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

Adventures in Dodoma

A little later than intended, but finally I’ve gotten some time to update about our trip to Dodoma. Dodoma and Ilula were almost antithesis of each other in every respect, but I’m glad we got to go. It was a very cultural excursion to say the least.

 Unlike the week before where we left on Friday, we didn’t leave until Saturday morning because we knew that we would not be able to leave Sunday afternoon. Since we’d be staying until Monday morning then, we decided we didn’t have to leave after school Friday and we got to have some down time. Saturday morning, at about 11, our bus left Morogoro, and the ride was pretty short. It was only about three and a half hours to Dodoma. As we started to pull into Dodoma, both Christine and I were surprised by how quiet and peaceful everything was. Dodoma is not the biggest city in Tanzania, but it is the capital, and we were in the city, not like Ilula where we were an hour from the city Iringa. When we go to the bus stand, the Dodoma UMC pastor met us and took us to his home. We were still in the city, but his house was surrounded by small maize fields. It was a strange feeling, almost like being back in Deuel county. Morogoro is definitely the biggest city I’ve ever lived in, but we live in such a residential area that it doesn’t feel super city-ish. However, there’s usually a number of people out and walking about all day, the church is next door so if something’s happening there, we know about it, I always hear people at the duka nearby, etc. Even later on when we did walk by shops and more active areas, it was still much quieter than Morogoro.

When we arrived to his house, we were graciously treated to standard Tanzanian hospitality, a meal almost as soon as we sat down. We talked with the pastor, and quickly established a primarily Swahili conversation. I’m really proud of my Swahili abilities. For having no formal training other than my books that I’ve gone through when I’ve found some time, I understood about 90% of the conversation. Since Christine has gone to language school, she did almost all of the talking. I’m not very good yet at forming the sentences. Most of the time, I get so excited at knowing the right verb to use in the first place that I get over excited and speak before I know the first part which is also slightly important, the subject and tense. It was really good practice for me though, and it was easier to keep pace with Christine’s Swahili because I can understand her accent better. Also, the pastor was cognizant of our limited abilities so he was patient with us and spoke slower. We got to meet his wife and a few of his children (7 total, oldest being about 14-15, youngest a baby).

 The Pastor suggested we could go see the church. We went outside and started walking. We had only gone the length of the building when he stopped. Both of us were confused, so we looked up and then saw the painted sign above the church “United Methodist Church of Dodoma.” This is the true meaning of parsonage; his house and the church are the same building. We went inside, and it was a simple setup. I’m sure someday our church will look similar when we get a roof put on so it’s more enclosed. I believe I put up a picture in my last blog post in case you want to see it. After a few minutes, we asked about the preschool he had mentioned and if we could go see that. He pointed to a small blackboard on one of the walls. This building is literally the entire ministry of the Dodoma UMC, church, parsonage and preschool. Like I said before, this was the total opposite of IOP. While that ministry was almost overwhelming, this was rather small, and after the week before feeling like our site in Morogoro was nothing, it was a firm reminder that we are doing a lot in our area.

They wanted to give us time to rest, so they escorted us to the guesthouse we would be staying at. It was about 7 or 8 minutes from their house, and it was very nice. It had a western feel to it, at least in my opinion. It was quite simple; each room had a queen bed, a chair, TV and bathroom, which came with a western style toilet even. Christine and I shared a room to save on money, so we hung out for a few hours while waiting to eventually go back to the pastor’s house for another meal. Around 7:30, he returned, bought us a pop, and after that we went back to his house. A couple parishioners joined us this time, and after a few songs and a prayer, we went off back to the hotel.

The next morning Sunday school started at 9:30 although the Dodoma church wasn’t quite as punctual as ours. Nevertheless, things got going. An elderly gentleman who knew some English sat between me and Christine and translated only bits of pieces of the Sunday School lesson (which is just another sermon really) for us. I didn’t get the whole idea, not really close even, but at least we knew the scripture involved. Then the actual service started. Oh my. Now, this was praise at its finest. This wasn’t the hip-swaying of Morogoro, this was entire bodily involvement worship to the Lord. Hardly anyone was really staying in one defined spot. One man was so enthusiastic in what he was doing that we couldn’t take pictures of it; we had to get videos. At points his foot was going ABOVE his head! It was crazy! I feel like we also worshipped a lot more than most of the churches I’ve been to in Tanzania. We really had few of the traditional elements in this service; no Apostles creed, Lord’s prayer, I don’t even think we sang a traditional hymn. It was ok, but the amount of activity was almost exhausting for us. I was asked to pray out loud, something that I’ve now been forced to get a lot better at. When they got to the sermon, someone else translated line by line for us, which was nice. They then welcomed us to the church. I was surprised by this because usually when we’re guests at a churches, there’s a time in the service where we have to introduce ourselves. We had already done this, but then they asked us to sit up front, read us this brief history of the Dodoma church, asked for financial support to get electiricty in the building, and then presented us each with two khangas! That was such a shock to be given a gift like that. They then asked us to say something to the congregation which was somewhat awkward. They thankfully didn’t expect it in Swahili or anything, but to be put so on the spot wasn’t very fun, particularly when they were likely wanting us to say we’d help them financially. The service then ended and we had time to greet the congregation before going back to the pastor’s house for lunch where parishioners once again joined us.

