Kwa heri Tanzania

Has it really only been a week since Easter? I can’t believe how much has happened in the last few days, how many good bye’s I’ve said, and how much my world has changed. My last few days in Tanzania went out with a bang, and then I found myself back in the first world!

So, a recap of the end of Tanzania. On Saturday night, Christine and I spent the night with some friends in town because the missionary community does an Easter Sunrise service, and trying to get to town for something that early is very difficult. We had a nice night though, got up early, and headed off. The missionary who lead it did the whole service as if he were one of the twelve disciples going through the passion story. We sang hymns throughout the service, and it was nice. Afterwards we had breakfast and fellowship together, and the kids had an Easter egg hunt which was adorable! Eventually we had to head back to town for our church service. Surprisingly, Good Friday is bigger than Easter Sunday. On Good Friday, they had a three hour service where Pastor preached three times; Easter Sunday was a relatively normal Sunday. The service got lengthened because of other things. For example, the new members got inducted, and it happened to be my last Sunday so the church said good bye to me and presented me with a kitange. By the end of it all, the service went three hours, but it passed quickly.

This week the kids were still on break, so we just had a few open days. Monday, we made plans to visit the orphanage where many of our kids live. First, since two of them take piano lessons with Christine, they came over and did that, and then the four of us went to town. We even met up with another missionary who wanted to see the orphanage too. When we got there though, only one of the other kids was there. Apparently, someone in their church, who is very important to the orphanage, had gotten sick and the other kids went to visit him. He lived kind of far away, so the entire time we were there the others never came back which was a bummer. We hung out with the three that were there, showed them our pictures from our safari, watched some movies, and greeted their grandmother. The next day was especially lazy; we stayed home all day. I just did schoolwork, packed, sewed up the holes in my net one last time so that it was ready to go for the next missionary, etc.

Wednesday was my last full day in Tanzania, and my last day to really do anything in Morogro, so we made it count. We went to town to go kitange shopping one last time. I printed a large photo of me and class V and got a frame for it because they had asked me to; I won’t get to give it to them, but I know they’ll be excited. We ate lunch with a few friends. We bought handmade paintings from some vendors in town, something that had been on my list of to do things and it had never happened. It felt like we ran all over town, but I think it was a very successful day. It’s been several days since, and I haven’t thought of things I meant to do and forgot, which is really nice. Finally, that evening was my last prayer service. Most of those last few days passed normally which made me really glad. I actually didn’t understand for the most part that I was even leaving. I got to spend my last few days enjoying my life there as I knew it. I said good byes obviously and other than not being in school, things were quite normal. I liked that a lot. Thursday was quite busy. It started at 6 am with saying good bye to Christine, Pastor, and his wife as a member of the congregation was going with me to DAR. We got to the airport, and I had to wait for a few hours outside. I had some problems getting my bags checked, but eventually I got everything through, flew to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, spent a few hours there, and then flew to London.

I’ve had a number of interesting experiences with reverse culture shock already, and I expect them to continue for some time. I know life won’t just go back the way it was, and after having done this, I don’t want it to. I know I’ve changed, and I want this experience to be a part of me. Time will tell on how that will play out exactly. I plan to write a blog after I actually return to America about how the culture shock is going because I suspect actually being back in America will affect it even more so. I have one more day in England left to just hang out and enjoy. I’ve had a wonderful time with friends so far, but I’m getting ready to come home. It’s time. Please pray for me as I travel back to the US. I’ll be flying out at 9 am central time on Tuesday. I should be back to Deuel county late that night. : )

God bless (and see you soon!),

Kjirstin

Safari!

Interesting fact, safari is a Swahili word. Kusafari is the Swahili verb “to travel” meaning that a safari is a journey. Very appropriate for what we did.

I posted last time from the hotel we stayed at in Arusha the night before we left. We’re so far from this part of Tanzania that it’s a minimally 10 hour bus ride from Morogoro to Arusha. Arusha is a whole other world though. It is a strange mix of western influence and Tanzanian culture. Usually Tanzanian buildings are very simple structures, but we started seeing these great big beautiful buildings that were American, not Tanzanian. So many signs were in English, we even saw restaurants advertised that served pizza and Japanese food! Neither of us knew where we were anymore, and quite frankly, for the rest of the trip, we realized we were in wazungu Africa. The hotel we stayed at that night was actually the plainest of the entire trip, but coming from our situation, we found it amazing! I’m sure anyone coming from Europe or America would have found it a little rustic, but we were quite enthralled. But, as I said, that was just the beginning.

