ask questions about the program as a whole and a demonstration on how to use a mosquito net properly. It was here that I caught a new word Willy had been using to describe Sarah and me when we speak Swahili.
You need a little background for this to make sense. While Swahili is the main language we attempt to speak, there is also a local dialect called Chigogo. Sarah and my Chigogo vocabulary is quite limited. We know a greeting (Mbukwenyi) and the response to that greeting (Mbukwa) and we know how to say cat (nyau). That’s about it. Really, limited is not even the right word. Nonexistent is actually a better adjective. Anyway, in the villages we hear a fair amount of Chigogo whereas in Dodoma, we hear mostly Swahili. The word mzungu or ‘white person,’ is arguably the Swahili word we hear the most as we’re walking around town. As you may remember from earlier posts about the distribution process, when we give the children their shoes, we have to call out their names one by one. Sometimes this is easy and sometimes it’s not at all and a native Swahili speaker has to help us pronounce the name or repeat it after we’ve said it so the child in question actually knows that his or her name has been called. So in his remarks before we start passing out the shoes, Willy tells the kids to listen carefully because we say their names in a new Swahili dialect: Chizungu.
Well, after we’d read off the kids’ names in Chizungu and taken our group photos, we were invited to the priest’s house for dinner. This was literally about 3 hours after we’d been given a big lunch in Makanda. We aren’t always given food when we go out to villages. In fact, we tell people that they don’t need to give us food or gifts when we visit, but we are generally given food in most places. So, despite the fact that we were all still full from lunch at Makanda, we ate rice and beans with the priest and committee in Mchito as well. An interesting fact about Mchito: the parish priest is a woman. Now, for most people who read my blog this is something you’re undoubtedly used to, female priests/pastors. Here in DCT, however, there are only about 15 female priests and the priest at Mchito is actually only the fourth female priest I’ve met here. Mchito is also one of the small number of parishes in The Carpenter’s Kids program that does not have a link parish yet, so if anyone reading this would like to have a link parish in DCT, let me know!
We left Mchito between 4:30 and 5:00pm. At that point, I think I’d lost track of time. We made it almost all the way back to Dodoma without incident until we reached Msalato, which is about 6 miles from Dodoma (10 kilometers for those of you who prefer to measure distances that way). As we were going down the road, we saw a large group of people on one side. Pastor Noah told John Joseph to pull over and Willy opened the back door of the Cruiser. Almost immediately, a man came running up to the vehicle speaking very rapid Swahili and then he ran back to the crowd. He returned seconds later carrying a young woman who was obviously in a great deal of pain and proceeded to put her in the back of the Cruiser with Willy’s help. All CK staff in the vehicle squished together so the young woman could be laid on the bench without too much trouble. We were about to close the door and pull away when a crying woman came running up to the car. She turned out to be the girl’s mother, so we helped her into the car as well as the man who’d carried the girl and then we set off for Dodoma.
It turns out that the young woman had been hit by a car and the family had been trying to figure out a way to get her to the hospital. They’d apparently been about to load her into the back of a pick-up before we drove by. While the Cruiser is not that comfortable, especially on the bumpy road from Msalato to Dodoma, it was undoubtedly better than riding in the back of a pick-up. John Joseph did his best to drive slowly and carefully, but even small bumps were painful for the girl. It didn’t help that her mother kept trying to move her leg, which was the obvious source of her pain. We finally arrived at Dodoma General Hospital and Willy helped move the girl from our car to a stretcher. Her mother thanked us all a great deal in both English and Swahili. As we pulled away from the hospital, I was struck again by how grateful I am to work with the people I do. Willy and Pastor Noah each held the young woman’s hands as we were driving and tried to comfort her mother. There was no hesitation at all in their offer to help. I don’t think they even had to think about it. I’m sure that even if our vehicle had been full, we would have found a way to help even if it meant that some of us had to get out and wait for them to come back.
The last few weeks have been busy. We’ve had distributions in Nzuguni, Chinangali B, Mchito, Makanda, Mnase and Hombolo Bwawani over the past 3 weekends. These all went quite well. We were warmly welcomed in each parish and I enjoyed meeting more Carpenter’s Kids and seeing parishes that I hadn’t been to yet.
Nzuguni and Chinangali B are very close to Dodoma and we were able to travel on the paved Dodoma-Dar es Salaam road almost the entire way to both parishes which was a great treat. Most of the time we are on unpaved dirt roads that make me feel like I’m at an amusement park playing bumper cars. I’ve hit my head on the roof more times than I can count when we go over bumps. We always take our older Land Cruiser when we do more than one distribution on the same day and though it’s a sturdy vehicle for the most part, it isn’t the most comfortable as those of you who’ve visited us will undoubtedly remember. There are two seats in the front (the driver and the front passenger) and the back consists of two benches that can sit 5 people each, though I’m sure we could probably cram more people into the back if we had to. Needless to say, leg room is not exactly plentiful and Sarah and I have quickly learned not to sit across from each other as we both have long legs. We often put boxes of school supplies and bags of uniforms inside the Cruiser as well, with the shoes on the top, so it’s a bit cramped. We’re always relieved when we head back to Dodoma in an empty Cruiser and can stretch out a bit.
Our November 15th visit to the parishes of Mchito and Makanda was more of an adventure than we’ve had in awhile. For one thing, it was one of the longest days we’ve had in quite some time. We left at 8:30am and got home at 6:30pm. Most of the day was actually spent in the Land Cruiser, I think. At least, that’s how it felt! The trip to Makanda, our first stop of the day was 2.5 hours. We did have to make a stop at a parish to drop something off, so while we technically had a short respite after an hour of driving I don’t really think it counts as the car stopped for literally about a minute and then we were off again. Pastor Noah had warned us that it was going to be a long trip, so I brought a book with me thinking that it would be a good way to pass the time, right? Wrong! I discovered, to my great disgust, that I could only read for about 5 minutes before I started to feel nauseous. Not a good way to feel when you’ve got another hour plus to drive, let me assure you. Usually, I can read in almost any environment, but apparently not while sitting sideways in the back of a Land Cruiser going along a bumpy dirt road. So, I put my book down and looked out the window.
We finally arrived in Makanda and distributed the uniforms, shoes and school supplies to the kids. We were then invited to have lunch at the priest’s house. Lunch wasn’t actually ready, so while we were waiting, Pastor Noah talked to the priest and the chair of the Carpenter’s Kids committee about how the program was going. Sarah, Willy, John Joseph and I entertained ourselves outside by watching the women make ugali, chasing chickens, attempting to have conversations in a mixture of Swahili, English and gestures and throwing seed pods at each other. I think you had to be there. Lunch was finally served and I had my first taste of ugali. It kind of looks like homemade playdoh and is much easier to eat with your hands than rice, a fact for which I was extremely grateful as there were no forks to be seen. Willy and John Joseph enjoyed that immensely.
We took our leave of the priest in Makanda and headed back in the general direction of Dodoma to Mchito. It took about an hour and a half to get there from Makanda and when we arrived there was a church full of people waiting. Apparently, they’d thought we were coming in the morning so some people had been waiting since 9:00am. We also found out that some people had walked 10 kilometers to get there! Needless to say, we felt bad that we’d kept them waiting as it was closer to 2pm than 9am when we arrived…The distribution itself went very well. Mchito is new to the Carpenter’s Kids program, so it took a bit longer because there is a time for people to ask questions about the program as a whole and a demonstration on how to use a mosquito net properly. It was here that I caught a new word Willy had been using to describe Sarah and me when we speak Swahili.
You need a little background for this to make sense. While Swahili is the main language we attempt to speak, there is also a local dialect called Chigogo. Sarah and my Chigogo vocabulary is quite limited. We know a greeting (Mbukwenyi) and the response to that greeting (Mbukwa) and we know how to say cat (nyau). That’s about it. Really, limited is not even the right word. Nonexistent is actually a better adjective. Anyway, in the villages we hear a fair amount of Chigogo whereas in Dodoma, we hear mostly Swahili. The word mzungu or ‘white person,’ is arguably the Swahili word we hear the most as we’re walking around town. As you may remember from earlier posts about the distribution process, when we give the children their shoes, we have to call out their names one by one. Sometimes this is easy and sometimes it’s not at all and a native Swahili speaker has to help us pronounce the name or repeat it after we’ve said it so the child in question actually knows that his or her name has been called. So in his remarks before we start passing out the shoes, Willy tells the kids to listen carefully because we say their names in a new Swahili dialect: Chizungu.
Well, after we’d read off the kids’ names in Chizungu and taken our group photos, we were invited to the priest’s house for dinner. This was literally about 3 hours after we’d been given a big lunch in Makanda. We aren’t always given food when we go out to villages. In fact, we tell people that they don’t need to give us food or gifts when we visit, but we are generally given food in most places. So, despite the fact that we were all still full from lunch at Makanda, we ate rice and beans with the priest and committee in Mchito as well. An interesting fact about Mchito: the parish priest is a woman. Now, for most people who read my blog this is something you’re undoubtedly used to, female priests/pastors. Here in DCT, however, there are only about 15 female priests and the priest at Mchito is actually only the fourth female priest I’ve met here. Mchito is also one of the small number of parishes in The Carpenter’s Kids program that does not have a link parish yet, so if anyone reading this would like to have a link parish in DCT, let me know!
We left Mchito between 4:30 and 5:00pm. At that point, I think I’d lost track of time. We made it almost all the way back to Dodoma without incident until we reached Msalato, which is about 6 miles from Dodoma (10 kilometers for those of you who prefer to measure distances that way). As we were going down the road, we saw a large group of people on one side. Pastor Noah told John Joseph to pull over and Willy opened the back door of the Cruiser. Almost immediately, a man came running up to the vehicle speaking very rapid Swahili and then he ran back to the crowd. He returned seconds later carrying a young woman who was obviously in a great deal of pain and proceeded to put her in the back of the Cruiser with Willy’s help. All CK staff in the vehicle squished together so the young woman could be laid on the bench without too much trouble. We were about to close the door and pull away when a crying woman came running up to the car. She turned out to be the girl’s mother, so we helped her into the car as well as the man who’d carried the girl and then we set off for Dodoma.
It turns out that the young woman had been hit by a car and the family had been trying to figure out a way to get her to the hospital. They’d apparently been about to load her into the back of a pick-up before we drove by. While the Cruiser is not that comfortable, especially on the bumpy road from Msalato to Dodoma, it was undoubtedly better than riding in the back of a pick-up. John Joseph did his best to drive slowly and carefully, but even small bumps were painful for the girl. It didn’t help that her mother kept trying to move her leg, which was the obvious source of her pain. We finally arrived at Dodoma General Hospital and Willy helped move the girl from our car to a stretcher. Her mother thanked us all a great deal in both English and Swahili. As we pulled away from the hospital, I was struck again by how grateful I am to work with the people I do. Willy and Pastor Noah each held the young woman’s hands as we were driving and tried to comfort her mother. There was no hesitation at all in their offer to help. I don’t think they even had to think about it. I’m sure that even if our vehicle had been full, we would have found a way to help even if it meant that some of us had to get out and wait for them to come back.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
American Elections, Tanzanian Style
I would imagine that the results of the US elections, particularly the presidential elections, are on everyone’s minds now. We have been following the run up to the election with great interest here and though there are times I wish I had a television and could watch some of the coverage on that medium, I am quite happy to have missed all those political ads! I have been asked who I was planning to vote for more times than I can count and had a priest offer to have his congregation pray for a victory by my preferred candidate. I’ll leave you all to guess who that was… I voted by absentee ballot this election and it was quite a process to get it back. I received it in the mail (thanks Mom!), filled it out and then faxed it back to the US. Now, those of you who have tried to fax something from Dodoma will appreciate the ordeal that trying to return a ballot that way would be.
First we had to photocopy the ballot because it was too long to fit into the fax machine-I’m not entirely convinced of this, but I wanted to send the fax so I didn’t argue. So, in addition to a letter waiving my right to a secret ballot and a copy of the voter’s oath from the outside of the return envelope, I had 4 pages of ballot. The manager of the stationary store in MacKay House actually took over the task of helping me get everything together once he realized that I was voting for the next president. Of course he had to look at the ballot and ask a few questions, but what can you do? The first time he tried to fax everything it didn’t work. Neither did the second time. Finally, the third time the first 2 pages of my packet went through. Then we had to redial and the final 4 pages went through. Hopefully they all came out together on the other side and are safely in the hands of the election people in King County. The actual ballot is on its way back to the US via EMS so it should arrive well before the results of the election are certified later this month.
This morning, Magi, Sarah and I headed to the New Dodoma Hotel to attend a get-together hosted by the US Embassy. The Embassy set up 7 get-togethers around Tanzania (Dar, Dodoma, Arusha, etc) for American citizens to attend and watch the election coverage/results on CNN. In the 5 minutes it took for Magi and me to pick up Sarah and get down to the hotel, Barack Obama had gone from being the presumed president-elect (Magi and I had both already been online early this morning checking the results) to the actual president-elect and the first words we heard from one of the US Embassy’s Tanzanian staff members were ‘Congratulations on your new president!”
Interestingly enough, Americans were actually in the minority at this event. Other than two or three embassy staff members, there were only about five Americans other than Magi, Sarah and myself in attendance. The vast majority of people who were there were actually members of the Tanzanian parliament. Apparently it’s in session. Who knew? Obviously not me… So, that was quite an experience to watch US election coverage about our first African-American president, the son of a Kenyan citizen, with about 20 or so members of Tanzania’s parliament. We met several MPs and they were all very excited to be at the hotel with us this morning and about the outcome of the election.
