Bible College Work, More Shopping and a Video Shoot in the Garden
We spent today at the Bible College, doing more work in the computer lab. There were enough remnants of old pieces of malware and viruses on the server (it could not even be brought up in “safe mode”) that Bill decided it was best to blow the old operating system away and do a fresh re-install. In the course of the day, he got the new operating system up,and installed a different anti-virus/anti-malware application that we hope will do better for the Bible college. Tomorrow we will try to make sure that all of the thin client users sessions are set up and cleaned up (to save power and to make administration of the computer room easier, also to have fewer moving parts in a very dusty environment, we run all of the 10 stations off of the server via thin client appliances rather than individual p.c.s). We also hope to get the faster intranet installed.
We had lunch at our friend Emanuel and his wife Justine’s house, which is right next to the Bible College.
After lunch Olivia and I went to market again, where I bought a kanga – a printed length of cloth that is used for anything and everything. You actually buy two at a time, which you cut apart. The kanga are used as over-skirts, shawls and baby carriers by the women. Men also wear them. We went to the tailor shop to pick up my blouse and skirt, which I tried on – over my t-shirt and skirt as the shop is open-fronted and there is no changing room. I will post a picture later.
There is a tin-roofed awning across the front of the shop and one of the women was cooking lunch over a charcoal fire brazier. In a pot sitting directly on the charcoal coals she was boiling water and finely ground corn to make ugali, a staple food in East Africa. When the water boiled she added more corn flour until it became as thick as mashed potatoes. She worked the ugali with a large spoon against the edge of the cooking pot to smooth out any lumps. She poured a little water into a rounded bowl to prevent the ugali from sticking to it, put about half if the ugali from the cooking pot into the bowl and then tossed the bowl a few times until the ugali formed a rounded lump resembling bread dough set out to rise. She put the remaining ugali onto a try that she had first put some water on and then put a small bowl of stew onto the charcoal to heat up. Lunch will be a large serving of ugali with a little meat stew for flavoring. (Most households cook the same way, but will have several charcoal braziers so that more than one thing can be cooked at a time.) The tailor shop has no electricity and they use an iron also filled with charcoal to press their work.
We went to a food market, which unlike the market I visited on Saturday is more permanent, with stalls and some roofing. Again, there are many vendors, each selling a selection of vegetables and fruits, but also selling other things.
We went home to the compound to rest and take baths before going out to dinner and found that the garden in the back of our guest house was being used by one of the local choirs to shoot a video. Choirs are a BIG DEAL in Tanzania. They write original songs and create dances that they do with each one. They don’t wear choir robes, but instead all wear matching outfits, and a big choir that performs a lot might have several outfits. The choirs travel to outlaying villages to perform and they are major source of evangelism with their joy and their music. Every two years there is a huge multi-day gathering when all of the youth choirs in the diocese come together to listen to speakers and perform for each other and everyone in the area who has time comes to watch. The Kasulu Cathedral has several choirs, including a Mother’s choir (all women) and the Cathedral Choir. The Cathedral Choir has recorded several CDs and we are bring home a DVD of their songs. If you watch Tanzanian television on Sunday afternoon you will see video after video of Tanzanian choirs. So cool!
We had a nice visit with Ephriam’s family, where we went for dinner. He has five children, with a sixth on the way (large families are usual in Tanzania). It was fun to see his twin daughters, who had just been born when I visited here five years ago. Ephraim is the youth pastor for the diocese and travels all over this quite geographically large diocese encouraging the young people in their faith. We left early as we are very tired.
Goodnight.