A Fantastic Fall Break (with a few bumps along the way)

Over the last two months, our lives have been fairly consumed by learning Kiswahili, and we have learned a lot! However, we recently realized that our brains were becoming oversaturated, and it was becoming more and more difficult to pick up concepts in class. We had also noticed an overall weariness in ourselves. Therefore, we decided to take a Fall BreakJ Last week we made arrangements to travel by bus to Udzungwa National Park with four other students for the weekend.

Friday came, and everyone was packed up and ready to leave, everyone that is, except Eric’s stomach. He woke up with some intestinal issues, so we delayed our trip slightly to give some time for the meds to kick in. Thankfully after an hour, he was feeling significantly better, so we called a taxi and headed to the bus station.

The bus station in Morogoro is an amazingly frenzied place, with people selling goods in every direction. As soon as we arrived (around 9am), we were bombarded by eager Tanzanians attempting to get us to come onto their bus or trying to sell us their goods. Thankfully, Stacey has lived in Tanzania on and off for the last six years, so she is relatively fluent in Kiswahili. Our taxi driver told her which bus was the safest and most comfortable. We therefore bought our tickets and boarded the aforementioned bus. We had our pick of seats since we were the first ones on the bus. What we didn’t factor into our plans was that buses don’t leave until they are full. So we waited. And waited. For 3.5 hours, we sat on the bus playing card games, evading the zealous vendors who decided to join us on board, eating snacks, reading, and waiting. People gradually filed onto the bus.

We generally didn’t take much notice when people entered the bus, but one particular woman demanded our attention. When she got on, she ardently declared that she loved us and tried to kiss Eric (on the lips). Luckily, he managed to thwart her advances. Then, after she had passed our seat, she reached back and struck me (Linda) on the head. Hard. Fortunately, it was nothing that a cool water bottle compress and ibuprofen couldn’t fix. “She’s crazy” was the explanation we received from fellow passengers. As the bus was preparing to leave, a commotion arose from the back. The woman screamed, and shortly thereafter a man returned to the front of the bus with a bleeding ear. We never got the full story, but we saw her travelling companions strap her to the seat. We guess that they must have sedated her, because we heard no more from her for the rest of the trip. While restraining her was likely necessary, it broke our hearts. The incident was a poignant reminder that mental health care is almost nonexistent in Tanzania.

Finally, around 12:30pm, we departed. The bus was vastly more comfortable than a daladala, meaning every person received an actual seat. Each row contained two seats on the left side and three on the right. The trip began on a paved road, but the last hour was completely a dirt obstacle course. There were no bathroom breaks during the trip, though the bus did stop periodically to let passengers on or off. Around 4pm, the bus dropped us off at the Udzungwa Mountain View Hotel.

The rooms at the hotel weren’t any nicer than our rooms at language school, but they were clean and cozy and we got a great deal on them. Stacey had called ahead and explained that we are in the process of getting our resident permits, so we got a hefty discount. The price cut may also have been related to the fact that we were the only guests at the hotel that weekend.

After checking in, we ordered our dinners and we walked down to the park entrance. There we made arrangements to have a guide for our hike the next morning. As soon as we got back, a heavy rain began and the electricity went out. Thanks to the power outage, we got a candlelight dinnerJ The food was delicious, a three course meal including a soup and bread, main entrée, and crepe with honey for dessert. We talked for a while after dinner, but headed to bed early since we were all exhausted.

The next morning, we ate a tasty breakfast, and then made it to Udzungwa by 9 am. Of course, African time is different than ours, so it took a little while for our guide to arrive. Since we wanted to do the longer circuit, we all piled into a pick-up truck, and they drove us to another entrance. It’s been a long time since we have ridden in the back of a pick-up, and we enjoyed the fresh air. We fully commenced our hike around 10am. Our guide, Huruma, would periodically stop and tell us stories about the different trees and flora. Over the course of the next 6.5 hours, we saw three magnificently stunning waterfalls. We even changed into our swimsuits and took a swim in the pooling base of one of the falls. After our swim, we stopped at a campsite and ate our lunch, consisting of the bread, peanut-butter and jelly we had brought with us. Reenergized by the edible fuel, we began the trek back down the mountain.

