Here I am...in Tanzania

That's what it's all about!

2010-08-09T15:51:00.014+03:00

I’ve decided to call 2010 CK’s ‘Year of the Visitor.’ In the last few months we’ve had over 60 people come to visit the parishes with which they are linked through CK. While each group has been different, several of the groups have had two things in common: head, shoulders, knees, and toes and the hokey pokey. I can honestly say that I’ve now played both games more in the last few months than I have in the last 15+ years. Here are the highlights from the busiest visitor season we've had in the two years that I’ve been in Tanzania:

Our visitor season officially began in May when Buck Blanchard, the Director of Mission and Outreach for the Diocese of Virginia, and a group from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Ivy, VA came to visit us. They spent almost a week in the DCT visiting Nzali, which is the parish with which their church is linked, and really had an opportunity to get to know their new friends and learn about the joys and challenges of life in Nzali.

Carolyn, Sarah, Chris, David, Miller, Carol, and Debbie with the Carpenter's Kids from Nzali.

One of my favorite moments was watching the group play, you guessed it, head, shoulders, knees, and toes with the kindergarteners at Nzali Primary School. After the kids learned the English version, they (with a little help from Noel) demonstrated the Swahili version for the St. Paul’s folks.

Not quite two weeks after the St. Paul’s, Ivy folks went back to the US, we welcomed Buck back to Dodoma for the 3rd time in 2010! This time he was accompanied by the Browner and Gottwald families. During their visit, the two families visited Mphangwe, Chadulu, and Chonde parishes and helped paint some classrooms at the Mphangwe Primary School. They also played the hokey pokey with a large group of kids and adults and introduced American football to the parish.

Christine, Jack, and Kaki make some new friends at Mphangwe Primary School.

Kimmee, Kim, Jack, and Hays show the kids in Mphangwe how to play American football.

Buck and John watch the hokey pokey action from a safe distance.

Suzanne Johnson, the CK Coordinator from the Diocese of Virginia, also returned to the DCT in early June with a group of people from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond. The group spent most of its time in Mwitikira working with the Standard 4 and Standard 7 students as they prepared for their National Exams later this year. The group was also able to attend a special service for the laying of the foundation stone at the main parish church in Mwitikira, which is linked with St. Paul’s. Towards the end of their trip the group visited Chamwino Ikulu parish and participated in the distribution of uniforms, shoes, and school supplies for the Carpenter’s Kids there.

Pastor Noah and Suzanne catch up on CK-VA matters in Mwitikira

In mid-June a group of nine students and two teachers from St. Christopher’s School in Richmond arrived in the DCT to visit the parish of Nhyinila, which is linked with St. Christopher’s. The group spent 6 days with the people of Nhyinila doing everything from teaching ‘Happy Birthday’ to playing soccer to carrying water to painting classrooms in the primary school and pretty much everything in between.

Ben, Foster, and friends return from their water expedition

The St. Christopher's group, Buck, Pastor Noah, John and people from Nhyinila who worked on the school painting project.

We had a short break at the beginning of July which was used to get ready for two groups who arrived within days of one another in the middle of the month. We welcomed Suzanne Johnson back to the DCT and were happy to meet Janet Edumundson from St. Paul’s, Richmond and Jim Huffman and his daughter Katharine from the Church of the Redeemer in Midlothian, VA for a visit. Jim and Katharine were the first people from Redeemer to visit their link parish of Veyula and they were welcomed with open arms – Jim was even made an elder of the church (like being on the vestry)! Suzanne and Janet spent most of their time in Mwitikira, with Suzanne teaching English and Janet working in the library.

Jim in Veyula parish. The priest had just announced that Jim was officially a 'mzee wa kanisa' (church elder).

Several days after the Virginia folks arrived, Pastor Noah, John Joseph, and I headed to Dar es Salaam to pick up 14 of the 15 members of the Diocese of New York and Diocese of Rochester group who came to visit the parishes with which their churches are linked. One member of the group, Robin Newman, arrived in Dodoma at the beginning of July and worked in the office with us for two weeks before the rest of the group arrived. When we got back to Dodoma, the group hit the ground running and visited the parishes of Kigwe, Swaswa, Chimuli, Nala, Nghonghonha, Membe, Hombolo Makulu, Nhinhi, Mbalawala, Isangha, Chadulu, Mita, Lufuto, Izava, and Manda (that’s 15 parishes if you’re counting) over 5 days before heading to Mikumi National Park for a day safari and then on to Dar es Salaam to fly back to the US.

L-R: Jim, Caren, Jan, Lynn, Sara, Dahn, Katherine, Allyson, and Tom heading off to visit Holy Trinity Primary School. Notice the antiphonal seating!

All four of our VA friends joined the NY/Rochester group for various parts of the trip. It was a great opportunity for people from different dioceses to come together and exchange ideas about The Carpenter’s Kids program – and hopefully make some new friends while they were at it! I can also confirm that both head, shoulder, knees, and toes and the hokey pokey were played more times than I can count in multiple villages.

Sara and Katharine learn the Swahili version of head, shoulders, knees, and toes from the second graders at Nala Primary School

In late September, we’ll host our last group of the year (that we know of!) when some of the members of the Friends from Colorado group come to visit Mleche and Chilonwa. Until then, we’re back to business as usual in the office and we’re starting to look ahead to 2011 and what that may hold for the program. Despite the humorous t-shirts that say “No hurry in Africa,” or simply “pole, pole” (slowly, slowly), or “Haraka, haraka haina baraka” (literally: hurry, hurry has no blessing), time, it seems, does indeed fly!

P.S. If you’d like a Swahili translation of the hokey pokey, I’d be more than happy to e-mail it you!

The Bishop and Willy

2009-12-24T17:00:00.021+03:00

That sounds like it could be the title of a children's book...maybe I'll have to work on that.

Searching for the Bishop

The Diocese of Central Tanganyika covers a large area and has 200 parishes. Bishop Mhogolo travels to every single parish every year to do confirmations. This means that he’s not always close by as he often spends days at a time on the road. Enter a challenge. When we need to make a transfer of US dollars to TZ shillings so we can withdraw funds for everything from health care to funds for Mama Lishes to salaries, we need to have Bishop Mhogolo sign a cheque. When he’s in town or at home in Nala, this generally isn’t too difficult to get accomplished. However, at one point during this year Scott and Noel had to drive to a village about an hour or so away from Dodoma to get a signature. They arrived in the middle of a confirmation service and were invited to go to the front of the church and introduce themselves. They were then invited to stay for the rest of the service and to the post-service lunch. It was only during lunch that they were able to explain to Bishop Mhogolo why they were there. He laughed and signed the cheque. Noel and Scott finished their lunch, thanked everyone, and returned to Dodoma to try and get to the bank before it closed.

Another time, Noel and John Joseph headed to another village to get a cheque signed only to arrive and find out that Bishop had already left and was on his way to the next village on his itinerary (he usually visits two villages a day). They headed to that village and were able to get their cheque signed.

Recently, we needed to get two USD cheques signed and because Scott, Nikki, Daudi, and I had been planning to use the CK vehicle that afternoon, we all went with Noel to the Bishop’s house in Nala to get the cheques signed. When we arrived, Irene (Bishop Mhogolo’s wife) met us outside the house and said that the Bishop was home but he was out planting. The Bishop and Irene have a fairly good-sized home farm and so while we couldn’t see the Bishop, we at least knew the general direction to go to find him. So we headed off to find the Bishop, Irene leading the way and Noel, Scott, Nikki, Daudi, and I following close behind. We walked through the papaya trees, past the rows of grapes, and after walking for a few minutes finally saw the Bishop planting cashews. He knew that Noel had been coming, but was a bit surprised to see the rest of us. We told him that we were Noel’s entourage! Bishop Mhogolo laughed, wiped the mud off of his hands (planting cashews is messy work), and signed our cheques. We chatted for a few minutes and then we headed back to the car and the Bishop returned to his cashews. I can’t quite imagine something like this happening in New York…

Willy’s New House

Willy and his family just moved into their new house in the Chang’ombe neighborhood in Dodoma. They have been living in a small rented house in the same neighborhood for quite awhile, but have been saving their money so they could build their own home. They started to do that earlier this year and now have a lovely new home right across the street from the one they’ve been renting. We visited the house a few times while it was under construction and last week we were invited back for a special house blessing service which was held the day they officially moved in.

Scott, Nikki, Daudi, Pastor Noah, John and I all attended the service – a good showing from the CK office! There were also friends of Willy and his wife Mary from their neighborhood and from their church, Chamwino Mjini. The Reverend Canon Sudayi, parish priest of Chamwino Mjini, led the service, but he asked Pastor Noah to lead parts of it as well. I’d never been to a house blessing before and I think it’s fairly safe to say that I probably won’t go to another one that will be quite like the one at Willy’s house, but I guess you never know! The service opened with a prayer and then continued with a Bible reading and a homily before ending with the singing of “My Jesus I love thee” in Swahili (of course). We did all have to introduce ourselves at one point during the service. Some things never change! After the service ended, we all had dinner together in the sitting room of Willy and Mary’s new home. Willy and Mary’s kids, Tedi, Queeni, Tumaini, Imani, and Elizabeth, are all very excited about their new home (as are Willy and Mary!). We were all delighted to be able to share the special day with them. A real blessing for all of us.

Willy and his family in front of their new home. From left to right: Martha (Willy and Mary's niece), Tumaini, Imani, Mary, Queeni, Elizabeth, Tedi, and Willy

Here are a few more photos just for fun:

Here is Noel pretending to cook dinner. He saw me taking pictures and immediately volunteered to stir...

Sometimes it's hard to get both John Joseph and Willy to smile at the same time for a picture.

See what I mean?!

And because no end-of-the-year post would be complete without pictures of kids, here are two pictures from our distribution in Gawaye:

This little boy was waiting to get his new uniform!

A Carpenter's Kid in chekechea (kindergarten) clutches her zebra socks as she waits to get her new shoes.

And, finally, a Christmas surprise: Videos!

The Carpenter's Kids in Gawaye say hi! (Literally, hello our friends)

The Carpenter's Kids in Mahoma Nyika sing about God's grace as they wait for the supplies for the distribution to be brought into the church.

Distributions, Mini-Golf, and Thanksgiving

2009-11-30T15:52:00.020+03:00

- A welcome site on the way back to Dodoma last week. -

I’ve been back in Dodoma for three weeks now and despite the fact that we’re nearing the end of the calendar year, things show no sign of slowing down. We’ve had distributions every weekend and we’ve just decided to implement the program in 3 more villages despite the fact that the rainy season should soon be upon us. I believe we’ll be all finished with distributions by 19 December. Of course, I thought we’d be all finished with distributions by 28 November, so who knows? The exciting thing about the additional distributions is that it means we’ll finish the year with 99 DCT parishes linked and 5,725 children in school!

- Here's John Joseph just as he was heading off to do photos and mesurements in one of the parishes that is farthest away from Dodoma (about 3 hours by Cruiser). John was traveling by motorcycle and decided to be prepared in case it rained on the way. -

In the last three weeks I’ve been on 5 distributions: Hombolo Bwawani, Mahoma Nyika, Mkonze, Makanda and Mchito. I’d been to all of the parishes before except Mahoma Nyika and Mkonze, which are new parishes linked with the Cathedral of St. Phillip in Atlanta, and it was wonderful to go back and see the kids again. They are all doing well and were happy to get their new uniforms, shoes, school supplies, socks and soap.

We had an unexpected delay at Mahoma Nyika. After we finished the distribution, we were invited to lunch at the priest’s house so Pastor Noah decided to move the Cruiser so we didn’t have to walk back to the church after lunch. Well, you know what they say about good intentions…The recent rains had created a rather foul-smelling mud pit and unfortunately the Cruiser got stuck in it. It took over an hour and, at one point, about 15 people from Mahoma Nyika, plus Pastor Noah and Willy to get the Cruiser free, but they managed. Talk about team work! Magi, Margaret (a visitor) and I had been directed to stay out of the way and a bench had been brought from the church so we could sit and watch. Apparently people decided that we wouldn’t really be that much help…fair enough.