The next morning Damas, our guide, came to pick us up. We tried to join another group, but there weren’t options available for our dates and the sites we wanted so we had one guide for the two of us. The safari vehicles you see on TV are quite real too- I assumed that was just a stereotype. Nope, he pulled up in a huge safari truck, and we got in. That day we were going to Tarangire National Park, which is a smaller park on the way to NgoroNgoro crater and Serengeti National Park, which are two of three sites that Tanzania’s most famous for (Kilimanjaro being the other). On the way to the park we stopped to buy some Tanzanite. I had been told about this from a hospital patient last summer actually; I just knew it was a very pretty blue gem that could only be found in Tanzania. However, we learned that it will soon be entirely mined, so we got some very, very, very small gems because the prices were crazy! I’m glad I got some though, and it is very pretty.  We got to Tarangire around 11 that morning and started a game drive. The basic set up of the game drive portion of the safari is the guide drives around at a reasonably slow speed through the park/conservation area and you try to spot animals. Any time you want to stop to just watch or take pictures of the animals and scenery, you can. When you’re done, you keep going. It does mean that you basically sit all day in the vehicles. That got a little long, but the roofs actually open up so you can stand up. Also, because there were only two of us and we had a big vehicle, we could walk around inside it. You can even move around while they’re driving.

Tarangire is famous for its Baobab trees and elephants; they were everywhere! By the end of the day, when the guide was stopping a group elephants kind of far off in the distance, I was at the point of saying “Eh, whatever. We’ve already had better sightings.” We even got to see a lion! It was far off, but it was a surprise! The best part (other than multiple times being within a twenty foot radius of elephants) was our encounter with two cheetahs! It was at the end of the day, and we drove over to where they had sighted them, and there were two adults walking around. At first they were sort of far from our car; my camera was struggling to get good pictures of them, but then they started coming closer to car. At one point, one was about ten feet from my window! They crossed the road where we saw some cheetah cubs, which were so cute!

Every night we stayed in the parks which was quite the experience too. It’s amazing when you stop to think about it; these are national parks where animals are the number one priority, so they can’t run water or electricity to the sites. Despite this, they have managed to not only provide adequate housing, but beautiful lodging for the trips. Two nights we stayed in tents, but don’t think for a second we were roughing it or camping; the tents were nicer than our house in Morogoro. Since you were out in the middle of the wilderness more or less, each site had its own restaurant, and we were very curious as to what the food would be. We thought it would be a western/Tanzanian mix, and honestly, as long as it wasn’t straight ugali, it would probably be ok. We’ve adapted to Tanzanian food enough we could make that work. Quickly though we realized that they were catering to their European and American guests, so we got to have quite a treat in eating delicious Western food we hadn’t had in a while. The only potential hazard was because we were in the parks, we were sharing our night with the animals around us. The sites were not allowed to keep back the animals in any way, so we were thoroughly warned to stick to the prescribed paths and to not have food in our tents so we didn’t attract a midnight guest. No worries, the only guests I know of were some antelope the next morning in Tarangire and some giraffes in Serengeti.

After Tarangire, we drove over to Serengeti, which was about five hours away. However, the path goes by the NgoroNgoro crater, so we had a gorgeous view on the way. We also stopped by the Old Dupai Gorge, which is where some of the oldest human remains have been found. We made it to the Serengeti around mid afternoon; I think the Serengeti is what the Midwest looked like before settlement. The name actually drives from the Masai word “Siringit” which means “sea of grass.” That’s exactly what the Serengeti is; unlike the lush, green, and hilly Tarangire park, Serengeti is plains for miles and miles. Occasionally a tree or pile of rocks pops up. We did a game drive for the rest of Sunday afternoon, all of Monday, and we did a specifically early morning game drive Tuesday morning. We passed lots of grazing herds of wildebeest, zebras, antelope, and buffalo. We saw so many lions! Our guide estimated that we saw 100 lions throughout the safari. We drove by whole prides of them, and one afternoon we had a lion cross back and forth twice in front of our car! One day we also found a pride of lions by a fresh kill; we drove by the next day to see a hyena eating the last bit of the skull and spinal cord that was left. Nature at its finest : ) We got to see hippo pools, a couple crocodiles, ostriches, more elephants, giraffes, warthogs (which our guide called ‘pumbaas’, which means stupid, not warthog), so many birds, and two leopards. There’s a list of the big five with safaris: lions, leopards, buffalo, elephants, and rhinos. These are animals that at one point or still are in danger of extinction and are difficult to sometimes see on safaris. By the end of our time in the Serengeti, we had seen all of them except the rhinos which don’t live there, so we were very successful!