Around 4pm, we arrived at another park exit—hot, sweaty, and elated. The pick-up driver picked us up and transferred us back to our hotel. After a shower and a nap, we consumed another sumptuous feast. This time there was no rain, so we dined outside in the cooling breeze. The hotel also arranged for a bus booking officer to stop by so we could buy tickets for our trip the next day.

After dinner, the six of us crowded into one of the rooms and watched “Amazing Grace” on Eric’s laptop. “Amazing Grace” is an inspiring movie about the abolition of slavery in England. Somehow it seemed even more moving watching it in Africa, knowing that the baobab tree at our school was once a place for slaves to rest on their way to be sold, and to hide in to escape bondage (we have been told the inside is hallow).

The following morning we arose—stiff and sore, but still in agreement that the hike was worth it. After breakfast, we gathered our belongings and waited for the bus. Remarkably, it collected us from the front of our hotel close to the predicted time. We first endured the awkward moment when the bus official made some people change seats, since he had already presold us our specific seats. We also soon became aware of the fact that this bus was not nearly as spacious as the previous bus. As we sat, we discovered that the seats were so close that my (Linda’s) knees didn’t fit straight in front of me, to say nothing of Eric’s.

The trip moved along at a solid pace until the police stopped our bus and asked everyone to vacate so they could search for any illegal items. Several of us decided to take this opportunity to use the bathroom facilities, knowing there would likely not be another opportunity. Through this decision, we learned that these squat toilets, which are the typical Tanzanian public facilities, were not free. Luckily, we had brought both money and toilet paper.  While we were eager to get home, the stop did give us the opportunity to stretch our legs.

Finally, around 1pm, we arrived at the bus station in Morogoro. Since lunch was already over at school, we grabbed a taxi and headed to a local restaurant where we knew there was ice cream to combat the afternoon heat. Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed. Bummer. Thus, we paid the extra money to go to another restaurant where ice cream could also be found. A chicken stir fry, pizza and two butterscotch milkshakes later, we contentedly took a taxi back to school. We then unpacked, had a small dinner, showered, listened some worship music and a podcast sermon, and promptly fell into bed. And thus ended our improvised Fall Break. While we were probably physically more tired the next day than when we had left, we now feel more prepared mentally and emotionally to face the last two weeks of school:-)

Thanksgiving service

About a month ago, we received an invitation from one the staff members at school, Mama Lucia. Her name is actually Generous, but here in Tanzania parents often go by the name of their first born child (i.e. Eric’s parents would be called “Mama Eric” and “Baba Eric.” My parents would be called “Mama Linda” and “Baba Linda”). She invited us to attend the Thanksgiving service at the Lutheran Church in Bigwa. Bigwa is about a 30 minute walk from our school.

Apparently every Lutheran church (and possibly other denominations as well) picks a Sunday, usually in October, to be their Thanksgiving Sunday. On this day, people will bring a special offering from their “harvest” to be used for the work of the church. It is a reminder that “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from above” (John 3:27).  In the case of the Lutheran Church in Bigwa, they have been gradually building their church structure since 2001. They currently have 3 walls and a roof. Thus, the special offering on Thanksgiving will go towards adding the next wall. For churches that are already fully built, the money collected might go towards other ministries and projects.

All of the Christian language students on campus left with one of our teachers at 9am for the walk to Bigwa. By the time we got there, we were all pretty sweaty, so it was nice to have a half hour to chat and cool off before the service began at 10ish. This time also gave us a chance to collect our Swahili thoughts, since we were pretty sure we would be asked to introduce ourselves. We were, and it went significantly better than the previous week :-) Several other ex-pats/former language students also attended.

