A New Internet Connection for the Bible College and Choir Practice or Maybe Not
This morning we set out right after breakfast with the Bishop to visit the TTCL (Tanzania Telecommunications Company Limited) office in Kasulu to talk to them about getting a broadband connection to the intranet for the Bible College.
We have had intranet at the Bible College for the last 5 years via a satellite provider. By it’s nature, it is not very fast and is very expensive (imagine paying $6,000.00 USD a year for your home internet connection), but that has been all that has been consistently available in the area up until this point. However, TTCL now has a fiber optic line to the area which provides broad-band at much higher speed and at a much lower cost. The Bishop has had this service installed in his house and has found it to be very good, the cost for setting it up is quite low by American standards, so it seems to be only good stewardship to see if this will work for the Bible College.
If you want to do business in Western Tanzania and do not have an appointment, you need to go to the office first thing in the day. It is not unusual to find that otherwise the person that you need to speak to cannot easily be found. We found the gentleman in charge of the internet in his office, and with the Bishop’s help, discussed our requirements. We only needed one port for our internet connection, but there was a problem: TTCL only installed 32 ports in the Kasulu area and they were currently all allocated. Our TTCL representative got on the phone with his supervisor and discussed our situation. Apparently there are a few customers who have not paid their bills for 6 months. They have actually been disconnected, but are still taking up a port. The representative and his manager decided that they could re-allocate one of those ports to the Kasulu Bible College.
We discussed the cost for installing a new telephone line at the Bible College, buying a modem and the TTCL connection charge. We also discussed which data plan we would purchase. In choosing a data plan you must choose between the speed of the connection and how much data you expect to download a month. If you choose a very fast line you can find that you have used up all of you data before the month is out – and then you are stuck until the start of the next month. It is important that the Bible College remain on line as much as possible; with a faster speed more data will be downloaded. We decided to go with a slower speed (but still much faster than provided by satellite) and unlimited data.
We headed back to the compound to get the cash necessary for placing the installation order. Tanzania is almost a completely cash society. The only time you do not use cash is if you are doing funds transfers (or wiring money) from one bank account to another (NOT cheap even in the U.S.) Bill and I had each gotten a supply of money from the ATM machines before we left Dar. Needless to say, we do not carry much of it around with us. We got the cash and headed back to the TTCL office where the Bishop, as the Kasulu Bible College representative filled out the necessary forms and contracts and we the installation fees.
Working with a Bishop who knows everyone in town is a good thing. TTCL is going to try to get the wiring to the Bible College done today. Tomorrow they will try to get the internet connected. This is perfect! We will have a few days still “in-country” to see how it works.
Often we Americans have to change our expectations about schedules and and goals in Tanzania, because the people here are more relaxed about these things. We have to get used to working on African time. But other times we can be surprised by how quickly things are done. If I ordered internet today at home, I might be waiting as much as a week. And that’s in a country with a much more established infrastructure than here in Kasulu!
On returning to the compound we had a really good meeting with the Bishop, about his plans and vision for the diocese and about administrative changes that he has and is instituting. Bill and I did not really know Bishop Makaya before this trip. He has only been at the diocese for a year, and while Bill had met him last year it was during the week that the Bishop was being “enthroned” in the diocese (or, as we say in the U.S. “installed”) and there was no time for getting to know one another. We now count him as a good friend.
After lunch I wondered around in the garden, while Bill rested. The varieties of fruit that grow in the compound alone are astounding: Banana plants, of course; also Mango, Papaya and Avocado trees. With the exception of the mangos, none of the fruit is ripe yet. Still, the idea of such an abundance growing right outside the door is amazing.
This evening we were supposed to meet with the Kasulu Cathedral Choir (KCC for short) to practice with them. But it rained. It utterly rained. (Did I mention that this is the rainy season?) The choir members finally began arriving at the cathedral after 6:00 pm, after practice was scheduled to be over. Bill and I headed back to the compound. We are scheduled to meet with them two other times before Sunday.
Shopping with Olivia
This morning, after breakfast at the Bishop’s house, our friend Daudi Ndahana, picked us up to take us to the Bible College.
The Bible College is where Bill was, with the very generous financial help of a private foundation, able to install a solar-powered internet café/computer lab 5 years ago. Every year he likes to do an on-site checkup on the system, cleaning off any viruses, verifying that everything is running well and seeing what might need to be replaced or upgraded. This year we picked up 10 new sets of keyboards and mice in Dar es Salam to replace the original keyboards and mice which have gotten sticky with 5 years of use and Kasulu dust. We have started a running list of other bits of equipment and supplies to either be ordered and shipped out to Kasulu when we return to Dar, or, if it is small enough and unavailable in Dar, bought and mailed from the U.S. when we get back.
Daudi took us to his house for lunch where we met his three eldest children for the first time. The oldest is awaiting the results of her exams, to determine whether she can continue her education to the next level. The middle two children attend a catholic boarding school which teaches in English (essential for continuing to a University level education, and difficult to learn well enough if you wait to start it in secondary school, which is where the government schools start it). They are home for the Christmas break. Their youngest child, Frank, is our Godchild, although he did not remember us and was a little frightened of us at first.
Olivia and her daughters made us a lovely lunch: rice, potatoes, beans, chicken and stewed beef. A tasty shredded cabbage dish with carrots in it, among other things.
