Izava and Mayamaya

On Saturday, 29 November, we had our final distributions of the year in the parishes of Izava and Mayamaya, linked with the Church of the Good Shepherd, Granite Springs and the Church of the Good Shepherd, Manhattan respectively. All I knew about the two parishes was that they were very far away from Dodoma. So far, that we had to leave at 7:00am to get there-we usually leave around 8:30am.

So, 7:00am rolled around with Callum and me expecting to only see Willie and John Joseph picking us up from our compound. Well, that didn’t actually happen. Willie and John Joseph were there, but so were three other people: two girls from Itiso parish who are Carpenter’s Kids and go to vocational school in Dodoma and a committee member from Izava. Noel arrived on his piki piki about a minute after the Land Cruiser. Now when we are going to do two distributions on the same day the Land Cruiser gets pretty full because we have 100 uniforms, 100 pairs of shoes and 100 backpacks full of school supplies. So, we had all of that, plus the two girls’ suitcases and bags because their school was on vacation until some time in January, the two girls, the committee member, Callum, Noel, Willie and me. We hadn’t even picked up Sarah and John yet!

When we got to Sarah’s compound and she saw the number of people already in the vehicle, the look on her face was priceless. She got in and we set off for Msalato to get John. We got out at his house to meet his wife and see his puppy and then he got in, bringing the total number of people in the vehicle to ten plus lots of stuff. Thankfully, one of the girls moved up to sit in the front with John and John Joseph so there was a little bit more room in the back. Not much, but it made a difference. Then we began the long journey to Izava, which is one of the northernmost parishes in the diocese. It was also raining, did I mention that? Let’s just say that we now understand why we try to avoid doing distributions during the rainy season. Dirt roads and rain are not the best combination.

We drove north for awhile and then the landscape changed a great deal. There were mountains and a forest and everything was green. It was great! After about 2 hours or so, we got to Itiso and the two girls got out of the Cruiser. We said goodbye to them and continued on to Izava with more leg room, which we all appreciated a great deal by that point. We arrived in Izava by about 10:00am and were warmly welcomed by the priest’s wife. The priest was away for some reason, but his wife invited us to their house for tea and chapati. During the conversation, it somehow came up that Callum and I had Chigogo names, but Sarah didn’t. So, people thought for a minute and then gave Sarah the name of Mamvula which, loosely translated, means ‘when the rain comes.’ It was raining when we arrived, so it was definitely an appropriate choice. Rain is also seen as a great blessing here, as you can imagine, so that adds a nice additional meaning to the name as well. Of course, since we all had Chigogo names we had to use them in our standard introductions. This went over really well. Callum’s name made people laugh and clap. His Chigogo name means ‘Chief.’

The funniest part of the morning, though, came when John Joseph introduced himself. He’d been outside while the rest of us were introducing ourselves and came in just as we were about to start the distribution. He introduced himself and when someone asked him what his Chigogo name was, Noel piped up with ‘Mahikwi!’ Everyone started laughing. Well, everyone that is except Sarah, Callum and me. Our Chigogo is non-existent beyond maybe 5 words. A member of the committee told us what mahikwi meant and then we knew why everyone was laughing. It means pumpkin! I immediately decided to call John Joseph Mahikwi Lishe, a play on the term Mama Lishe (the women who take care of the Carpenter’s Kids), which made Willie laugh. John Joseph tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t.

The rest of the distribution went well. We went back to the priest’s house for a soda and a bit of a rest before heading off to Mayamaya. We thought that when we left Izava we’d be able to sort of stretch out a bit in the Cruiser since we’d have fewer people and not as much stuff in the back. We were wrong. Willie bought a huge bag of peanuts in Izava, but that went on the top of the vehicle, so that was fine. We gave the priest’s wife a lift to a neighboring village and wished her well. We were all just getting comfortable when we came to a village that was on the side of the road and stopped. Willie got out and walked over to one of the houses out of which a woman had just come. It turned out that she was from Dodoma and had worked at Furaha Hostel with Pastor Noah. He had dropped her off at the village on his way to do a parish review about a week earlier and then had arranged for us to pick her up. We waited for a few minutes for her to gather some things together and then Willie loaded the baskets and bags of peanuts and beans into the Cruiser. Then we were on our way again, slightly squished but not too bad all things considered.

We arrived in Mayamaya, met the priest and conducted the distribution with no problem at all. Everyone was very happy to see us and after we finished, we were invited to the priest’s house for lunch. Of course it was mid-afternoon by that time, but we had lunch nonetheless. In the course of the conversation, we learned that the priest’s wife had just given birth at a hospital in Dodoma and so we told the priest that we’d be happy to give him a ride to Dodoma. As we were getting ready to go home, we saw John Joseph and Willie loading large bags of charcoal on the top of the Cruiser. Four of them. So, by the time we said goodbye to everyone in Mayamaya we were almost as full as we had been when we first set off in the morning! I have to say, though, lack of legroom aside; I really admire the sense of community here. No one thinks twice about lending a hand when it’s necessary.

As we headed home to Dodoma, it started to rain again. We splashed through numerous large mud puddles as we drove. The Cruiser got a nice mud bath. We stopped at a big market near Msalato so John could get some meat from a butcher and then continued on. The only time we had a little trouble on the road was when we hit a patch where they’d obviously been trying to fill in some potholes with dirt. The only problem was that the dirt had just been put down all over the road and it was really soft. When combined with the rain, it created driving conditions similar to having soft snow and ice on the road. At one point we skidded to the side of the road and got stuck. Thank goodness for 4-wheel drive! John Joseph put the car in gear and off we went. Not everyone on the road was so lucky. There was one little car that was just stuck in the middle of the road. This prompted Noel to call the driver a ‘Shamba Boy,’ the Swahili equivalent to a country bumpkin, I guess, and Noel’s insult of choice when he thinks someone does something stupid. I should point out that he didn’t actually call the driver ‘Shamba Boy’ to his face, he just muttered it in the confines of our vehicle. No road rage here.

We dropped John off at home and wished him a good rest of the weekend. Then we dropped off the woman from Furaha Hostel at her home and then the priest from Mayamaya at the bus stop he wanted to go to in Dodoma. John Joseph and Willie dropped Callum, Sarah, Noel and I off at Callum and my compound before heading home for the weekend. It was 6:00pm. A long day!