The most interesting moment was actually watching Barack Obama’s speech. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but what I found the most interesting was watching and listening to the reaction from the Tanzanian MPs. They clapped more than the Americans in the room did! The line ‘It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled – Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America’ drew some of the loudest applause of the morning. It would have been great to be in the US during this election, but I am incredibly grateful that I could be here in Tanzania and see first hand the reactions of people for whom the election of Barack Obama is also an historic event. As someone recently told me, ‘Obama is one of our own, too.’ The name Baraka, a fairly common one amongst our Carpenter’s Kids, means blessing in Swahili. Just something to think about…
First we had to photocopy the ballot because it was too long to fit into the fax machine-I’m not entirely convinced of this, but I wanted to send the fax so I didn’t argue. So, in addition to a letter waiving my right to a secret ballot and a copy of the voter’s oath from the outside of the return envelope, I had 4 pages of ballot. The manager of the stationary store in MacKay House actually took over the task of helping me get everything together once he realized that I was voting for the next president. Of course he had to look at the ballot and ask a few questions, but what can you do? The first time he tried to fax everything it didn’t work. Neither did the second time. Finally, the third time the first 2 pages of my packet went through. Then we had to redial and the final 4 pages went through. Hopefully they all came out together on the other side and are safely in the hands of the election people in King County. The actual ballot is on its way back to the US via EMS so it should arrive well before the results of the election are certified later this month.
This morning, Magi, Sarah and I headed to the New Dodoma Hotel to attend a get-together hosted by the US Embassy. The Embassy set up 7 get-togethers around Tanzania (Dar, Dodoma, Arusha, etc) for American citizens to attend and watch the election coverage/results on CNN. In the 5 minutes it took for Magi and me to pick up Sarah and get down to the hotel, Barack Obama had gone from being the presumed president-elect (Magi and I had both already been online early this morning checking the results) to the actual president-elect and the first words we heard from one of the US Embassy’s Tanzanian staff members were ‘Congratulations on your new president!”
Interestingly enough, Americans were actually in the minority at this event. Other than two or three embassy staff members, there were only about five Americans other than Magi, Sarah and myself in attendance. The vast majority of people who were there were actually members of the Tanzanian parliament. Apparently it’s in session. Who knew? Obviously not me… So, that was quite an experience to watch US election coverage about our first African-American president, the son of a Kenyan citizen, with about 20 or so members of Tanzania’s parliament. We met several MPs and they were all very excited to be at the hotel with us this morning and about the outcome of the election.
The most interesting moment was actually watching Barack Obama’s speech. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but what I found the most interesting was watching and listening to the reaction from the Tanzanian MPs. They clapped more than the Americans in the room did! The line ‘It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled – Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America’ drew some of the loudest applause of the morning. It would have been great to be in the US during this election, but I am incredibly grateful that I could be here in Tanzania and see first hand the reactions of people for whom the election of Barack Obama is also an historic event. As someone recently told me, ‘Obama is one of our own, too.’ The name Baraka, a fairly common one amongst our Carpenter’s Kids, means blessing in Swahili. Just something to think about…
A Return to Hombolo Mleche
On Sunday October 26th, I made my second visit to the parish of Hombolo Mleche, or Mleche for short. This parish will always be special for me because it’s the first place where I was actually called by my name and though I have definitely been more than warmly welcomed at every DCT parish I’ve been to, the experience of being called by my own name has stayed with me. I’d seen Father Dan, the parish priest, several times since my first visit and I was looking forward to actually attending a service at his church. To be honest, I was really most looking forward to seeing the little girl I met in September who smiled at me the whole time I was there and made a special point of coming over to say goodbye to me before I left.
We don’t usually make trips outside of Dodoma to attend church services, so I was excited to go to Mleche to see something different. I was also excited to see the welcome that Buck Blanchard, from the Diocese of Virginia, would receive. Buck is part of our Friends in Colorado group that sponsors 201 Carpenter’s Kids in Mleche. This summer he and his friends in the group brought their families to visit and work on the new church building. Needless to say, he was greeted like a national hero! It was great. We arrived in the parish and were greeted by a huge crowd of Carpenter’s Kids, their guardians, Father Dan and so many other people. It was quite amazing. I was delighted because the same little girl that I was going to make a point of trying to find came right over to me as soon as I got out of the car and said hello. She took my hand and we walked to the church together, stopping so I could say hi to some of the other kids including the girls who had called my name and then tried to hide behind chairs the last time I was in Mleche. There were so many guardians who came up to me and said ‘Karibu tena, Eliza’ (Welcome again, Eliza) that it actually kind of felt like coming home in a way.
We finally made it to the church, and signed the ever present visitor’s book. David May, the rector of Grace Church in Kilmarnock, VA, and Buck were participating in the service so they got to sit up at the altar. The rest of us also sat at the front of the church, but off to the side. There were so many people who wanted to come into the church that the kids, who had initially been sitting in chairs, had to move to the floor and steps in front of the altar so there was room for everyone. There were about 800-850 people in the church and more outside watching through the windows. My little friend came over and sat on the floor right in front of me. At one point we all stood up to sing a hymn and she moved closer to me and took my hand. When we sat back down, she climbed onto my lap and stayed there for the rest of the service.
The actual service was great. David gave an excellent sermon which was translated into Swahili by Pastor Noah-Pastor Noah told me later that he really enjoyed the sermon and found it to be very powerful. Buck read several parts of the morning prayer service in Swahili and Emily (David’s wife) and Floyd and Sandy (parishioners at Grace Church) got to do all of the readings for the day in Swahili! Better them than me! At the end of the service, the group distributed sweaters, soap and petroleum jelly to all of the Carpenter’s Kids. They’d also purchased enough soap to give everyone else at the church soap as well. It was a sort of controlled chaos, but it was wonderful. I should clarify here and explain that while it is incredibly hot during the day here, the nights can be pretty cool-especially when you are sleeping on the dirt floor of a mud hut. The sweaters will definitely be put to good use! After we’d distributed sweaters, soap and petroleum jelly to everyone. We took a group picture of all the kids. Let me tell you, the 201 kids were an amazing sight to behold. Huge smiles all around.
Just before we were going to have lunch, one of the older girls in the program came up to me and handed me a small black plastic bag. Inside was a dried gourd with a design stamped into it. Thanks to Willy’s translation skills, I learned that she had stamped the design on the gourd herself and that she’d gone home right after the group photo had been taken to get the gourd because she wanted me to have it. She was so shy that she wouldn’t even look me in the eye when I shook her hand and said thank you, but afterwards she gave me a big smile and said ‘Karibu tena’ (welcome again).
Generally, when a group comes to visit we arrange for them to have lunch with the parish priest, committee, teachers and the Carpenter’s Kids. In this instance, Buck requested that we do family lunches, which is what he and his friends had done when they were here earlier this year. Instead of having a big group lunch, we broke up into smaller groups and had lunch in the homes of some of the Carpenter’s Kids. Buck, John (our Assistant Director) and I went with a parish committee member to the home of one of the older Carpenter’s Kids in the parish and had lunch with her, her mother and father and three younger siblings. Their home is typical of other homes in the village. It has reinforced mud walls and no furniture to speak of, with the exception of the 3 stools that Buck, John and I were given to sit on. The family sat on cloth bags that were laid out on the dirt floor. The mother of the house initially laid out a large plate of ugali and a bowl of sauce for us, but the parish committee member waived it away and proceeded to unpack an enormous lunch of rice, beef, chicken and vegetables, along with banana and orange wedges for dessert. We were also given a bottle of water and a soda to drink. The parish committee had obviously planned the meal well in advance. Part of me felt bad that the family’s contribution of ugali had been waived away, but I was happy that they were given generous shares of the food prepared for us and would have the ugali for later as well.
Through John’s able interpretation, we were able to ask lots of questions and engage in a real conversation with the family. We were so welcomed and just made to feel at home. I really don’t think that I can actually do the day justice. No matter how long I stay here in Tanzania, this is one of the experiences that will stay with me. We go to parishes almost every week and we meet the children that the program serves and we meet their guardians and it’s wonderful. But having the opportunity to spend time with a family in their home is an experience that defies description. We were invited into relationship with this family and offered a place at their table. This experience, along with simply being here in Tanzania, really gives a whole new meaning to the question posed in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, “Who is my neighbor?”
Despite the great joy of the day in Mleche, there is one thing that I wasn’t able to do. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my friend-the same one who made a point of saying goodbye to me at the end of my first visit! I tried to find her in the great crowd of people outside the church before we were taken to lunch, but I couldn’t. Before we left for the day, I showed her picture to one of the parish committee members and asked her to tell the little girl goodbye for me. I don’t know if she will or if she’ll say goodbye to the right child, but in the end, I guess that’s ok. I’ll get a chance to go back to Mleche and see her and all the kids there again.
We don’t usually make trips outside of Dodoma to attend church services, so I was excited to go to Mleche to see something different. I was also excited to see the welcome that Buck Blanchard, from the Diocese of Virginia, would receive. Buck is part of our Friends in Colorado group that sponsors 201 Carpenter’s Kids in Mleche. This summer he and his friends in the group brought their families to visit and work on the new church building. Needless to say, he was greeted like a national hero! It was great. We arrived in the parish and were greeted by a huge crowd of Carpenter’s Kids, their guardians, Father Dan and so many other people. It was quite amazing. I was delighted because the same little girl that I was going to make a point of trying to find came right over to me as soon as I got out of the car and said hello. She took my hand and we walked to the church together, stopping so I could say hi to some of the other kids including the girls who had called my name and then tried to hide behind chairs the last time I was in Mleche. There were so many guardians who came up to me and said ‘Karibu tena, Eliza’ (Welcome again, Eliza) that it actually kind of felt like coming home in a way.
We finally made it to the church, and signed the ever present visitor’s book. David May, the rector of Grace Church in Kilmarnock, VA, and Buck were participating in the service so they got to sit up at the altar. The rest of us also sat at the front of the church, but off to the side. There were so many people who wanted to come into the church that the kids, who had initially been sitting in chairs, had to move to the floor and steps in front of the altar so there was room for everyone. There were about 800-850 people in the church and more outside watching through the windows. My little friend came over and sat on the floor right in front of me. At one point we all stood up to sing a hymn and she moved closer to me and took my hand. When we sat back down, she climbed onto my lap and stayed there for the rest of the service.
The actual service was great. David gave an excellent sermon which was translated into Swahili by Pastor Noah-Pastor Noah told me later that he really enjoyed the sermon and found it to be very powerful. Buck read several parts of the morning prayer service in Swahili and Emily (David’s wife) and Floyd and Sandy (parishioners at Grace Church) got to do all of the readings for the day in Swahili! Better them than me! At the end of the service, the group distributed sweaters, soap and petroleum jelly to all of the Carpenter’s Kids. They’d also purchased enough soap to give everyone else at the church soap as well. It was a sort of controlled chaos, but it was wonderful. I should clarify here and explain that while it is incredibly hot during the day here, the nights can be pretty cool-especially when you are sleeping on the dirt floor of a mud hut. The sweaters will definitely be put to good use! After we’d distributed sweaters, soap and petroleum jelly to everyone. We took a group picture of all the kids. Let me tell you, the 201 kids were an amazing sight to behold. Huge smiles all around.
Just before we were going to have lunch, one of the older girls in the program came up to me and handed me a small black plastic bag. Inside was a dried gourd with a design stamped into it. Thanks to Willy’s translation skills, I learned that she had stamped the design on the gourd herself and that she’d gone home right after the group photo had been taken to get the gourd because she wanted me to have it. She was so shy that she wouldn’t even look me in the eye when I shook her hand and said thank you, but afterwards she gave me a big smile and said ‘Karibu tena’ (welcome again).
Generally, when a group comes to visit we arrange for them to have lunch with the parish priest, committee, teachers and the Carpenter’s Kids. In this instance, Buck requested that we do family lunches, which is what he and his friends had done when they were here earlier this year. Instead of having a big group lunch, we broke up into smaller groups and had lunch in the homes of some of the Carpenter’s Kids. Buck, John (our Assistant Director) and I went with a parish committee member to the home of one of the older Carpenter’s Kids in the parish and had lunch with her, her mother and father and three younger siblings. Their home is typical of other homes in the village. It has reinforced mud walls and no furniture to speak of, with the exception of the 3 stools that Buck, John and I were given to sit on. The family sat on cloth bags that were laid out on the dirt floor. The mother of the house initially laid out a large plate of ugali and a bowl of sauce for us, but the parish committee member waived it away and proceeded to unpack an enormous lunch of rice, beef, chicken and vegetables, along with banana and orange wedges for dessert. We were also given a bottle of water and a soda to drink. The parish committee had obviously planned the meal well in advance. Part of me felt bad that the family’s contribution of ugali had been waived away, but I was happy that they were given generous shares of the food prepared for us and would have the ugali for later as well.
Through John’s able interpretation, we were able to ask lots of questions and engage in a real conversation with the family. We were so welcomed and just made to feel at home. I really don’t think that I can actually do the day justice. No matter how long I stay here in Tanzania, this is one of the experiences that will stay with me. We go to parishes almost every week and we meet the children that the program serves and we meet their guardians and it’s wonderful. But having the opportunity to spend time with a family in their home is an experience that defies description. We were invited into relationship with this family and offered a place at their table. This experience, along with simply being here in Tanzania, really gives a whole new meaning to the question posed in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, “Who is my neighbor?”
Despite the great joy of the day in Mleche, there is one thing that I wasn’t able to do. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my friend-the same one who made a point of saying goodbye to me at the end of my first visit! I tried to find her in the great crowd of people outside the church before we were taken to lunch, but I couldn’t. Before we left for the day, I showed her picture to one of the parish committee members and asked her to tell the little girl goodbye for me. I don’t know if she will or if she’ll say goodbye to the right child, but in the end, I guess that’s ok. I’ll get a chance to go back to Mleche and see her and all the kids there again.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Best/Worst List and Favorites
Cindy and Pat, two of my good friends from New York, took a round-the-world trip last year (I think it was last year!) and when they got home, they compiled a best/worst list. Mine is not really as entertaining as theirs, but hopefully some of you will find this interesting.
Best place to get a mosquito bite: There isn’t one. I’m not a fan.
Worst place to get a mosquito bite (so far): On the bottom of your foot! I don’t even know how I got that one. Magi doesn’t call mosquitoes ‘flying creeps’ for nothing.
Biggest cockroach that I’ve seen in my apartment: About 2 inches long.
Smallest cockroach that I’ve seen in my apartment: About the size of the fingernail on my pinkie finger.
Best method of getting rid of cockroaches: ‘Cockroach hockey.’ This is a method practiced by my Canadian neighbors. It consists of one of them holding their front door open and the other using a broom to sweep the cockroach out of the apartment. I don’t know if they yell ‘goal’ or try to make the same sound as an area buzzer, but I’ll let you know…
Biggest lizard I’ve seen in my apartment: About 6 inches long from head to tail.