Mini-Golf

Magi Griffin (Bp. Mhogolo’s Partnership and Project Advisor) and Martin McCann (Head of DCT Pathology Lab), both appointed missionaries from Atlanta, organized a combination welcome back for me/farewell to Callum, Laura, Scott and Nikki on Saturday, 14 November. It was held at Leone L’Africano which is the pizzeria/mini-golf course here in Dodoma – a favorite place of many of our visitors this year. The course consists of 12 holes which are actually a bit challenging because of the fact that they are made of concrete and the ground is not really flat, so something that you think should be simple is not actually all that simple (especially if you are mini-golf challenged, as I apparently am). Anyway, it was fun to get everyone together in a relaxed environment and have a mini-farewell party for our four Kiwis. Scott and Josh had finally taken their much-talked-about motorcycle trip together and made it back from Kigoma to arrive literally just in time for pizza on Saturday evening. That wasn’t their original plan, but I think they were both pleased with how it turned out!

- Callum gets ready to swing, cheered on by Nikki and Laura. He went on to win the tournament. -

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving dinner this year was quite different from last year when Sarah, Magi and I had Chinese food at the Dodoma Hotel. This year Magi, Peter, Jane, Linda, and I had dinner together at Peter’s house. Jane and Linda, who are from Australia and England respectively, decided that they had been invited so they could learn more about the holiday, though Linda, who is a history teacher, gave a far more detailed description of Thanksgiving that I think I could have. We had chicken instead of turkey because turkey is a bit pricy here and despite a lack of pumpkin pie, it was pretty much like a lot of Thanksgiving dinners I’ve attended in the past. There was one major difference, though: Magi’s ugali turkey! Ugali is a staple of the Tanzanian diet. It’s made from corn flour and when fully cooked kind of looks like a combination of mashed potatoes and homemade playdough and has about the same consistency. Magi said she thinks that she’s found her medium. Ugali. You can see from the pictures below that the finished product was nothing short of a masterpiece and it was really a shame that the unfortunate 'ugalurkey' had to meet its end.

- The great unveiling of the mystery guest. -

- Magi, Peter, and the ugalurkey. -

- The ugalurkey in all its glory! -

Just for fun: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, but Jack obviously doesn't work for The Carpenter's Kids!

- All Callum needs now is a white shirt and a backpack! -

- Willy thought that a blanket left over from one of the pilgrimages made a good outfit. Why? Why not? -

- Scott and Callum take five. -

- John Joseph and Willy decided to get in on the photo opp fun, but Scott was too tired to smile. -

A 4-Month Recap

2009-07-27T19:10:00.016+03:00

Sunset in Nala

Time. It can fly, it can crawl and it can simply pass by at a leisurely pace. No matter how hard we try to change that, to add extra hours to the work day by forgoing sleep in favor of checking off one more thing on our ‘to-do’ lists or putting one task off for another day or week to prioritize the completion of another task, the minutes, hours and days still pass. We can’t change it. And despite being constantly guilty of wanting to add a minimum of 8 additional hours to the day, I think there’s something comforting in the fact that time simply marches on.

I have to apologize to those of you who have been waiting for an update from Tanzania for several months now. I’ve been deprioritizing updating my blog in favor of getting other work done. That isn’t really fair, but I hope you’ll understand. Below is a brief summary of what’s been going on in the last few months – well, it’s as brief as anything I ever write is and as brief as a summary of four months’ worth of news can be!

Easter

This year I spent Easter at Ipagala parish here in Dodoma. The parish priest is the Reverend Canon Mary Kanyamala who has the distinction of not only being the first female priest in the Diocese of Central Tanganyika, but the first female priest in the whole Anglican Church of Tanzania! She’s also the first female Canon and Archdeacon in Tanzania. An amazing woman! Mama Kanyamala invited Magi and me to attend Easter service at her church and to come to her house after the service to have lunch with her family. Needless to say, we were thrilled to receive and accept the invitation. The service took place in her parish’s new church building which doesn’t have a roof yet so we got a fair amount of sun but we had a great time. The service opened with a familiar Easter hymn, Christ the Lord is Risen Today (or Bwana Amefufuka in Swahili) which was sung to the same tune we use back home so Magi and I could sing along fairly easily. It also helped that there weren’t any really long words in the lyrics!

The service was liturgically very similar to Easter services back home but with a few more choir performances. Magi and I had to get up and introduce ourselves (of course!) which was highly entertaining for everyone because Mama Kanyamala insisted that we start off by giving the traditional Easter greeting of Bwana Yesu Amefufuka (the Swahili equivalent of He is Risen). Well, we didn’t quite say it together – the fufu part of amefufuka threw us off, I think we may have said one too many fu’s – and so we started laughing and it kind of came out as amefufu(fu)ka-ha-ha-ha which made everyone laugh. Maybe you had to be there but Magi and I and the 500 or so people at the service thought it was funny.

After the service, we went to the Catechist’s house for tea and then we went to Mama Kanyamala’s house for lunch. We didn’t get home until almost 5pm but I really enjoyed the opportunity to spend the day with new friends. Mama Kanyamala said that I should consider Ipagala to be my home here in Dodoma and that I was welcome back at any time. I’m looking forward to going back again.

Visitors!

The months between March and November are a busy time for The Carpenter’s Kids program. During this time period we go to villages every week to distribute school uniforms, shoes and school supplies – sometimes two villages in a day and sometimes up to five or six – to the children in the program. For obvious reasons, this is also a good time for people who are supporters of the program or are interested in learning more about it to come and visit us. Our first visitors came in April and we’ve had a steady stream of visitors since then.

In April we were visited by people from all over the United States. Rev. Patrick Ward, the Interim Rector at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Granite Springs, NY, arrived in Dodoma on the 15th for a week-long visit. He visited his current parish link of Izava and returned to Ng’hong’hona, linked with St. Mary’s Church In Scarborough, NY where he was previously rector, to participate in the 2009 distribution of uniforms, shoes and school supplies there and preached at their Sunday service. We greatly enjoyed having Rev. Ward here and we look forward to welcoming him back for his 4th visit to Tanzania next year.

Rev. Patrick Ward with the current and retired parish priests of Izava

On Saturday the 18th, the Friends from Colorado (Buck, Darryl, Rick, Scott and Steve) arrived in Dodoma for just under a week. They visited four DCT parishes including Chadulu (where Pastor Noah is parish priest), Chilonwa, Mwitikira and Mleche. The guys endeared themselves to children of all ages in Chilonwa by shouting woohoo at the drop of a hat, giving lots of rides on their shoulders and bumping fists, the local equivalent to a ‘high five.’ They actually did that in all of the parishes they visited, but it was especially evident in Chilonwa that the woohoo sound had caught on. I’m sure the parents, guardians and teachers of the parish will be eternally grateful! :-) The guys said they want to come back next year and bring their families, to which we all say ‘woohoo!’

The Friends from Colorado in Chilonwa

On Friday, 24 April Suzanne Johnson, Roger Whitfield and Amy Millican from the Diocese of Virginia arrived in Dodoma to visit Suzanne and Roger’s link parish, Mwitikira. Suzanne and Amy spent most of their time here in Mwitikira, though they went on two Carpenter’s Kids distributions and took a special trip to Manyoni, the seat of the Diocese of the Rift Valley, so Amy could meet with people there to discuss the possibility of her working in Tanzania. Roger spent his time in Dodoma and Mwitikira working on getting a new water pump sorted out for Mwitikira, so we saw him more often than we saw Suzanne and Amy. Magi, Noel and I went with the Virginia group to the Sunday church service in Mwitikira on April 26th and we enjoyed seeing the very strong friendships that have been built between Suzanne and Roger and the people of Mwitikira.

Suzanne and Roger with Father Erasto in Mwitikira

Language School

In May, I headed off to language school in Iringa (south of Dodoma) with Magi. Despite being in Tanzania for nine months, prior to language school my Swahili left a great deal to be desired. I could only have very basic conversations and buy things at the market. So, we headed off to Iringa for two weeks of language classes. The bus ride to Iringa took about 8 hours, but we made it there suffering from nothing more than a little NBS (numb bum syndrome). Once there, we moved into our tents (the school is located at a campsite) and met our new classmates. The teachers were great and I learned more in the first week of classes than I’d learned in the previous nine months of my time here. In fact, even though we’d only planned to stay for two weeks, Magi and I were having such a good time and learning so much that we decided to stay for a third week. So we were away from our respective offices for a little longer than anticipated, but it was well worth it. I can actually have whole conversations in Swahili now! Very exciting.

More Visitors!

In June we were very happy to welcome Suzanne and Roger back to Dodoma along with some of their fellow St. Paul’s parishioners Cindy and Si Wofford and Natalie Davis. We were also happy to welcome Suzanne’s daughter Rebecca, a pediatrician, to the DCT so she could share the experience of visiting Mwitikira with her mother. It was a special visit for everyone involved. The St. Paul’s crew, sans Roger, went on two distributions with us to Manda and Huzi which are quite a long ways from Dodoma. A good three hours’ drive one way! While in Manda we were all thrilled to meet Willy’s mother as well as distribute new uniforms, shoes and school supplies to the 50 Carpenter’s Kids in the parish.

Willy and his mom!

The St. Paul’s crew also visited several medical facilities to get a better sense of the status of health care in the area. The main purpose of the trip for the St. Paul’s crew was to spend 2 weeks in their link parish of Mwitikira teaching English, which from all reports they all enjoyed a great deal. The group headed to Zanzibar for a little R&R on 23 June, but Suzanne returned to Dodoma on 28 June with Caroline Gottwald and Amy Millican. Amy was on her way back to Manyoni to attend the Diocese of the Rift Valley synod (like a diocesan convention), but we were very happy to see here again and have an opportunity to catch up on what had happened in the month and a half since we’d last seen one another. Suzanne and Caroline headed to Mwitikira to continue teaching English.

While Suzanne, Cindy, Si and Natalie were teaching in Mwitikira, Roger was stuck in Dar es Salaam waiting for the new water pump that St. Paul’s purchased to clear customs. He had a bit of a long wait and ended up spending 12 days in Dar! However, his patience paid off and the pump was delivered to Dodoma and has now been successfully installed in Mwitikira!

In June we also welcomed Leslie Steffensen from St. Andrew’s Church in Burke, VA to Dodoma. Leslie works at the Center for Anglican Communion Studies at Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) and was a missionary here in the DCT several years ago. She is also a big supporter of The Carpenter’s Kids and we were very excited to have her here in Dodoma and thrilled that she was able to participate in the first distribution in Chololo, which is St. Andrew’s new link.

Later in the month, the Very Reverend Dr. Ian Markham, also known as the Dean and President of VTS, visited Dodoma to participate in a conference at Msalato Theological College and deliver the keynote address at Msalato’s graduation ceremony. VTS recently committed to joining The Carpenter’s Kids program and is linked with Mgunga. Rev. Markham was able to attend the first distribution in the parish on 26 June and elicited a great cheer from the parish when he told them he’d like to come back and bring his family. The Very Reverend Rich Martindale, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbus, GA, was also in Dodoma for the theological conference and graduation and was able to attend and participate in the distribution in Mgunga as well.

Ian and the Carpenter's Kids from Mgunga

Robin Newman from the Diocese of New York, more specifically St. Martha’s Church in the Bronx, arrived in Dodoma on Friday, 26 June. Robin has been to the DCT several times and we were happy to have her back with us and happy that she could spend some extra time with us before the July pilgrimage, for which she was the administrative lead. On Sunday, 28 June we went to the Msalato Theological College graduation (and got to have a mini-reunion with Ian and Rich) so Robin could attend the event on behalf of Bishop Roskam. The diocesan (EDNY) Global Women’s Fund has supported a theology student named Tumaini (Hope) during her years studying for a degree in Applied Theology at Msalato, so it was a very special for her to have a representative from New York attend the graduation. In the weeks that followed the graduation ceremony, Robin spent lots of time with the Carpenter’s Kids staff and helped prepare for the arrival of our NY and UK pilgrims.

