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.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Dinner Parties and Distributions
I realized that I don’t really write much about life outside of the Carpenter’s Kids. I suppose that makes sense, because the Carpenter’s Kids is the reason that I am now in Dodoma. However, I do actually do things other than work Sometimes it doesn’t seem like I do them all that often, but what can you do?
Last Friday Sarah and I, along with our friends Maaike and Leanne hosted a dinner party for 11 people including ourselves. Now, you need to realize that not one of the four of us had really done something like that before. That would be why Sarah and I made enough pasta to feed about 20+ people. It started out pretty small. We were initially planning on just having dinner together in our group of four. Maaike and Leanne are from Holland and they are here in Dodoma working at the deaf school. They live at the CAMS upper compound where Sarah lives and where I lived up until about 2 weeks ago. The four of us generally had dinner together about once a week with our neighbor Leane-not to be confused with Leanne! Well, I moved down to the lower CAMS compound, but we still decided that we’d have dinner together from time to time. Which leads us back to Friday’s dinner…
We decided to have dinner on Friday and split up the cooking accordingly. Then we thought it would be a nice idea to invite Callum and Laura to join us. Then we thought that it would be nice to invite Brian (DCT Business Advisor), Roger and Angela to join us as well. Roger and Angela were here in Dodoma for about 2 weeks from England. Roger is a former BBC film producer and he and Angela were here filming a DVD about the Diocese of Central Tanganyika. They’d been staying at the New Dodoma Hotel and eating hotel food every night. Readers who’ve stayed at the New Dodoma Hotel for a prolonged period of time know that eating hotel food night after night can get a bit old. So we were up to 9 people. Then we decided to invite Peter Prewandowski who teaches at CAMS and just moved to the upper compound. He’s an Episcopal missionary from the Diocese of Western Massachusetts. He’s actually been to Dodoma twice before and taught at CAMS both times. We also invited Magi Griffin, an Episcopal missionary from the Diocese of Atlanta, and one of Sarah and my favorite people in Tanzania. Magi works for Bishop Mhogolo and I can never remember her official title so I won’t even try. It’s impressive though. We finally ended up with our guest list of 11.
Then the fun began. Sarah and I went to the grocery store and started getting ingredients for our pasta dish. It really wasn’t too complicated, but we just weren’t sure how much pasta to buy. So, we bought enough for a small army…We did all the cooking at Sarah’s house because we decided to have dinner in the courtyard at the upper compound. Sarah doesn’t have many pots, so we had to cook the pasta in shifts and then empty the cooked pasta into a large bowl. It took awhile. The sauce, on the other hand, was a relatively quick affair as we used canned pasta sauce as a base and just added things to it. We also baked a cake for dessert and much to our amazement were able to find a Betty Crocker cake mix at the grocery store. Neither of us knew how to make frosting from scratch and our plan to look up a recipe online was foiled by Sarah’s internet not cooperating. Thankfully, Magi arrived in the nick of time and was able to whip up some frosting with no problem.
The logistics of such an event were quite entertaining as they involved us getting two additional tables out of apartments in the compound. There’s one table that is always out in the courtyard, which was really helpful. Sarah and I had an interesting time maneuvering her table out of her apartment into the courtyard. It took all of our geometry skills and a lot of lifting, but we managed to wedge her table out her door. We then tried to find another table to move outside from Leanne’s apartment, but we couldn’t get it out the door. We tried the same thing with Peter’s table but ran into the same problem. This led us all to wonder how the table made it in to the apartment in the first place. Peter suggested that maybe they built the apartment around the table. It could be true….
Thankfully, Brian’s table saved the day. It was not quite as wide as the other two tables and so we were able to get it out of his door quite easily. In keeping with the collaborative effort to pull off the dinner party, we borrowed chairs from Peter, Brian, Maaike and Leanne; plates from Peter; glasses from Brian, Leanne, Callum and Laura and Peter; and silverware from Leanne to supplement what Sarah had in her apartment.
We had originally scheduled the dinner to begin at 6pm, but of course we didn’t really start until about 6:35ish. No one is really on time here…Of course, that posed a slight problem because it gets completely dark here at 7pm each night. We ended up using candles and small lanterns in addition to lights shining through apartment windows to see, but it just added to the ambience of the evening. Dinner turned out really well and we had plenty of food to go around. Aside from Sarah and my pasta dish, Maaike and Leanne made potato salad, Magi brought vegetable risotto, Callum and Laura made bread, Peter made a coleslaw-type salad and Brian brought wine. We also had lots of water and juice to go around, lest anyone think that we had too much fun…:-)
Re-distribution at Nghulugano
On Saturday morning, I headed to Nghulugano with John, John Joseph and Callum to conduct a re-distribution. As a point of clarification, a re-distribution is what happens at parishes that have been in the Carpenter’s Kids program for more than one year. The initial distribution of uniforms, shoes, school supplies and mosquito nets is called a distribution and each of the subsequent visits to distribute uniforms, shoes and school supplies is called a re-distribution. This of course means that my blog entry should actually be called ‘dinner parties and re-distributions’ but that would have spoiled my title which vaguely resembles an alliteration. I’ll claim creative license this one time….
