Company!

I really anticipated this being a boring week. After so many weeks travelling, I thought this would be the week and weekend where all I did was teach, study, and sleep. The surprises God provides!

This week did start off normally. Tuesday morning, Christine and I were sitting at our desk marking papers when Pastor came over and told us that Christina was coming. She’s the missionary that I met in Dar es Salaam the day I flew to Europe. (By the way, this did mean that we would have a Christine, Christina, and Kjirstin. Tanzanians will probably think that all female missionaries have to be named something like this) Then she’d only been in the country for a couple of weeks and was just starting language school, but she had mentioned then that she would be doing a tour of the Methodist churches in Tanzania. The first plan was for her to stay in a guesthouse nearby, but Christine and I offered for her to stay in our house. The plan changed a few times as to what exactly would happened, what days she was coming, what she would be doing, etc., but on Thursday afternoon she arrived to the school. At the time, I was teaching Class VI, so Christine took her to the house to get some lunch. After class, I went over too. Christine had to go back to teach, so we just chatted and caught up on the last few months. She then asked to see the school, so we walked over, met some of the kids, teachers and went to all of the classrooms. Classes I and II had already been released for the day, but a number were waiting to be picked up still, and they eagerly came over to meet her. We actually went in and met Classes V, VI and VII. I was surprised; the kids were so shy and terrified to ask me questions when I arrived. This time, they were immediately talking, asking Christina where she was from, etc. It was really fun! Later, we showed her the church and the preschool. After school, we relaxed a little and chatted more.

That night we had a good ol’ Tanzania moment when the power went out at about 7 and stayed out until sometime during school the next morning. That’s the longest power outage I’ve been through here I think. When we went to Pastor’s house that night, we ate chips mayai which I’m not sure I’ve blogged about yet. This is a Tanzanian dish that I really like; it’s chips (British chips, so fat fries) fried up and then egg pour on top and then fried. It sounds strange, but it’s really good! I plan to keep making it when I return to the US. Apparently, Christina had never had it, so it was a new experience to treat her to. We prayed and went back to the house. Our house isn’t that big, but we figured we could have one guest. We gave Christina Christine’s room, and Christine and I shared my bed because it’ s so large. The next morning we, of course, had to teach, but Christina spent the time getting to know Pastor and his wife and the story of how they came to Morogoro and how they grew their ministry. After school, the three of us went to town together, had lunch, Christine got our grocery shopping done, and then we came back for me to teach my English class. That night was interesting because a couple of other pastors and people with the United Methodist church were at Pastor’s house. Wesley had a board meeting the next day, so they were in town for that. A friend of hers from Dodoma came by the next morning to spend some time with her, and it was nice to meet him. They spent the morning catching up, and then she left with the DAR pastor who had come for the board meeting around 2. It was definitely a new experience for us to have a guest rather than being the visitors. I really enjoyed getting to show someone our ministry here in Morogoro, and Christina is very excited about it for us. Also, playing host was a lot of fun; I believe that so much Tanzanian hospitality has changed me into being a far more gracious host. I don’t think I was a bad host before, but now the standards have been substantially raised.

In other news, school has kept me plenty busy this week! This has been an amazing week with my kids. I’m so incredibly proud of Class VII right now. We’re in a chapter about diseases and types of diseases. I was supposed to teach them 15 different diseases, but that seemed way too boring to lecture on. Therefore, I decided they could do a project where they teach the class instead. I let them pair up and each pick only one disease; they were going to have to make a poster, study their disease, and then “teach” everyone. This is unlike anything they’ve ever done. Learning is pretty straight forward here with just reading the materials and doing the exercises that follow. They don’t know how to make posters, and they really aren’t good at picking and choosing information. Their preference in answering questions is to copy everything which involves no thought. I broke it down step by step, and thankfully the class stayed together mostly time wise. First they did just answer questions about the disease, then they had to draw out what their poster would look like and show me. If it looked good, they got the construction paper, and they had to (in pencil!) draw out what they wanted on the poster, and if that looked good, they got to use the markers to finish. I introduced the new concept of picking and choosing information because the papers weren’t big, so they couldn’t fit everything on it. I also kept making them make the writing bigger since it was a poster, that’s how it works! I think one girl wanted to scream at me in frustration after telling her for the third time that she hadn’t written big enough. We started presentations on Friday, and they are doing great! I’m so proud of them! I wasn’t sure if they would understand that they would have to teach us. I figured they would be tempted to instead read everything to us and not teach, but many of them are, and they’re doing a fantastic job!

I’ve had a number of other opportunities this week to spend time with the kids and just talk to them. I’ve also been able to utilize thing in science to get to know them better. I know it’s not the point, but it also helps them to relate to the information better. For instance, I’ve been asking them for their ages, we’re talked about daily routines, what times they get up/go to bed, if they eat ugali everyday, etc. In Class VI Thursday, they only studied science for about ten minutes. They started asking questions about America (Madam, do you have Ugali in America? No. Madam, do you have dukas? Yes, but not like yours. Ours are bigger than the whole school. Madam, what’s better, America or Tanzania? Neither one, both are great!) I’m so glad they’re so far ahead that we could take a day off and just talk.  After school Thursday, I ended up sitting in Class V with about five or six of my kids just talking them. They attempted to teach me Swahili, but I’m nowhere near the Class V level, haha! Somewhere in the conversation, teaching them science next year came up and I dropped the bomb for the first time that I will be leaving in April. I explain to them about the exams I have to take in May, so I have to go back to America. Immediately of course, they ask “But Madam, you’re coming back right? After your exams, you’ll be back?” I’m at the point now where I have to start telling them. It’ll be worse for the kids if I’m suddenly gone, and they didn’t know. In the meantime, I’ll just enjoy the time I have left with them and count my blessings. I’m really in the final countdown now, less than six weeks left! Only four of those will be in school, and two of them will be exam weeks. I have more or less ten days left of normal teaching.

I have a number of prayer requests. Please pray for our school as we will be having a number of teacher changes in the coming weeks. The government has accepted for sure two of our teachers for government schools, where their jobs are guaranteed, and there is a possibility that they might take on two more. We’re still waiting, but we know that there will be two teacher changes now and one more with me. Please pray for us this week as we start our first monthly exams of the year. We’ll see just how well the students have been learning! Also, we’re in the dog days of summer here. Up until about two weeks ago, I really didn’t even notice the heat. I would look down at my arm because I was feeling something, and that’s when I would realize I was sweating. If I started to feel insufferably hot, it usually was humidity and it rained within the hour. Now, everyday I’m sweating profusely, and we’re having more and more power outages so even things like my fan can’t help. It will end soon. We’re basically in August right now, so in a few weeks we’ll start shifting to their fall, and here that means the rainy season will start. Until then, a few extra prayers wouldn’t hurt!

God bless,

Kjirstin