Smallest lizard I’ve seen in my apartment: About 2 inches long from head to tail.
Number of lizards I’ve managed to catch: Zero
Most exciting internet-related moment of the last few weeks: 1) I actually have internet access at home now and 2) opening my e-mail and seeing over 10 e-mails from people in New York/Seattle who’d responded to my blog update e-mail/CK video e-mail!!
Least exciting internet-related moment of the last few weeks: Every time I get an error message from my internet provider telling me that there’s an error and I can’t connect…this is a relatively frequent event.
Most exciting recent purchase: A box of Earl Grey tea-the only one I’ve seen in Dodoma in the 2+ months that I’ve been here. No laughing! It’s really the little things that make you happy sometimes.
Least exciting purchase of the last week: Dish soap, not exciting but necessary.
Biggest expense: Internet time
Favorite restaurant: Rose’s Café (we have lunch there every day)
Favorite smell in Dodoma: I haven’t identified one yet.
Least favorite smell in Dodoma: Open sewers, burning trash, large piles of dried fish
Favorite Swahili words: Watoto (children), piki piki (motorcycle) and pilipili hoho (green pepper)
Least favorite Swahili words: Anything that begins with or contains the ngh- consonant cluster. Therefore, the village of Nghonghonha is not one of my favorite to say.
Number of versions of my name in use in the Carpenter’s Kids office: 5 (Elizabeth, Elizabeti, Eliza, Liz, Lizzie)
I’ve added this one just for Sarah…
Number of cats that sit outside my front door and meow at me at least twice a day: 3 – This has prompted Sarah to start calling me ‘Cat Woman.’
I’m sure there are more things I could add to this list, but I can’t think of any more at the moment.
Best place to get a mosquito bite: There isn’t one. I’m not a fan.
Worst place to get a mosquito bite (so far): On the bottom of your foot! I don’t even know how I got that one. Magi doesn’t call mosquitoes ‘flying creeps’ for nothing.
Biggest cockroach that I’ve seen in my apartment: About 2 inches long.
Smallest cockroach that I’ve seen in my apartment: About the size of the fingernail on my pinkie finger.
Best method of getting rid of cockroaches: ‘Cockroach hockey.’ This is a method practiced by my Canadian neighbors. It consists of one of them holding their front door open and the other using a broom to sweep the cockroach out of the apartment. I don’t know if they yell ‘goal’ or try to make the same sound as an area buzzer, but I’ll let you know…
Biggest lizard I’ve seen in my apartment: About 6 inches long from head to tail.
Smallest lizard I’ve seen in my apartment: About 2 inches long from head to tail.
Number of lizards I’ve managed to catch: Zero
Most exciting internet-related moment of the last few weeks: 1) I actually have internet access at home now and 2) opening my e-mail and seeing over 10 e-mails from people in New York/Seattle who’d responded to my blog update e-mail/CK video e-mail!!
Least exciting internet-related moment of the last few weeks: Every time I get an error message from my internet provider telling me that there’s an error and I can’t connect…this is a relatively frequent event.
Most exciting recent purchase: A box of Earl Grey tea-the only one I’ve seen in Dodoma in the 2+ months that I’ve been here. No laughing! It’s really the little things that make you happy sometimes.
Least exciting purchase of the last week: Dish soap, not exciting but necessary.
Biggest expense: Internet time
Favorite restaurant: Rose’s Café (we have lunch there every day)
Favorite smell in Dodoma: I haven’t identified one yet.
Least favorite smell in Dodoma: Open sewers, burning trash, large piles of dried fish
Favorite Swahili words: Watoto (children), piki piki (motorcycle) and pilipili hoho (green pepper)
Least favorite Swahili words: Anything that begins with or contains the ngh- consonant cluster. Therefore, the village of Nghonghonha is not one of my favorite to say.
Number of versions of my name in use in the Carpenter’s Kids office: 5 (Elizabeth, Elizabeti, Eliza, Liz, Lizzie)
I’ve added this one just for Sarah…
Number of cats that sit outside my front door and meow at me at least twice a day: 3 – This has prompted Sarah to start calling me ‘Cat Woman.’
I’m sure there are more things I could add to this list, but I can’t think of any more at the moment.
Dinner Parties and Distributions
I realized that I don’t really write much about life outside of the Carpenter’s Kids. I suppose that makes sense, because the Carpenter’s Kids is the reason that I am now in Dodoma. However, I do actually do things other than work Sometimes it doesn’t seem like I do them all that often, but what can you do?
Last Friday Sarah and I, along with our friends Maaike and Leanne hosted a dinner party for 11 people including ourselves. Now, you need to realize that not one of the four of us had really done something like that before. That would be why Sarah and I made enough pasta to feed about 20+ people. It started out pretty small. We were initially planning on just having dinner together in our group of four. Maaike and Leanne are from Holland and they are here in Dodoma working at the deaf school. They live at the CAMS upper compound where Sarah lives and where I lived up until about 2 weeks ago. The four of us generally had dinner together about once a week with our neighbor Leane-not to be confused with Leanne! Well, I moved down to the lower CAMS compound, but we still decided that we’d have dinner together from time to time. Which leads us back to Friday’s dinner…
We decided to have dinner on Friday and split up the cooking accordingly. Then we thought it would be a nice idea to invite Callum and Laura to join us. Then we thought that it would be nice to invite Brian (DCT Business Advisor), Roger and Angela to join us as well. Roger and Angela were here in Dodoma for about 2 weeks from England. Roger is a former BBC film producer and he and Angela were here filming a DVD about the Diocese of Central Tanganyika. They’d been staying at the New Dodoma Hotel and eating hotel food every night. Readers who’ve stayed at the New Dodoma Hotel for a prolonged period of time know that eating hotel food night after night can get a bit old. So we were up to 9 people. Then we decided to invite Peter Prewandowski who teaches at CAMS and just moved to the upper compound. He’s an Episcopal missionary from the Diocese of Western Massachusetts. He’s actually been to Dodoma twice before and taught at CAMS both times. We also invited Magi Griffin, an Episcopal missionary from the Diocese of Atlanta, and one of Sarah and my favorite people in Tanzania. Magi works for Bishop Mhogolo and I can never remember her official title so I won’t even try. It’s impressive though. We finally ended up with our guest list of 11.
Then the fun began. Sarah and I went to the grocery store and started getting ingredients for our pasta dish. It really wasn’t too complicated, but we just weren’t sure how much pasta to buy. So, we bought enough for a small army…We did all the cooking at Sarah’s house because we decided to have dinner in the courtyard at the upper compound. Sarah doesn’t have many pots, so we had to cook the pasta in shifts and then empty the cooked pasta into a large bowl. It took awhile. The sauce, on the other hand, was a relatively quick affair as we used canned pasta sauce as a base and just added things to it. We also baked a cake for dessert and much to our amazement were able to find a Betty Crocker cake mix at the grocery store. Neither of us knew how to make frosting from scratch and our plan to look up a recipe online was foiled by Sarah’s internet not cooperating. Thankfully, Magi arrived in the nick of time and was able to whip up some frosting with no problem.
The logistics of such an event were quite entertaining as they involved us getting two additional tables out of apartments in the compound. There’s one table that is always out in the courtyard, which was really helpful. Sarah and I had an interesting time maneuvering her table out of her apartment into the courtyard. It took all of our geometry skills and a lot of lifting, but we managed to wedge her table out her door. We then tried to find another table to move outside from Leanne’s apartment, but we couldn’t get it out the door. We tried the same thing with Peter’s table but ran into the same problem. This led us all to wonder how the table made it in to the apartment in the first place. Peter suggested that maybe they built the apartment around the table. It could be true….
Thankfully, Brian’s table saved the day. It was not quite as wide as the other two tables and so we were able to get it out of his door quite easily. In keeping with the collaborative effort to pull off the dinner party, we borrowed chairs from Peter, Brian, Maaike and Leanne; plates from Peter; glasses from Brian, Leanne, Callum and Laura and Peter; and silverware from Leanne to supplement what Sarah had in her apartment.
We had originally scheduled the dinner to begin at 6pm, but of course we didn’t really start until about 6:35ish. No one is really on time here…Of course, that posed a slight problem because it gets completely dark here at 7pm each night. We ended up using candles and small lanterns in addition to lights shining through apartment windows to see, but it just added to the ambience of the evening. Dinner turned out really well and we had plenty of food to go around. Aside from Sarah and my pasta dish, Maaike and Leanne made potato salad, Magi brought vegetable risotto, Callum and Laura made bread, Peter made a coleslaw-type salad and Brian brought wine. We also had lots of water and juice to go around, lest anyone think that we had too much fun…:-)
Re-distribution at Nghulugano
On Saturday morning, I headed to Nghulugano with John, John Joseph and Callum to conduct a re-distribution. As a point of clarification, a re-distribution is what happens at parishes that have been in the Carpenter’s Kids program for more than one year. The initial distribution of uniforms, shoes, school supplies and mosquito nets is called a distribution and each of the subsequent visits to distribute uniforms, shoes and school supplies is called a re-distribution. This of course means that my blog entry should actually be called ‘dinner parties and re-distributions’ but that would have spoiled my title which vaguely resembles an alliteration. I’ll claim creative license this one time….
Nghulugano is the home of the man who calls himself my ‘Tanzanian father.’ His last name translates to cow-bear in Chigogo, the local dialect.. He has a daughter named Elizabeth and so on the day we met he decided that I could call him ‘father.’ Each time he comes into the office he says something like ‘Hello, my daughter’ and I usually reply with ‘Hello, father,’ much to the great amusement of my Carpenter’s Kids colleagues. Anyway, my ‘father’ was quite happy that Callum and I were in his parish and he sat next to us during the distribution to help translate. Before the distribution, we went to the priest’s house for tea and chapati. The priest, John and John Joseph were highly entertained because they all share the same first name of John. So, we decided it was John Day. The re-distribution went well. In most of our ‘old’ parishes, the distribution of uniforms, shoes and school supplies goes like clock work. Everyone knows what to expect. Saturday was no exception. We did get to hear several choirs of Carpenter’s Kids sing which was great. At the end of the distribution, Callum and I were asked to stand up in front of the whole group and were each presented with kangas which was an unexpected and very thoughtful gesture.
After we took all of our group photos for the day, we were again invited to Pastor John’s house, this time for lunch. We were joined by two of the teachers at Nghulugano’s primary school and my Tanzanian father, Mr. Cow-Bear, who, as it turns out, is also named John. So we had four Johns much to the amusement of all those at lunch named John. After we’d finished eating our rice and some kind of meat-I think it was beef- and we’d all consumed our requisite bottle of soda, Mr. Cow-Bear asked Callum and me if we had Tanzanian names. Neither of us did, much to the surprise of all of Nghulugano residents. I should clarify here and explain that a ‘Tanzanian’ name is actually a Chigogo name. Needless to say, being given a Chigogo name is an important event-one that prompted Pastor Noah to congratulate me when he heard that I’d been given one. So, the Nghulugano residents at the table, half of whom were named John, debated amongst themselves for about 3 minutes before settling on names for Callum and me. My new Chigogo name is Saja, which means ‘Our beloved’ and Callum’s is Mtemi, which means ‘chief.’ Everyone was happy with their efforts and so Callum and I were told that we would be known as Saja and Mtemi to everyone in Nghulugano from that day on. Yet another unexpected and thoughtful gesture.
Finally, I’ve discovered that humor is a great way to bridge the language barrier that exists between me and two of my CK colleagues Willy and John Joseph. Just as a short refresher, Willy is our shoe fundi and John Joseph is our driver. They are both great guys and bring lots of laughter to our office. My Swahili is coming along, but it is still quite limited. Willy and John both speak about as much English as I do Swahili, so we have to be creative sometimes. This generally involves some improvised gestures and a mix of Swahili and English, but we manage quite well. Willy enjoys singing random songs in the office-just like my dad!-his latest song consists of the words ‘money, money, money, pesa.’ Pesa means money in Swahili. He generally sings this song when he’s carrying bags of shoes into the office or listening to Mmoti and I discuss financial matters.
John Joseph and I get along quite well and tend to joke around when we’re in the Land Rover, which is quite often. If he thinks I’m not paying attention at a re-distribution, he’ll call my name when he’s handing out uniforms. That always goes over well with the crowd. I got him back though at Nghulugano. When Willy packs shoes for each village, he writes the name of the child on a slip of paper and sticks it in between the laces of one of the shoes before placing both shoes in a small plastic bag. We remove the shoes from the bags and stack them in pairs on a table before we call the kids’ names. Once we’ve given all of the kids their shoes, we’re left with lots of little slips of paper. So, on Saturday I took one of small slips of paper and wrote John Joseph’s name on it. Then I read his name off of the slip and handed him the paper. He laughed so hard that I thought he was going to fall out of his chair. Maybe you had to be there to find that funny, but we enjoyed it.
Then at lunch he got me back. Awhile ago we went to a parish where there were not enough spoons to go around and I had to eat with my fingers. It’s harder than it seems and Willy and John Joseph thought it was really funny when I told them that. Ever since then, John Joseph has made sure that I’ve noticed that there are spoons or forks available for me to use. Well, on Saturday he and I tried to take each other’s spoons without the other noticing. Again, maybe it’s one of those things that you really had to be there for, but it’s an example of the little things in life that make for good experiences.