Nghulugano is the home of the man who calls himself my ‘Tanzanian father.’ His last name translates to cow-bear in Chigogo, the local dialect.. He has a daughter named Elizabeth and so on the day we met he decided that I could call him ‘father.’ Each time he comes into the office he says something like ‘Hello, my daughter’ and I usually reply with ‘Hello, father,’ much to the great amusement of my Carpenter’s Kids colleagues. Anyway, my ‘father’ was quite happy that Callum and I were in his parish and he sat next to us during the distribution to help translate. Before the distribution, we went to the priest’s house for tea and chapati. The priest, John and John Joseph were highly entertained because they all share the same first name of John. So, we decided it was John Day. The re-distribution went well. In most of our ‘old’ parishes, the distribution of uniforms, shoes and school supplies goes like clock work. Everyone knows what to expect. Saturday was no exception. We did get to hear several choirs of Carpenter’s Kids sing which was great. At the end of the distribution, Callum and I were asked to stand up in front of the whole group and were each presented with kangas which was an unexpected and very thoughtful gesture.
After we took all of our group photos for the day, we were again invited to Pastor John’s house, this time for lunch. We were joined by two of the teachers at Nghulugano’s primary school and my Tanzanian father, Mr. Cow-Bear, who, as it turns out, is also named John. So we had four Johns much to the amusement of all those at lunch named John. After we’d finished eating our rice and some kind of meat-I think it was beef- and we’d all consumed our requisite bottle of soda, Mr. Cow-Bear asked Callum and me if we had Tanzanian names. Neither of us did, much to the surprise of all of Nghulugano residents. I should clarify here and explain that a ‘Tanzanian’ name is actually a Chigogo name. Needless to say, being given a Chigogo name is an important event-one that prompted Pastor Noah to congratulate me when he heard that I’d been given one. So, the Nghulugano residents at the table, half of whom were named John, debated amongst themselves for about 3 minutes before settling on names for Callum and me. My new Chigogo name is Saja, which means ‘Our beloved’ and Callum’s is Mtemi, which means ‘chief.’ Everyone was happy with their efforts and so Callum and I were told that we would be known as Saja and Mtemi to everyone in Nghulugano from that day on. Yet another unexpected and thoughtful gesture.
Finally, I’ve discovered that humor is a great way to bridge the language barrier that exists between me and two of my CK colleagues Willy and John Joseph. Just as a short refresher, Willy is our shoe fundi and John Joseph is our driver. They are both great guys and bring lots of laughter to our office. My Swahili is coming along, but it is still quite limited. Willy and John both speak about as much English as I do Swahili, so we have to be creative sometimes. This generally involves some improvised gestures and a mix of Swahili and English, but we manage quite well. Willy enjoys singing random songs in the office-just like my dad!-his latest song consists of the words ‘money, money, money, pesa.’ Pesa means money in Swahili. He generally sings this song when he’s carrying bags of shoes into the office or listening to Mmoti and I discuss financial matters.
John Joseph and I get along quite well and tend to joke around when we’re in the Land Rover, which is quite often. If he thinks I’m not paying attention at a re-distribution, he’ll call my name when he’s handing out uniforms. That always goes over well with the crowd. I got him back though at Nghulugano. When Willy packs shoes for each village, he writes the name of the child on a slip of paper and sticks it in between the laces of one of the shoes before placing both shoes in a small plastic bag. We remove the shoes from the bags and stack them in pairs on a table before we call the kids’ names. Once we’ve given all of the kids their shoes, we’re left with lots of little slips of paper. So, on Saturday I took one of small slips of paper and wrote John Joseph’s name on it. Then I read his name off of the slip and handed him the paper. He laughed so hard that I thought he was going to fall out of his chair. Maybe you had to be there to find that funny, but we enjoyed it.
Then at lunch he got me back. Awhile ago we went to a parish where there were not enough spoons to go around and I had to eat with my fingers. It’s harder than it seems and Willy and John Joseph thought it was really funny when I told them that. Ever since then, John Joseph has made sure that I’ve noticed that there are spoons or forks available for me to use. Well, on Saturday he and I tried to take each other’s spoons without the other noticing. Again, maybe it’s one of those things that you really had to be there for, but it’s an example of the little things in life that make for good experiences.
Last Friday Sarah and I, along with our friends Maaike and Leanne hosted a dinner party for 11 people including ourselves. Now, you need to realize that not one of the four of us had really done something like that before. That would be why Sarah and I made enough pasta to feed about 20+ people. It started out pretty small. We were initially planning on just having dinner together in our group of four. Maaike and Leanne are from Holland and they are here in Dodoma working at the deaf school. They live at the CAMS upper compound where Sarah lives and where I lived up until about 2 weeks ago. The four of us generally had dinner together about once a week with our neighbor Leane-not to be confused with Leanne! Well, I moved down to the lower CAMS compound, but we still decided that we’d have dinner together from time to time. Which leads us back to Friday’s dinner…
We decided to have dinner on Friday and split up the cooking accordingly. Then we thought it would be a nice idea to invite Callum and Laura to join us. Then we thought that it would be nice to invite Brian (DCT Business Advisor), Roger and Angela to join us as well. Roger and Angela were here in Dodoma for about 2 weeks from England. Roger is a former BBC film producer and he and Angela were here filming a DVD about the Diocese of Central Tanganyika. They’d been staying at the New Dodoma Hotel and eating hotel food every night. Readers who’ve stayed at the New Dodoma Hotel for a prolonged period of time know that eating hotel food night after night can get a bit old. So we were up to 9 people. Then we decided to invite Peter Prewandowski who teaches at CAMS and just moved to the upper compound. He’s an Episcopal missionary from the Diocese of Western Massachusetts. He’s actually been to Dodoma twice before and taught at CAMS both times. We also invited Magi Griffin, an Episcopal missionary from the Diocese of Atlanta, and one of Sarah and my favorite people in Tanzania. Magi works for Bishop Mhogolo and I can never remember her official title so I won’t even try. It’s impressive though. We finally ended up with our guest list of 11.