Our last night we stayed near the NgoroNgoro crater. Surprisingly, the crater formed from an ancient mountain that was bigger than Kilimanjaro but collapsed in on itself, creating the crater. Down in the crater, there’s a very unique ecosystem. There’s actually a small rainforest, a lake and plains, so there’s a great mix of animals. The crater is quite large, but I was still shocked when the guide told us that over 30,000 animals live in it. We did get to see some rhinos, which was really exciting! None of them were that close, but there are only 17 black rhinos left in the world. They all live in the NgoroNgoro crater, and we saw three of them! Also, there are other rhinos in the world, but they’re not black rhinos. We also got to see the flamingoes that live down in the crater, which was fun to watch. After checking out the crater, we headed back to Arusha town, said good bye to the guide, spent the night, and took an 11+ hour bus back to Morogoro the next day.

We definitely had quite the trip, and it was great! Seeing God’s handiwork so close and the landscapes was breathtaking and wonderful. I’m really glad I got to do this during my time here, especially now that I’m truly in the final stretch. I’ll post about that separately, since we got to have some good Easter fellowship, and these last few days have not and will not be boring. There’s a pleasant amount of activity happening, which is probably for the best. Without school, I am getting antsy, but at the same time, I’m getting a few more days to soak up my last memories of life here.

God bless,

Kjirstin

 

PS: I do promise to post pictures from the safari; when I return to the US and have more reliable internet, I shall make a few posts just of pictures from the end of school and the trip! : )

Last week of school

Every story has a beginning, middle, and end. I guess I've hit the penultimate chapter of this one. I'm still not sure how this hapened, but it has.

I did a whole lot of preaching this weekend. It's days like those that make me wonder if God's just laughing whenever I say I don't want to become a pastor. On Saturday, the Sunday school class that we're doing to get the kids ready for the Operation Christmas Child program met, and I was alone to lead it. Usually Lauren and I do it together, but she was in DAR getting the boxes! I'm so glad they arrived especially because it's been over two months since the seminar. So this weekend, I did it alone which was fine because one of my Class V students came and translated. The day was a bit of a challenge in that the power went out at 8 (before I even woke up) and came back on for only 40 minutes or so throughout the day. My computer died somewhere around 6 or 7 that night, so it was a strange night in the dark. That night I actually took a cold bucket shower in the dark, the water of which we collected from rain. I feel like I have achieved the true missionary stereotype.

Sunday was busy. I taught Sunday school of course, but this week I ended up with the little kids, not my usual bunch. There was some miscommunication which I still don't understand. It just happened, and suddenly I found myself talking to the little ones about respecting your parents! :) At least it all went well and there were two girls there translating. I then had to preach at the youth service which I did about using our spiritual gifts. This was my last youth service, which is why I had been asked to preach. It's strange that my lasts have started; Friday was also my last English class with the ladies. Then that evening we hosted the prayer service. This too was my last regular prayer service because the last one will be a Easter morning sunrise service.

Before I move onto what happened this week, I want to at least mention the exam results because I was overall quite please! Class V math especially was really great, I'm so proud of them! Science was ok in both V and VI. I had some really great moments when a math student of mine got what is considered a B (granted, B's here are defined as 60-80%) but considering I've struggled to improve his math scores and we suspect he has a attention disorder of some sort, the look on his face when he saw his test was pretty amazing! He even did better than some of the kids in his class known for top scores! In Class V science, the number three student in the class was one who characteristically does poorly. Everyone gasped when I read his name; I was so proud of him! The next day he told me that his parents were so proud of him that they're getting him a gift as a reward! Class VII took a mock exam last week, so they didn't take exams. We got the results back from that, but their test was written by the government. They didn't do as well, and in some ways, it's not their fault. It's so frustrating when the kids are smarter than the test they're taking. I'm not bothered by the small grammatical errors in the questions; it's when the questions are written in such a manner that they make no sense, the correct answer isn't an answer choice, or the wrong answer is marked as correct. Out of 50 questions on the test, I think at least 10 had serious problems like this. The kids kept asking me to change their tests, but a mock exam is prepared and administered through the government, so we have no control. It doesn't affect their national exams, but it's really hard to explain to them that they're just smarter than the test when that test will eventually determine so much for them. Poor kids.