At first, the service followed the traditional Lutheran liturgy in Swahili (call to worship, confession, absolution, readings, sermon, etc.) We did our best to follow along in the hymnals that we had borrowed from campus. We had previously asked if there was a place where we could buy hymnals, but we were told that only 500,000 of the new Kiswahili hymnals were printed. With 5.6 million Lutherans in Tanzania, they are few and far between! We were thankful to at least be able to borrow some.

Throughout the service, the choir sang various songs. We absolutely love the music in Tanzania! The harmonies are so beautiful.

At the end of the traditional service (about 2 hours later), they began the time of gift giving. It began with someone bringing forward a small cake. They explained that they would cut the cake, and then people would “sponsor” bites for each other. Each bite was 10,000 shillings (about $6). Talk about your fundraising mark up! However, it seemed like the event was more about the relationships than the actual cake—a chance to honor each other. Mama Lucia  wanted to give a bite to all the ex-pats she had invited, but could not afford it. Therefore, she brought up one man and one woman from among us to be our representatives. I (Linda) asked Stephanie how our bite tasted, and she said it was pretty good:-) We and the other ex-pats also decided we should sponsor some folks, so we picked children from the congregation. They were so sweet and shy when we brought them forward! By the end of the cake, the congregation had raised 840,000 shillings (about $525), more than twice what they were expecting from the cake!

Then people took turns giving monetary gifts. Each person came up and announced to the congregation what they were contributing and everyone clapped in thanksgiving (a little different than passing around the offering plate). All the ex-pats decided to pool our money and announced our contribution as a group.

Finally, the auction began. Because not everyone had cash resources, people brought what they had: bananas, chickens, grains, clothe, pigs, etc. One of the chickens had been sitting by us for a good share of the service:-) Pastor Tobias bought us a bunch of bananas since by this point it was 2pm, and we were all extremely hungry. My fibromyalgia pain was particularly high on Sunday (we later discovered it was because of impending rain), so by 2:30pm I had a raging headache. Mama Lucia took the two of us and Emily back to her house to rest before lunch. When the rest of the group (some of the pastors, church leaders, and ex-pat missionaries) later joined us for lunch at Mama Lucia’s house, we learned that the pastor had asked for us in the service (“Where are the 3 missionaries from the U.S.?”). Apparently they had wanted to offer a blessing for us. Oops!! We felt pretty badly about it, but having these awkward moments is one part of cross-cultural exchange.

Around 4pm, we returned to our dorm, full of the delicious foods that Mama Lucia and her family had prepared. We were exhausted, but full of gratitude to be included in the events of the day and in the community!

** Pictures of the event will soon be posted to Facebook. Even if you do not have a Facebook page, you can see them at www.facebook.com/afunketimeintanzania

Morogoro: Part 3

Some things haven’t changed since our last post, and some things have.

We are still eagerly plugging away at learning Swahili, and it is still tough! We still regularly enjoy walks to stretch our legs after sitting all day. We still enjoy the gorgeous views. We still dread riding in a packed daladala to go into town. And we still have a similar schedule to the one previously mentioned.

So what has changed?

Different Sense of Community-  When the German students left, the number of boarders dramatically decreased. We genuinely miss their energy and enthusiasm for life, as well as all the field trips we experienced while they were here. Yet, we are also enjoying this new era in a smaller, more intimate community. All the boarders now sit at the same large table during meals. We spend weekend evenings playing games and watching movies together. We will often sit and talk even after we have finished our meals or snacks. Two of our favorite boarders are little Yasmin (age 3) and Yara (age 2). They remind us of our nieces and nephew (miss you three!). Yasmin and Yara tend to seek us out at meals. Yasmin is especially fond of Eric who lets her play with his iTouch after he has finished eating. Last night she ran to him as soon as she saw him heading towards the dining hall. It was precious!

Visits to the Orphanage- Since the last post, we have also begun visiting the local orphanage every Saturday. Our first trip was on Linda’s birthday, and in one visit, we were hooked :-) Emily, one of our friends from the States, joins us every week. We love playing ball with, wrestling with, cuddling and reading to the kids.