Then the fun began. Sarah and I went to the grocery store and started getting ingredients for our pasta dish. It really wasn’t too complicated, but we just weren’t sure how much pasta to buy. So, we bought enough for a small army…We did all the cooking at Sarah’s house because we decided to have dinner in the courtyard at the upper compound. Sarah doesn’t have many pots, so we had to cook the pasta in shifts and then empty the cooked pasta into a large bowl. It took awhile. The sauce, on the other hand, was a relatively quick affair as we used canned pasta sauce as a base and just added things to it. We also baked a cake for dessert and much to our amazement were able to find a Betty Crocker cake mix at the grocery store. Neither of us knew how to make frosting from scratch and our plan to look up a recipe online was foiled by Sarah’s internet not cooperating. Thankfully, Magi arrived in the nick of time and was able to whip up some frosting with no problem.
The logistics of such an event were quite entertaining as they involved us getting two additional tables out of apartments in the compound. There’s one table that is always out in the courtyard, which was really helpful. Sarah and I had an interesting time maneuvering her table out of her apartment into the courtyard. It took all of our geometry skills and a lot of lifting, but we managed to wedge her table out her door. We then tried to find another table to move outside from Leanne’s apartment, but we couldn’t get it out the door. We tried the same thing with Peter’s table but ran into the same problem. This led us all to wonder how the table made it in to the apartment in the first place. Peter suggested that maybe they built the apartment around the table. It could be true….
Thankfully, Brian’s table saved the day. It was not quite as wide as the other two tables and so we were able to get it out of his door quite easily. In keeping with the collaborative effort to pull off the dinner party, we borrowed chairs from Peter, Brian, Maaike and Leanne; plates from Peter; glasses from Brian, Leanne, Callum and Laura and Peter; and silverware from Leanne to supplement what Sarah had in her apartment.
We had originally scheduled the dinner to begin at 6pm, but of course we didn’t really start until about 6:35ish. No one is really on time here…Of course, that posed a slight problem because it gets completely dark here at 7pm each night. We ended up using candles and small lanterns in addition to lights shining through apartment windows to see, but it just added to the ambience of the evening. Dinner turned out really well and we had plenty of food to go around. Aside from Sarah and my pasta dish, Maaike and Leanne made potato salad, Magi brought vegetable risotto, Callum and Laura made bread, Peter made a coleslaw-type salad and Brian brought wine. We also had lots of water and juice to go around, lest anyone think that we had too much fun…:-)
Re-distribution at Nghulugano
On Saturday morning, I headed to Nghulugano with John, John Joseph and Callum to conduct a re-distribution. As a point of clarification, a re-distribution is what happens at parishes that have been in the Carpenter’s Kids program for more than one year. The initial distribution of uniforms, shoes, school supplies and mosquito nets is called a distribution and each of the subsequent visits to distribute uniforms, shoes and school supplies is called a re-distribution. This of course means that my blog entry should actually be called ‘dinner parties and re-distributions’ but that would have spoiled my title which vaguely resembles an alliteration. I’ll claim creative license this one time….
Nghulugano is the home of the man who calls himself my ‘Tanzanian father.’ His last name translates to cow-bear in Chigogo, the local dialect.. He has a daughter named Elizabeth and so on the day we met he decided that I could call him ‘father.’ Each time he comes into the office he says something like ‘Hello, my daughter’ and I usually reply with ‘Hello, father,’ much to the great amusement of my Carpenter’s Kids colleagues. Anyway, my ‘father’ was quite happy that Callum and I were in his parish and he sat next to us during the distribution to help translate. Before the distribution, we went to the priest’s house for tea and chapati. The priest, John and John Joseph were highly entertained because they all share the same first name of John. So, we decided it was John Day. The re-distribution went well. In most of our ‘old’ parishes, the distribution of uniforms, shoes and school supplies goes like clock work. Everyone knows what to expect. Saturday was no exception. We did get to hear several choirs of Carpenter’s Kids sing which was great. At the end of the distribution, Callum and I were asked to stand up in front of the whole group and were each presented with kangas which was an unexpected and very thoughtful gesture.
After we took all of our group photos for the day, we were again invited to Pastor John’s house, this time for lunch. We were joined by two of the teachers at Nghulugano’s primary school and my Tanzanian father, Mr. Cow-Bear, who, as it turns out, is also named John. So we had four Johns much to the amusement of all those at lunch named John. After we’d finished eating our rice and some kind of meat-I think it was beef- and we’d all consumed our requisite bottle of soda, Mr. Cow-Bear asked Callum and me if we had Tanzanian names. Neither of us did, much to the surprise of all of Nghulugano residents. I should clarify here and explain that a ‘Tanzanian’ name is actually a Chigogo name. Needless to say, being given a Chigogo name is an important event-one that prompted Pastor Noah to congratulate me when he heard that I’d been given one. So, the Nghulugano residents at the table, half of whom were named John, debated amongst themselves for about 3 minutes before settling on names for Callum and me. My new Chigogo name is Saja, which means ‘Our beloved’ and Callum’s is Mtemi, which means ‘chief.’ Everyone was happy with their efforts and so Callum and I were told that we would be known as Saja and Mtemi to everyone in Nghulugano from that day on. Yet another unexpected and thoughtful gesture.