So then came Monday. It was my last normal day of school, and it was just that, normal. It slippd by quickly, just a typical day. I'm really bummed that this is how our schedule worked out. Because we've had ten hard weeks of school with one day off, I'm burned out. I'm ready for a break; it just so happens that this break is my good bye. It seems to be beyond my understanding that this is the end. I know it, but I just can't fully grasp it. It's not for lack of reminders either. The schedule simply says "Farewell to KJ" for the last event of the week, and the kids don't what "farewell" means, so they come ask me. It's quite awkward to explain. I mentioned in Class V Monday afternoon how this was our last class together, and admist the wail of "No Madam!" two of the girls actually came up, got on their knees and asked me to stay!

 The Class V kids definitely took this harder. On Tuesday and Wednesday, in between exams, a large group of them were constantly hanging out with me. A few of them don't even like to let go of my hands! I've been able to have a lot more fun with them because of the weird exam schedule. On Tuesday, I set up games of Telephone with them to keep them quiet while others were testing. Wednesday I started singing with them. We sang songs where you have to shake hands with other people, high five them, "bump rumps," etc., songs about sharks and other silly cheers I learned at things like church camp and HOBY. I must really love my kids. One has a part that goes like this:
"Form a cow, form form a cow! Form a cow, form form a cow!" (You get down on your hands and knees)
"Tip the cow, tip tip the cow! Tip the cow, tip tip the cow!" (You roll onto your back, your hands and feet in the air)
"Have a cow, have have a cow! Have a cow, have have a cow!" (You wiggle your arms and legs in the air)

I did this with them. In a skirt. On a very, very dirty floor. I don't even think half of them actually did it with me because they didn't want to get dirty! I also made some of them become very brave. There were some frogs jumping around, so I would pick them up and encourage them to hold the frog with me. It blows my mind that these kids are 11, 12, 13 and this was likely the first time they ever held a toad! To get them to do it, I had to say we were "doing it together" by holding the hand on top of mine and then placing the frog in it. Usually there was a shriek at first, but then all was calm. That is, until it started moving.

 Well, then Thursday arrived. It was so weird going to school knowing that it was my last day and that there was going to be a celebration that afternoon in my honor. Or, as I soon learned, two. There was one with the students AND then one with the teachers. At first things were ok because there were still a few exams to take, so I just had to go into classes and give exams, but I noticed Class VII had vanished. When I asked some other students, they pointed to the tree at the other end of the school field where they were all gathered. "Madam, they're practicing for the celebration." I'm sorry, but I can't seem to adequately describe the feeling of that moment. Just knowing that there is a Tanzanian celebration being prepared in your honor is... overwhelming is the closest I can get. I went back to the "safe place" my mind first resorted to when I arrived in Tanzania came back and I haven't needed to do that probably since my first few days here. I had no idea what would all be coming, and on top of that, I was trying to enjoy every moment because they were the last ones. Luckily, I think I was able to just be for the day which was the best position to be in.

Eventually the exams finished, and then they started getting the speakers ready so all the kids knew the time was coming. Again, many were clinging to me and both Christine and I started to get a little too overwhelmed, so during break we went home for 15 mintues to just breathe. This is the only the second time the school has said good bye to a missionary teacher, and for the Class V and VI kids, it's their first time with a missionary teacher who's actually taught them. I think that made this harder in some ways. We got back, and I was able to spend some more time with the kids before they started gathering them for the celebration. I won't be able to post pictures right now, but I will soon. I was (unintentionally) in a row of honor. All of the other teachers were sitting behind me, so I was pretty much there, front and center. The kids were then invited to do anything they had prepared. Surprisingly, a group of Class IV boys and a group of girls had prepared some small dances. Class V had one group go, and then a Class V boy and a Class VI boy did some intense, awesome dancing. I'm so happy, we have a video of it! A mixed group of Class V, VI and VII kids had a skit prepared and a song. I couldn't actually hear most of the skit, but the song was mixed Swahili and English saying good bye. Then Class VII went, and I was blown away. I really think every kid was involved. All of the boys were doing the drums while the girls did the singing and dancing. At first the girls were just in a circle singing a similar good bye song, but then they really started dancing. It got pretty African :) It's so hard to explain it, but we have three videos of it because it was probably 10 minutes long as a whole and there were distinctly three parts to it. I was pretty floored by the whole thing; it was so amazing! Then the head teacher danced which was entertaining because he's not a young guy, and I was asked to speak. I just thanked the students and told them how much they had given me. I promised them that I would never stop telling people in America how amazing they are, even if they got sick of it! (Everyone back home, be ready. This is 100% true.) That more or less ended the time with the students. I asked Class V to go back to the class so we could do a class picture in the classroom, although the ones outside of it are better. That's when the students really started realizing this was the end. A number started crying (myself included) and I was more or less in a perptual hugging state for about fifteen minutes. I kept telling them that we had to be glad we had our time together rather than be sad it was over because I was repeating that quote to myself the entire day. Finally though I just said good bye and walked back home.