Last Friday Sarah and I, along with our friends Maaike and Leanne hosted a dinner party for 11 people including ourselves. Now, you need to realize that not one of the four of us had really done something like that before. That would be why Sarah and I made enough pasta to feed about 20+ people. It started out pretty small. We were initially planning on just having dinner together in our group of four. Maaike and Leanne are from Holland and they are here in Dodoma working at the deaf school. They live at the CAMS upper compound where Sarah lives and where I lived up until about 2 weeks ago. The four of us generally had dinner together about once a week with our neighbor Leane-not to be confused with Leanne! Well, I moved down to the lower CAMS compound, but we still decided that we’d have dinner together from time to time. Which leads us back to Friday’s dinner…
We decided to have dinner on Friday and split up the cooking accordingly. Then we thought it would be a nice idea to invite Callum and Laura to join us. Then we thought that it would be nice to invite Brian (DCT Business Advisor), Roger and Angela to join us as well. Roger and Angela were here in Dodoma for about 2 weeks from England. Roger is a former BBC film producer and he and Angela were here filming a DVD about the Diocese of Central Tanganyika. They’d been staying at the New Dodoma Hotel and eating hotel food every night. Readers who’ve stayed at the New Dodoma Hotel for a prolonged period of time know that eating hotel food night after night can get a bit old. So we were up to 9 people. Then we decided to invite Peter Prewandowski who teaches at CAMS and just moved to the upper compound. He’s an Episcopal missionary from the Diocese of Western Massachusetts. He’s actually been to Dodoma twice before and taught at CAMS both times. We also invited Magi Griffin, an Episcopal missionary from the Diocese of Atlanta, and one of Sarah and my favorite people in Tanzania. Magi works for Bishop Mhogolo and I can never remember her official title so I won’t even try. It’s impressive though. We finally ended up with our guest list of 11.
Then the fun began. Sarah and I went to the grocery store and started getting ingredients for our pasta dish. It really wasn’t too complicated, but we just weren’t sure how much pasta to buy. So, we bought enough for a small army…We did all the cooking at Sarah’s house because we decided to have dinner in the courtyard at the upper compound. Sarah doesn’t have many pots, so we had to cook the pasta in shifts and then empty the cooked pasta into a large bowl. It took awhile. The sauce, on the other hand, was a relatively quick affair as we used canned pasta sauce as a base and just added things to it. We also baked a cake for dessert and much to our amazement were able to find a Betty Crocker cake mix at the grocery store. Neither of us knew how to make frosting from scratch and our plan to look up a recipe online was foiled by Sarah’s internet not cooperating. Thankfully, Magi arrived in the nick of time and was able to whip up some frosting with no problem.
The logistics of such an event were quite entertaining as they involved us getting two additional tables out of apartments in the compound. There’s one table that is always out in the courtyard, which was really helpful. Sarah and I had an interesting time maneuvering her table out of her apartment into the courtyard. It took all of our geometry skills and a lot of lifting, but we managed to wedge her table out her door. We then tried to find another table to move outside from Leanne’s apartment, but we couldn’t get it out the door. We tried the same thing with Peter’s table but ran into the same problem. This led us all to wonder how the table made it in to the apartment in the first place. Peter suggested that maybe they built the apartment around the table. It could be true….
Thankfully, Brian’s table saved the day. It was not quite as wide as the other two tables and so we were able to get it out of his door quite easily. In keeping with the collaborative effort to pull off the dinner party, we borrowed chairs from Peter, Brian, Maaike and Leanne; plates from Peter; glasses from Brian, Leanne, Callum and Laura and Peter; and silverware from Leanne to supplement what Sarah had in her apartment.
We had originally scheduled the dinner to begin at 6pm, but of course we didn’t really start until about 6:35ish. No one is really on time here…Of course, that posed a slight problem because it gets completely dark here at 7pm each night. We ended up using candles and small lanterns in addition to lights shining through apartment windows to see, but it just added to the ambience of the evening. Dinner turned out really well and we had plenty of food to go around. Aside from Sarah and my pasta dish, Maaike and Leanne made potato salad, Magi brought vegetable risotto, Callum and Laura made bread, Peter made a coleslaw-type salad and Brian brought wine. We also had lots of water and juice to go around, lest anyone think that we had too much fun…:-)
Re-distribution at Nghulugano
On Saturday morning, I headed to Nghulugano with John, John Joseph and Callum to conduct a re-distribution. As a point of clarification, a re-distribution is what happens at parishes that have been in the Carpenter’s Kids program for more than one year. The initial distribution of uniforms, shoes, school supplies and mosquito nets is called a distribution and each of the subsequent visits to distribute uniforms, shoes and school supplies is called a re-distribution. This of course means that my blog entry should actually be called ‘dinner parties and re-distributions’ but that would have spoiled my title which vaguely resembles an alliteration. I’ll claim creative license this one time….
Nghulugano is the home of the man who calls himself my ‘Tanzanian father.’ His last name translates to cow-bear in Chigogo, the local dialect.. He has a daughter named Elizabeth and so on the day we met he decided that I could call him ‘father.’ Each time he comes into the office he says something like ‘Hello, my daughter’ and I usually reply with ‘Hello, father,’ much to the great amusement of my Carpenter’s Kids colleagues. Anyway, my ‘father’ was quite happy that Callum and I were in his parish and he sat next to us during the distribution to help translate. Before the distribution, we went to the priest’s house for tea and chapati. The priest, John and John Joseph were highly entertained because they all share the same first name of John. So, we decided it was John Day. The re-distribution went well. In most of our ‘old’ parishes, the distribution of uniforms, shoes and school supplies goes like clock work. Everyone knows what to expect. Saturday was no exception. We did get to hear several choirs of Carpenter’s Kids sing which was great. At the end of the distribution, Callum and I were asked to stand up in front of the whole group and were each presented with kangas which was an unexpected and very thoughtful gesture.
After we took all of our group photos for the day, we were again invited to Pastor John’s house, this time for lunch. We were joined by two of the teachers at Nghulugano’s primary school and my Tanzanian father, Mr. Cow-Bear, who, as it turns out, is also named John. So we had four Johns much to the amusement of all those at lunch named John. After we’d finished eating our rice and some kind of meat-I think it was beef- and we’d all consumed our requisite bottle of soda, Mr. Cow-Bear asked Callum and me if we had Tanzanian names. Neither of us did, much to the surprise of all of Nghulugano residents. I should clarify here and explain that a ‘Tanzanian’ name is actually a Chigogo name. Needless to say, being given a Chigogo name is an important event-one that prompted Pastor Noah to congratulate me when he heard that I’d been given one. So, the Nghulugano residents at the table, half of whom were named John, debated amongst themselves for about 3 minutes before settling on names for Callum and me. My new Chigogo name is Saja, which means ‘Our beloved’ and Callum’s is Mtemi, which means ‘chief.’ Everyone was happy with their efforts and so Callum and I were told that we would be known as Saja and Mtemi to everyone in Nghulugano from that day on. Yet another unexpected and thoughtful gesture.
Finally, I’ve discovered that humor is a great way to bridge the language barrier that exists between me and two of my CK colleagues Willy and John Joseph. Just as a short refresher, Willy is our shoe fundi and John Joseph is our driver. They are both great guys and bring lots of laughter to our office. My Swahili is coming along, but it is still quite limited. Willy and John both speak about as much English as I do Swahili, so we have to be creative sometimes. This generally involves some improvised gestures and a mix of Swahili and English, but we manage quite well. Willy enjoys singing random songs in the office-just like my dad!-his latest song consists of the words ‘money, money, money, pesa.’ Pesa means money in Swahili. He generally sings this song when he’s carrying bags of shoes into the office or listening to Mmoti and I discuss financial matters.
John Joseph and I get along quite well and tend to joke around when we’re in the Land Rover, which is quite often. If he thinks I’m not paying attention at a re-distribution, he’ll call my name when he’s handing out uniforms. That always goes over well with the crowd. I got him back though at Nghulugano. When Willy packs shoes for each village, he writes the name of the child on a slip of paper and sticks it in between the laces of one of the shoes before placing both shoes in a small plastic bag. We remove the shoes from the bags and stack them in pairs on a table before we call the kids’ names. Once we’ve given all of the kids their shoes, we’re left with lots of little slips of paper. So, on Saturday I took one of small slips of paper and wrote John Joseph’s name on it. Then I read his name off of the slip and handed him the paper. He laughed so hard that I thought he was going to fall out of his chair. Maybe you had to be there to find that funny, but we enjoyed it.
Then at lunch he got me back. Awhile ago we went to a parish where there were not enough spoons to go around and I had to eat with my fingers. It’s harder than it seems and Willy and John Joseph thought it was really funny when I told them that. Ever since then, John Joseph has made sure that I’ve noticed that there are spoons or forks available for me to use. Well, on Saturday he and I tried to take each other’s spoons without the other noticing. Again, maybe it’s one of those things that you really had to be there for, but it’s an example of the little things in life that make for good experiences.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
DCT Synod
One of the unexpected things that I’ve done recently was attend the DCT Synod. For the Episcopalians in the reading crowd, this is essentially like a diocesan convention. It’s supposed to happen every three years, but it had been five years since the last DCT Synod took place. We were given some time to talk about The Carpenter’s Kids at this year’s synod, so we all piled into our Land Cruiser (seriously, the entire staff: John, Noel, Mmoti, Daudi, Callum, Sarah, John Joseph and me-Pastor Noah was already there) on Wednesday, 17 September and made the hour-long drive to Mvumi Secondary School. If anyone from St. Bart’s reads this, it’s about 15 minutes past Mvumi Makulu.
We didn’t know what time our presentation would be, so we decided to leave at 4pm so that we’d arrive around 5, thinking that maybe we’d get to talk to everyone before they had dinner. When we pulled up to the gates of the school grounds, we were greeted by several people we knew, including Noel’s father George who’s the head of Uwaze (the men’s department of the diocese). We parked the vehicle and got out so Callum could change from his shorts to some long pants-more appropriate attire for a diocesan conference – which the rest of the guys on staff thought was hilarious and made a point of oo-ing and ah-ing when Callum emerged from the Land Cruiser.
We saw Pastor Noah relatively soon after we arrived and he said that we needed to wait for awhile because there were meetings still going on. So, we decided to walk around the campus for a bit. Daudi actually attended secondary school at Mvumi, so we had an expert tour guide. The priests were all staying in the school’s dormitories, so we ended up running into people we knew as we were walking around. Sarah and I saw several priests we’d met during the month and a half or so we’d been in Tanzania. They seemed quite surprised that we remembered them. We saw Mmoti’s father, the parish priest at Chamwino, and chatted with him for awhile. He speaks English very well, so that made saying more than just a few sentences much easier!
After we’d seen the entire school, we found out that we were given ten minutes to talk to the entire group later in the evening at about 8:00pm. So, we decided to wait around until then. Since we had several hours to wait, we decided to do some exploring and drove to a nearby development center to look at the grounds. For the Montanans reading this, the development center is run by Fr. John Nauman who was formerly the rector at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Billings. He wasn’t there, but we were able to look around and get a sense of what kind of work goes on at the center. There was an impressive drip irrigation system set up and there were some vineyards and fruit trees as well.
After we’d wandered around a bit, we drove back to the Mvumi campus and had dinner at a local restaurant. Our only choices for dinner were beans and rice or chips mayai. Beans and rice is fairly self explanatory, but I think chips mayai deserves a bit of an explanation. It’s quite popular here in Tanzania and it consists of a plate of French fries with an omelette on top. I’ve seen it with the fries actually cooked into the omelette as well. At this restaurant people who ordered chips mayai were given toothpicks to eat with. We finished our meal with some hot tea that tasted like it contained equal parts of tea and sugar.
Once we’d finished dinner, we walked over to the large hall where the evening meeting was to take place. We greeted Bishop Mhogolo, who was setting up the computer and projector, and took our seats. It took another 45 minutes or so for everyone to file into the building, but once they were all in there were over 600 people there. The Bishop made some remarks and then turned the floor over to Pastor Noah who gave a brief report about recent happenings in The Carpenter’s Kids before having each staff member get up and introduce themselves - in Swahili of course. Members of the congregations at St. John the Divine in New York and St. John the Baptist in Seattle will be happy to know that you all sent greetings to the DCT Synod this year.
I’ve gotten used to giving my little introduction in Swahili, but I find it rather nerve-wracking to say it into a microphone. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I know everyone will hear me if I use a microphone. After we’d all introduced ourselves, the Bishop said a few words about The Carpenter’s Kids program. An hour later, our “ten minute” presentation was over and we all got back in the car to go home. Sarah and I were the first to be dropped off and we got home at about 10:45pm. John Joseph dropped everyone else off at home and didn’t get home himself until midnight. It was a rather different timeline than we’d been expecting, but a worthwhile adventure nonetheless!
We didn’t know what time our presentation would be, so we decided to leave at 4pm so that we’d arrive around 5, thinking that maybe we’d get to talk to everyone before they had dinner. When we pulled up to the gates of the school grounds, we were greeted by several people we knew, including Noel’s father George who’s the head of Uwaze (the men’s department of the diocese). We parked the vehicle and got out so Callum could change from his shorts to some long pants-more appropriate attire for a diocesan conference – which the rest of the guys on staff thought was hilarious and made a point of oo-ing and ah-ing when Callum emerged from the Land Cruiser.
We saw Pastor Noah relatively soon after we arrived and he said that we needed to wait for awhile because there were meetings still going on. So, we decided to walk around the campus for a bit. Daudi actually attended secondary school at Mvumi, so we had an expert tour guide. The priests were all staying in the school’s dormitories, so we ended up running into people we knew as we were walking around. Sarah and I saw several priests we’d met during the month and a half or so we’d been in Tanzania. They seemed quite surprised that we remembered them. We saw Mmoti’s father, the parish priest at Chamwino, and chatted with him for awhile. He speaks English very well, so that made saying more than just a few sentences much easier!
After we’d seen the entire school, we found out that we were given ten minutes to talk to the entire group later in the evening at about 8:00pm. So, we decided to wait around until then. Since we had several hours to wait, we decided to do some exploring and drove to a nearby development center to look at the grounds. For the Montanans reading this, the development center is run by Fr. John Nauman who was formerly the rector at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Billings. He wasn’t there, but we were able to look around and get a sense of what kind of work goes on at the center. There was an impressive drip irrigation system set up and there were some vineyards and fruit trees as well.
After we’d wandered around a bit, we drove back to the Mvumi campus and had dinner at a local restaurant. Our only choices for dinner were beans and rice or chips mayai. Beans and rice is fairly self explanatory, but I think chips mayai deserves a bit of an explanation. It’s quite popular here in Tanzania and it consists of a plate of French fries with an omelette on top. I’ve seen it with the fries actually cooked into the omelette as well. At this restaurant people who ordered chips mayai were given toothpicks to eat with. We finished our meal with some hot tea that tasted like it contained equal parts of tea and sugar.