On 29 June Danielle Tirello Givens, the Program Associate for Africa and the Middle East from Episcopal Relief and Development, arrived in Dodoma to spend time with The Carpenter’s Kids program and the DCT Development Department both of which are supported by ERD. On Thursday 2 July we took Danielle to Chitelela which is a CK parish and it is also one of the two parishes in which we are launching a community health care education program. The visit allowed Danielle to get a sense of how the Carpenter’s Kids program is going in Chitelela and also to learn more about the parish’s health care needs and their hopes for the health care education program. On Friday we spent a day learning about monitoring and evaluation techniques and getting Danielle’s advice on the best way to move forward with that for our overall education program and for the community health care education program.

In July, a group from St. David’s Episcopal Church in Roswell, GA and Solar Lights for Africa arrived in Dodoma to install solar panels on the dining hall and library at Msalato Theological College. They also wanted to participate in a Carpenter’s Kids distribution and so on Saturday, 11 July they traveled to Dabalo with us. Dabalo is a good two hour drive away from Dodoma on roads that if you called them rough it would be an enormous understatement. The group then headed out to Msalato and installed 10 solar panels in 4 days! Not an easy feat. The results will allow Msalato to save money on their electricity bills and have a more reliable power supply!

Allison from St. David's with new friends in Dabalo

On 14 July we welcomed what I like to call our super-transatlantic pilgrimage. I’m the only one who likes to call it that, but I’ve accepted that. The Diocese of New York has pilgrimages in July and August of each year and this year Pam Stone, Fran Jenkins and John Teare, who are all from England and are affectionately known as the UK3, joined the July group. Though their churches are not linked with DCT parishes, they support our health care (urgent care) program and we were very happy to have them here in the DCT to visit parishes and meet many Carpenter’s Kids who’ve benefited from the program. Together with Robin Newman and Deacon Eliza Davies from St. Martha’s Church, Bronx, Marsha Nelson, the Head of the Cathedral School, Kate Ross, a student at the Cathedral School and her father David Ross, Ruth Anne Cary and the Reverend Elizabeth Garnsey from the Church of the Heavenly Rest, Manhattan, the Reverend Duncan Burns from St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingston and Christina Hing from the Church of the Good Shepherd, Manhattan, they made up our 12-person group.

L-R: Bishop Mhogolo, John, Christina, Pam, Ruth Anne, Robin, Pastor Noah, Elizabeth, Duncan, Eliza, Fran, Marsha and Brian

In just four days the group visited nine DCT parishes, all but one of which are linked with the home parishes of the pilgrims. They also toured two DCT-run schools and a government primary school, attended the confirmation service at the Cathedral in Dodoma, toured Msalato Theological College, had dinner at Bishop Mhogolo’s house and went on a day safari at Mikumi National Park. All of this in less than two weeks! I hope they’re all taking a well-deserved break back home. We look forward to seeing them back in the DCT in the future. Check out www.thecarpenterskids.org in the next week to read more about the July Pilgrims’ adventures in our July newsletter.

Looking Ahead

In August, we’ll be welcoming a group of 18 pilgrims from New York. We’re very excited to have so many people come to visit The Carpenter’s Kids. I’ll have to write more about their trip after they’ve actually been here!

In September, Suzanne Johnson will be back for her third trip to the DCT this year and will bring another group of Virginians with her. I won’t be here for that trip, so be sure to check out the September Carpenter’s Kids newsletter to read about their time here in the Diocese.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…a Carpenter’s Kids distribution

2009-03-16T21:11:00.002+03:00

Anyone who’s been on a Carpenter’s Kids distribution knows that they’re generally all-day affairs (with a good portion of the day spent in a Land Cruiser). When we leave at 8:00am we generally don’t get back home until 4:00pm-ish…emphasis on the –ish. So, that’s why Sarah and I would randomly look at each other on Saturday, March 14th (when we had not one but two distributions) and laugh and shake our heads in amazement. We left Dodoma at 8:05am and got back at 1:35pm. While it’s true that the two parishes we visited, Iringa Mvumi and Mvumi Makulu, are closer to Dodoma than most, 40-50 kilometers away, we were finished so quickly that I still can’t quite believe it.

As with so many situations here, some background information would undoubtedly be helpful. First of all, the promised Land Cruiser roof rack update: we did end up getting a new roof rack and this one’s not made out of aluminum! We didn’t actually use it this week, though. The wife of Bishop Madinda, the bishop of the Diocese of Central Tanganyika before Bishop Mhogolo, passed away this week. She lived in Morogoro, about 300+ kilometers from Dodoma. Her funeral was to be held in Dodoma and she was to be buried in the Cathedral grounds, also in Dodoma. As the funeral was being planned, the diocesan administration asked Pastor Noah if they could use the Land Cruiser to bring Mama Madinda’s body home from Morogoro as it was the only vehicle that was large enough to hold the coffin. Pastor Noah asked all of us if we thought that it was ok to use the Cruiser for this purpose and we all agreed that it was fine, so John Joseph got to drive to Morogoro on Thursday afternoon. Willy ended up going with John so he didn’t have to drive by himself.

Pastor Noah told us that John Joseph and the Cruiser would be back on Friday evening, so we didn’t really think anything more about it. At about 6:45am on Saturday morning, I heard an engine start and a vehicle drive off. I figured it was John Joseph and Willy taking the Cruiser to MacKay House to load for the distributions. At 8:00am, I heard a car engine again and looked out the window. Instead of seeing our Land Cruiser loaded with everything we were taking with us, I saw our Prado loaded instead. The Prado is smaller than the Cruiser, but it’s actually much more comfortable to ride in as all of the seats face forward and not sideways. However, considering the amount of stuff we were taking with us, I was a bit surprised that we were taking a smaller vehicle. It turned out that the Cruiser was still needed for the funeral, so that’s why we were taking the Prado. It was more than capable to holding everything that we needed to bring with us; however, it was a good thing that there were only four of us going on the distributions: Pastor Noah, Willy, Sarah and me.

Pastor Noah, Willy and I got into the Prado and set off for Sarah’s compound to pick her up and then headed out of town on the Mvumi road. Before I go any further, it’s important for you to know that it was raining. Pouring, actually. On any other day I’ve been thrilled as the rain makes things much cooler, but it really doesn’t make driving on dirt roads much fun. It’s also not the best weather for driving in when you have boxes and bags of supplies loaded on the roof covered by a thin tarp…

As we drove out to Mvumi, I looked out the window and marveled at the difference rain makes. The landscape that I remembered being dry and brown was incredibly green as we made our way to Mvumi Makulu. When we do more than one distribution in a day we always go to the parish that is the farthest away first. Today was no different, we were planning to start in Iringa Mvumi and then go back to Mvumi Makulu. However, since the Prado was so full, we stopped at Mvumi Makulu and unloaded their supplies first. Unloading 50 boxes of soap and 100 kids’ worth of uniforms, shoes, school supplies and socks eased the strain on the Prado considerably. Because it was still raining and the roads were full of puddles, we took the long way to Iringa Mvumi. I’ve never taken the ‘short route’ to Iringa Mvumi, but I would hope that it’s faster. We definitely got a scenic tour of the Mvumi region!

We arrived in Iringa Mvumi and were greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of Carpenter’s Kids and guardians. Everyone assisted with the unloading of the Prado - everyone that is except Sarah and me. As soon as I tried to unload something from the vehicle, it was taken from my hands by a member of Iringa Mvumi parish. I tried about three times and then gave up and watched. Pastor Noah just laughed and ushered me into the church. The parish priest greeted everyone and then introduced Pastor Noah. As he spoke, I could get bits and pieces of what he was saying. He told everyone that Mama Madinda had passed away and that we’d have to do the distribution quickly so he could get back to Dodoma for the funeral. Then Sarah, Willy and I introduced ourselves and then we got the distribution started. I kid you not; we were done in an hour. Now, part of the reason we were finished so quickly was that the children didn’t go change into their uniforms after they’d received them. Apparently, there is not a place near the church that the kids can use to change. Or maybe there is and they just didn’t want to get wet. I’m not sure. Anyway, once all the kids had their uniforms, school supplies, socks and soap, we distributed the shoes and took our leave. I was able to tell everyone that two members of their link parish in New York would be visiting them in August, so I didn’t feel as bad that we weren’t staying long.

As we got into the Prado to head back to Mvumi Makulu for their distribution, the parish committee came up to the driver’s window and handed us some chapati and a bowl of meat of some kind. They’d prepared tea for us as well, but we couldn’t take it with us. This only served to make Sarah and I feel a bit guilty that we had to leave right after the distribution, but everyone seemed to understand. Sarah and I decided that we’d probably just experienced the only Tanzanian version of a ‘drive through’ that we know of.

The rain hadn’t let up at all, so we took the long way back to Mvumi Makulu. Pastor Noah said that we had to do this or we’d just end up getting stuck somewhere. At one point, as we approached a large puddle (seriously it looked like a small lake), Pastor Noah glanced back at Sarah and I and said ‘Be prepared.’ We looked at each other and laughed as Pastor Noah put the Prado into gear and powered through the puddle. This prompted Sarah to break out into song. Which song, you ask? Fans of The Lion King will recognize it: ‘Be prepared.’ Appropriate.

We made it back to Mvumi Makulu with no trouble and walked into the church to find that the distribution was already in progress. When we’d unloaded the supplies for Mvumi Makulu earlier I’d heard Pastor Noah explaining that the kids got 5 pairs of socks and 5 bars of soap in addition to the uniforms, shoes and school supplies. I’d obviously missed the part where he’d suggested that they start the distribution as soon as all of the kids arrived. Sarah went about taking pictures of the photo gallery for St. Bart’s in Manhattan, Mvumi Makulu’s link parish, and Willy and I helped distribute everything as best we could. Once all of the kids had their uniforms, shoes, supplies and soap, Pastor Noah explained that the reason the distribution was a bit unorthodox was that we had to get back to Dodoma for a funeral. Of course we still had to introduce ourselves – some things never change! I was able to share some messages from a few members of St. Bart’s who’d been to Mvumi Makulu last August which made everyone very happy. They were even happier to hear that there are going to be two groups of visitors from St. Bart’s coming in July and August.

As soon as I finished reading the messages from St. Bart’s we said our goodbyes and headed back to Dodoma. We pulled into Sarah’s compound at 1:35pm, about 2-3 hours earlier than expected. The funeral had started at 12:00pm so Pastor Noah was a bit late, but we found out later that he was still able to be there for the majority of the service. It didn’t end until after 5:00pm.

Have soap will travel

2009-03-16T19:44:00.008+03:00

We set off for Zejele and Mbabala a bit later than we anticipated. To understand why, takes a bit of background information. Most parishes in the program have a group of 50 kids that are supported by their link parish in the US. So that means we take a large bag of 50 pairs of shoes, a bag of 50 uniforms and several boxes full of backpacks of school supplies that have been sorted by grade level. It’s not a small amount of stuff. When you consider that we usually have 2 parishes worth of uniforms, shoes and school supplies, things can get crowded quickly. That is especially the case when we also have a year’s worth of socks and soap to distribute in addition to the uniforms, shoes and school supplies.

The socks don’t really take up a lot of space, but the soap does because the ‘bars’ are about 1.5 – 2 feet long. A year’s worth of socks and soap is 5 pairs of socks and 5 bars of soap. So, for a parish of 50 kids we need 250 bars of soap which is an additional 25 boxes to add to our already packed Land Cruiser.

For our trip to Zejele and Mbabala, parishes that are both larger than the usual 50 kids, we had a total of 59 boxes of soap. It was so much soap that Willy and John Joseph decided that they didn’t want to go pick up the soap and carry it up to the Carpenter’s Kids office on the third floor of MacKay House only to have to carry it back downstairs on Saturday morning when they loaded the rest of the supplies into the Land Cruiser. Fair enough, Sarah and I don't even like having to drag ourselves up those stairs let alone carry other stuff with us...

So, on Friday afternoon Willy and John Joseph took the Cruiser to the shop where Willy had purchased the soap and loaded it into the back of the Cruiser. When they got back to MacKay House, John Joseph started to bind the boxes together in groups of 8 using some twine so it could be loaded onto the top of the Cruiser easier.