I went home and had a little while to breathe. However, it had only been about twenty minutes when Christine knocked on my door and told me that some Class VII boys were there to greet me one last time. So I sat out on the porch for at least another hour as kids came and went and talked with me. Fourteen year old boys are the same in all cultures I've learned; I just teased them about girls for a long time. They like them now, so they didn't mind. A little after 3 we went back to the school for the teacher celebration which was much calmer. The teachers more or less thanked me, they gave me a very African style dress and an elephant with a stand that said "Wellcome back" (spelled exactly like that. Oh Tanzania!). We had a meal together, took a group picture, and then the day more or less ended.

Like I said, I was really good about just being present for the whole thing. When I prayed last night, my mind was buzzing with everything that had happened. I ended up just saying "Well, God, today happened. I don't know what else to say." Good bye's are necessary in life. That doesn't make it easier, but they have to happen. Today, we took a 10.5 bus ride to Arusha because tomorrow we start a safari through Tarangire National Park, Serengeti National Park, and Ngorongoro crater. That was a good time to process everything. I think I made a mistake in focusing too much on getting to this few days that I didn't prepare myself for the total meaning. Whenever I realize that this was the end, and I don't get to see, teach, laugh with, talk to, sing with, encourage, etc. these kids anymore, I just start to lose it. Even as I'm typing this now a few tears are leaking out. I've said it before, and I will just have to say it again (and again, and again, and again): bwana asifewe, God gave me the most amazing children to teach. And in God's great, benevolent plan, this was the time we had together. I only hope I accomplished everything he wanted me to with them.

We'll be on safari this week, and then it's just one more week in Tanzania! Stay tuned, the end is near.

God bless,

Kjirstin

Mimi ni mwalimu kwa hesabu na sayansi

 

I feel like an accomplished math and science teacher after this week. I have done so many activities in the class, and quite frankly, I'd rather just show you all than write about it.

First off, in math V we started fractions, so as a  review, we used fraction circles and rectangles to build wholes. Each circle or line was broken down into 1/2's, 1/3's, 1/4's, etc.

 

I love this picture. These two tend to fight like cats and dogs, so to see them smiling and working together was a treat! :)

 

 

 



In class V science, we did a lab about wind resistance because we're doing a unit about experiments in general and this one's easy. Two pieces of paper, one normal, one crumpled up into a ball, drop them both. Which one falls first and why? I'm not so sure they cared, they just loved Madam actually telling them to get on their desks.

 

In Class VII, we did another unit on experiements which would be followed by a unit on plants, so I decided to combine the two. This picture is of me struggling to open juice, one of the options for putting in their cups of seeds. This, plain water, water with dish soap, and oily water were the other choices.

 

One student with her cup.

 

Pouring the juice into another student's cup.

 

 

 

 

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the disease unit with Class VII where I made them do presentations. These boys presented on cancer, while the girls below did chicken pox.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Something else from a awhile back, these are some pictures from Valentine's Day! These are all Class VI.

 

This actually says "I love Valentine's Day, but I hate the boys from Class six." The girls really weren't nice in class six.

 

Yep, Bad Boy and Mr. Good Boy. In some ways, they nailed it too.

 

 

 

And then these are a lot of pictures from just hanging out with my kids.

One of my Class V students

Perhaps the best photobomb ever.

 

My Class V boys acting just like my Class V boys. They also demanded that the mountains be in the background.

 

 

 

I think that about sums up my week. I don't have much new to say. The plan for next week is classes on Monday as usual, tests for Classes I-VI Tuesday-Thursday. Class VII took a mock exam, so a government issued practice exam for the national tests in September, this week. Because of that, they don't have to do midterm exams. I don't know how they did on it yet, but I'm excited to find out. Things got very real for me when I saw the exam schedule today. On Thursday, they have two exams in the morning, a break, sports time (PE), and then it's written "Farewell to KJ." Oh boy. One more week. It hasn't truly hit me yet, but if all else fails, I'm pretty sure a Tanzanian celebration will do the trick.