Once we’d finished dinner, we walked over to the large hall where the evening meeting was to take place. We greeted Bishop Mhogolo, who was setting up the computer and projector, and took our seats. It took another 45 minutes or so for everyone to file into the building, but once they were all in there were over 600 people there. The Bishop made some remarks and then turned the floor over to Pastor Noah who gave a brief report about recent happenings in The Carpenter’s Kids before having each staff member get up and introduce themselves - in Swahili of course. Members of the congregations at St. John the Divine in New York and St. John the Baptist in Seattle will be happy to know that you all sent greetings to the DCT Synod this year.
I’ve gotten used to giving my little introduction in Swahili, but I find it rather nerve-wracking to say it into a microphone. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I know everyone will hear me if I use a microphone. After we’d all introduced ourselves, the Bishop said a few words about The Carpenter’s Kids program. An hour later, our “ten minute” presentation was over and we all got back in the car to go home. Sarah and I were the first to be dropped off and we got home at about 10:45pm. John Joseph dropped everyone else off at home and didn’t get home himself until midnight. It was a rather different timeline than we’d been expecting, but a worthwhile adventure nonetheless!
Mleche, Chifutuka, Chibelela, Nghahelezi & Nagulo
In the last few weeks I have been to 5 villages to participate in distributions or redistributions. I’ve written about what goes on during these events several times already, so I won’t summarize the process again. Instead, I’ll just write a short story about each parish I’ve been to recently.
Saturday, 13 September: Hombolo Mleche
This parish is supported by a group called Friends in Colorado. It’s a group of 5 (maybe 6) guys who went to university together in Colorado and decided to work together to support 200 kids in Mleche. They initially started with 100 kids, but on 13 September an additional 100 children were added. So when we left Dodoma it was in an extremely packed car containing 200 mosquito nets, 200 pairs of shoes, 200 uniforms and 200 backpacks of school supplies.
Pastor Noah, Willy and I were joined by a priest from New Zealand named Bryan Carey. He and his wife Rosemary were visiting their friend Jo who works at CAMS. The drive to Mleche didn’t take that long and was actually quite pleasant because we were in the new Prado Land Cruiser. It’s amazing the difference good suspension makes! We arrived in Mleche and were greeted by a large crowd outside the church. It seemed like people here were more friendly than usual-which is pretty amazing given how welcoming people are in general. After I’d introduced myself and the distribution began, I started taking pictures for the distribution photo gallery. I was standing off to the side of the church when I heard “Eliza!” (This is pronounced ‘Ehleeza’-most Tanzanians tend to call me Eliza, although Noel calls me Liz and Mmoti calls me Lizzie) I looked over at the kids and the girl who’d said my name tried to duck behind a chair. I laughed and the kids around her must have taken that as a good sign, because they all started to do it as well. That is the first time that anyone in a parish has said my name since I’ve been here. Usually, I just get stared at and occasionally called ‘mzungu.’ (white person) It was nice to be Elizabeth again.
I also got to give some of the kids their uniforms. I’d handed out one or two before, but it felt different this time. Children are called up one by one to get their uniforms, so if you listen you actually know the name of the child you’re giving the uniform to. You can say their name and look into their eyes as you shake their hands and give them their uniforms. It was a great experience because it seemed very personal. They knew my name and I knew theirs.
One little girl in particular kept watching me the whole time. If I looked at her, she’d smile and wave and I’d smile and wave back. When the distribution was over and we took the big group photo, she made a point of coming over to say goodbye.
Saturday, 20 September: Chifutuka and Chibelela
Compared to our reception in Mleche, arriving in Chifutuka was quite a shock. Sarah, John, Willy, John Joseph and I were joined by a young woman from Australia named Ainslie who was visiting her friends Brian and Jill. Brian works at Mackay House and Jill works at CAMS and they are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. They always take time to say hello and ask how Sarah and I are doing whenever they see us.
The day began like most Saturdays do, getting into the Land Cruiser and driving for what seems like a really long time. When we arrived in Chifutuka, we all got out of the car and said hello to the parish priest and everyone else gathered around us. Instead of lots of smiles, we got lots of stares. I thought I was used to being stared at, it certainly happens a lot in town, but this was different. The priest invited us to his house to sit down and rest for a bit and as we were walking, I turned around and looked behind me. Sure enough, there was a crowd of about 30 people following us just staring. When we arrived at the priest’s house, we sat down in the shade and John chatted with the priest and Willy and John Joseph chatted with some of the parish committee members. Sarah, Ainslie and I sat there and talked to each other. When there was a lull in the conversation between John and the priest, I asked John if people in the parish had ever seen a white person before. He asked the priest and confirmed what I had suspected: the majority of the people had never seen a white person. That would explain the stares. I don’t really know how to explain it, but being stared at in Chifutuka just felt different than being stared at in Dodoma.
We brought some humor to the day when Sarah, Ainslie and I decided to walk around a bit and came across a group of piglets in a shed next to the priest’s house. Of course the three of us exclaimed over how cute they were which made everyone laughed. Sarah called them ‘pig’s watoto’ or pig’s children which made people laugh, but we discovered later that it’s actually very close to the Swahili for piglet. Sarah wanted to hold one, so John and John Joseph laughingly tried to catch one for her. John didn’t get too close because he was afraid of ‘Mama Pig’ and didn’t want to get in trouble with her. John Joseph made a valiant attempt to catch one, but didn’t have any luck.
After the pig escapades, we had tea and chapati with the priest and his wife. Sarah, Ainslie and I made John, Willy and John Joseph laugh really hard because we had a hard time picking up the extremely hot chapati. They, on the other hand, just picked them up like they were stone cold! Once we’d finished our tea, we headed over to the church to do the distribution. At the end, an old man gave John a chicken as a thank you present. The chicken’s feet were tied together and it spent the rest of the day under a seat in the Land Cruiser.
Chibelela
This distribution has the distinction of being the fastest one we’ve done since I arrived. We were all pretty tired when we arrived, and since this was a redistribution John decided that we could distribute the uniforms, shoes and backpacks quickly. We definitely learned why he has the nickname of Mzee Shasha or Old Man Chop Chop!
After Sarah and I had introduced ourselves in Swahili, John announced to everyone at the distribution that our Swahili teacher, Christina, is from Chibelela. That announcement drew a huge round of applause. Christina lives in Dodoma now because she’s a teacher’s assistant at CAMS but her niece is a Carpenter’s Kid in Chibelela, so we were very happy to have that connection.
Saturday, 27 September: Nghahelezi
Try to say that name five times fast. The Ngh- sound in Swahili is one that exists to taunt me, I think. It exists for other reasons to be sure, but one of them is definitely to taunt me.
Today John, John Joseph, Willy and I were joined by Miriam, Miriam’s friend Matt and Karen (the daughter of two of the teachers at CAMS) for our distribution. It was nice to be able to go to one final distribution with Miriam. We left Dodoma early so we could finish our distribution by 10am because the Bishop was scheduled to start a confirmation service at 10. Imagine our surprise then, when we arrived in Nghahelezi at about 8:15 and the Bishop was already there! They had decided to do the confirmation service first, so we were given tea and maandazi-like bread made with rice flour at the priest’s house. We were then shown to our seats in the church-right in the front of course.
The confirmation service was pretty long, but it was interesting to be a part of. There were about 30 young adults who were confirmed during the service. They came up to the front of the church in large groups – boys first and then the girls- and kneeled down on a long piece of material that had been spread on the ground to minimize the amount of dirt that ended up on their clothes. The material was made out of the large sacks that rice and millet are sold in. The bags had been sewn together to form a long cloth about 20 feet long.
Once each person had been confirmed, the service ended relatively quickly. The Bishop asked people to stay for the distribution immediately following the service. Some did and some didn’t. All of our Carpenter’s Kids and guardians were there and the distribution went smoothly. The women’s group from the parish played drums and sang and Miriam and Karen went over and danced with them. I was perfectly happy to take pictures. We went outside and took our standard group photos and were then invited to have lunch with the parish priest and the Carpenter’s Kids committee. The Bishop was just finishing lunch, so we said goodbye to him as he headed off to another parish to do a second confirmation service.
Saturday, 4 October: Nagulo
We left a little later than we anticipated this morning because there was something wrong with John’s bike and so John Joseph had to go pick him up at his house before getting us. We had two distributions scheduled for today and unfortunately, the parishes were not close enough for one group to do them both. So, Sarah went with Pastor Noah and Willy and I went with John, John Joseph and Callum. Two of Sarah and my neighbors, Leanne and Mika, who are both students from The Netherlands and are working at a school for deaf students here in Dodoma, went with us to get a sense of what The Carpenter’s Kids does. Leanne went with Sarah and Mika went with me.
My group got to drive in our old beat up Land Rover. This is the car that the Screening Panel uses each week. One of the doors doesn’t really close properly and sort of pops open randomly. It didn’t come completely open when we were driving to Nagulo, but it did come open twice on our way back. It just added to the adventure.
We did our distribution in one of the classrooms at the school which actually worked out well because everyone had a seat. I think it was the only distribution I’ve been to at which none of the kids had to sit on the floor or the ground. The actual distribution was pretty fast. After we finished, John asked Callum, Mika and I to say something to everyone. I can’t remember who Callum was supposed to address. Mika was supposed to encourage the kids to work hard in school and I was supposed to say something to the guardians and the parish committee. Normally, this is something I would have wanted to have prepared for, but I think I did an ok job. One of the guardians actually had tears in her eyes when I finished. After a closing prayer, we took some pictures of the kids and then had lunch with the parish priest and the chairperson of the Carpenter’s Kids committee. You have to watch for small stones in the rice here and unfortunately, I found two the hard way in Nagulo. I’m glad my dentist doesn’t read my blog!
Saturday, 13 September: Hombolo Mleche
This parish is supported by a group called Friends in Colorado. It’s a group of 5 (maybe 6) guys who went to university together in Colorado and decided to work together to support 200 kids in Mleche. They initially started with 100 kids, but on 13 September an additional 100 children were added. So when we left Dodoma it was in an extremely packed car containing 200 mosquito nets, 200 pairs of shoes, 200 uniforms and 200 backpacks of school supplies.
Pastor Noah, Willy and I were joined by a priest from New Zealand named Bryan Carey. He and his wife Rosemary were visiting their friend Jo who works at CAMS. The drive to Mleche didn’t take that long and was actually quite pleasant because we were in the new Prado Land Cruiser. It’s amazing the difference good suspension makes! We arrived in Mleche and were greeted by a large crowd outside the church. It seemed like people here were more friendly than usual-which is pretty amazing given how welcoming people are in general. After I’d introduced myself and the distribution began, I started taking pictures for the distribution photo gallery. I was standing off to the side of the church when I heard “Eliza!” (This is pronounced ‘Ehleeza’-most Tanzanians tend to call me Eliza, although Noel calls me Liz and Mmoti calls me Lizzie) I looked over at the kids and the girl who’d said my name tried to duck behind a chair. I laughed and the kids around her must have taken that as a good sign, because they all started to do it as well. That is the first time that anyone in a parish has said my name since I’ve been here. Usually, I just get stared at and occasionally called ‘mzungu.’ (white person) It was nice to be Elizabeth again.
I also got to give some of the kids their uniforms. I’d handed out one or two before, but it felt different this time. Children are called up one by one to get their uniforms, so if you listen you actually know the name of the child you’re giving the uniform to. You can say their name and look into their eyes as you shake their hands and give them their uniforms. It was a great experience because it seemed very personal. They knew my name and I knew theirs.
One little girl in particular kept watching me the whole time. If I looked at her, she’d smile and wave and I’d smile and wave back. When the distribution was over and we took the big group photo, she made a point of coming over to say goodbye.
Saturday, 20 September: Chifutuka and Chibelela
Compared to our reception in Mleche, arriving in Chifutuka was quite a shock. Sarah, John, Willy, John Joseph and I were joined by a young woman from Australia named Ainslie who was visiting her friends Brian and Jill. Brian works at Mackay House and Jill works at CAMS and they are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. They always take time to say hello and ask how Sarah and I are doing whenever they see us.
The day began like most Saturdays do, getting into the Land Cruiser and driving for what seems like a really long time. When we arrived in Chifutuka, we all got out of the car and said hello to the parish priest and everyone else gathered around us. Instead of lots of smiles, we got lots of stares. I thought I was used to being stared at, it certainly happens a lot in town, but this was different. The priest invited us to his house to sit down and rest for a bit and as we were walking, I turned around and looked behind me. Sure enough, there was a crowd of about 30 people following us just staring. When we arrived at the priest’s house, we sat down in the shade and John chatted with the priest and Willy and John Joseph chatted with some of the parish committee members. Sarah, Ainslie and I sat there and talked to each other. When there was a lull in the conversation between John and the priest, I asked John if people in the parish had ever seen a white person before. He asked the priest and confirmed what I had suspected: the majority of the people had never seen a white person. That would explain the stares. I don’t really know how to explain it, but being stared at in Chifutuka just felt different than being stared at in Dodoma.
We brought some humor to the day when Sarah, Ainslie and I decided to walk around a bit and came across a group of piglets in a shed next to the priest’s house. Of course the three of us exclaimed over how cute they were which made everyone laughed. Sarah called them ‘pig’s watoto’ or pig’s children which made people laugh, but we discovered later that it’s actually very close to the Swahili for piglet. Sarah wanted to hold one, so John and John Joseph laughingly tried to catch one for her. John didn’t get too close because he was afraid of ‘Mama Pig’ and didn’t want to get in trouble with her. John Joseph made a valiant attempt to catch one, but didn’t have any luck.
After the pig escapades, we had tea and chapati with the priest and his wife. Sarah, Ainslie and I made John, Willy and John Joseph laugh really hard because we had a hard time picking up the extremely hot chapati. They, on the other hand, just picked them up like they were stone cold! Once we’d finished our tea, we headed over to the church to do the distribution. At the end, an old man gave John a chicken as a thank you present. The chicken’s feet were tied together and it spent the rest of the day under a seat in the Land Cruiser.
Chibelela
This distribution has the distinction of being the fastest one we’ve done since I arrived. We were all pretty tired when we arrived, and since this was a redistribution John decided that we could distribute the uniforms, shoes and backpacks quickly. We definitely learned why he has the nickname of Mzee Shasha or Old Man Chop Chop!