At about 4:15pm, after most of the soap had been loaded on the top of the Cruiser and the rest had been packed under the benches in the back of the Cruiser, Callum, Sarah and I hopped into the Cruiser to go pick up Scott at the bus station. As we headed to the bus station, we could hear a loud banging noise coming from the roof of the Cruiser. We figured it was the roof rack hitting the top of the vehicle. After we’d picked up Scott and then dropped him and Sarah off at their compound, Callum and I headed back to MacKay House to talk to John Joseph and Willy about the roof rack (which is made out of aluminum and was bending under the weight of about 35 boxes of soap).

At MacKay House, Callum explained the situation to John Joseph and Willy and then the three of them got in to take the Cruiser on a drive around the block so John Joseph and Willy could hear the sound that the roof rack was making. After they got back, they both shook their heads and said that it was not good. We decided that we could just take the soap that we were able to fit under the benches of the Cruiser (enough for 2 bars per child) and then, as both Zejele and Mbabala are on the same road as some of our other parishes, take the rest of the soap when we were in the area again. Willy and John Joseph said that Callum and I shouldn’t worry about the soap and that they’d deal with unloading it on Saturday morning when they were loading the shoes, uniforms and school supplies.

So our 8:00am departure time on Saturday came and went with no sign of the Cruiser or any of our fellow staff members also going to Zejele and Mbabala (John, John Joseph, Willy and Noel) at Callum and my housing compound. Finally at about 8:35, we heard the low rumbling of the Cruiser’s engine as it came through the gate of the compound. We headed out to get into the vehicle and saw that the soap was no longer on the roof and that the shoes and uniforms had taken its place. As we got to the back door to climb into the Cruiser, we found the soap: it was in the back of the Cruiser (all 59 boxes!) along with the boxes of school supplies for both parishes. Willy and John Joseph had figured out a way to pack it all into the Cruiser. It made for a slightly cramped trip to our first parish of the day, but it ended up being worth it.

After picking up Sarah, whose eyes got very big when she saw how much stuff was in the back of the Cruiser, we headed off to Zejele and arrived at just after 10:00am. As usual, everyone was very gracious and welcoming and we were invited to have tea and chapati in the home of the Carpenter’s Kids Committee Chairman. As we walked from the church to the house, we could see that the rainfall this year has left a great deal to be desired. The leaves on the corn had started to brown and the sunflowers were drooping from lack of water. John informed us that there is no water source in the parish of Zejele. People have to walk or bicycle to another village to get water. That water is a murky brown color and as I used it to wash my hands, I tried to imagine drinking it.

After we’d finished our tea and chapati, we headed back to the church to distribute the uniforms, shoes, school supplies, socks and soap. When John announced that each child would be receiving 5 pairs of socks and 5 bars of soap the applause from everyone in the church was thunderous. It made me very glad that Willy and John Joseph had decided to pack all of the soap even though the ride up to Zejele was less than comfortable.

The distribution itself went very quickly as we all knew exactly what to do and had our own little assembly line going. After the distribution and the group photos of the kids, their parents/guardians and the parish committee, we were again invited to the Committee Chair’s home, for lunch this time.

After eating far more food than we should have - this is after we all put about 1/3 of the rice we were originally given back into a large bowl – we set off for Mbabala to do the second distribution of the day. It was significantly less crowded in the Cruiser on the way to Mbabala which made the ride more pleasant. We arrived in Mbabala to find everyone already assembled for the distribution and waiting for us. Once again I was struck by how excited everyone was when John told the kids that they’d be getting 5 pairs of socks and 5 bars of soap. John was very happy with our work today as we got the actual distribution of uniforms, supplies, socks, soap and shoes done in a very organized and efficient manner.

As Sarah and Willy got all of the kids to pose for group photos, Noel and Callum went about some important business: buying some chickens. Callum and Scott have their own mini ‘shamba’ (farm) up at the CAMS upper housing compound where Sarah and Scott live and where Scott and Callum keep some chickens and a rooster. So, Callum and Scott have decided that they want to try to stock their shamba by purchasing a chicken every weekend from one of the CK parishes. We’ll see how long they decide to keep this up...

As Noel went to see a man about a chicken, the rest of us were shown to the priest’s house for, you guessed it, lunch. Tanzanian hospitality is amazing for lack of a better word and so despite the fact that the crops didn’t appear to be doing well in Mbabala either, we were invited to a generous lunch with the parish priest. Noel made it back in plenty of time to join us and we all ate a second lunch of rice, greens and meat. After we’d finished, we went outside climb back into the Land Cruiser and met our newest traveling companions: two roosters and a hen. The two roosters made the trip home interesting as they attempted to fight with one another in the confines of the cardboard box they were in for most of the way home. It would be quiet for a few minutes and then there’d be a squawk a small cloud of dust/dirt would fly into the air, and the box would move. Good times.

We arrived back in Dodoma and inspected the damage to the roof rack. It’s seen better days. The aluminum version is obviously more of a decoration than anything else. We’ll need to get a new one as soon as possible as one of the parishes we’re visiting next week has 100 Carpenter’s Kids and we’ll need 50 boxes of soap for that parish alone. Stay tuned!

The Carpenter's Kids of Zejele

The Carpenter's Kids of Mbabala

Stone Town and the Road to Bwejuu

2009-02-05T17:59:00.001+03:00

December 23rd, our first full day in Zanzibar, started very early. 4:51am to be exact. We didn’t mean to wake up that early, but it was hard not to wake up when the call to prayer from the nearest mosque began. It literally sounded as though the man calling everyone to pray was standing in our room. He wasn’t, of course, but it sounded like it. Sarah and I looked at each other, waited for the call to prayer to be over and went back to sleep for another three hours.

We finally got up and had breakfast at our hotel’s rooftop restaurant before setting off to explore Stone Town for the day. We spent most of the day shopping. I won’t go into too much detail about that because this post would be ridiculously long if I did. Let’s just say that the stores in Stone Town are definitely designed to appeal to tourists. They are huge and have lots of stuff in them. We’d gotten used to shopping in Dodoma and found the stores in Stone Town with all of their choices to be a bit overwhelming. There were even stores that accepted credit cards. You can’t pay for anything with a credit card in Dodoma. I’m serious, there is not one place that accepts cards. We found at least 5 places on the same street in Stone Town.
Another thing that stood out was the sheer number of tourists. It was a bit mindboggling. We’ve gotten used to being the only non-Tanzanians when we walk down the streets or walk into a store. Not in Stone Town. There you could go to a restaurant or a shop and the only Tanzanians would be the ones who worked there. It was pretty odd.

We had lunch at a great place called the Stone Town Café. We liked it so much that we had lunch there every day we were in Stone Town and even stopped by on our way back to Dar es Salaam on December 29th. After lunch, we decided to go to the Anglican Cathedral to find out when the English Christmas service would be and to take a tour of the Cathedral and the grounds.

The Anglican Cathedral in Stone Town is built on the site of an old slave market. When the market was still running, there were 17 slave caves where thousands of men, women and children were imprisoned as they waited to be sold to slave ship captains who would take them to various places around the world. Only two of the 17 original rooms are still in existence today. The others have been destroyed. It was a bit jarring to go on the tour, as you might expect. We bought our tickets and followed our guide into a building that is now part of the hostel that the Cathedral runs. We went down some stairs and turned a corner and found ourselves in a room where 75 women and children were kept as they waited to be put up for sale. The room was not big at all. It was dark and musty, despite the three small windows, two of which were added after the market was no longer operational. The room had a raised platform about three and a half feet tall that went around the perimeter of the room leaving a small area in the middle. As we sat on the edge of the platform, our guide explained that we were sitting on the same place that the women and children who were kept in the room sat and slept. Our feet were hanging in the part of the room that served as the toilet.

After he’d given us some background information on the slave trade and we’d looked in a room across the hall where 50 men were kept while they waited to be sold to slavers, we went back outside to look at a memorial. The memorial consisted of five statues of people with chains around their necks. The chain and collars used in the memorial were actually used on people who’d been imprisoned in the caves on the Cathedral grounds. Our final stop on the tour was the Cathedral itself. It’s an impressive building in its own right, but its history and what’s been done to commemorate that history is quite moving. Our guide gave us a short history of the Cathedral and of the religious make up of Zanzibar. The island is 96% Muslim and 4% Christian. There are 15 mosques in Stone Town and 2 churches, one Anglican and the other Catholic.

The history of the Cathedral grounds permeates the interior of the Cathedral as well. There’s a cross in the Cathedral that was carved out of the tree under which Livingstone’s heart was buried in Zambia. Given Livingstone’s abhorrence of slavery, that seems entirely appropriate. What was the most striking and moving for me though was actually a small circle of white marble in the floor directly in front of the altar. The circle marks the spot where a tree that was used as a whipping post used to stand. Slaves were tied to the tree and whipped to see how strong they were. If a slave could be whipped and get up on their own, their price went up. If they were not able to get up, their price went down. The white marble circle is surrounded by red marble to symbolize the blood of the slaves. Imagine having that history present with you every time you went to church.

After we finished our tour, we made our way back to our hotel to wait for our friends to arrive. Maaike and Lianne, who both teach at the Dodoma Deaf School, Leane and Jo, who both teach at CAMS, and Josiah (Leane’s son) and Gwen (Jo’s daughter), who were both visiting for the holidays, arrived at about 6:45 and checked into their rooms at the Garden Lodge. After they’d had a chance to shower and rest a bit, we headed off to Livingstone’s, a beachside restaurant, for dinner. After dinner, Leane took us to an alley where there are about 20 tables of seafood shish kabobs set up. You can order any of them and they’ll be cooked for you on a little charcoal grill. We’d just eaten, so all we did was look, much to the disappointment of all the vendors. It was quite late when we were finished looking, so we caught a taxi back to our hotel.

On the 24th, Leane, Jo, Josiah and Gwen headed off to Paje (a beach on the eastern coast of Zanzibar) and Sarah, Maaike, Lianne and I stayed in Stone Town to explore. We took a small boat out to Prison Island to see the old prison and the enormous population of tortoises. I should say here that I had a bit of trouble getting out of the boat when we arrived at the island. The boats pull up to the shore, but not so that they’re on the ground. You still have to wade through a bit of water to get to the sand which means that the boats go up and down with the tide. There are obviously times when multitasking is not something I do well and trying to climb out of a boat that is going up and down in the waves while trying to hold up my skirt so it doesn’t get wet was definitely one of those times. The left side of my skirt and my t-shirt got a bit of a soaking much to the amusement of Sarah, Maaike and Lianne-I think Sarah enjoyed it the most. Actually, I know that Sarah enjoyed it the most!

The prison itself was rather unremarkable. The tortoises were another story, though. After we bought our tickets, we were each given a handful of some kind of vegetation to feed to the tortoises. They were only too happy to come right over and eat everything we gave them. We walked around the enclosure alternately feeding and watching the tortoises – and taking lots of pictures of course! Sarah’s green skirt was very popular with the tortoises. Several of them tried to bite it because it was about the same color as the vegetation we were feeding them. None of them had any luck, although one came close. After we’d looked at the tortoises, we went down to the beach to wait for our boat to come back.

I didn’t have any trouble getting on the boat, but getting off once we were back in Stone Town was another story. This time it wasn’t my fault though! Our boat driver, captain I guess, had obviously seen that I had some trouble getting out of the boat the last time. So, he decided that he was going to help me. I was actually doing pretty well climbing down the short ladder despite feeling very unsteady due to the waves when he tried to help me off the ladder. This caused me to slip and drop the hem of my skirt into the water and get wet again - much to Sarah’s entertainment. We walked back to our hotel so I could shower and change and so Maaike, who’d gone swimming by choice at Prison Island, could do the same. Then we went to lunch at our favorite café and spent the rest of the day wandering around the shops to Maaike and Lianne could see them. We decided to have dinner at the same restaurant that we’d gone to the night before. This time we didn’t have a reservation, but the waiter we’d had the night before actually bumped some people from a table for us. As we sat on the beach listening to the waves, none of us could really believe that it was actually Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day began the same way that our other two morning in Stone Town did-with the call to prayer from the local mosque. We got up, though not at 5:00am, and went to the English service at the Cathedral. We thought that we’d get to sit in the main sanctuary for the service, but that was not to be. We were stuffed into a side chapel instead. The chapel filled up quickly and our pew which comfortably sat five ended up with seven people on it for most of the service. We used the Church of England liturgy and sang familiar Christmas hymns, but it just wasn’t the same as being home.