 

God bless,

 

Kjirstin

 

Mt. Kilimanjaro

Well, another weekend, another adventure! Christine and I made a short trip up to Moshi to see the famous Mt. Kilimanjaro this weekend. It was very different from our other travels thus far because this time we were travelling to a very touristy, mzungu populated area, and in many ways, it felt like we left Tanzania behind.

We left Saturday morning to get on an 8:30 bus to Moshi. This is by far the longest ride we’ve done, about eight hours one way. It was particularly hot ride too, which was really unexpected. Others had told us that this area was cooler, since we were going north and the altitude of the Moshi area is much higher because of the mountains. We each kept our eyes out for Mt. Kilimanjaro because we figured it would be obvious when we reached it. It’s the tallest mountain in Africa, and I believe it’s the tallest free standing mountain in the world because it’s not technically part of a mountain range. Really though, I think most of Tanzania is a continuous mountain range. The only part I’ve been to that hasn’t been mountainous is DAR. Oddly, we saw many mountains that weren’t very big (the Uluguru in Morogoro are much bigger), so none of them were right. It was really confusing.

We made it over to our hotel, and realized we had walked into a very different Tanzania, touristy Tanzania. There was a pool at the hotel, and I hadn’t seen so many white people that I didn’t already know! Usually if we see a few wazungu in town, there’s a decent chance we know them already. We actually looked out of place. Both Christine and I wore kitanges for the bus ride because they’re comfortable. They’re also incredibly African, so they looked very strange in comparison to all the westerners around us. We also were speaking Swahili with the receptionist and the other hotel staff, which we think surprised them. The room was very simple, but it did have a hot water tank for showering (!). That night the hotel had a buffet, and while we were, there we met a gal from America who was currently living in France. We ended up seeing her a lot the next day too so we got to know her pretty well. It was really fun getting to talk to someone else about our life here, and we could all share the experience of being a foreigner in another culture. We went to bed early that night because we had a super early morning the next day.

I don’t believe I’ve mentioned this before on the blog, but the reason that we were going up to Kilimanjaro was to participate in the Kilimanjaro Marathon. Christine is an avid runner so she was going to participate in the half marathon while I ran in the 5K. The race started early though to avoid the Tanzanian heat; we left the hotel at 5:45 am. We got to the stadium and we looked up to see this mountain that actually had snow on top and looked an awful lot like the pictures of Mt. Kilimanjaro. We were confused because the day before Christine had asked about getting to the national park for Kilimanjaro. There were a few wires crossed in the conversation because the impression we got from the conversation was Mt. Kilimanjaro was a few hours away and we wouldn’t even be able to see it. The next idea was then to use Sunday afternoon to see it, but that wasn’t very easy and it was expensive. Overall, this was terribly confusing. For it being the Mt. Kilimanjaro Marathon, it seemed very logical that it would have something to do with Mt. Kilimanjaro. We both also wanted to see it because there just aren’t many times you will find yourself in Eastern Africa and so close to it. However, the fact that we wouldn’t see Kilimanjaro was wrong; that’s exactly what it was, and we had a gorgeous view of it!

We got to see the full marathon runners start, and I watched the half marathon start. It was fun being in the stadium. It’s exciting to be around for the start of a race! I then had to leave the stadium to go to the start of the 5K. There was a large crowd doing the 5K which surprised me. At our hotel, we met lots of other people doing the half or full marathon. As far as I know, I was the only 5K runner. Many of the people around us were very clearly seasoned runners. The run itself was fine; I definitely felt the effects of the altitude. We also had lots of hills, so I didn’t run the whole thing. I actually walked most of the hills because they were quite steep. In all of the races, there was a large mix of Africans and wazungu. It made for some entertaining situations. Around kilometer 4, this group I had never seen before of 20 or 30 Africans came barreling down the street. They were actually doing chants and singing in the middle of the race, and clapping was involved as well. Some poor white guy got caught in the middle, but he made a valiant effort to follow along with them! There wasn’t an official timer, but I finished in good time. I was by no means the first, but I was definitely not the last.