Finally, I’ve discovered that humor is a great way to bridge the language barrier that exists between me and two of my CK colleagues Willy and John Joseph. Just as a short refresher, Willy is our shoe fundi and John Joseph is our driver. They are both great guys and bring lots of laughter to our office. My Swahili is coming along, but it is still quite limited. Willy and John both speak about as much English as I do Swahili, so we have to be creative sometimes. This generally involves some improvised gestures and a mix of Swahili and English, but we manage quite well. Willy enjoys singing random songs in the office-just like my dad!-his latest song consists of the words ‘money, money, money, pesa.’ Pesa means money in Swahili. He generally sings this song when he’s carrying bags of shoes into the office or listening to Mmoti and I discuss financial matters.
John Joseph and I get along quite well and tend to joke around when we’re in the Land Rover, which is quite often. If he thinks I’m not paying attention at a re-distribution, he’ll call my name when he’s handing out uniforms. That always goes over well with the crowd. I got him back though at Nghulugano. When Willy packs shoes for each village, he writes the name of the child on a slip of paper and sticks it in between the laces of one of the shoes before placing both shoes in a small plastic bag. We remove the shoes from the bags and stack them in pairs on a table before we call the kids’ names. Once we’ve given all of the kids their shoes, we’re left with lots of little slips of paper. So, on Saturday I took one of small slips of paper and wrote John Joseph’s name on it. Then I read his name off of the slip and handed him the paper. He laughed so hard that I thought he was going to fall out of his chair. Maybe you had to be there to find that funny, but we enjoyed it.
Then at lunch he got me back. Awhile ago we went to a parish where there were not enough spoons to go around and I had to eat with my fingers. It’s harder than it seems and Willy and John Joseph thought it was really funny when I told them that. Ever since then, John Joseph has made sure that I’ve noticed that there are spoons or forks available for me to use. Well, on Saturday he and I tried to take each other’s spoons without the other noticing. Again, maybe it’s one of those things that you really had to be there for, but it’s an example of the little things in life that make for good experiences.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
DCT Synod
One of the unexpected things that I’ve done recently was attend the DCT Synod. For the Episcopalians in the reading crowd, this is essentially like a diocesan convention. It’s supposed to happen every three years, but it had been five years since the last DCT Synod took place. We were given some time to talk about The Carpenter’s Kids at this year’s synod, so we all piled into our Land Cruiser (seriously, the entire staff: John, Noel, Mmoti, Daudi, Callum, Sarah, John Joseph and me-Pastor Noah was already there) on Wednesday, 17 September and made the hour-long drive to Mvumi Secondary School. If anyone from St. Bart’s reads this, it’s about 15 minutes past Mvumi Makulu.
We didn’t know what time our presentation would be, so we decided to leave at 4pm so that we’d arrive around 5, thinking that maybe we’d get to talk to everyone before they had dinner. When we pulled up to the gates of the school grounds, we were greeted by several people we knew, including Noel’s father George who’s the head of Uwaze (the men’s department of the diocese). We parked the vehicle and got out so Callum could change from his shorts to some long pants-more appropriate attire for a diocesan conference – which the rest of the guys on staff thought was hilarious and made a point of oo-ing and ah-ing when Callum emerged from the Land Cruiser.
We saw Pastor Noah relatively soon after we arrived and he said that we needed to wait for awhile because there were meetings still going on. So, we decided to walk around the campus for a bit. Daudi actually attended secondary school at Mvumi, so we had an expert tour guide. The priests were all staying in the school’s dormitories, so we ended up running into people we knew as we were walking around. Sarah and I saw several priests we’d met during the month and a half or so we’d been in Tanzania. They seemed quite surprised that we remembered them. We saw Mmoti’s father, the parish priest at Chamwino, and chatted with him for awhile. He speaks English very well, so that made saying more than just a few sentences much easier!
After we’d seen the entire school, we found out that we were given ten minutes to talk to the entire group later in the evening at about 8:00pm. So, we decided to wait around until then. Since we had several hours to wait, we decided to do some exploring and drove to a nearby development center to look at the grounds. For the Montanans reading this, the development center is run by Fr. John Nauman who was formerly the rector at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Billings. He wasn’t there, but we were able to look around and get a sense of what kind of work goes on at the center. There was an impressive drip irrigation system set up and there were some vineyards and fruit trees as well.
After we’d wandered around a bit, we drove back to the Mvumi campus and had dinner at a local restaurant. Our only choices for dinner were beans and rice or chips mayai. Beans and rice is fairly self explanatory, but I think chips mayai deserves a bit of an explanation. It’s quite popular here in Tanzania and it consists of a plate of French fries with an omelette on top. I’ve seen it with the fries actually cooked into the omelette as well. At this restaurant people who ordered chips mayai were given toothpicks to eat with. We finished our meal with some hot tea that tasted like it contained equal parts of tea and sugar.