That afternoon I went back to the hotel and rested while Christine visited a friend originally from Morogoro but left very soon after I arrived. That evening we visited the house of a congregation member and chatted with them. Their son, who was in secondary school, did a lot of translation for us which was very helpful because they were asking us strange questions that would have been very difficult to translate into Swahili. For instance, they asked us about Rihanna’s tattoo and if WWE wrestling is real or acted. Very strange. After that we headed back to the hotel for the night.

We had originally planned to catch a 6 or 6:30 AM bus out of Dodoma back to Morogoro so that we could be back to school probably around 11. That way we’d only miss a half day, and because we knew in advance, we had left work with one of the other teachers who had volunteered to assign it to the classes we would miss for us. However, the pastor asked us if we would meet the preschoolers the next morning. We knew that would set us back a few hours in the day, so we figured out if we could and decided that it would be ok. It’s really impolite to say no, and we made sure it would be very fast, meet the kids and the teacher and that’s it. The next morning we were there at about 7:50. Just the teacher and one or two students were there. Over the next 20 minutes they trickled in; while we waited, she showed us some of their work. It was pretty cute to see their practice attempts of making their letters. Most of them were very shy around us and afraid to asnwer if we asked questions. After a picture of the kids and a quick cup of tea because again it’s impolite to say no, we headed off to the bus station and back home. We arrived at around 12:30-1pm. I ended up missing two more classes than originally planned, but all in all it worked out ok.

I had meant to post this as soon as I could after returning, but here it’s almost been a week already! This week actually went by pretty normally, but things always are off when you miss a day, especially when you missed a day, but everyone else didn’t. Everyday felt like a race to get caught back up. We're meeting more with Class  VII too now; I have to go to school early on Tuesday's and stay late on Wednesday's to do extra science with them. Next week we’ll do our first set of monthly tests. They’re mostly short, except for Class VII, but at least it’ll give an idea of whether or not the students are retaining the information. This week will be pretty quiet, or at least it should be. After all this travelling, getting a weekend home was so nice, and I’m really excited for a quiet, normal week. Once March hits, I’m afraid my last few weeks here will be a whirlwind, and then it will be over.

I hope all is well and that everyone is staying warm!

God bless,

Kjirstin

Finally, pictures! :D

First off, let me apologize for this. I know many people have wanted to see pictures, but for some reason I've had lots of problems with my blog. Today though, it's working, so I'm going nuts uploading while it is. A post describing the trip to Dodoma (which some of the pictures are from) will be up later this week. Enjoy! :)

Morningside Hike

Morogro, from the top of Morningside Mountain.

The Lutheran Church at the top of Morningside

My wounds from the fall on the hike. I promise, they've healed!

Ilula

The orphanage girls at Ilula

The United Methodist Church/ IOP Preschool

Me farming, using my feet as a hoe. Upendo is the person in the back, using the actual hoe to dig up dirt. If you suspect that this took a while, it did. We only managed to do nine rows in four hours.

Dodoma

The Dodoma UMC, with the pastor in front.

The inside of the Dodoma Methodist church

The church ladies actually gave us each 2 kangas!

Church was quite the dance party at Dodoma. We had to take videos to capture everything!

And now, for some school pictures!

This is one of the two class buildings. Right now, this is classes I-IV. The other building is basically the same, with one less classroom. 

The tan building to the left is the administration building where the head teacher, school manager (Pastor) and secretary work. We call the plants "the flowers".

Listening to our heartbeats in Class VI

Practicing telling time with our newly donated, individual clocks! Thank you so much, they worked great!

I know I said I would never beat a child, but never say never. I don't actually consider this beating, but it took me a while to actually find the right spot on his knee cap, so the poor kid got hit a few times on the top of his shin. Thankfully, I wasn't trying to be too hard, and he was a good sport about it!

I'm so happy I was able to get these up and share a bit of my life here with you all! I heard there was some bad weather back home, so everyone, please be safe!