The 5K was supported specifically by the phone company Vodacom, and they were passing out these tote bags with t-shirts in it after the race. I finished just a few minutes late to get one, but they weren’t acting like they ran out, just that they were getting more so we should all wait. I waited for quite some time and I hadn’t had any water to drink, so eventually I gave up and went to get something to drink. Because we came through a specific travel company, they had a tent in the stadium for us to go to after the race. It was only 9 in the morning or so by then, but it felt like noon. We had already done so much for it being that early in the day, and they were actually serving lunch. A little while after I got to the tent, Christine came and so did the gal we had met the night before. We all chatted and ate and then we went back to the hotel to shower. I slept for a while, and then we just relaxed for the afternoon. We had another supper with our friend, and it was off to bed early again. The next morning we had to leave early to take another 8 hour bus back to Morogoro.

This week has been normal other than missing school Monday. I’m now less than a month away from leaving Tanzania! I feel like I’m thinking in countdowns 90% of the time now; for instance, as of today (March 8) I have 9 school days left, 5 normal school days, 3 long bus rides, 3 normal Sunday’s, 27 total days, probably two more times to hand wash, etc. That looks quite negative, but it really isn’t like that! Some of these things I’m excited to be done with, and as a whole I’m getting excited to be home again soon. But some of these things I’m dreading. I have only 9 days left with my kids, 9! I have officially informed and talked to all of my classes about it. Class V had a particularly interesting reaction: “But Madam, who will give us stickers?” “Guys, we have over 2000 stickers at our house, we will give them to the next teacher.” We can all see what they love me for. Their next reaction was at least “Madam, please don’t go!” followed by about six or seven of them hugging me. It’s so hard to explain to that I have to go, and I have to stay in the US for a while. They’re actually ok with the idea of me leaving for a while, but they always want to know how soon I’m coming back. Even when I explain “But guys, I have to go back so I can take my exams for university.” “But you can come back after your exams, right Madam?” Why are they so smart?

I found myself this week questioning again why God asked me to do this. I don’t feel so much like I’ve done no good like I have in the past; someone had to teach these kids, and I got to be lucky enough to do it. I pray I did some good for them, and at the very least, I was one person who openly loved them in their lives. I was an influence in their lives, and I hope for the better. I was a teacher who didn’t beat them, which we’ve now seen that they noticed and appreciated. A long time ago though, at the beginning of this experience when I was frustrated by being called here and overwhelmed by the lack of an impact I was going to have, I was informed of the viewpoint of a former missionary. “Missions like this are never for the people you serve; they are God’s way of changing you.” At the time I found this to be quite harsh. I do want to believe I did some good because I came here with no intentions of doing this for myself. This was for the people here. I don’t doubt AT ALL that I have changed though. I know I have. I also know this will somehow affect me in the future. In my first few weeks here, I kept comparing the world around me to anything somewhat similar to what I had experienced before. I was regularly thinking of six or seven past experiences, things like living abroad in England, visiting Brazil a few years ago, even things like working at the daycare and church camps. No one experience could encapsulate this world as a whole, but the familiar traces helped me piece this together and gracefully adapt. I learned very clearly that God was preparing me for this long before I could have ever imagined this is where I would be and this is what I would be doing. I have faith. He’ll do the same thing with this. The next step he’s got I’m sure involves having already done this, and I’m getting ready for whatever it is.

One last thing, please please please please please please please please please pray for us! We’re having a very peculiar water situation at the moment. A few weeks ago our water started getting a funky smell, which wasn’t so weird. It had never been this bad before; it smelled like noxious, rotten eggs. However, there were enough times when it smelled normal that we would just fill the buckets with good water and carry on. It was a nuisance and nothing more. That changed Tuesday morning. The water started coming out smelling like sewage and it turned brown on us. We haven’t had a change yet, and it’s now Friday afternoon. We’ve only managed to get by without water because it’s rained a few days this week and we’ve rushed the buckets outside to collect rain water. It’s really frustrating. At least when we had no water, the minute we got anything, it was ok to use for bathing, washing the dishes, clothes or the house, etc., but we can’t use this water. We have drinking water (bwana asifewe!), but we’re really running low on anything else. Please pray for a resolution soon! It’s truly a blessing that God has sent rain for us, otherwise we would have run out a few days ago. But that’s not a long term solution to this problem. We know it’s being caused by a defect in a pipe somewhere, and it’s being worked on, but we don’t know how long that’s going to take. Really, any and all prayers would be appreciated.

I pray you all have a wonderful and God filled day!