After the service we had some time before our taxi was supposed to come, so we stopped at an ATM to get cash for our stay in Bwejuu (no ATMs there) and stopped at the Stone Town Café to get something to drink-did I mention that we liked that place? We went back to the hotel, picked up our bags and set off for our hotel in Bwejuu on the eastern coast of the island. On the way, we stopped in the Jozani forest to look at the Red Colobus Monkeys. It was pretty amazing. They are not shy at all and we were able to get really close to them. The only challenges proved to be not stepping in monkey poo and not getting peed on. I’m happy to say that I was able to avoid both of those things!

You’ll have to wait to hear about the Bwejuu stay and the Dar es Salaam adventure another time!

Off to Zanzibar…

2009-02-05T17:57:00.000+03:00

Despite the fact that I was looking forward to going on vacation, I have to say that I wasn’t really looking forward to the beginning of it. Why you ask, well in order to get to Zanzibar I had to spend 7 hours on a bus and another 2 plus hours on a ferry boat. All in the same day. Not really all that fun.

Sarah and I left Dodoma on 22 December on the 7:00am bus to Dar es Salaam. We chose to leave that early for two main reasons: 1) it wouldn’t be as hot if we left early in the day and 2) we wanted to make the last ferry to Zanzibar. The bus ride itself was rather uneventful. We both read for most of it. The only really noteworthy thing was our stop in Morogoro, the unofficial halfway point between Dodoma and Dar es Salaam. The last time I made the bus trip, there were a lot of women on the bus and so the line for the bathroom was long. This time, there were significantly more men on the bus and so the wait for the restroom was minimal and we were soon back on the bus again. Once we left Morogoro, it started to get warm. By the time we reached Dar es Salaam and hit the inevitable traffic jam, Sarah and I were both sweating a lot, but the adventure was just beginning.

We had sent a text message to Frank, the taxi driver who picked us up in August when we arrived from the US, to see if he could meet us at the bus station. He didn’t respond, so I sent another text. Still nothing. I finally called him and it turned out that he was not going to be able to meet us. However, he sent his younger brother Allan to pick us up. So far, so good. We needed to make a stop at Luther House Hostel, which is near the ferry terminal, to see if we could book some rooms for our return trip to Dar at the end of December. As we were making our way to the hostel, Allan told us that he had a friend who worked for the Zanzibar ferries office and said that it would be good to have him meet us at Luther House and then go with us to get our tickets. Never having purchased ferry tickets we agreed, even though we thought it seemed a bit sketchy.

We made it to Luther House, but they didn’t have enough room for us. As we waited for Allan’s friend to arrive so we could go to the ferry terminal, we learned that Allan had to be somewhere else so he’d called a friend of his to take us to the ferry. Our new driver and the ferry guy arrived at about the same time and we transferred our bags from one car to the other and headed off to the terminal. Once we were there, we got to wait in the hot sun while a guy who worked with Allan’s friend took our money and the photocopies of our residence permits to go get our tickets. We ended up paying for first class tickets, which came out to 60,000TSH for the round trip. They kept trying to tell us that we’d gotten some sort of a deal, but by that point we didn’t really care. We just wanted to get on the ferry. We were told that our tickets were for the 3:30 ferry and so we had to hurry to get in line. An old man took our bags and off we went. I should admit at this point that neither Sarah nor I are light packers, so it was actually quite impressive that the man was able to carry both of our bags with no trouble. It was actually a bit difficult for us to keep up with him.

We made it to the line with no problem. The old man pushed his way to the front and left our bags at the front of the line. We were stuck about halfway back. We waited for the passengers to get off of the ferry which had just arrived from Zanzibar and was definitely not leaving at 3:30. I think we started boarding at 3:30, but the boat didn’t leave port until at least 4:00. When we were finally reunited with our bags, the old man showed up again and took them down to the boat for us. The bags sat on the main deck of the boat and we were directed up to the first class cabin, which was just up a short flight of stairs. Sarah and I gratefully sank into some relatively comfortable chairs and enjoyed the air conditioning. The ride itself was a bit bumpy, but otherwise just fine. They did hand out sick bags just in case anyone needed them. We spent most of the trip watching the movie ‘The Fugitive’ and wondering why they chose that particular movie to show.

After about two and a half hours, we arrived in Zanzibar. A porter grabbed our bags and we went up to the customs window. There was already a long line to go through the port, but when a customs official would have directed us to the end of that line we pulled out our residence permits and were able to bypass the line completely. We found a taxi driver and set off to our Stone Town hotel, the Garden Lodge. We checked in and got up to our room at 6:40pm-12 hours and 25 minutes after we’d left our apartments that morning.

We went to dinner at a restaurant called Spices Rendezvous which was about 2 blocks from our hotel. The name sounds French, but the food was not. It was an Indian restaurant that had been previously called Maharaja, though why it was renamed is anyone’s guess. After dinner we headed back to our hotel and tried to stay cool for the rest of the evening.

So long, farewell...

2008-12-20T15:44:00.002+03:00

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…

Sunday Service at Chamwino Mjini

2008-12-20T15:36:00.002+03:00

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.

Izava and Mayamaya

2008-12-20T15:33:00.001+03:00

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!

On the road again…with an unexpected passenger

2008-11-27T14:06:00.001+03:00

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.

American Elections, Tanzanian Style

2008-11-05T21:20:00.002+03:00

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…

A Return to Hombolo Mleche

2008-11-05T21:17:00.001+03:00

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.

Best/Worst List and Favorites

2008-10-22T21:54:00.002+03:00

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.

Dinner Parties and Distributions

2008-10-22T21:48:00.004+03:00

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.

DCT Synod

2008-10-08T13:56:00.000+03:00

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!

Mleche, Chifutuka, Chibelela, Nghahelezi & Nagulo

2008-10-08T13:53:00.000+03:00

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!

Life in General or Something Like It

2008-09-10T09:55:00.000+03:00

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.

Lukali & Babayu Distributions

2008-09-10T09:53:00.000+03:00

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...

EDNY August Pilgrimage Group

2008-09-10T09:51:00.000+03:00

It’s actually quite difficult to describe in words what the experiences of the last few weeks have been like. On Wednesday, August 13th a group of 16 people from the Episcopal Diocese of New York arrived in Dodoma to go to their linked parishes and visit their kids. Three of the four villages I went to during the visit were linked to parishes in New York and the fourth was a parish that is new to The Carpenter’s Kids program and we were able to participate in the first ever distribution in the village.

I think if I tried to describe everything that happened during the almost two weeks that the New York group was here, this blog posting might rival War and Peace in terms of length (it may do that anyway!). The one thing that has remained consistent throughout all of these experiences – and really my entire time here in Tanzania - has been the incredible warmth and generosity that has been extended to everyone in our group. It’s really quite amazing.

On Friday August 15th, I went to the parish of Ntyuka which is just outside of Dodoma – about a 20 minute drive or so. Ntyuka is one of the three parishes in the Diocese of Central Tanganyika that is supported by St. Luke’s Church in the Bronx. Pastor Noah and I were the staff members for the group and we went with Donald, Francilla and Corey (all from St. Luke’s) and Brian, Judy and Sue (all from St. Bart’s in Manhattan).We were met about half a mile outside of the village by a group of kids who proceeded to run behind the car as we drove into the village. We were a little concerned that some of them were getting too close to the car and tried to wave at them to not run so close, but really all that did was get them to run faster. We finally got close enough to the priest’s house to get out and walk, which we did and we were greeted by multiple handshakes and karibu’s (welcome) and habari’s (hi/how are you). The priest, Rev. Alfa, greeted us all in English and invited us into his home for breakfast. We had tea and mandaazi, which are kind of like donuts only much, much better.

After we finished breakfast, we went to the church to start the festivities. There were lots of people in the church - the choir, a mother’s group, children of all ages. The music was amazing. To start things off, Rev. Alfa made some remarks and introduced some members of the community who are involved in The Carpenter’s Kids program. Then it was our turn for introductions. Pastor Noah and Frank, one of the translators who was helping us while the New York group was here, ably translated everything into Swahili. After introductions and some parish reports, we all helped Donald, Francilla and Corey unpack the gifts they brought for their Kids and everyone who helps with the program. It was quite the party as things were handed out. Everyone in our group was given gifts as well – everything from bowls made out of sun-dried gourds to necklaces and woven bags. Donald was given the chief’s treatment though and was wrapped in a bright red piece of cloth and given sandals, a staff, a long machete-like knife, a belt and a carving of Joseph leading Mary holding baby Jesus on a donkey. When I can post pictures, I’ll be sure to put up my photo of Donald all decked out in his Ntyuka gear. When the distribution of gifts was over, we took a short stretching break and then went back into the church to have lunch. There was so much food I literally cannot remember everything. There was lots of rice and there were multiple meat options and vegetables- just lots of stuff. We were given our choice of soda – Coke, Sprite or orange Fanta (my personal favorite) and a bottle of water. After lunch we reluctantly said our goodbyes and headed back to Dodoma.

On Saturday August 16th, I went to Chali Isangha, which is the westernmost parish in the Diocese of Central Tanganyika. It took a good 2-2.5 hours to get there on some really bumpy dirt roads. Needless to say, we were all thrilled to get out of the Land Cruiser! Chali Isangha seemed more remote than any of the other parishes I’ve been to and I suppose given that it was the furthest I’ve traveled in Tanzania with the exception of the Dar-Dodoma trip that shouldn’t be too surprising. It just really felt like we were far away from anything familiar. Again, though, the welcome was as warm as we’ve come to expect. We arrived in the village a little after 10am and were greeted by Father Alexander and invited into his house for breakfast – tea, mandaazi, and sweet potatoes (white sweet potatoes, not yams).

After breakfast, we walked over to a small clearing sheltered by some trees that provided us with some shade and the festivities began again. Unlike Ntyuka or Mwitikira, Chali Isangha is a parish that is new to The Carpenter’s Kids program and this was the first distribution. You can really see a difference in the way the children who’ve been a part of the program for at least a year act when you see children who are new to the program. These children were very quiet, reluctant to wave or smile back at you. They did sing us a very nice song, though, with the words ‘karibuni wageni wetu, karibuni,’ which means ‘welcome our visitors, welcome.’ The day here was similar to other village visits, but it contained a short description of The Carpenter’s Kids program and a demonstration on how to use mosquito nets. After that, we got to help hand out uniforms, school supplies, mosquito nets and shoes to all of the kids. After each child received their items, they went to change into their new uniforms. We had to help some of the kids tie their shoes because they didn’t know what to do with the laces. Once all of the kids were in their uniforms and shoes, they reassembled for a group photo before we officially broke for the day. They looked wonderful.

Before we went back to Father Alexander’s house for lunch, he took us to their church for a tour. At first I thought that they were in the middle of construction because there are walls, but no roof. However, Father Alexander explained that they had used the wrong kind of soil in the mixture for the bricks and the rain had washed the roof and the upper part of the walls away. There was a small shelter made out of wood that was in the middle of the church, but that was the only thing that would protect anyone from the rain. We took some pictures of some of the Carpenter’s Kids in the church as they’d followed us into the building and were watching us listen to their priest. Then we headed back to Father Alexander’s house for lunch. I have never seem so much cooked rice in one place outside of a restaurant. After a quick bathroom break, we all piled back into the Land Cruiser and began the long journey back to Dodoma.

On Sunday we split up into several different groups to go to church services. I went with the group that went to the Cathedral here in Dodoma. Instead of going to the English service, though, we all got up early and went to the 7:00am Swahili service. It was great! It was actually much more like services at my home church than I thought it would be. It was in Swahili of course, but it still felt like home. We were asked to sit right up front with the choir and the priests and in about the middle of the service we had to introduce ourselves to the entire church – easily about 350-400 people. After the service we headed to Msalato Theological College to have a tour of the campus and have lunch with the staff. Everyone there was wonderful and very happy to have us there. The staff gave Miriam a lovely knitted shawl as a going away present to thank her for her friendship and her work here in Dodoma.