We had hosted Daudi, Olivia (and Frank) in our home when Daudi was traveling to and from Nashoda House Seminary in Wisconsin for an advanced degree. As a thank you, they presented Bill with a shirt and me with a dress in matching fabric that Olivia had made. We wore them to dinner tonight at another old friend, Daniel’s house.
When I was last in Tanzania five years ago, our friends at the Bible College had presented me with a rather elaborate white with gold colored embroidery tie skirt and blouse. A friend of ours, who had come with Tanzania with Bill about 3 years ago had a more traditional “every day” skirt and blouse made while she was here. I had decided before we came that I would like to try to do the same. I know that I will feel more comfortable wearing something less elaborate back home and I would like to be able to wearEast African ”couture” at mission events. I asked Olivia to assist me with this.
So after lunch, even though we had heard thunder and it was starting to spit a little rain, Olivia and I set out to purchase cloth. This was an adventure: Olivia has forgotten some the English that she learned during her year in Wisconsin. I speak NO Swahili, with the exception of “asante sana” (think you very much).
We went to the section of the market where most of the cloth and clothing sellers have their shops. A shop is really what we would consider to be a booth, maybe 6 feet wide by 4 feet deep. The cloth in this particular shop was all cotton, printed in various patterns, hanging from racks that completely cover the walls of the shop. You do not actually enter the shop, which is fronted by a counter but point to the various patterns which you want to see better. The proprietor lays them on the counter, you make your selection and tell him or her how many lengths you need. Olivia helped me to pick out a good pattern. Total cost for the fabric: 19,000 T shillings.
It was now lightly raining, so Olivia and I shared her umbrella, walking past other fabric shops and some tailor shops, crossing a street and going down another street of mixed shops to an open-fronted tailor shop the was maybe 10 feet by 10 feet, held four treadle-powered sewing machines and as many people. The seamstress and Olivia and I discussed what my skirt and blouse should look like, the seamstress took my measurements and asked if I would like some machine embroidery on the neckline. I agreed and paid the fee. Cost for making my skirt and blouse with the embroidery: 15,000 T shillings. My new outfit will be ready Wednesday afternoon. When I got home to the compound I did the math: total cost for the skirt and blouse at today’s exchange rate: slightly over $20.00 USD.
Tomorrow we will spend time meeting with the Bishop. Good night.
Celebration and Sheep
One of the interesting and good things about being here in Tanzania is that we are not reminded about Christmas and how many shopping days left until at every turn. I have not seen any Christmas decorations in Kasulu at all. Apparently they don’t get them out until Christmas Eve. Even in Dar as Salam we saw very few Christmas decorations.
Today we went to a confirmation celebration in Msagara Parish, which is very close to the Burundi boarder (time to get out your atlases and see exactly where we have been traveling). The drive took us about 90 minutes and we passed through some beautiful country, a number of villages and farms. There where many banana “trees” (banana plants are not truly trees) with corn plants, and in the higher elevations, coffee plants growing in their shade. The Tanzanians are good at mixed crop farming.
We were greeted by Bishop Makaya on our arrival and led into breakfast. “Second Breakfast” in our case, as Mama Askofu (Mama Bishop) had already fed us breakfast at her house before we all set out. After breakfast, the priests put on their robes and everybody went over to where a new house was being built to house the district director to dedicate the foundation stone. The major celebration of the day was confirmation of a very large confirmation class and the installation of the new district director. 
There were four choirs – a Youth choir from Burundi, a Mother’s choir and two other Tanzanian youth choirs. Each choir sang (and danced) a song welcoming the Bishop to start the service. There were lessons read, Bill and I sang two different times, and included choruses that the congregation joined in with us. Bishop Makaya preached and then confirmed about 60 folks, most of them young, but a few of them quite old.
Following the confirmation, the new district director was installed. The district director acts as the Bishop’s assistant in an area. He is responsible for a large number of parishes and churches in an area of very poor communications. He accepted his new ministry to the district and was prayed for by all the priests in his district.
All three youth choirs sang during the offering time and they needed to: it took an HOUR for everyone to come forward with their offerings. The dancing of the choirs was so infectious that I wanted to go down and join them!
After the offering, there was gift giving. this is a tradition and Bill can remember traveling back to the diocesan compound on a previous trip here with the results of this gift giving from two parishes in the back of the truck. They gave the Bishop a small sheep, who had a lot to say about it (the sheep that is). Then they gave gifts to the district director and his wife: another small sheep, who wasn’t to eager to be lead up the chancel steps, a few household goods and lots of lengths of cloth.
Two hours or so into the service it started to rain. It rained HARD. Although it was not raining as hard when the service finally ended it was still raining, so getting to the hall (the original church), where lunch was served and then into the car was a damp experience. 
The Bishop left quickly after eating to go to a smaller parish that is on the road back to Kasulu for another confirmation. Originally we were going to go with him, but it had gotten cold with the rain and Bill and I had not brought warmer shirts with us this morning and were feeling chilled, so we headed back to the compound with Mama Askofu and changed into warmer clothes that we did not expect to wear again until we were headed home.
Tonight we enjoyed spending time with the Bishop at dinner and are looking forward to Tuesday when we area scheduled to meet with him again.