After Sarah and I had introduced ourselves in Swahili, John announced to everyone at the distribution that our Swahili teacher, Christina, is from Chibelela. That announcement drew a huge round of applause. Christina lives in Dodoma now because she’s a teacher’s assistant at CAMS but her niece is a Carpenter’s Kid in Chibelela, so we were very happy to have that connection.
Saturday, 27 September: Nghahelezi
Try to say that name five times fast. The Ngh- sound in Swahili is one that exists to taunt me, I think. It exists for other reasons to be sure, but one of them is definitely to taunt me.
Today John, John Joseph, Willy and I were joined by Miriam, Miriam’s friend Matt and Karen (the daughter of two of the teachers at CAMS) for our distribution. It was nice to be able to go to one final distribution with Miriam. We left Dodoma early so we could finish our distribution by 10am because the Bishop was scheduled to start a confirmation service at 10. Imagine our surprise then, when we arrived in Nghahelezi at about 8:15 and the Bishop was already there! They had decided to do the confirmation service first, so we were given tea and maandazi-like bread made with rice flour at the priest’s house. We were then shown to our seats in the church-right in the front of course.
The confirmation service was pretty long, but it was interesting to be a part of. There were about 30 young adults who were confirmed during the service. They came up to the front of the church in large groups – boys first and then the girls- and kneeled down on a long piece of material that had been spread on the ground to minimize the amount of dirt that ended up on their clothes. The material was made out of the large sacks that rice and millet are sold in. The bags had been sewn together to form a long cloth about 20 feet long.
Once each person had been confirmed, the service ended relatively quickly. The Bishop asked people to stay for the distribution immediately following the service. Some did and some didn’t. All of our Carpenter’s Kids and guardians were there and the distribution went smoothly. The women’s group from the parish played drums and sang and Miriam and Karen went over and danced with them. I was perfectly happy to take pictures. We went outside and took our standard group photos and were then invited to have lunch with the parish priest and the Carpenter’s Kids committee. The Bishop was just finishing lunch, so we said goodbye to him as he headed off to another parish to do a second confirmation service.
Saturday, 4 October: Nagulo
We left a little later than we anticipated this morning because there was something wrong with John’s bike and so John Joseph had to go pick him up at his house before getting us. We had two distributions scheduled for today and unfortunately, the parishes were not close enough for one group to do them both. So, Sarah went with Pastor Noah and Willy and I went with John, John Joseph and Callum. Two of Sarah and my neighbors, Leanne and Mika, who are both students from The Netherlands and are working at a school for deaf students here in Dodoma, went with us to get a sense of what The Carpenter’s Kids does. Leanne went with Sarah and Mika went with me.
My group got to drive in our old beat up Land Rover. This is the car that the Screening Panel uses each week. One of the doors doesn’t really close properly and sort of pops open randomly. It didn’t come completely open when we were driving to Nagulo, but it did come open twice on our way back. It just added to the adventure.
We did our distribution in one of the classrooms at the school which actually worked out well because everyone had a seat. I think it was the only distribution I’ve been to at which none of the kids had to sit on the floor or the ground. The actual distribution was pretty fast. After we finished, John asked Callum, Mika and I to say something to everyone. I can’t remember who Callum was supposed to address. Mika was supposed to encourage the kids to work hard in school and I was supposed to say something to the guardians and the parish committee. Normally, this is something I would have wanted to have prepared for, but I think I did an ok job. One of the guardians actually had tears in her eyes when I finished. After a closing prayer, we took some pictures of the kids and then had lunch with the parish priest and the chairperson of the Carpenter’s Kids committee. You have to watch for small stones in the rice here and unfortunately, I found two the hard way in Nagulo. I’m glad my dentist doesn’t read my blog!
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Life in General or Something Like It
I’ve received a fair number of e-mails asking about what it’s like to live in Africa. Everything from what I eat and drink to questions about who I work with and where I work. I’ll try to answer some of the most frequent questions, but do feel free to pose others either via e-mail or leaving a comment on my blog and I’ll do my best to answer them.
I live about a 15-20 minute walk away from MacKay House, which is where the Diocesan offices are located. I just found out a few days ago that when Miriam leaves Dodoma to head home to New Zealand that I will be moving from my current apartment on the CAMS upper compound to her apartment on the CAMS lower compound. That might take a few minutes off of my morning commute, but it means that Sarah and I won’t be on the same compound anymore. I don’t need to think about that for another month, thankfully. There are a few ways to walk to the office from our compound. One way is to walk along the sealed road in the direction of the train station and then walk another two blocks to the left, cross the train tracks and walk past the Anglican Cathedral. We started out doing that walk all the time until we were introduced to the back way, which is more scenic I suppose and there are fewer cars. The roads are all dirt until you get near the train tracks again and the roads are sealed again. It’s a little faster to walk the back way and when we leave at just the right time we tend to get to one of the larger roads at the same time that a guard with a large gun is escorting three un-handcuffed prisoners in bright orange jumpsuits down the road, so really it’s a win-win situation. :-)
The Carpenter’s Kids office is on the 3rd floor of MacKay House between the Tunajali HIV/AIDS program office and Magi Griffin’s office. Magi is from the Diocese of Atlanta and is the Bishop’s Special Advisor on the MDGs. I think that’s her title anyway. She does a lot and she’s just great! We’re just down the hall from Bishop Mhogolo’s office, but I haven’t seen him in the office yet. He travels all over the diocese, so that’s not really too surprising.
The Carpenter’s Kids staff is made up of some of the kindest, most dedicated people I have ever met. I feel truly fortunate to work with them. I’ll only give a brief description of what everyone does, and believe me, it won’t do the work they do justice, but I could write a separate posting about the CK staff.
Pastor Noah is the Program Director and in addition to that job, he is also the priest of the Chadulu parish here in Dodoma, which is linked with St. Martha’s Church in the Bronx, and manages the Furaha Hostel for the diocese. Needless to say, he is a busy man.
Our Assistant Director is John Mattaya. He used to work for DCT Print, but has worked for The Carpenter’s Kids for awhile now. He’s quite the joker.
Our Program Administrator is Mmoti Sudayi, who, along with Noel Chomola, our Assistant Program Administrator, manages all of the DCT parishes who are part of The Carpenter’s Kids program. The two of them are so busy all the time, riding out to parishes on motorcycles to take pictures and measurements for uniforms, helping children who come to the office when they’re sick. The list goes on.
Daudi Mheta is our Communications Coordinator. He works with all of the parish communications coordinators to make sure that they can post messages to their linked parish in the US. He also helps kids when they come to the office to get medical attention.
Willy Saimoni is our shoe fundi, or shoe expert. He has the very important job of ensuring that all of the kids in the program have a good pair of shoes that fit their feet. He takes the measurements that Mmoti and Noel get and finds each child a pair of shoes. He also helps get other items for the kids, like socks and soap. During the New York pilgrimages, he helped by the gifts that people gave to their linked parishes. He’s also our resident comedian and keeps the mood light in the office.
John Joseph is the official driver for the Carpenter’s Kids program. He drives the screening panel to and from villages most weeks and is definitely someone you want behind the wheel when you’re driving out to remote parishes. Like all of the guys on staff, he has a great sense of humor and when he, Willy, John, Noel and Daudi get together hilarity tends to ensue. There is a lot of laughter in our office!
Stanley Magembe is our staff accountant. I don’t know him very well yet because he is only in the office for two days a week and is usually at a computer working with accounting software, but he is very nice.
Miriam Plume has been the Program Coordinator for the past two years. I can’t even begin to list everything that she does, but she’s been the one who has coordinated the logistics for all of the large visits to Dodoma from the EDNY, she writes the monthly newsletters, the quarterly reports, the annual reports, monitors online communications between parishes, etc. It’s amazing. Her last day in the office is Thursday, September 11th and we will really miss her. She’s heading home to New Zealand to work for New Zealand Aid (similar to USAID) and will, I’m sure, do amazing work there.
Callum Thirkell, Sarah Dailey and I are the newest members of the Carpenter’s Kids team. Callum is 27 years old and is from New Zealand. He and his wife Laura, who teaches at Canon Andrea Mwaka School (CAMS for short), are friends of Miriam’s and will be here for a year or two. Callum is going to be working on developing the healthcare component of the program that we are hoping to launch soon. Sarah is 22 years old (her birthday was August 22nd) and she is our resident communications guru. She just graduated from UGA with a degree in Interior Design, which she has already put to great use here by rearranging our office and painting the logo on the wall and door. It looks amazing! A main component of her job will be to take over the newsletters and reports aspect of Miriam’s job. Sarah created a new layout for the monthly newsletters that we will be debuting soon, so keep your eyes open for that!
The final member of our team is Brian Atkins. Brian is officially the Business Partner for the Diocese of Central Tanganyika, but does lots of work with The Carpenter’s Kids. He lives in England, but travels to Tanzania regularly. I haven’t yet met him, but am looking forward to doing so in October when he arrives to spend 8 weeks here.
That’s a brief description of our team, so hopefully that will help you all keep track of people when I mention them in posts.
So, I guess it would be good to go on to the more mundane things: eating, drinking, etc. Food here is great. We haven’t really experimented with too much yet, but so far I’ve liked everything I’ve tried except the liver jerky I was given in one of the villages. Sorry if there are any liver fans reading this. I would say the thing that I’ve eaten the most since I arrived is rice. Lots and lots of it. I think I eat rice almost every day during the work week because we go out to lunch every day. According to Noel, one of the guys I work with, Tanzanians don’t bring lunch to work, so we always go out. The place Sarah and I tend to go the most is called Rose’s Cafe which is an Indian cafe located about a block from the Carpenter’s Kids office. Rose is really nice and tends to tease us if we order the same thing for more than 3 days in a row. That isn’t hard to do as the menu isn’t really varied – there’s beef curry, chicken curry, beef masala, chicken masala, a fish dish and a vegetarian dish most days and on Friday’s Rose makes several different kinds of biryani – but you do get a lot of food for not a lot of money. The beef curry, for example, is only 1,500 shillings or just over a dollar. The most expensive thing on the menu is usually the vegetarian dish of the day and the chicken masala which both run in the 4,500 shilling range, or about $4.
We also go to a place called ‘Nice & Easy’ for lunch sometimes. Their menu is similar in make up. You can get beef, chicken, fish or njegere with your choice of either rice, ugali or something else. I can’t remember what. My personal favorite is njegere which is a vegetarian dish made up of tomato, peas, carrots, onions, powdered coconut milk and some spices (curry and something else). Njegere and rice costs 1,500 shillings, while a chicken dish tends to run about 3,500 shillings. We always get passion fruit juice when we’re at Nice & Easy, as opposed to the ever present soda that we drink most other places.
There’s a very large outdoor (well, really under a canopy-like cover) market that sells fruit, vegetables and spices. I personally find it to be more than a little claustrophobic and so I don’t like to go there too often. There are also two ‘Western’ style grocery stores here – one is called Super Dealer and the other Two Sisters. They are both run by people of Indian descent who speak English and Swahili very well. This is where you can find all sorts of imported goods – usually from South Africa. Each store has a large freezer section where they keep meat (ground beef, sausage, hot dogs, chicken, fish fillets, etc) as well as butter and cheese. I’m not entirely sure where the meat comes from, but the cheese is from New Zealand and Ireland. Some of my Kiwi friends said that they can buy New Zealand cheese here for almost the exact same price as they could back in New Zealand.
You can also buy cereal, crackers, cookies, baking supplies, pasta, different kinds of fruit juice, ice cream, tea, coffee, cleaning supplies, toilet paper and liquor. Some things are not too expensive, while others are really expensive. For example, my favorite brand of fruit juice, Ceres, which is from South Africa, costs about 2,500 shillings which I think makes it cheaper here than it was back in the US. Cereal, on the other hand, costs 12,000 shillings for a medium size box – that’s about $10. Cereal is marginally cheaper in Dar es Salaam, but we don’t go there often.
So, to answer the ‘what do you drink’ question: I drink lots of water when I’m at home. In order to be able to drink the water here, I have to boil it at a rolling boil for a few minutes, let it cool and then pour it into a counter-top filter. The filter is a large two-part metal container. You pour the boiled water into the top half and there’s a stone cylinder that the water gets filtered through one drop at a time into the bottom half of the container. I’m not entirely sure what the stone is, but it looks kind of like limestone to me. Bottled water is also readily available here and sometimes if Sarah and I don’t feel like boiling water to refill our water bottles, we just buy 1.5 liter bottles at the store. Lazy, yes, but effective... I also tend to drink about 2-3 liters of fruit juice each week. When we go out to lunch I usually drink orange Fanta or ginger beer, which is great, but usually I drink Fanta. Sarah laughs at me sometimes because I always order Fanta and not Coca Cola or Sprite, but what can you do? When we were in villages with the New York group, almost all of the Carpenter’s Kids drank Fanta so if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me. I also drink tea (grown in Tanzania) and hot chocolate (the mix is imported from South Africa) at home fairly regularly. I have tried coffee here, and it’s good but I don’t drink it regularly.
I guess that takes care of the food and drink questions. In terms of other things, you can find lots of items that are similar to what you’d find in the US. The quality might not be as good with some things, but that’s the case in the US as well. You just have to be patient and willing to go to three stores to get what you’re looking for instead of trying to get everything in one place. People are definitely willing to help you as well. When Sarah, Noel and I were looking for a can of blue paint last week, the owner of one store called down to another store and had some blue paint brought over. It’s a different rhythm, but you get used to it.
I promised myself that this was not going to be another long post, but apparently I don’t know how to write anything but long posts. I’ll stop writing for now even though I can think of lots of other things to tell, but in closing I would say that it’s definitely a different experience living here, but it’s been great so far. I know I’ve written this multiple times, but the people here are incredibly wonderful and as with anywhere else I’ve been, the people are what make the place interesting and worthwhile. That is definitely the case here in Tanzania.