Once we’d finished dinner, we walked over to the large hall where the evening meeting was to take place. We greeted Bishop Mhogolo, who was setting up the computer and projector, and took our seats. It took another 45 minutes or so for everyone to file into the building, but once they were all in there were over 600 people there. The Bishop made some remarks and then turned the floor over to Pastor Noah who gave a brief report about recent happenings in The Carpenter’s Kids before having each staff member get up and introduce themselves - in Swahili of course. Members of the congregations at St. John the Divine in New York and St. John the Baptist in Seattle will be happy to know that you all sent greetings to the DCT Synod this year.
I’ve gotten used to giving my little introduction in Swahili, but I find it rather nerve-wracking to say it into a microphone. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I know everyone will hear me if I use a microphone. After we’d all introduced ourselves, the Bishop said a few words about The Carpenter’s Kids program. An hour later, our “ten minute” presentation was over and we all got back in the car to go home. Sarah and I were the first to be dropped off and we got home at about 10:45pm. John Joseph dropped everyone else off at home and didn’t get home himself until midnight. It was a rather different timeline than we’d been expecting, but a worthwhile adventure nonetheless!
We didn’t know what time our presentation would be, so we decided to leave at 4pm so that we’d arrive around 5, thinking that maybe we’d get to talk to everyone before they had dinner. When we pulled up to the gates of the school grounds, we were greeted by several people we knew, including Noel’s father George who’s the head of Uwaze (the men’s department of the diocese). We parked the vehicle and got out so Callum could change from his shorts to some long pants-more appropriate attire for a diocesan conference – which the rest of the guys on staff thought was hilarious and made a point of oo-ing and ah-ing when Callum emerged from the Land Cruiser.
We saw Pastor Noah relatively soon after we arrived and he said that we needed to wait for awhile because there were meetings still going on. So, we decided to walk around the campus for a bit. Daudi actually attended secondary school at Mvumi, so we had an expert tour guide. The priests were all staying in the school’s dormitories, so we ended up running into people we knew as we were walking around. Sarah and I saw several priests we’d met during the month and a half or so we’d been in Tanzania. They seemed quite surprised that we remembered them. We saw Mmoti’s father, the parish priest at Chamwino, and chatted with him for awhile. He speaks English very well, so that made saying more than just a few sentences much easier!
After we’d seen the entire school, we found out that we were given ten minutes to talk to the entire group later in the evening at about 8:00pm. So, we decided to wait around until then. Since we had several hours to wait, we decided to do some exploring and drove to a nearby development center to look at the grounds. For the Montanans reading this, the development center is run by Fr. John Nauman who was formerly the rector at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Billings. He wasn’t there, but we were able to look around and get a sense of what kind of work goes on at the center. There was an impressive drip irrigation system set up and there were some vineyards and fruit trees as well.
After we’d wandered around a bit, we drove back to the Mvumi campus and had dinner at a local restaurant. Our only choices for dinner were beans and rice or chips mayai. Beans and rice is fairly self explanatory, but I think chips mayai deserves a bit of an explanation. It’s quite popular here in Tanzania and it consists of a plate of French fries with an omelette on top. I’ve seen it with the fries actually cooked into the omelette as well. At this restaurant people who ordered chips mayai were given toothpicks to eat with. We finished our meal with some hot tea that tasted like it contained equal parts of tea and sugar.
Once we’d finished dinner, we walked over to the large hall where the evening meeting was to take place. We greeted Bishop Mhogolo, who was setting up the computer and projector, and took our seats. It took another 45 minutes or so for everyone to file into the building, but once they were all in there were over 600 people there. The Bishop made some remarks and then turned the floor over to Pastor Noah who gave a brief report about recent happenings in The Carpenter’s Kids before having each staff member get up and introduce themselves - in Swahili of course. Members of the congregations at St. John the Divine in New York and St. John the Baptist in Seattle will be happy to know that you all sent greetings to the DCT Synod this year.
I’ve gotten used to giving my little introduction in Swahili, but I find it rather nerve-wracking to say it into a microphone. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I know everyone will hear me if I use a microphone. After we’d all introduced ourselves, the Bishop said a few words about The Carpenter’s Kids program. An hour later, our “ten minute” presentation was over and we all got back in the car to go home. Sarah and I were the first to be dropped off and we got home at about 10:45pm. John Joseph dropped everyone else off at home and didn’t get home himself until midnight. It was a rather different timeline than we’d been expecting, but a worthwhile adventure nonetheless!
Mleche, Chifutuka, Chibelela, Nghahelezi & Nagulo
In the last few weeks I have been to 5 villages to participate in distributions or redistributions. I’ve written about what goes on during these events several times already, so I won’t summarize the process again. Instead, I’ll just write a short story about each parish I’ve been to recently.
Saturday, 13 September: Hombolo Mleche
This parish is supported by a group called Friends in Colorado. It’s a group of 5 (maybe 6) guys who went to university together in Colorado and decided to work together to support 200 kids in Mleche. They initially started with 100 kids, but on 13 September an additional 100 children were added. So when we left Dodoma it was in an extremely packed car containing 200 mosquito nets, 200 pairs of shoes, 200 uniforms and 200 backpacks of school supplies.
