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.