God bless,

Kjirstin

Precious Moments, Volume II

So, the quiet week arrived! This week has been strange and calm. We started monthly exams Monday and finished Tuesday, amazingly. We pushed them through on the kids, twelve tests in two days. Otherwise, not much is happening until we leave on Saturday morning to go to Moshi to see Mt. Kilimanjaro. In the meantime, I wanted to post a blog, and I decided it was about time for another volume of Precious Moments. Some of these are funny, some adorable, some strange, but I’m sure they’ll all brighten your day. They always do for me :)

-          Word of the day is fatal. Student produced sentence: “The water is fatal.” It’s certainly not sanitary, but fatal….

-          When asked what a butcher does, “It is a man who sells cows that are dead.” Fair enough.

-          Science exam question, ‘Name three things that are involuntary.’ I was looking for things such as heartbeat, digestion, breathing, reflexes, etc. Response: “Tree, house stones.” 

-          Journal topic, “If you could be any animal, what would you be and why?” Response: “My name is ______ and I want to be a lion of God.”

-          Found in English work: “Don’t play with fire, but it is also fun.”

-          On Valentine’s Day, we had a great day. A seemingly silly activity with the Class VI girls of pairing them up with boys for Valentine’s Day snowballed into writing Valentine’s for all the boys and girls in Classes V, VI and VII. Interestingly, for Class VI girls starting the activity, they were awful, truly awful! I know they aren’t quite ready to admit that boys aren’t so bad (even in Class VII they still won’t admit it, but they definitely like them). So, they wrote things like “You are not mine forever”, “I don’t like boys”, “You are not my type” I think a few even wrote “I hate you!” It was so bad! The boys on the other hand did much better. One boy wrote “Well, I’ve never written a letter to a girl, but Madam Christine and Madam KJ say I have to so here it goes.” After noticing the disparity between the two, I decided to say something:

“Girls, the boys are writing such nice Valentine’s to you. You are being so mean! What if they boys start crying when they read your cards?”

                           “Madam, you say that the boys are nice now, but what happens some day when they
                            get us pregnant?”

The good news, she learned something in science.

 

-          Word of the day is vivid. A Class V boy thus informed us “The class IV boys are vivid.”  

-          Journal topic, “Name a problem in your world and write about it’s solution.” First line only: “I don’t like to play with a lion.” I assure you all back home, this is not a frequent problem in Morogoro

-          Written across a notebook “Don’t steal, Jesus see you.”

-          I have been informed that there is a third gender status entitled “Madam.” When one of the boys wouldn’t share with a girl because he’s afraid of her, it was only natural to say,

“Well, I’m a girl, are you afraid of me?”

                          “No! You’re Madam.”
                       “So? I’m still a girl.”
                       “You’re a girl, but you’re a teacher. That’s different.” 

-          Science question, “Name and describe a stimulus.” Answer: “A stimulus is something that you can see in your nose.” I’m honestly impressed they can see IN their nose.

-          Word of the day is unbecoming. Student sentence is “It is unbecoming for a beautiful girl to fall down.” Aww!

-          An interesting problem with Swahili we come across is that in Swahili the ‘l’ and ‘r’ are switchable. We often get sentences that talk about “praying football” and “playing in the church.” Even in their names, something like “Laura” can become “Raula,” and I’ve actually started to do that with their names. It has yet to impact my English, but I’ve learned how to pronounce my r’s and l’s in Swahili. Anyway, one student once informed us she wanted to have “no rage.” In other words, knowledge.  

-          Found within English work: “If in the aeroplane, fly the aeroplane.” Indeed.  

-          Journal topic, “Write about your favorite superhero.” You should know the student who wrote this is a girl who lives in a Christian orphanage. “My favorite superhero is Bibleman. Bibleman have a power of God. God gave Bibleman a power. I like to be superman because to have the power of God. And when I be a superheros I would like my name to be Biblewoman and I will liked to have God’s power and I will like to help other because in my because in my life I like to help other and to help those who are not have father like me, or who are no have mother, like me, or all both of them.” She’s such a sweetheart!

-          One day, a boy was again not sharing with a girl, so Christine asked him what he was going to do one day when he was married. (Note, name has been changed.)

              Lucas: “Madam, I’m going to be a pastor. I’m not going to get married.”
               Christine: “Pastors can get married. Pastor Umba (our pastor) is married.”
                Lucas: “Yes, but that’s Pastor Umba. This is Pastor Lucas!”
                A few days later I asked him how his Sunday sermon went. He told me he forgot to preach!

-          And to conclude this volume, “Math is difficulter than English.”

Bwana asifewe, God gave me amazing kids to teach!  

God bless

Kjirstin

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