I live about a 15-20 minute walk away from MacKay House, which is where the Diocesan offices are located. I just found out a few days ago that when Miriam leaves Dodoma to head home to New Zealand that I will be moving from my current apartment on the CAMS upper compound to her apartment on the CAMS lower compound. That might take a few minutes off of my morning commute, but it means that Sarah and I won’t be on the same compound anymore. I don’t need to think about that for another month, thankfully. There are a few ways to walk to the office from our compound. One way is to walk along the sealed road in the direction of the train station and then walk another two blocks to the left, cross the train tracks and walk past the Anglican Cathedral. We started out doing that walk all the time until we were introduced to the back way, which is more scenic I suppose and there are fewer cars. The roads are all dirt until you get near the train tracks again and the roads are sealed again. It’s a little faster to walk the back way and when we leave at just the right time we tend to get to one of the larger roads at the same time that a guard with a large gun is escorting three un-handcuffed prisoners in bright orange jumpsuits down the road, so really it’s a win-win situation. :-)
The Carpenter’s Kids office is on the 3rd floor of MacKay House between the Tunajali HIV/AIDS program office and Magi Griffin’s office. Magi is from the Diocese of Atlanta and is the Bishop’s Special Advisor on the MDGs. I think that’s her title anyway. She does a lot and she’s just great! We’re just down the hall from Bishop Mhogolo’s office, but I haven’t seen him in the office yet. He travels all over the diocese, so that’s not really too surprising.
The Carpenter’s Kids staff is made up of some of the kindest, most dedicated people I have ever met. I feel truly fortunate to work with them. I’ll only give a brief description of what everyone does, and believe me, it won’t do the work they do justice, but I could write a separate posting about the CK staff.
Pastor Noah is the Program Director and in addition to that job, he is also the priest of the Chadulu parish here in Dodoma, which is linked with St. Martha’s Church in the Bronx, and manages the Furaha Hostel for the diocese. Needless to say, he is a busy man.
Our Assistant Director is John Mattaya. He used to work for DCT Print, but has worked for The Carpenter’s Kids for awhile now. He’s quite the joker.
Our Program Administrator is Mmoti Sudayi, who, along with Noel Chomola, our Assistant Program Administrator, manages all of the DCT parishes who are part of The Carpenter’s Kids program. The two of them are so busy all the time, riding out to parishes on motorcycles to take pictures and measurements for uniforms, helping children who come to the office when they’re sick. The list goes on.
Daudi Mheta is our Communications Coordinator. He works with all of the parish communications coordinators to make sure that they can post messages to their linked parish in the US. He also helps kids when they come to the office to get medical attention.
Willy Saimoni is our shoe fundi, or shoe expert. He has the very important job of ensuring that all of the kids in the program have a good pair of shoes that fit their feet. He takes the measurements that Mmoti and Noel get and finds each child a pair of shoes. He also helps get other items for the kids, like socks and soap. During the New York pilgrimages, he helped by the gifts that people gave to their linked parishes. He’s also our resident comedian and keeps the mood light in the office.
John Joseph is the official driver for the Carpenter’s Kids program. He drives the screening panel to and from villages most weeks and is definitely someone you want behind the wheel when you’re driving out to remote parishes. Like all of the guys on staff, he has a great sense of humor and when he, Willy, John, Noel and Daudi get together hilarity tends to ensue. There is a lot of laughter in our office!
Stanley Magembe is our staff accountant. I don’t know him very well yet because he is only in the office for two days a week and is usually at a computer working with accounting software, but he is very nice.
Miriam Plume has been the Program Coordinator for the past two years. I can’t even begin to list everything that she does, but she’s been the one who has coordinated the logistics for all of the large visits to Dodoma from the EDNY, she writes the monthly newsletters, the quarterly reports, the annual reports, monitors online communications between parishes, etc. It’s amazing. Her last day in the office is Thursday, September 11th and we will really miss her. She’s heading home to New Zealand to work for New Zealand Aid (similar to USAID) and will, I’m sure, do amazing work there.
Callum Thirkell, Sarah Dailey and I are the newest members of the Carpenter’s Kids team. Callum is 27 years old and is from New Zealand. He and his wife Laura, who teaches at Canon Andrea Mwaka School (CAMS for short), are friends of Miriam’s and will be here for a year or two. Callum is going to be working on developing the healthcare component of the program that we are hoping to launch soon. Sarah is 22 years old (her birthday was August 22nd) and she is our resident communications guru. She just graduated from UGA with a degree in Interior Design, which she has already put to great use here by rearranging our office and painting the logo on the wall and door. It looks amazing! A main component of her job will be to take over the newsletters and reports aspect of Miriam’s job. Sarah created a new layout for the monthly newsletters that we will be debuting soon, so keep your eyes open for that!
The final member of our team is Brian Atkins. Brian is officially the Business Partner for the Diocese of Central Tanganyika, but does lots of work with The Carpenter’s Kids. He lives in England, but travels to Tanzania regularly. I haven’t yet met him, but am looking forward to doing so in October when he arrives to spend 8 weeks here.
That’s a brief description of our team, so hopefully that will help you all keep track of people when I mention them in posts.
So, I guess it would be good to go on to the more mundane things: eating, drinking, etc. Food here is great. We haven’t really experimented with too much yet, but so far I’ve liked everything I’ve tried except the liver jerky I was given in one of the villages. Sorry if there are any liver fans reading this. I would say the thing that I’ve eaten the most since I arrived is rice. Lots and lots of it. I think I eat rice almost every day during the work week because we go out to lunch every day. According to Noel, one of the guys I work with, Tanzanians don’t bring lunch to work, so we always go out. The place Sarah and I tend to go the most is called Rose’s Cafe which is an Indian cafe located about a block from the Carpenter’s Kids office. Rose is really nice and tends to tease us if we order the same thing for more than 3 days in a row. That isn’t hard to do as the menu isn’t really varied – there’s beef curry, chicken curry, beef masala, chicken masala, a fish dish and a vegetarian dish most days and on Friday’s Rose makes several different kinds of biryani – but you do get a lot of food for not a lot of money. The beef curry, for example, is only 1,500 shillings or just over a dollar. The most expensive thing on the menu is usually the vegetarian dish of the day and the chicken masala which both run in the 4,500 shilling range, or about $4.
We also go to a place called ‘Nice & Easy’ for lunch sometimes. Their menu is similar in make up. You can get beef, chicken, fish or njegere with your choice of either rice, ugali or something else. I can’t remember what. My personal favorite is njegere which is a vegetarian dish made up of tomato, peas, carrots, onions, powdered coconut milk and some spices (curry and something else). Njegere and rice costs 1,500 shillings, while a chicken dish tends to run about 3,500 shillings. We always get passion fruit juice when we’re at Nice & Easy, as opposed to the ever present soda that we drink most other places.
There’s a very large outdoor (well, really under a canopy-like cover) market that sells fruit, vegetables and spices. I personally find it to be more than a little claustrophobic and so I don’t like to go there too often. There are also two ‘Western’ style grocery stores here – one is called Super Dealer and the other Two Sisters. They are both run by people of Indian descent who speak English and Swahili very well. This is where you can find all sorts of imported goods – usually from South Africa. Each store has a large freezer section where they keep meat (ground beef, sausage, hot dogs, chicken, fish fillets, etc) as well as butter and cheese. I’m not entirely sure where the meat comes from, but the cheese is from New Zealand and Ireland. Some of my Kiwi friends said that they can buy New Zealand cheese here for almost the exact same price as they could back in New Zealand.
You can also buy cereal, crackers, cookies, baking supplies, pasta, different kinds of fruit juice, ice cream, tea, coffee, cleaning supplies, toilet paper and liquor. Some things are not too expensive, while others are really expensive. For example, my favorite brand of fruit juice, Ceres, which is from South Africa, costs about 2,500 shillings which I think makes it cheaper here than it was back in the US. Cereal, on the other hand, costs 12,000 shillings for a medium size box – that’s about $10. Cereal is marginally cheaper in Dar es Salaam, but we don’t go there often.
So, to answer the ‘what do you drink’ question: I drink lots of water when I’m at home. In order to be able to drink the water here, I have to boil it at a rolling boil for a few minutes, let it cool and then pour it into a counter-top filter. The filter is a large two-part metal container. You pour the boiled water into the top half and there’s a stone cylinder that the water gets filtered through one drop at a time into the bottom half of the container. I’m not entirely sure what the stone is, but it looks kind of like limestone to me. Bottled water is also readily available here and sometimes if Sarah and I don’t feel like boiling water to refill our water bottles, we just buy 1.5 liter bottles at the store. Lazy, yes, but effective... I also tend to drink about 2-3 liters of fruit juice each week. When we go out to lunch I usually drink orange Fanta or ginger beer, which is great, but usually I drink Fanta. Sarah laughs at me sometimes because I always order Fanta and not Coca Cola or Sprite, but what can you do? When we were in villages with the New York group, almost all of the Carpenter’s Kids drank Fanta so if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me. I also drink tea (grown in Tanzania) and hot chocolate (the mix is imported from South Africa) at home fairly regularly. I have tried coffee here, and it’s good but I don’t drink it regularly.
I guess that takes care of the food and drink questions. In terms of other things, you can find lots of items that are similar to what you’d find in the US. The quality might not be as good with some things, but that’s the case in the US as well. You just have to be patient and willing to go to three stores to get what you’re looking for instead of trying to get everything in one place. People are definitely willing to help you as well. When Sarah, Noel and I were looking for a can of blue paint last week, the owner of one store called down to another store and had some blue paint brought over. It’s a different rhythm, but you get used to it.
I promised myself that this was not going to be another long post, but apparently I don’t know how to write anything but long posts. I’ll stop writing for now even though I can think of lots of other things to tell, but in closing I would say that it’s definitely a different experience living here, but it’s been great so far. I know I’ve written this multiple times, but the people here are incredibly wonderful and as with anywhere else I’ve been, the people are what make the place interesting and worthwhile. That is definitely the case here in Tanzania.
Lukali & Babayu Distributions
On Saturday, August 30th we headed to the parishes of Lukali and Babayu to distribute uniforms, shoes, school supplies and mosquito nets to 50 kids in each parish. Unlike the majority of the distributions I’ve been on so far, this was the first distribution of uniforms, shoes, nets and school supplies in each of these parishes.
The day started pretty early – at 7:00am. Sarah and I walked down to the lower CAMS compound where Pastor Noah lives at 6:55 so we would be there on time. It turned out that we were early. We sat in Pastor Noah’s living room for a little while and chatted with him and his wife. Then we went to Magi’s apartment (next door) and sat with her and Pat Grace, a priest at St. Luke’s Church in Atlanta, who was staying with Magi for about a week before heading out to Msalato Theological College for a week. We didn’t deliberately wake them up early on a Saturday morning. They were already awake, because Pat was going to go with us.
Willy and John Joseph returned from picking up the uniforms, shoes, backpacks of school supplies and bales of mosquito nets from the office and Sarah, Pat, Pastor Noah, Willy and I piled into the Land Cruiser with Callum and Laura Thirkell. Callum is the newest member of The Carpenter’s Kids staff and Laura teaches at the international school. They’d only been in Dodoma for about a week before coming on a distribution, but as Sarah and I discovered on our first distribution, seeing the distribution is a great way to get a sense of the impact the program has. It was a pretty crowded ride out to our first parish because we had 6 people in the back of the Land Cruiser (Pat got to sit in the front seat with John Joseph) along with several boxes of school supplies. We had to stop a couple times to pick up some bags of uniforms that escaped from their place on the roof of the car. Instead of putting them back on the roof, we just put them in the back with us. We drove for what seemed like a long time, and just when I thought my knees were going to scream from staying in the same position we arrived in Babayu.
We all gratefully got out of the car and met the parish priest and some members of the parish. Pastor Noah had a brief conversation with the priest and it turned out that they were not ready for us yet. So, it was decided that we would get back in the car and go on to Lukali which was about 20 kilometers away, distribute everything there and then come back to Babayu. We were all thankful for the chance to get out and stretch, even if it was only for a few minutes. We folded ourselves back into the car and headed for Lukali.
Lukali didn’t appear to be any more ready for our visit than did Babayu, but we got out of the car and met the priest and several members of the parish committee. They took us to the church so we could wait for the kids to arrive. There wasn’t much seating available in the church, just a few benches. The few kids who had assembled at the church were seated on those, but chairs and stools from houses in the village made their way to the church for us to sit on. We waited for about an hour for more of the kids to come before we started the distribution. Even then, only about half of the children were there.
Distributions follow a particular pattern. We start with a prayer from either the parish priest or Pastor Noah and have introductions of parish representatives and our team. Sarah and I were glad that we’d memorized our introductions in Swahili so we didn’t have to read them off of a piece of paper. John Joseph and Willy hadn’t heard Sarah and I introduce ourselves in Swahili since our very first distribution (when we read them) so they were quite impressed. They both shook my hand after I finished, which was entertaining. Once the introductions were finished, Pastor Noah explained The Carpenter’s Kids program to everyone who was gathered so they’d all know what participation in the program entailed. Willy served as our Master of Ceremonies for the day which kept things lively. He also showed everyone how to use the mosquito nets properly and explained how to care for them.
Then it was time to give the kids their uniforms, nets and school supplies. Pastor Noah asked Pat to hand the children everything. Willy, John Joseph and two men from the village assembled everything and gave it to Pat who shook hands with each child and his or her guardian and then handed them their things. The order goes something like this: Willy picks a neatly folded uniform from the bag, looks at the tag and calls the name of the child. When he or she gets to the makeshift assembly line, they ask what grade the child will be going into and choose a backpack filled with grade-appropriate supplies which is placed on top of the uniform. Then two family-sized mosquito nets – one for the child and one for the guardian – are placed on top of that. All of that is then handed to whomever has been appointed to shake hands and present everything to the child – in this case, Pat.
Since many of the children were not actually at the distribution, their uniforms, supplies and nets were given to members of the parish Carpenter’s Kids committee so they could give them to the children. After the children received their uniforms, they went outside of the church and changed into them and then came back in and sat down. Then we began the process of distributing the shoes. The shoes are in a large bag and are packaged in small plastic bags to keep them together. We take them out of the small bags and place them on the table, stacked to ensure that the shoe with the child’s name on it is on top. Once all of the shoes are out, we take turns reading the names and the kids come up and get their new shoes and go back to their seats and put them on. This is generally an amusing experience for all of the Swahili speakers as some of the names give us non-Swahili speakers a hard time, but we are getting better with each distribution.