Pastor Noah, Willy and I were joined by a priest from New Zealand named Bryan Carey. He and his wife Rosemary were visiting their friend Jo who works at CAMS. The drive to Mleche didn’t take that long and was actually quite pleasant because we were in the new Prado Land Cruiser. It’s amazing the difference good suspension makes! We arrived in Mleche and were greeted by a large crowd outside the church. It seemed like people here were more friendly than usual-which is pretty amazing given how welcoming people are in general. After I’d introduced myself and the distribution began, I started taking pictures for the distribution photo gallery. I was standing off to the side of the church when I heard “Eliza!” (This is pronounced ‘Ehleeza’-most Tanzanians tend to call me Eliza, although Noel calls me Liz and Mmoti calls me Lizzie) I looked over at the kids and the girl who’d said my name tried to duck behind a chair. I laughed and the kids around her must have taken that as a good sign, because they all started to do it as well. That is the first time that anyone in a parish has said my name since I’ve been here. Usually, I just get stared at and occasionally called ‘mzungu.’ (white person) It was nice to be Elizabeth again.
I also got to give some of the kids their uniforms. I’d handed out one or two before, but it felt different this time. Children are called up one by one to get their uniforms, so if you listen you actually know the name of the child you’re giving the uniform to. You can say their name and look into their eyes as you shake their hands and give them their uniforms. It was a great experience because it seemed very personal. They knew my name and I knew theirs.
One little girl in particular kept watching me the whole time. If I looked at her, she’d smile and wave and I’d smile and wave back. When the distribution was over and we took the big group photo, she made a point of coming over to say goodbye.
Saturday, 20 September: Chifutuka and Chibelela
Compared to our reception in Mleche, arriving in Chifutuka was quite a shock. Sarah, John, Willy, John Joseph and I were joined by a young woman from Australia named Ainslie who was visiting her friends Brian and Jill. Brian works at Mackay House and Jill works at CAMS and they are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. They always take time to say hello and ask how Sarah and I are doing whenever they see us.
The day began like most Saturdays do, getting into the Land Cruiser and driving for what seems like a really long time. When we arrived in Chifutuka, we all got out of the car and said hello to the parish priest and everyone else gathered around us. Instead of lots of smiles, we got lots of stares. I thought I was used to being stared at, it certainly happens a lot in town, but this was different. The priest invited us to his house to sit down and rest for a bit and as we were walking, I turned around and looked behind me. Sure enough, there was a crowd of about 30 people following us just staring. When we arrived at the priest’s house, we sat down in the shade and John chatted with the priest and Willy and John Joseph chatted with some of the parish committee members. Sarah, Ainslie and I sat there and talked to each other. When there was a lull in the conversation between John and the priest, I asked John if people in the parish had ever seen a white person before. He asked the priest and confirmed what I had suspected: the majority of the people had never seen a white person. That would explain the stares. I don’t really know how to explain it, but being stared at in Chifutuka just felt different than being stared at in Dodoma.
We brought some humor to the day when Sarah, Ainslie and I decided to walk around a bit and came across a group of piglets in a shed next to the priest’s house. Of course the three of us exclaimed over how cute they were which made everyone laughed. Sarah called them ‘pig’s watoto’ or pig’s children which made people laugh, but we discovered later that it’s actually very close to the Swahili for piglet. Sarah wanted to hold one, so John and John Joseph laughingly tried to catch one for her. John didn’t get too close because he was afraid of ‘Mama Pig’ and didn’t want to get in trouble with her. John Joseph made a valiant attempt to catch one, but didn’t have any luck.
After the pig escapades, we had tea and chapati with the priest and his wife. Sarah, Ainslie and I made John, Willy and John Joseph laugh really hard because we had a hard time picking up the extremely hot chapati. They, on the other hand, just picked them up like they were stone cold! Once we’d finished our tea, we headed over to the church to do the distribution. At the end, an old man gave John a chicken as a thank you present. The chicken’s feet were tied together and it spent the rest of the day under a seat in the Land Cruiser.
Chibelela
This distribution has the distinction of being the fastest one we’ve done since I arrived. We were all pretty tired when we arrived, and since this was a redistribution John decided that we could distribute the uniforms, shoes and backpacks quickly. We definitely learned why he has the nickname of Mzee Shasha or Old Man Chop Chop!
After Sarah and I had introduced ourselves in Swahili, John announced to everyone at the distribution that our Swahili teacher, Christina, is from Chibelela. That announcement drew a huge round of applause. Christina lives in Dodoma now because she’s a teacher’s assistant at CAMS but her niece is a Carpenter’s Kid in Chibelela, so we were very happy to have that connection.
Saturday, 27 September: Nghahelezi
Try to say that name five times fast. The Ngh- sound in Swahili is one that exists to taunt me, I think. It exists for other reasons to be sure, but one of them is definitely to taunt me.
Today John, John Joseph, Willy and I were joined by Miriam, Miriam’s friend Matt and Karen (the daughter of two of the teachers at CAMS) for our distribution. It was nice to be able to go to one final distribution with Miriam. We left Dodoma early so we could finish our distribution by 10am because the Bishop was scheduled to start a confirmation service at 10. Imagine our surprise then, when we arrived in Nghahelezi at about 8:15 and the Bishop was already there! They had decided to do the confirmation service first, so we were given tea and maandazi-like bread made with rice flour at the priest’s house. We were then shown to our seats in the church-right in the front of course.
The confirmation service was pretty long, but it was interesting to be a part of. There were about 30 young adults who were confirmed during the service. They came up to the front of the church in large groups – boys first and then the girls- and kneeled down on a long piece of material that had been spread on the ground to minimize the amount of dirt that ended up on their clothes. The material was made out of the large sacks that rice and millet are sold in. The bags had been sewn together to form a long cloth about 20 feet long.