Internet- We finally got tired of paying by the hour for the school’s slow internet. The final straw was when we couldn’t manage to download Skype to Linda’s computer. We kept getting kicked off at the end of the hour, and we would have to start all over again.
Therefore, we went to town and bought an Airtel USB internet stick. It uses a cell phone signal to connect us to internet. It has been vastly better consistency and speed-wise, at least on Linda’s computer. Eric’s computer still doesn’t like to connect to the internet here, and we aren’t sure why. Even on Linda’s computer, we still have moments when we are reminded we are in Africa (i.e. we want to throw the computer out the window). Yet, we are thankful that we can now use Skype to talk with family and friends (audio-only).

Kiswahili Worship Services- We’ve attended a few more worship services in Kiswahili. One was the graduation of the Form 4 students (seniors) at the Secondary School on campus. We didn’t stay for the graduation, since the worship service itself was already 2.5 hours long and numerous family members were waiting outside to get in. While we didn’t understand most of what was going on, we LOVED the music because each grade formed their own choir, the teachers formed a choir, and there was a visiting choir. In addition, it seems like every time we sing we are part of a choir, because the entire congregation breaks into harmony.

Last week, we were also invited to a Thanksgiving service at another local Lutheran Church. That was quite the cultural experience! I think I will save the details for a later post.

The Weather- We are now hitting the end of dry season, and this has been an especially dry time across Tanzania. What does this mean? We have seen a lot of people carting water by bicycle. Our own water access has also been sporadic. We still have access to clean drinking water thanks to the kitchen staff. However, some days we don’t have warm water for showers, and some days we aren’t able to use the showers at all (all that comes out of them is watery mud). On those days, the staff provides us with buckets of water, so we can at least take a bucket shower. Since some of Tanzania’s electricity comes from hydro-electric power, the lack of water has also affected our electricity. So far we’ve always had lights at night, but sometimes it’s not available during the day (i.e. we can’t use the fan we bought during the heat of the afternoon.) We are praying for good rains during the rainy season (starting the end of October), because we know how much the farmers need it and we like warm showers :-)

So that’s the news from here! We hope and pray you all are well, and always enjoy hearing from you.

Linda's Birthday (Sept 24)

Today I celebrated my 28^th birthday! Being in Tanzania has definitely made this a unique birthday. It was a beautiful day, and I wanted to share some of my joys.

It was actually also the birthday of the daughter of two of the other students. Little Yara turned two today:-) Her dad had ordered a cake from town, so we all enjoyed cake at breakfast. Eric bought me a quilted satchel and beautiful wall-hanging from the campus store. I love them both! I also received a piece of dark chocolate from our friend Emily and some Korean instant coffee from Amani.

Classes were classes, but at lunch break the kitchen staff had prepared another cake specifically for me. It didn’t have icing and was more like a sweet cornbread, but it was really delicious. Everyone dug into their second cake of the day:-)

We discovered there is an orphanage within walking distance, so after class, one of the teachers took us (Linda, Eric and Emily) over there. After a very pleasant half hour walk, we arrived and were almost knocked over by children literally jumping into our arms. We spent the next 45 minutes wrestling, snuggling and laughing with children. At one point Eric had three children treating him like a jungle gym. We also got to hold some of the babies. It was so fun!

On our walk back for dinner, some kids were looking up into a tree. When we looked up, we saw a family of little monkeys jumping from tree to tree eating fruit! Another special birthday memory:-)

At dinner, they had my favorite fruit (pineapple). After dinner, I got to make some international calls before starting homework. And then after homework, I got to go online and see the birthday wishes many of you left me. Thank you all so much! It was all around a great birthday!

Morogoro: Part 2

We have been in Tanzania for two weeks now and we are settling into a rhythm.

Our Weekday Schedule

6-6:30am      Wake up - Depending on whether we need to study or shower

7am             Breakfast - Usually it is a buffet of yogurt, bread with butter and jam, uji which is a type of porridge, some kind of fruit, and sometimes eggs.