Once the kids in Lukali had their shoes on, Pastor Noah asked us if we wanted to say anything. We took turns thanking everyone for their welcome and wishing them well. Then we were invited to lunch with the priest and his wife. When we got to the priest’s house, a woman poured water over our hands before we entered the house. Then we all sat around the table and were given bowls for the rice and meat, only to discover that they only had 4 spoons. So, I got to eat with my hands for the first time. Let me just say, that it isn’t really that easy. I asked Pastor Noah to show me the proper way to eat. You are only supposed to use your right hand, so really I was eating with my hand, not hands. The process is you take some rice with your fingers and then squeeze it into a small lump/ball and eat it. It was much easier to do that with rice that didn’t have any of the sauce from the meat on it, but I stuck with it and managed to finish my lunch. I was very happy to wash my hands outside when lunch was over. Willy and John Joseph were highly entertained by my attempt as well as my telling them that it wasn’t easy. They were still laughing as we said goodbye to the priest and his family and got back into the Land Cruiser to head back to Babayu.
When we arrived in Babayu the second time, things were quite different. We were greeted by a larger group of people and ushered into a now packed church. There was singing and clapping as we made our way to the front of the church to take our seats. The distribution here followed the same pattern as the one in Lukali. We started with a prayer from the parish priest and had introductions all around. It’s kind of entertaining how surprised people are when Sarah and I can introduce ourselves in Swahili. We really each only said about 5 sentences, but people are so happy that we try that we always get a huge round of applause. It’s quite a different experience than I’ve observed that people who are learning English in the US seem to have. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve heard people in America say that someone whose English is not yet fluent, say ‘He should learn how to speak English’ or something along those lines. In every instance here, people are very patient and try to help you figure out what they’re saying as best they can, be it with gestures or using a few English words. It’s a very humbling to realize that you have to rely on others to express yourself in some situations. We are very lucky that everyone on The Carpenter’s Kids staff speaks English. Some are more fluent than others, but they are all willing to speak English so we understand what’s going on or to translate for us if need be.
Anyway, back to Babayu...so after introductions we began the process of distributing the uniforms, nets, school supplies and shoes. I also took a picture of a little boy with a cleft palate, because there is a clinic in Dar es Salaam that will repair his lip for 70,000 shillings, or about $60-65. Including transportation, food and hospital lodging costs for the little boy and his father, the operation will cost about $300. It’s just mind-boggling that this little boy can have a life-changing surgical procedure for that small amount of money. I have no idea what that operation would cost in the US, but I would guess that it would be much more than $300! We talked to the boy’s father and explained that we’d send the picture to the clinic in Dar and that he needed to bring his son to Dodoma for a HIV test and an iron test. The clinic will perform the surgery regardless of the boy’s status, but they just need to know. Needless to say, the boy’s father was very happy and made a point to shake my hand even though all I did was take a picture of his son.
Once everything was distributed, we went outside the church and took a group photo of all of the kids in their new uniforms and shoes. A woman asked me to take a picture of her with her two kids and was very happy when I took the photo and showed it to her. After that, though, I was surrounded by a group of at least 30 children – maybe more – who wanted to see the pictures I’d taken of their friends and wanted to have pictures of themselves taken as well. I’d take a picture and show it to them and they’d all try to crowd around my camera and push to get closer. I’d try to tell them to be careful – in English of course, which really didn’t help too much – but they kept pushing to get closer. I don’t know how long I was with the kids, only that at some point Pastor Noah came over and said that they wanted me to go inside the church because we were being served lunch (again!) and people were waiting for me.
We had more rice and meat of some kind in a tomato-based sauce with chapati and, of course, the ever present soda. Willy and John Joseph made a point of laughingly showing me that there were plenty of spoons here so I didn’t have to eat with my hands again. As soon as we’d finished our meal, the women brought us some baked sweet potatoes so we could have something for the road. Really, generosity here seems to know no bounds.
The drive back to Dodoma didn’t seem as long, but every time we go somewhere the last 20 minutes of the drive make me feel like I’m regressing to my toddler years. I just want to ask ‘are we there yet?’ over and over again. When I threatened to do that while the New York group was here, Miriam told me she’d throw something at me if I did. Thankfully, I didn’t ask the question (out loud that is), and we arrived back in town soon enough. We said goodbye to everyone and stopped in to see Miriam at her apartment before heading home to our compound more than ready to go to sleep.
I hadn’t thought about doing this before, but it would be interesting to track the total number of kilometers I travel while I’m here. I’m sure it would be an incredibly high number. Having now been to a total of 7 parishes, I can understand why the largest line in our administrative budget is for fuel. Gasoline runs about $8.00 a gallon here which makes me glad that I can pretty much walk anywhere I need to in Dodoma. Not that I have a driver’s license, but that’s another story. I guess I could re-learn to drive here and just get a Tanzanian license. Of course, I’d have to learn to drive on the other side of the road (the correct side as I’ve been told) and learn to use a stick shift, but I suppose it’s something to consider. We’ll see...
The day started pretty early – at 7:00am. Sarah and I walked down to the lower CAMS compound where Pastor Noah lives at 6:55 so we would be there on time. It turned out that we were early. We sat in Pastor Noah’s living room for a little while and chatted with him and his wife. Then we went to Magi’s apartment (next door) and sat with her and Pat Grace, a priest at St. Luke’s Church in Atlanta, who was staying with Magi for about a week before heading out to Msalato Theological College for a week. We didn’t deliberately wake them up early on a Saturday morning. They were already awake, because Pat was going to go with us.
Willy and John Joseph returned from picking up the uniforms, shoes, backpacks of school supplies and bales of mosquito nets from the office and Sarah, Pat, Pastor Noah, Willy and I piled into the Land Cruiser with Callum and Laura Thirkell. Callum is the newest member of The Carpenter’s Kids staff and Laura teaches at the international school. They’d only been in Dodoma for about a week before coming on a distribution, but as Sarah and I discovered on our first distribution, seeing the distribution is a great way to get a sense of the impact the program has. It was a pretty crowded ride out to our first parish because we had 6 people in the back of the Land Cruiser (Pat got to sit in the front seat with John Joseph) along with several boxes of school supplies. We had to stop a couple times to pick up some bags of uniforms that escaped from their place on the roof of the car. Instead of putting them back on the roof, we just put them in the back with us. We drove for what seemed like a long time, and just when I thought my knees were going to scream from staying in the same position we arrived in Babayu.
We all gratefully got out of the car and met the parish priest and some members of the parish. Pastor Noah had a brief conversation with the priest and it turned out that they were not ready for us yet. So, it was decided that we would get back in the car and go on to Lukali which was about 20 kilometers away, distribute everything there and then come back to Babayu. We were all thankful for the chance to get out and stretch, even if it was only for a few minutes. We folded ourselves back into the car and headed for Lukali.
Lukali didn’t appear to be any more ready for our visit than did Babayu, but we got out of the car and met the priest and several members of the parish committee. They took us to the church so we could wait for the kids to arrive. There wasn’t much seating available in the church, just a few benches. The few kids who had assembled at the church were seated on those, but chairs and stools from houses in the village made their way to the church for us to sit on. We waited for about an hour for more of the kids to come before we started the distribution. Even then, only about half of the children were there.
Distributions follow a particular pattern. We start with a prayer from either the parish priest or Pastor Noah and have introductions of parish representatives and our team. Sarah and I were glad that we’d memorized our introductions in Swahili so we didn’t have to read them off of a piece of paper. John Joseph and Willy hadn’t heard Sarah and I introduce ourselves in Swahili since our very first distribution (when we read them) so they were quite impressed. They both shook my hand after I finished, which was entertaining. Once the introductions were finished, Pastor Noah explained The Carpenter’s Kids program to everyone who was gathered so they’d all know what participation in the program entailed. Willy served as our Master of Ceremonies for the day which kept things lively. He also showed everyone how to use the mosquito nets properly and explained how to care for them.
Then it was time to give the kids their uniforms, nets and school supplies. Pastor Noah asked Pat to hand the children everything. Willy, John Joseph and two men from the village assembled everything and gave it to Pat who shook hands with each child and his or her guardian and then handed them their things. The order goes something like this: Willy picks a neatly folded uniform from the bag, looks at the tag and calls the name of the child. When he or she gets to the makeshift assembly line, they ask what grade the child will be going into and choose a backpack filled with grade-appropriate supplies which is placed on top of the uniform. Then two family-sized mosquito nets – one for the child and one for the guardian – are placed on top of that. All of that is then handed to whomever has been appointed to shake hands and present everything to the child – in this case, Pat.
Since many of the children were not actually at the distribution, their uniforms, supplies and nets were given to members of the parish Carpenter’s Kids committee so they could give them to the children. After the children received their uniforms, they went outside of the church and changed into them and then came back in and sat down. Then we began the process of distributing the shoes. The shoes are in a large bag and are packaged in small plastic bags to keep them together. We take them out of the small bags and place them on the table, stacked to ensure that the shoe with the child’s name on it is on top. Once all of the shoes are out, we take turns reading the names and the kids come up and get their new shoes and go back to their seats and put them on. This is generally an amusing experience for all of the Swahili speakers as some of the names give us non-Swahili speakers a hard time, but we are getting better with each distribution.
Once the kids in Lukali had their shoes on, Pastor Noah asked us if we wanted to say anything. We took turns thanking everyone for their welcome and wishing them well. Then we were invited to lunch with the priest and his wife. When we got to the priest’s house, a woman poured water over our hands before we entered the house. Then we all sat around the table and were given bowls for the rice and meat, only to discover that they only had 4 spoons. So, I got to eat with my hands for the first time. Let me just say, that it isn’t really that easy. I asked Pastor Noah to show me the proper way to eat. You are only supposed to use your right hand, so really I was eating with my hand, not hands. The process is you take some rice with your fingers and then squeeze it into a small lump/ball and eat it. It was much easier to do that with rice that didn’t have any of the sauce from the meat on it, but I stuck with it and managed to finish my lunch. I was very happy to wash my hands outside when lunch was over. Willy and John Joseph were highly entertained by my attempt as well as my telling them that it wasn’t easy. They were still laughing as we said goodbye to the priest and his family and got back into the Land Cruiser to head back to Babayu.
When we arrived in Babayu the second time, things were quite different. We were greeted by a larger group of people and ushered into a now packed church. There was singing and clapping as we made our way to the front of the church to take our seats. The distribution here followed the same pattern as the one in Lukali. We started with a prayer from the parish priest and had introductions all around. It’s kind of entertaining how surprised people are when Sarah and I can introduce ourselves in Swahili. We really each only said about 5 sentences, but people are so happy that we try that we always get a huge round of applause. It’s quite a different experience than I’ve observed that people who are learning English in the US seem to have. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve heard people in America say that someone whose English is not yet fluent, say ‘He should learn how to speak English’ or something along those lines. In every instance here, people are very patient and try to help you figure out what they’re saying as best they can, be it with gestures or using a few English words. It’s a very humbling to realize that you have to rely on others to express yourself in some situations. We are very lucky that everyone on The Carpenter’s Kids staff speaks English. Some are more fluent than others, but they are all willing to speak English so we understand what’s going on or to translate for us if need be.
Anyway, back to Babayu...so after introductions we began the process of distributing the uniforms, nets, school supplies and shoes. I also took a picture of a little boy with a cleft palate, because there is a clinic in Dar es Salaam that will repair his lip for 70,000 shillings, or about $60-65. Including transportation, food and hospital lodging costs for the little boy and his father, the operation will cost about $300. It’s just mind-boggling that this little boy can have a life-changing surgical procedure for that small amount of money. I have no idea what that operation would cost in the US, but I would guess that it would be much more than $300! We talked to the boy’s father and explained that we’d send the picture to the clinic in Dar and that he needed to bring his son to Dodoma for a HIV test and an iron test. The clinic will perform the surgery regardless of the boy’s status, but they just need to know. Needless to say, the boy’s father was very happy and made a point to shake my hand even though all I did was take a picture of his son.
Once everything was distributed, we went outside the church and took a group photo of all of the kids in their new uniforms and shoes. A woman asked me to take a picture of her with her two kids and was very happy when I took the photo and showed it to her. After that, though, I was surrounded by a group of at least 30 children – maybe more – who wanted to see the pictures I’d taken of their friends and wanted to have pictures of themselves taken as well. I’d take a picture and show it to them and they’d all try to crowd around my camera and push to get closer. I’d try to tell them to be careful – in English of course, which really didn’t help too much – but they kept pushing to get closer. I don’t know how long I was with the kids, only that at some point Pastor Noah came over and said that they wanted me to go inside the church because we were being served lunch (again!) and people were waiting for me.
We had more rice and meat of some kind in a tomato-based sauce with chapati and, of course, the ever present soda. Willy and John Joseph made a point of laughingly showing me that there were plenty of spoons here so I didn’t have to eat with my hands again. As soon as we’d finished our meal, the women brought us some baked sweet potatoes so we could have something for the road. Really, generosity here seems to know no bounds.
The drive back to Dodoma didn’t seem as long, but every time we go somewhere the last 20 minutes of the drive make me feel like I’m regressing to my toddler years. I just want to ask ‘are we there yet?’ over and over again. When I threatened to do that while the New York group was here, Miriam told me she’d throw something at me if I did. Thankfully, I didn’t ask the question (out loud that is), and we arrived back in town soon enough. We said goodbye to everyone and stopped in to see Miriam at her apartment before heading home to our compound more than ready to go to sleep.
I hadn’t thought about doing this before, but it would be interesting to track the total number of kilometers I travel while I’m here. I’m sure it would be an incredibly high number. Having now been to a total of 7 parishes, I can understand why the largest line in our administrative budget is for fuel. Gasoline runs about $8.00 a gallon here which makes me glad that I can pretty much walk anywhere I need to in Dodoma. Not that I have a driver’s license, but that’s another story. I guess I could re-learn to drive here and just get a Tanzanian license. Of course, I’d have to learn to drive on the other side of the road (the correct side as I’ve been told) and learn to use a stick shift, but I suppose it’s something to consider. We’ll see...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)