Once each person had been confirmed, the service ended relatively quickly. The Bishop asked people to stay for the distribution immediately following the service. Some did and some didn’t. All of our Carpenter’s Kids and guardians were there and the distribution went smoothly. The women’s group from the parish played drums and sang and Miriam and Karen went over and danced with them. I was perfectly happy to take pictures. We went outside and took our standard group photos and were then invited to have lunch with the parish priest and the Carpenter’s Kids committee. The Bishop was just finishing lunch, so we said goodbye to him as he headed off to another parish to do a second confirmation service.
Saturday, 4 October: Nagulo
We left a little later than we anticipated this morning because there was something wrong with John’s bike and so John Joseph had to go pick him up at his house before getting us. We had two distributions scheduled for today and unfortunately, the parishes were not close enough for one group to do them both. So, Sarah went with Pastor Noah and Willy and I went with John, John Joseph and Callum. Two of Sarah and my neighbors, Leanne and Mika, who are both students from The Netherlands and are working at a school for deaf students here in Dodoma, went with us to get a sense of what The Carpenter’s Kids does. Leanne went with Sarah and Mika went with me.
My group got to drive in our old beat up Land Rover. This is the car that the Screening Panel uses each week. One of the doors doesn’t really close properly and sort of pops open randomly. It didn’t come completely open when we were driving to Nagulo, but it did come open twice on our way back. It just added to the adventure.
We did our distribution in one of the classrooms at the school which actually worked out well because everyone had a seat. I think it was the only distribution I’ve been to at which none of the kids had to sit on the floor or the ground. The actual distribution was pretty fast. After we finished, John asked Callum, Mika and I to say something to everyone. I can’t remember who Callum was supposed to address. Mika was supposed to encourage the kids to work hard in school and I was supposed to say something to the guardians and the parish committee. Normally, this is something I would have wanted to have prepared for, but I think I did an ok job. One of the guardians actually had tears in her eyes when I finished. After a closing prayer, we took some pictures of the kids and then had lunch with the parish priest and the chairperson of the Carpenter’s Kids committee. You have to watch for small stones in the rice here and unfortunately, I found two the hard way in Nagulo. I’m glad my dentist doesn’t read my blog!
Saturday, 13 September: Hombolo Mleche
This parish is supported by a group called Friends in Colorado. It’s a group of 5 (maybe 6) guys who went to university together in Colorado and decided to work together to support 200 kids in Mleche. They initially started with 100 kids, but on 13 September an additional 100 children were added. So when we left Dodoma it was in an extremely packed car containing 200 mosquito nets, 200 pairs of shoes, 200 uniforms and 200 backpacks of school supplies.
Pastor Noah, Willy and I were joined by a priest from New Zealand named Bryan Carey. He and his wife Rosemary were visiting their friend Jo who works at CAMS. The drive to Mleche didn’t take that long and was actually quite pleasant because we were in the new Prado Land Cruiser. It’s amazing the difference good suspension makes! We arrived in Mleche and were greeted by a large crowd outside the church. It seemed like people here were more friendly than usual-which is pretty amazing given how welcoming people are in general. After I’d introduced myself and the distribution began, I started taking pictures for the distribution photo gallery. I was standing off to the side of the church when I heard “Eliza!” (This is pronounced ‘Ehleeza’-most Tanzanians tend to call me Eliza, although Noel calls me Liz and Mmoti calls me Lizzie) I looked over at the kids and the girl who’d said my name tried to duck behind a chair. I laughed and the kids around her must have taken that as a good sign, because they all started to do it as well. That is the first time that anyone in a parish has said my name since I’ve been here. Usually, I just get stared at and occasionally called ‘mzungu.’ (white person) It was nice to be Elizabeth again.
I also got to give some of the kids their uniforms. I’d handed out one or two before, but it felt different this time. Children are called up one by one to get their uniforms, so if you listen you actually know the name of the child you’re giving the uniform to. You can say their name and look into their eyes as you shake their hands and give them their uniforms. It was a great experience because it seemed very personal. They knew my name and I knew theirs.
One little girl in particular kept watching me the whole time. If I looked at her, she’d smile and wave and I’d smile and wave back. When the distribution was over and we took the big group photo, she made a point of coming over to say goodbye.
Saturday, 20 September: Chifutuka and Chibelela
Compared to our reception in Mleche, arriving in Chifutuka was quite a shock. Sarah, John, Willy, John Joseph and I were joined by a young woman from Australia named Ainslie who was visiting her friends Brian and Jill. Brian works at Mackay House and Jill works at CAMS and they are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. They always take time to say hello and ask how Sarah and I are doing whenever they see us.
The day began like most Saturdays do, getting into the Land Cruiser and driving for what seems like a really long time. When we arrived in Chifutuka, we all got out of the car and said hello to the parish priest and everyone else gathered around us. Instead of lots of smiles, we got lots of stares. I thought I was used to being stared at, it certainly happens a lot in town, but this was different. The priest invited us to his house to sit down and rest for a bit and as we were walking, I turned around and looked behind me. Sure enough, there was a crowd of about 30 people following us just staring. When we arrived at the priest’s house, we sat down in the shade and John chatted with the priest and Willy and John Joseph chatted with some of the parish committee members. Sarah, Ainslie and I sat there and talked to each other. When there was a lull in the conversation between John and the priest, I asked John if people in the parish had ever seen a white person before. He asked the priest and confirmed what I had suspected: the majority of the people had never seen a white person. That would explain the stares. I don’t really know how to explain it, but being stared at in Chifutuka just felt different than being stared at in Dodoma.