7:30am         Head back to our room to take our malaria prophylaxis and other meds and grab our books.

7:45am         Morning Prayer with the other students and teachers. We will sing a Swahili hymn and hear a scripture reading in English and Swahili. Then, someone will offer prayer (usually in Swahili) and sometimes we all say the Lord’s prayer in Swahili. After one final Swahili hymn, the day of classes begins.

8am             Class - We meet in small groups based on when you arrived and how long you are staying. Eric and I are together with our own teacher. The teachers rotate every week so we have a new one each week. This helps us get used to different styles and different ways people speak Swahili

10am           Tea Break - They offer tea, coffee, hot chocolate and some kind of snack such as popcorn, banana chips, fried dough, etc. Usually by then our heads our about to explode, so the break feels amazing.

10:30am       Class

12pm           Lunch - A typical lunch buffet is rice, beans, potatoes, a vegetable sauce, greens and some kind of fruit.

1pm             Break - This gives us a chance to rest, study, write emails, etc.

2:30pm        Class or Lecture - We will either continue working on our Swahili or hear a lecture on a specific topic. So far we’ve heard lectures on “Tanzanian Beliefs about the Spirit World,” “Malaria,” and “The History of Christianity in Tanzania”

4pm             Tea Break

4:30pm         Free Time - Usually we will go for a walk, go into Morogoro, or try to get online. Our favorite walking destination has been a baobab tree that is climbable. Trips to and from Morogoro require us to ride on a daladala (a 15 passenger vehicle that Tanzanians manage to fit 26 people into with a combination of sitting and standing.)

6pm             Dinner - Similar to lunch. Sometimes we will have noodles instead of potatoes. Other options may include chicken, fish, goat m, hot dogs, or occasionally pizza (though the toppings are a bit different- light on the cheese because it is so pricey, cut up hot dog, onion and pinapple)

7pm             Free Time - Usually this is when we do our homework and studying.

8:30 or 9pm  Internet - So far this has been the best time to get online, though it is still very slow. About all we have time for in an hour is checking Facebook and all of our emails. Twitter thus far has been impossible, but we are still working on it. Right now we use the school’s wireless internet and pay by the hour.

9:30-10:30    Get Ready for Bed - Shower and possibly some for-fun reading or a MASH episode (We brought the series.)

10:30-11pm  Bed Time

Field Trips and Extra Activities

The last two weeks the school has had a big group of college-age German students (about 25 students), so there have been a lot of extra activities. One evening we took a field trip into Morogoro so we could find our way around. Another night we had an International Dinner where everyone was asked to prepare a dish from their home country. We had dishes from Germany, the U.S., India, the Congo, Korea, and Tanzania and it was all delicious! One day we went for a 6-hour hike in the Mountains of Morogoro. The views were incredible! One night they brought in Traditional Tanzania Dancers and Musicians. And then yesterday we went to Mikumi National Park and saw elephants, zebras, giraffes, warthogs, hippos, impalas, etc. in their natural habitat. It was absolutely amazingly unforgettable! For pictures of all these events, go to www.facebook.com/AfunketimeinTanzania. You don’t need a Facebook account to see the pictures.

Weekends

On Sundays, we get up and go to the English worship service at 7am and sometimes to the Swahili service at 8:30am. Otherwise the weekends are pretty low key and unstructured (with the exception of meals. No sleeping in if you want breakfast). Almost all of the German students left today, so it has been pretty quiet. There has been a small short term mission group from Oklahoma staying here the last few days and we have enjoyed their company.

We have spent the day cleaning our dorm, washing our underwear by hand (we can pay to have everything else washed, but having someone other than family wash your underclothes is taboo), and organizing life. Last week, I (Linda) successfully cut Eric’s hair for the first time and it turned out really well! Power goes in and out. However, we were able to get this post up, so obviously the power has come back on after being off most of the day.

So that’s a little taste of our life right now. Thanks for your loving support and we learn to navigate this new world!