God bless,

Kjirstin

Tulikwenda Iringa!

Translation: We went to Iringa!

Well, this last week wasn’t as busy, with the exception of this weekend. As I said last time, we were travelling but I mixed up the sites. We actually went to Iringa, and I’m very glad we got to go! We had a great time and got to see an amazing ministry in action.

Things started off Friday afternoon earlier than we had anticipated. Since we have a shorter day on Friday’s, we figured we would go to school, leave on time, go back to the house to get ready, and leave Morogoro maybe around 2, putting us in Iringa around 6 or so. However, Pastor went and got us tickets which was a blessing because that was one less thing to worry about when we got to the bus stand. The problem was this bus was leaving at 1, and we were being informed at about 10:45 with two hours of school left. We made things work, and although we were rather rushed, we made it to the bus on time and headed out of Morogoro after sitting on the bus for an hour at the shop. I really wasn’t too bothered by the stopping or the repairs; it was the welding on the inside of the bus while we were still on the inside of the bus that kind of disturbed me. Nonetheless, at about 2:45 we started up again. This was the first time I was travelling in Tanzania in a different direction; every time (which haven’t been many since my arrival) that I’ve left Morogoro I’ve gone on the DAR road. This time we went the opposite direction; after about an hour, much to my pleasant surprise, we passed through Mikumi National Park, a wildlife reserve. For the first time, I saw wild giraffes, elephants, zebras, antelope, etc. So cool!

To get to Iringa, you have to actually go up and down a mountain; I’ve basically concluded that Tanzania has tons of mountains because this was a whole other set from the Uluguru mountains in Morogoro and there are more in Tanzania, including the famous Mt. Kilimanjaro. Anyway, the drive was a little precarious, and it felt like the driver wanted to make up for the time lost during the repairs because he went awfully fast around some pretty small curves. However, he did succeed in making up time because we got there around 6:30 despite delays. We knew we were going to IOP, Ilula Orphan Program which is close to but not in Iringa and we had contact with the head of it, but we really didn’t know anything else. When we arrived, there were a group of 4 or 5 mzungus there to greet us, which Christine and I were not expecting. It became quickly apparent that this was a huge operation as the girls started explaining things to us. All of them were volunteers who were doing gap years of service. There were more of them at the building; they were just the ones who had come to greet us.

When we actually got to the site, we learned that we were in the volunteer quarters, the orphanage, and main living spaces but there was also a high school, preschool, and more. As the night continued on we were also told about the sewing, shoemaking, carpentry, and welding shops that provided local people with jobs, the shops and restaurants to sell those items, even the hope of adding a primary school too! To help run everything, there are numerous volunteers there mostly from Europe all the time. Basically, we were in the midst of a huge and impressive ministry, all started incredibly only 11 years ago by one missionary. Berit was an amazing person to talk to; her story and how God has used her and blessed her work is absolutely mind blowing. She truly cares for the girls she works with and takes care of and wants to make a huge impact on the world around her. I’m not sure she could be a better job than she is.

That night was pretty calm; we got there and pretty soon after we ate supper. The orphanage girls, about 30 of them mostly teenaged, then sang welcome songs for us, danced for us, and made us dance with them. I hope at least entertained them with my awful African dancing. We spent the rest of the night talking to Berit. The living space was a very interesting mix of Tanzanian resources with Western ideas. We stayed with the volunteers; each room (and there were many) had four bunk beds, two wardrobes, two desks, etc. It reminded me of church camp cabins. The bathrooms were a bit more Tanzanian; all of the toilets were “squat toilets” or glorified holes in the ground that you squat over to use. They’re incredibly awkward, but at least these were rather clean. The showers weren’t really any different than Morogoro except the water wasn’t just cold, it was icy! The water in our pipes really shouldn’t be called cold; it’s just not temperature modified, and usually that just makes it lukewarm. Sometimes, depending on how long it’s been sitting in the pipes, it’s even a little warm. These were hard to put your whole body under at once.