After we finished lunch, we headed to Jubilee High School where 4 groups of Carpenter’s Kids had gathered to participate in a Sports Day. I finally got to meet some of the kids from the Cathedral parish which is linked with my home parish, St. John the Divine in NYC. They were excited to see someone else from their linked parish and were thrilled when I told them that Canon Alan (ask he’s referred to here) and Matthew said to say ‘hello’ to them. Some of the kids were wearing their I (heart) NY t-shirts and New York caps and pointed them out to me several times just to make sure I saw them. We were treated to some great soccer games, netball games and several tug-of-war matches with Willie from The Carpenter’s Kids staff providing commentary over the loudspeaker. Noel and Daudi did a great job serving as referees during all of the matches. Readers from St. John the Divine will be happy to know that the Cathedral boys won a well-played soccer game and the Cathedral girls won the first netball game in the tournament! We headed back home around 5pm so everyone had time to rest before the parish visits started again on Monday morning.

On Monday August 18th, I headed to Mvumi Makulu with Pastor Noah and the St. Bartians, which is the great name for the 5 members of St. Bart’s in the pilgrimage group – Brian, Sue, Judy, Robin and Lucia. St. Bart’s is linked with Mvumi Makulu and supports a group of 100 children there. I got to be a videographer for the day, as I used Brian’s video camera to record the day’s happenings so Brian could be an active part of the day at his parish. After a quick lesson, I was ready (for the most part) to start. We drove the hour or so from Dodoma to Mvumi Makulu through some beautiful country and arrived at Mvumi to see a large group of people waiting for us singing. All 100 of the Carpenter’s Kids were there leading the singing of a song that translates to ‘welcome, welcome our visitors, welcome to Makulu parish.’ Some of the kids were wearing their I (heart) NY t-shirts they’d received from last year’s St. Bart’s group. We stayed outside to listen to the kids for a little while before going into the parish priest’s (Father Ashery) house for breakfast – tea and mandaazi.

After breakfast, we walked around the village to see some of the kids’ homes and meet their guardians. The St. Bartians even tried their hand at making flour for ugali! It was impressive. After we saw several of the kids’ homes – houses made of mud and wood – that were surprisingly cool given the heat of the day, we headed back to the church and started the now familiar pattern of village visits. There were introductions all around, followed by gifts from the parish to all of us, gifts from the St. Bart’s group – including some great gifts that Sue made by hand – and parish reports. The group also brought pencils for all of the non-Carpenter’s Kids children in the village so everyone got something which was really nice. One of my favorite gifts of the day was a beautiful stole for Father Ashery that a member of the St. Bart’s parish had made with an inscription commemorating the day and the partnership between St. Bart’s and Mvumi Makulu. There was lots of singing and dancing, with a group of Carpenter’s Kids giving several performances. As we were waiting for lunch, we got to spend some time with the kids. It was great to see all of the St. Bartians playing with their kids. There were fist bumps, high fives and peace signs all over the place – that goes over really well with kids here. Lucia was even teaching some of the kids a clapping game. It was fun.

We went in to the church to have lunch and were happy to see the Carpenter’s Kids sitting inside having lunch with us. I got a great picture of the St. Bartians with the little girl who led the singing and dancing as well. We were escorted to our car by almost all of the parish Carpenter’s Kids who all wanted to shake hands and say goodbye even if their hands were still covered with the remnants of their lunch. It took awhile, but we finally said goodbye to everyone – I think there were a few kids whose hands I shook at least 5 times, but they kept getting back in line to say goodbye. We headed back to Dodoma with hearts lighter than they were when we arrived.

That evening we had dinner as a group with Bishop Mhogolo and then after dinner those of us on staff here in Dodoma and in New York had a separate meeting with him to discuss the program.

Tuesday, August 19th, was our final day of parish visits with the New York group. I went with Patti Welch, who is the chaplain of the Cathedral School in New York to her linked parish, Ilindi. The parish is linked with the Cathedral School and the 50 Carpenter’s Kids in Ilindi are supported by children at the school in New York. I wasn’t initially scheduled to go to Ilindi, but I asked if I could switch groups because I wanted to be with Patti when she went to her linked parish. Patti is actually the first priest I met at St. John the Divine back in 2005 when I first visited the church before joining the congregation, so I thought it would be great to go with her when she visited Ilindi for the first time.

We arrived in Ilindi a little early, so we sat outside of the chuch and listened to the Mother’s Union and the Carpenter’s Kids sing for awhile before going into the church for a breakfast of tea, chapati (a tortilla-like flatbread) and some dried liver. I did try to liver because I didn’t want to be rude. I only ate one piece – enough to convince me that liver jerky was not really my thing – and gave the rest to Noel who was eating it like candy and happily took it off of my hands. After breakfast, we went to visit 3 of the Carpenter’s Kids’ homes and meet their guardians. Patti had a great time and really connected with the guardians. She had her picture taken with each family and was even given a handmade broom from one of the grandmothers of the kids. One of the most moving moments of the morning for me was meeting the grandfather of one of the kids. His left leg had been amputated above the knee because he’d developed cancer in the late 1960’s. He had to use 2 canes to get around, but he was in the group that met us at the church when we first arrived, he’d gone back home to see welcome us there and went back to the church for the rest of the day. It wasn’t a short walk between the two places either.

When we’d finished our tour, we went back to the church and went through introductions, parish reports and the giving and receiving of gifts. The kids all really liked their Carpenter’s Kids t-shirts, but the best gifts were the pictures the kids in New York had drawn for the kids in Ilindi. Each picture was mounted on a piece of construction paper and each of the 50 kids received one. After the gifts were given, the Carpenter’s Kids sang us several songs and presented Patti with copies of the lyrics that they’d written out. Patti also taught everyone the prayer that they say at the Cathedral School and with the help of Noel, translated it into Swahili so everyone could understand and say it along with her.

We had lunch in the church – again so much food! – and then went outside for some pictures. Patti and I were each given chickens earlier in the day. I held mine for about 4 seconds before they took it to put it in a plastic bag for me. Before we left, Patti and I left our chickens in the care of the priest before we left so he could take care of them until someone else from the Cathedral School visits Ilindi next summer. We arrived back in Dodoma in the late afternoon and had a short time to rest before heading to the farewell dinner during which everyone in the New York group was given a gift from the Carpenter’s Kids staff and each staff member was given a gift from the New York group. I was especially happy because Tyson and David, whom I met when we all went to Mikumi National Park during my first week in Tanzania, were at the dinner too. Their father, Peter, works as a driver for the Diocese and all of our drivers and their families were invited to come. The boys were easily the best dressed attendees and looked sharp in their suits.

On Wednesday, we had a roundtable discussion with the New York group and the priests from their linked parishes that was moderated by Bishop Mhogolo. This gave everyone a chance to share what the experience meant to them and to say goodbye or see you next year, as the case may be. After we had lunch with the priests, we piled into a bus and drove to Morogoro so the New York group could go to Mikumi National Park. Sarah and I were excited because our hotel rooms had large beds (we have twin beds in our apartments) and televisions. We were able to catch up on some news – Russia and Georgia had a war and no one told me! – and watch some South African soap operas on the one English channel available. It might not seem that exciting to anyone else, but we were thrilled.

We drove the New York group to the airport in Dar es Salaam on Friday, August 22nd so they could fly home. It was sad to see them go, as we all enjoyed having them here, but we know that they are going to go back to New York and spread the word about The Carpenter’s Kids program. We hope to see some of them back next summer!

Sunday in Dodoma and Mwitikira

2008-08-13T11:33:00.000+03:00

“Bwana asifiwe. Ninaitwa Elizabeth. Nimetoka Mmarekani. Ninawaletea salaamu toka Kanisa Kuu la Mtakatifu Yona, katika New York. Nilifika siku ya Jumanne na nitafariya kazi na watoto wa Seremala kwa mwaka mmoja. Nimefurahi kuwepo hapa, na asanteni kwa kutukaribisha.” (approximate translation: Praise the Lord (typical greeting). My name is Elizabeth. I have come from America. I bring you greetings from the Cathedral of St. John in New York. I arrived on Tuesday to work for Carpenter’s Kids for a year. I am happy to be here. Thank you for welcoming me.)

That’s what I said today by way of introducing myself, over a loudspeaker, to almost the entire village of Mwitikira. Thanks to the Swahili skills of Miriam, Noel and Mmoti, I was able to say more than ‘Habari za mchana’ (good afternoon).

Today started out like any normal Sunday for me: I went to church in a cathedral. Of course, instead of the cathedral being in New York, it was here in Dodoma - which must be the dustiest place I have ever been. Sarah and I left our compound at about 8:45am and walked the two and a half blocks down to Miriam’s apartment so we could all walk together to chuch. On our way, we stopped at the New Dodoma Hotel where Eric, visiting from Berkeley, CA, was staying. Then the four of us headed off to the Cathedral of the Holy Spririt to attend the English-language service. As we crossed the railroad tracks, we saw a large crowd of people leaving the Cathedral indicating that the 7:00am service in Swahili had just ended. We entered the gates of the Cathedral and were warmly greeted by a few of the other expats we know. We took our seats and the service began. One of the congregation members spoke briefly and then Bishop Mhogolo gave a brief report about Lambeth. It was nice to hear that we still have an Anglican Communion! Then it was time for all of the visitors to stand up and introduce themselves, so Sarah and I got to introduce ourselves to the congregation.

The celebrant and preacher for the day was Father George Okoth from St. John’s College here in Dodoma. He gave a nice sermon about how we should all be imitators of God. He even had us turn to our neighbors and say ‘We should be imitators of God’ just to make sure that everyone got the message. The service music was provided by a keyboard and a guitar and the hymns were much more contemporary than what we sing at the Cathedral in New York.

After the service, we stood outside talking with members of the congregation. We saw Elisabeth and Pierre, two of our travel companions from the trip to Mikumi and Morogoro, and met more of the teachers from the international school and several of Pierre’s colleagues from MAF. After we’d chatted for about 20 minutes or so, Eric, Sarah, Miriam and I said our goodbyes and headed back to Miriam’s compound so we could meet up with our fellow Carpenter’s Kids staff members to head out to Mwitikira for a distribution.

A distribution is what the official presentation of school uniforms, supplies and shoes to the 50+ Carpenter’s Kids in each linked parish is called. They are big events and are well attended, even by children and families whose children are not officially Carpenter’s Kids. Mwitikira is a village located about an hour and a half’s drive outside of Dodoma. Mwitikira is linked with a church in Virginia, and is one of a small number of parishes in the diocese that is not linked with a church in New York. I believe there are about five such parishes, but I could be mistaken.

Today’s distribution was extra special. A woman named Suzanne (I don’t recall her last name) from Mwitikira’s linked parish has been living out at Mwitikira for the past 6 weeks. Today was her last day in the parish and so the distribution was a sort of big goodbye party in a way.

When we arrived in Mwitikira, there was already a large crowd gathered around the area that had been roped off for the distribution. There was a group of about 15 women singing and playing drums. We got out of the cars and were immediately greeted by some of the village’s children. Shy faces extended shy hands and whispered “Habari” or occassionally “Hello.” We made our way over to the house Suzanne had been living in for the past six months and were introduced to the parish priest, Father Erasto, and his wife, Rebecca, and several others, including the head of the village primary school. We sat on chairs and couches in the living room and chatted for awhile as we signed the village guest book. Then warm water was brought around and poured over our hands so we could wash the dust off before we had lunch. We had a hearty lunch of rice, beans and chicken and when Miriam, Sarah and I finished our food (we had been served first) more food was brought over so we could finish it. Considering that Suzanne said she’d been eating mostly vegetarian fare for the last six weeks, we were certainly honored to have chicken.

After we’d finished, Pastor Noah said it was time to begin the distribution. One of the Carpenter’s Kids land rovers drove through the village playing music and announcing that it was time to begin. In the 30 minutes or so we’d been inside an even bigger crowd had gathered. We made our way over to where a table and row of chairs had been set up inside the roped off area. The villages 136 Carpenter’s Kids were assembled in front of the table, some sitting on benches and others sitting on the ground. There were people all around the roped off area, standing, sitting on short benches, sitting on the ground and even in a large tree. The women were still singing and drumming, so Miriam suggested that we (Miriam, Sarah and I) go over and join them. So, we did. We joined the circle and the women showed us the hand movements and dance steps and we danced along with them.