We brought some humor to the day when Sarah, Ainslie and I decided to walk around a bit and came across a group of piglets in a shed next to the priest’s house. Of course the three of us exclaimed over how cute they were which made everyone laughed. Sarah called them ‘pig’s watoto’ or pig’s children which made people laugh, but we discovered later that it’s actually very close to the Swahili for piglet. Sarah wanted to hold one, so John and John Joseph laughingly tried to catch one for her. John didn’t get too close because he was afraid of ‘Mama Pig’ and didn’t want to get in trouble with her. John Joseph made a valiant attempt to catch one, but didn’t have any luck.
After the pig escapades, we had tea and chapati with the priest and his wife. Sarah, Ainslie and I made John, Willy and John Joseph laugh really hard because we had a hard time picking up the extremely hot chapati. They, on the other hand, just picked them up like they were stone cold! Once we’d finished our tea, we headed over to the church to do the distribution. At the end, an old man gave John a chicken as a thank you present. The chicken’s feet were tied together and it spent the rest of the day under a seat in the Land Cruiser.
Chibelela
This distribution has the distinction of being the fastest one we’ve done since I arrived. We were all pretty tired when we arrived, and since this was a redistribution John decided that we could distribute the uniforms, shoes and backpacks quickly. We definitely learned why he has the nickname of Mzee Shasha or Old Man Chop Chop!
After Sarah and I had introduced ourselves in Swahili, John announced to everyone at the distribution that our Swahili teacher, Christina, is from Chibelela. That announcement drew a huge round of applause. Christina lives in Dodoma now because she’s a teacher’s assistant at CAMS but her niece is a Carpenter’s Kid in Chibelela, so we were very happy to have that connection.
Saturday, 27 September: Nghahelezi
Try to say that name five times fast. The Ngh- sound in Swahili is one that exists to taunt me, I think. It exists for other reasons to be sure, but one of them is definitely to taunt me.
Today John, John Joseph, Willy and I were joined by Miriam, Miriam’s friend Matt and Karen (the daughter of two of the teachers at CAMS) for our distribution. It was nice to be able to go to one final distribution with Miriam. We left Dodoma early so we could finish our distribution by 10am because the Bishop was scheduled to start a confirmation service at 10. Imagine our surprise then, when we arrived in Nghahelezi at about 8:15 and the Bishop was already there! They had decided to do the confirmation service first, so we were given tea and maandazi-like bread made with rice flour at the priest’s house. We were then shown to our seats in the church-right in the front of course.
The confirmation service was pretty long, but it was interesting to be a part of. There were about 30 young adults who were confirmed during the service. They came up to the front of the church in large groups – boys first and then the girls- and kneeled down on a long piece of material that had been spread on the ground to minimize the amount of dirt that ended up on their clothes. The material was made out of the large sacks that rice and millet are sold in. The bags had been sewn together to form a long cloth about 20 feet long.
Once each person had been confirmed, the service ended relatively quickly. The Bishop asked people to stay for the distribution immediately following the service. Some did and some didn’t. All of our Carpenter’s Kids and guardians were there and the distribution went smoothly. The women’s group from the parish played drums and sang and Miriam and Karen went over and danced with them. I was perfectly happy to take pictures. We went outside and took our standard group photos and were then invited to have lunch with the parish priest and the Carpenter’s Kids committee. The Bishop was just finishing lunch, so we said goodbye to him as he headed off to another parish to do a second confirmation service.
Saturday, 4 October: Nagulo
We left a little later than we anticipated this morning because there was something wrong with John’s bike and so John Joseph had to go pick him up at his house before getting us. We had two distributions scheduled for today and unfortunately, the parishes were not close enough for one group to do them both. So, Sarah went with Pastor Noah and Willy and I went with John, John Joseph and Callum. Two of Sarah and my neighbors, Leanne and Mika, who are both students from The Netherlands and are working at a school for deaf students here in Dodoma, went with us to get a sense of what The Carpenter’s Kids does. Leanne went with Sarah and Mika went with me.
My group got to drive in our old beat up Land Rover. This is the car that the Screening Panel uses each week. One of the doors doesn’t really close properly and sort of pops open randomly. It didn’t come completely open when we were driving to Nagulo, but it did come open twice on our way back. It just added to the adventure.
We did our distribution in one of the classrooms at the school which actually worked out well because everyone had a seat. I think it was the only distribution I’ve been to at which none of the kids had to sit on the floor or the ground. The actual distribution was pretty fast. After we finished, John asked Callum, Mika and I to say something to everyone. I can’t remember who Callum was supposed to address. Mika was supposed to encourage the kids to work hard in school and I was supposed to say something to the guardians and the parish committee. Normally, this is something I would have wanted to have prepared for, but I think I did an ok job. One of the guardians actually had tears in her eyes when I finished. After a closing prayer, we took some pictures of the kids and then had lunch with the parish priest and the chairperson of the Carpenter’s Kids committee. You have to watch for small stones in the rice here and unfortunately, I found two the hard way in Nagulo. I’m glad my dentist doesn’t read my blog!
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