The next morning, we were asked to help the pastor at the Methodist church who works a lot with IOP; he needed to plant sunflower seeds on his shamba (farm). So, Christine and I got to farm like real Tanzanians. Before going further into this story, I should qualify shambas. A shamba is more of a very large garden, not a farm like back home. Just about everyone, regardless of other occupation, has one in Tanzania. However, I will still say I farmed like a Tanzanian and be proud of it! We only had Upendo (the pastor), Christine, and myself with one jembe (hoe), a whole bunch of sunflower seeds, and a larger field than we could not plant in one morning. We still made the biggest dent we could with the time we had. Upendo went first with the jembe digging up the dirt, Christine followed with the seeds, and I then went covering up the dirt. We really needed another jembe for me to cover up the holes, but we didn’t have one so I just had to use my feet. We were blessed with a wonderfully cool, cloudy morning. I hardly sweated that much even! I somehow managed to still burn my arms and feet, but it didn’t feel bad at the time. We only planted about 9 rows. Upendo had some matter he had to attend to at the time so for a long while it was just me and Christine. The looks of people passing by, seeing two white woman farming with nothing more than a jembe was hilarious. We’d greet them smiling in Swahili or He He (the local tribal language), and they were even more surprised. :D

That afternoon we got a tour of the whole site, which took a whole hour and a half, just to give an idea of how large everything is. That night the volunteers played a movie for the girls, Tarzan. The one thing I would have loved to do that we didn’t would have been to talk to the girls more. We really only saw them that first night; when we ate, we only ate with the other volunteers. I appreciated getting to talk to other people closer to my age and situation than the missionaries in Morogoro, but I wanted to talk more to girls about their daily lives. The next morning we got to go to the Methodist church, which is still too small for a building (although the plans have been made and foundation has been laid). They met in IOP’s preschool. Upendo said that when he arrived to Ilula, there were only three members. The church was started at the same time as ours, 20 years ago when Pastor Umba and the five other Congolese missioanries came to Tanzania to start the United Methodist church. However, the Ilula church has gone through a number of difficult struggles one after and another. Hopefully now, with a pastor as passionate and dedicated as Upendo (which incidentally means love in Swahili) things will change. He’s already  gotten the membership up to 24 in a number of months, and has plans to do so much that it will be something very fun to watch grow. The service was rather similar to ours, but a bit more traditional. We sang a lot more hymns than our church; the sermon was also preached in English and Swahili because Upendo is bilingual (bwana asifewe!). After lunch with everyone, we got ready to head out.

This was trickier than we had originally anticipated. Since we weren’t in Iringa proper, we had to wait for a but to come by basically. Also, we were leaving at the wrong time of day. Buses tend to leave from Iringa early in the morning because most are going to DAR, 8 hours away. Thankfully those that go to DAR will stop in Morogoro, but leaving at 2 was rather late. We waited for an hour and watched a number of buses go by. If a bus still has room, they will pick people up, but, apparently, the buses had all filled in Iringa because they kept driving on by. Finally, a small vehicle, bigger than a dala dala but smaller than a coach bus drove by with a “Private” sign in front. Upendo stopped and asked and they agreed to take us to Morogoro. We know the bus was on the way to DAR, and we think it might have been a church group. The whole time we were in the vehicle they played Swahili gospel music, and some women in the back with me were openly reading their Bibles. The ride took a while to get going, but we made it back to Morogoro at 7 pm Sunday night. It was a lot for a few days, and both of us were exhausted that night. Like I said though, getting to see such an amazing ministry was so worth it.

The only things I have to report about Morogoro life is that every day God reminds me what a blessing my kids are. I’ve been struggling with homesickness lately. I feel like I just want to be done with this adventure and back in America, and really, it’s not the life here. I still don’t mind bucket showers, the mosquitoes, the heat, etc. Well, not very much anyway, and not enough to make me want to return, but I really miss the people back home. Thankfully, every day from about 7:40 am to 2:40 pm this isn’t even a concern to me. I just get to spend the day with my kids, and I’m having the reverse problem there. It’s just two months until I leave, and I really have to start facing the reality that I will be saying good bye soon. Even if two months sounds like a long time, it’s really not. To add even more, time will fly. We will be going to Dodoma to visit the Methodist church there soon, the first weekend in March we’re going to Mt. Kilimanjaro and the last full week I’m here we’re going to the Serengeti. Every time I think about my last few days at school, I really get the urge to tear up, and I dread it.

I’m learning just how hard it is to have your heart in two places at once. That’s what I admire about people like Berit. She goes home one month every year; Tanzania is her real home. I’m not suggesting that I’ll be staying longer here or moving here forever. I’m quite certain that God isn’t calling me to do that, or at least not very soon. I’ll be back in America, and I plan to stay for a while when I return. I truly learning a lot though about how to be better servant of God’s people. It requires a long commitment, truly dedicating yourself and your gifts to others. In a six-month term, you can’t do that. You can accomplish perhaps a tiny sliver of it, but the kind of giving that we are called to by God is virtually impossible. However, God doesn’t call us to give just to those in third world countries; we should give to every one we can no matter where we are, and hopefully I get to continue doing just that, here and back home soon.

God bless,

Kjirstin