About 10 minutes later, everything was set up and it was time to go back to our seats for introductions. Pastor Noah opened with a prayer and then we each introduced ourselves. I stumbled through my Swahili, but I think people were able to get the gist of it. After everyone introduced themselves, Pastor Noah made some remarks about each of us. I have no idea what he said about me, but people clapped so I would assume it was good. Once we’d all introduced ourselves, Suzanne made a short speech in Swahili. She’d been studying Swahili at home since January, so she was able to say a great deal. Then, the fun began!

Suzanne’s church started out sponsoring 50 children, but this year they added an additional 86 children to bring the total number of children from Mwitikira that they sponsor up to 136. So, on Sunday 86 children received their very first school uniform, shoes and school supplies as well as 2 family sized mosquito nets. The original 50 children also received new school uniforms, shoes and supplies. They’d already received their mosquito nets during their first year in the program. All of the Carpenter’s Kids received a bright blue sweater, a sturdy backpack, a compass set and rulers. The children’s guardians received a large bottle of lotion and about 5 bars of soap. The big excitment came when each of the 136 Carpenter’s Kids were given their very own mattress to sleep on. Suzanne also purchased enough pencils so all of the children in the village could have one, not just the Carpenter’s Kids.

The distribution took longer than I imagined it would, but I got to help as well. After all of the uniforms, backpacks and supplies had been handed out and the children had changed into their new uniforms, it was time to distribute the shoes. We helped to unpack them and then we got to call out names and hand the shoes to the kids. They immediately pulled out the pair of socks that was stuffed into one shoe and put them on and then tried on their new shoes. Miriam and I helped some of the kids tie their shoes, which was fun. Once that was done, there were 136 children in new uniforms and shoes sitting proudly in front of us. A few people made some closing remarks, including Miriam as this is the last visit she’ll make to Mwitikira on staff with Carpenter’s Kids, and then Pastor Noah closed with a prayer.

It was amazing how quickly the crowd dispersed, taking new clothes and school supplies and mattresses with them. Many people wanted to shake hands and say thank you. Some of the elder village women even kissed my hand after they shook it. I couldn’t even begin to tell you the number of people’s hands I shook.

I am extremely grateful that I get to be a part of something that obviously makes a difference. It was a shock to go from the relative affluence of Dodoma to the complete need of Mwitikira. I was struck by how little people had in terms of material wealth-the way in which we in the so-called developed world tend to measure things-and yet there was a richness in Mwitikira that I have never experienced before. The women who were singing before the distribution began were singing songs of thankfulness and praise to God for their many blessings. After spending a few hours in Mwitikira and being welcomed by everyone, I really understood why they were so sincere in their singing.

I think this will be an experience that I’ll need to continue to think about and reflect on to really ‘get’ everything. The things that will stay with me the most are the looks on the faces of the children who received their school uniforms and supplies and the looks on the faces of the children who are not part of Carpenter’s Kids who watched from the sidelines. Big smiles of joy on the one hand and looks of longing on the other. Shaking small, rough hands and looking into the eyes of the village elders who look far older than they actually are truly brings the importance of the work that programs like Carpenter’s Kids do home. I can definitely understand why Suzanne said that the 137th child, the one who didn’t make the final list to become a Carpenter’s Kid, haunts her.

There is a great deal of need in Mwitikira. There is a great deal of need in all of the villages of the Diocese of Central Tanganyika. But it is not a need for pity. It is a need for action. For togetherness. We can do that. We can do that very easily and we are doing it. Through programs like the Carpenter’s Kids we are, with our partners and friends here in Tanzania, making very real difference in the lives of some wonderful children. This morning Father George said “We are called to be immitators of God.” I saw that happen today in Mwitikira and it was amazing.

Mikumi and Morogoro

2008-08-13T11:30:00.000+03:00

Today started at 4:20am

Friday morning started at 4:20am - definitely not my preferred wake up time. It was definitely worth it, though despite spending the entire day in a bus. On Tuesday, Sandy and Martin McCann, who are both Episcopal missionaries from the Diocese of Atlanta, invited Sarah, Magi and I to go with them to Mikumi National Park. Mikumi is located between the Uluguru mountains to the north and the Lumango mountains to the southeast and is about 3,000 square kilometers in size. To get there from Dodoma, you drive to Morogoro on the Dar Es Salaam road and then head south for about an hour. Needless to say, there was a reason we left at 4:20am. We didn’t arrive at Mikumi until about 10:30am.

I wasn’t expecting to have so many people along for the trip, but it was wonderful to get to meet some new people. Then again, most everyone we meet is new to us, but what can you do? Aside from Magi, Sarah, Sandy, Martin and myself, there were 13 other people on the trip. Four of them were visiting Sandy and Martin at Msalato Theological College, where Sandy works. The others were: Peter Sudayi, who is the brother of Mmoti from the Carpenter’s Kids staff, and his wife and their two adorable little boys Tyson and David; Elisabeth, the chemist (pharmacist) for the diocesan pharmacy; Pierre from MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship); Alan and Joanna who were visiting at MAF to explore possible future employment opportunities; and Musa our driver.

When we left Dodoma it was completely dark. The stars were out, and as soon as we got outside of town that was the only light other than the bus’s headlights. I slept for about an hour and a half, and then was awake for the rest of the trip. It was nice, actually, because I saw some things I hadn’t seen on the way in to Dodoma on Tuesday because I had fallen asleep. We stopped briefly in Morogoro for a tea/coffee, breakfast and bathroom break. I had my first chapati, which is a flat bread that kind of looks like a thick crepe. I also used my first ‘long drop’ toilet as Magi calls them. I’ll leave it to your imaginations as to why they’re called ‘long drops.’ I am greatly indebted to Kyle and Dianne for teaching me the secret to successful use of squat toilets.

We left Morogoro and headed to Mikumi, arriving at the main gate at 10:30am. After paying 24,000 TSH apiece and after picking up a guide we set off into the park. The guide explained that many of the animals had moved south because things were very dry in the park. We did see many different kinds of animals though: baboons, buffaloes, sable antelope, crocodiles, hippos, zebras, elephants, giraffes and many different types of trees and plants. We also saw the infamous tsetse fly. Several of them joined us in our bus, but I don’t think anyone was bitten. We left Mikumi in the late afternoon and headed back to Morogoro to have dinner and check into our lodging for the evening.

We stayed at the KKKT Lutheran Junior Seminary on the outskirts of Morogoro. Elisabeth and Sandy knew people at the school which is why we stayed in dorm rooms instead of staying in a hotel in town. Sarah and I shared a room that consisted of a small sitting room, a bedroom with two twin beds and a private bathroom. The single rooms all had shared bathrooms, so we were happy to have our own. We were both so exhausted that we were in bed with the lights out by about 9:20pm.

Saturday morning we had breakfast in the dining hall and then we went for a walk on the school grounds. The walk was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. The area around Morogoro is very lush and green and the mountains are gorgeous. We had a great time walking around, in part because Tyson and David, who are 9 and 5 years old respectively, came along. The two of them were not really all that excited about seeing cows or looking at banana and coconut trees, but they were good sports. Once they figured out that they could see pictures on the screen of my digital camera they wanted to see every picture I took.

At about 9:30am we paid for our rooms and for breakfast- 9,000 TSH for the room and 3,000 for breakfast. That’s about $10.50 total. Then we got back on the bus and headed to a market that was set up in celebration for national farmers’ day which falls on August 8^th each year. The holiday and the market are called ‘nane nane,’ which means ‘eight eight’ in reference to the eighth day of the eighth month. There wasn’t a lot going on at the market because it was the day after the official celebration, but we spent about 2 hours walking around and looking at things. Magi bought Tyson and David inflatable giraffes which were a big hit. I took pictures of the boys and their giraffes which entertained them greatly. I also took a few videos of the boys goofing around – we watched those repeatedly and apparently they were funnier with each viewing. We got back on the bus and drove for a few hours and then stopped at a roadside village market where several people on the bus got off and purchased some vegetables.

While we were waiting for people to finish shopping, Tyson, David and I amused ourselves with my camera and my Anglican prayer beads. I didn’t realize that they could be a great source of entertainment, but the boys showed me otherwise and posed for numerous pictures with the beads on their heads. David’s inflatable giraffe even got in on the fun and sported an Anglican prayer bead necklace for one photo. I suppose some might consider that sacrilegious, but to a 5 year old and a 9 year old it was a good way to pass the time.

We finally arrived back in Dodoma in the early evening and we bid our new friends goodbye. We’ll see several people again soon, as the EDNY pilgrimage group tours Msalato Theological College when it’s here and we’ll see several others at church. It’s hard to believe that I haven’t even been in Dodoma for a week yet because it feels like I’ve been here longer than I actually have. Tomorrow we’re attending the English-language service at the Cathedral so we’ll see some of our neighbors and get to meet the larger expatriate community in Dodoma.

Day 2: Dodoma

2008-08-06T19:21:00.000+03:00

I probably won't be updating this everyday, but since I had some time this morning I wrote another entry. I'm using Miriam's computer to upload this and will probably write something else once my own internet is installed. I'm not entirely sure when that will be though...

It’s 7:45 on Wednesday morning and I’m sitting at my kitchen table boiling some water so I can have a cup of tea. I’m also listening to the sounds outside and trying to place them. I just heard a turkey gobble. I heard a rooster earlier and there are a few dogs nearby as well. At night the sound of crickets chirping dominates the area. It’s a nice change from the sounds of the city, though I would expect that I’ll probably come to miss those at some point.

I woke up at about 6:45 this morning and found a note under my front door from a woman named Catherine who lives in apartment 8 of the little compound here. She dropped off a bottle of water. I’ll have to meet her soon to say hi and thank you. I’m not entirely sure how many apartments there are in this compound, but I now know there are at least 8. The compound is surrounded by a tall fence and there is a gate at the entrance. There is always a guard at the gate, but I’ve only met one of the guards so far.

My apartment itself is comprised of 4 rooms- the living room/sitting room, the kitchen/dining room, a bedroom and a bathroom. It’s actually quite a large place. The living room has a couch, three chairs, a small table and a long cabinet that resembles the short china hutch in my Aunt Linda’s dining room. There are large windows along one wall that have white and yellow floral curtains on them. The windows themselves don’t have glass in them. There are sturdy screens, thin, white crisscrossed metal bars and larger white bars that cover the windows. I’m sure this will help keep things cool, but it certainly allows lots of noise to get in. My overactive imagination and I will have to get used to that.

The kitchen has a refrigerator/freezer, cabinets, a sink, a toaster and a small cooking stove with two burners and an oven. There’s also a spare counter-top set of two burners just in case. Apparently you can either use one burner and the oven at the same time or both burners at the same time. Using both burners and the oven at the same time is a no-no. I don’t remember what would happen if you did that, but I don’t think I’ll try to find out. The other half of the room has a desk and a table with four chairs in it. The table in chairs were originally in the living room, but I moved them into this room because it seemed like a better place for them. There is a ceiling fan which helps to circulate the air.

My bedroom has a tall armoire, a small table, a chair and a twin-sized bed in it. There is a canopy-like frame on the bed with a rectangular-shaped mosquito net on it. I tucked the net under the mattress leaving a small whole to crawl into bed and then tucked that in as well. It was interesting to sleep under a mosquito net. I felt like I was in a large, transparent box. I brought a net with me, but since there was already a net in place I just left mine in its bag.

The bathroom has a toilet, a sink, a wall-mounted water heater and a shower in it. There’s a switch in the kitchen that I have to flip about 20-25 minutes before I want to use the hot water. You turn the switch off before you get into the shower.

The apartment floor is made of concrete and the walls are painted white. All of the windows except the ones in the living room have glass on them, but it’s not a solid pane of glass. They’re short panes of class mounted on metal that move to adjust the airflow allowed into the apartment. The kitchen window looks to have 10 of these small panes in it.

Miriam is coming by today at about 11:30 to show Sarah and me around town. We’re going to go to a bank so we can exchange money, see our new office, go to the market and just try to get a sense of where everything is. I’m not entirely sure what we’ll be doing tomorrow, but Friday is a national holiday here so nothing much will be going on. However, we are going to go on a safari. Sandy McCann, an Episcopal missionary from the Diocese of Atlanta, sent Magi a text message while we were on the bus yesterday and suggested going to Moro Goro which is between Dar Es Salaam and Dodoma. Sandy teaches at a theological college here in Dodoma and she and her husband Martin, who is a doctor I believe and runs a medical lab (I think pathology) in the city, have been here for three years. I’ve heard about Sandy and Martin, so it will be great to meet them.

Day 1: Arrival in Tanzania

2008-08-06T19:14:00.000+03:00

This is really long...you have been warned.

Well, I survived the trip. Two nine-hour flights and one eight-hour bus ride later (it felt like much longer), and here I am sitting in my new apartment in Dodoma.

I left Seattle at 8:55pm on Sunday, August 3^rd and flew to Heathrow Airport in London. I had a five-hour layover at Heathrow which wasn’t too bad because I took some great advice from my friend Chris Johnson and found an in-airport mini-hotel room to spend the time in – and more importantly take a shower. Then I boarded the second flight leg of my trip in London at 7:20pm local time on Monday, August 4^th. I actually ended up having a row to myself because the girl who was originally going to sit with me was able to switch to the club traveler section to sit with her parents. The flight itself was uneventful - which is the way I prefer to have my flights. There was a really adorable little boy in the row in front of me and we played peek-a-boo as the flight was making its final descent.

My flight arrived in Dar Es Salaam at just before 7:00am local time on Tuesday, August 5^th. As we were flying over Tanzania, the first officer said that we could see Mt. Kilimanjaro if we looked out the windows on the right side of the plane. I looked – no such luck. I did, however, see the most amazing sunrise that I’ve seen in a long time. I would definitely prefer to be sleeping at sunrise but my inability to sleep for more than 15-20 minutes at a time on a plane paid off this time. The sun was sort of a pinky-orange color and then turned a shade of bright pink that reminded me of a ripe pink grapefruit.

Upon arrival in Dar Es Salaam, I got in the line to get a tourist visa. About 20 minutes, a completed application form and $100 later I had a visa and was able to pick up my bags and head outside. As I exited the airport into a mildly humid day of about 83 degrees, I saw Magi Griffin, who works for the Diocese of Central Tanganyika. It was great to finally meet her in person. She introduced me to Frank, who was our driver for the morning. We stopped at a shop just outside the airport so I could get some bottled water and then we headed to the hotel that Magi and Sarah, who is from the Diocese of Atlanta and will also be working for Carpenter’s Kids, were staying in. Magi suggested that I take advantage of hot running water and take a shower. The water came out with about ¼ of the water pressure back home, but it was great nonetheless.

Then I met Magi and Sarah in the hotel’s lounge which was a nice outdoor area with wicker chairs and a great view of the Indian Ocean. Sarah even saw some monkeys in a nearby tree. Frank picked the three of us up at the hotel at 10:00am to take us to the bus station. We decided to stop in one of the grocery stores in Dar Es Salaam before we got on the bus to Dodoma so we could get some snacks for the road and because sometimes certain goods are less expensive in Dar Es Salaam than they are in Dodoma. It was interesting to see the variety items available and amazing to see how expensive certain things are here. For example, Sarah’s box of Special K cereal cost almost $7 USD. I settled for a box of hibiscus tea-not really practical for the bus, but it’s a taste of home anyway. Magi bought us little meat pies to take on the bus for lunch. Then we went to the bus station to get started on the journey to Dodoma.

My first impression of Dar Es Salaam, which came from the aerial view I got as we were preparing to land, was that it was beautiful. There are lots of trees-palm trees, monkey trees and lots of other kinds. I also thought that there was some kind of fog enveloping the city, but after driving and walking around town I realized that it was actually dust. Lots and lots of dust. I didn’t have a chance to see the city center area or any of the more touristy areas today, but what I noticed about Dar Es Salaam more than anything is how incredibly busy the city is. The car traffic reminded me of rush hour traffic in Manhattan, but less organized. The pedestrian traffic reminded me of the streets in Soho just before Christmas time. So essentially, lots of cars and lots of people. And the people didn’t stay on the sidewalks either, they walked between cars and lanes of traffic-all with a sort of nonchalance that had me cringing from the backseat of Frank’s car. Traffic in Dar Es Salaam can move at a snail’s pace to what felt like to me breakneck speeds. It was the latter that made me a little nervous for some of the more adventurous pedestrians.

As we boarded our bus to Dodoma-interestingly enough the bus line is called Scandinavia Express. I’m not entirely sure why, but I guess it just is what it is. The bus itself was your standard touring bus with about 45 seats on it and looked to be at least 20 years old. We ended up getting a rather scenic tour of Dar Es Salaam as our driver went from the first city stop to a garage to the final stop in Dar before heading to Dodoma. One thing that struck me was how much stuff is simply moved by people-power here. I saw men carrying huge bags of shoes on their backs or pushing hand carts full of paint cans. There were women in brightly-colored skirts and dresses carrying baskets of fruit on their heads. I don’t know how long I’d last doing that. There are also a plethora of goods you can get on the street-everthing from clothing to cell phones to hand-crafted furniture and coffins. I wasn’t really expecting to see coffins being sold on the street, but you’ve got to sell them somewhere.

As we made our way through the streets of Dar Es Salaam, I noticed how big of a role religion seems to play here. I saw numerous churches from all denominations and several mosques. Some of the churches in Dar run hotels that provide a less expensive, but still quite clean and nice alternative to the larger, more expensive hotels. I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, this isn’t really news worthy but it was the open expression of religious expression that caught my attention. My Swahili is quite limited at best, but two of the phrases I do know and heard on a regular basis during my short stay in Dar were ‘Bwana asifiwe!’ and ‘Mungu akubariki.’ These translate to ‘Praise the Lord’ and ‘God bless you’, respectively. These are said with complete sincerity in an expression of the speaker’s beliefs. Both were said to me by Frank, our driver in Dar, in the context of thanksgiving for my safe arrival in Tanzania and in expressing best wishes for my time here. I guess it was just interesting to have phrases that I’m more used to hearing in church or from a priest or a family member said to me by someone I’d just met.

Another interesting site in Dar that caught my attention were the city buses. The first thing I noticed was that they were packed – completely full, people standing in the aisles, almost coming out of the windows it seemed. There are several different sizes of buses, the most common being the Daladala, which is a mini-bus that appears to hold 25 people. Rather, it appears to have seats for about 25 people. I have no idea how many people you could actually fit into the bus. What was really the most interesting about the buses were the ways in which they were decorated. Some of them were brightly colored with words like safari or chimpanzee painted on them. The buses that caught my attention were the ones with phrases like ‘God loves you’ or ‘Jesus loves you’ or ‘Allah Akbar’ painted in big letters on the front and rear windows and sometimes the sides of the buses. I guess I point this out, because it’s quite different from what I was used to seeing in New York or Seattle. Seeing ‘Jesus loves you’ or ‘Allah Akbar’ deliberately painted anywhere on a city bus seems less than probable.

Our bus ride to Dodoma was supposed to be 7 hours long. It actually ended up being 8 hours long, but it felt like each hour took at least three of four hours. I think part of the problem was that it took us so long to just get out of Dar Es Salaam. It was also hot and dusty-surprise, surprise. I actually fell asleep for about an hour or so as we were getting closer to Dodoma. I spent most of the trip looking out the window at the people, villages, trees and shrubs. The vegetation between Dar and Dodoma was quite green in many places. There were lots of plants that looked vaguely familiar, but I don’t know what they’re called. The houses were a mixture of different styles of construction. There were the traditional mud houses with thatched roofs that I’d seen pictures of from when Alan and Matthew were here last year. There were also houses made of stone and wood. I even saw a dilapidated stone house with an enormous satellite dish on it.

As we slowly but surely made our way to Dodoma, we stopped several times in a couple towns. At each stop, people would run up to the bus carrying everything from bottled water and soda to cookies to bags of fresh okra and other vegetables. They’d come up and pound on the side of the bus to get our attention. Passengers would then exchange money for goods through the windows of the bus. This is pretty much how the trip passed. As we approached Moro Goro (considered to be the half-way point between Dar and Dodoma), we started to climb upward. Dodoma is at a higher elevation than Dar Es Salaam-I think it’s on a plateau-so we had a ways to climb. We also had a bus full of people and luggage so the driver had to work for it.

We stopped in Moro Goro and everyone got off the bus to walk around, use the bathroom or buy something to drink or eat from the ever-present vendors. I didn’t need to use the bathroom, but I did go in and check it out. Let’s just say it will take some time to get used to squat toilets. I don’t really remember the ride between Moro Goro and Dodoma because I slept during most of it. I woke up when we were about 30 minutes outside of Dodoma. There are large church-run schools and a conference center that was paid for by the Italian government on the outskirts of the town. I didn’t see a great deal of Dodoma because it was getting dark by the time we arrived – 7:00pm. I did notice, however, that there is more than one paved road. We pulled into the Scandinavia bus station and were all relieved to get off of the cramped and crowded bus. I think I’ll need a couple days to get over than ride...

Miriam met us at the bus station. She’s been in Tanzania working for Carpenter’s Kids for the past two years and is getting ready to head back home to New Zealand next month. It was great to finally meet her in person after talking to her on the phone and via e-mail for the past few months. Miriam was very happy to see us, but also slightly embarrassed because she had accidentally locked the keys to the Land Rover in the cab of the car. She called Father Noah to see if he could come and help because no one was sure if there was a spare key to the car. Her house key was also in the car, so it was really important that she be able to get in.

Father Noah arrived with his son and another man whose name I don’t know because we were never introduced. They tried to figure out a way to get into the car, but didn’t have any luck. Miriam then called someone else who thought he knew where there was a spare key. As we were waiting for him to arrive, he called to say that the spare key was in a money box in the office but someone else had the key. So, he was going to go pick up the guy with the key, they were going to head to the office and then come to the bus station. Since this process was going to take about 30 minutes, Miriam and Father Noah decided that it would be best for her to bring Sarah and me to our apartments in Father Noah’s car and then Miriam could go back to the bus station after she’d dropped us off. So we piled all of our luggage and ourselves into Father Noah’s car and away we went. We arrived at the compound a short while later and Miriam picked up our keys for us.

The apartments belong to CAMS which stands for the Canon Andrea Mwaka School, which is an international school run by the Diocese of Central Tanganyika. Sarah lives in apartment 1 and I live in apartment 6 in the compound. As we were driving here, Miriam and Magi were explaining that we live in one of the more established, ‘nicer’ areas of town. Bishop Mhogolo and his family live in the same neighborhood, though not in the same housing compound, as do Father Noah (my boss) and his family and Miriam. There are some government officials who also live in the same neighborhood. This actually works out well for us because we’re all on the same electric grid and the power company tries to ensure that the government officials’ power is disrupted as little as possible. We’ll see how that goes.

With the help of the guard on the night shift, I believe his name is Hosea, and Father Noah’s son, we unloaded our bags from the car and got them into our apartments. Miriam needed to get back to the bus station to get her house keys and to get the groceries she’d picked up for Sarah and me out of the car. We told her not to worry and to just come back with them when she could. She ended up coming back about an hour later with some food that she'd foraged from her neighbors. All in all, it was a busy but rewarding day.

More later,

Liz

I have a blog!

2008-07-16T21:42:00.000+03:00

Four score and seven years ago...ok, really about five minutes and $2.95 later (thank you Washington State Ferry system) I created a blog. I am currently sitting on the Wenatchee (it's a ferry boat and a city in the lovely state of Washington) with my sister Nina typing my first blog entry. We're on our way to visit our older sister JoAnna and her husband Stacey and our two adorable nephews, Benjamin and Cameron. I thought that I would finally set this up considering that I've been asked for my blog address numerous times in the past week...

I leave for Tanzania on August 3rd at about 8:30pm Pacific Time and I arrive in Dar Es Salaam at 7:00am local time on August 5th. I'll write more about preparing for my departure later.

Peace,
Elizabeth