2015 – Saturday and Sunday
Yesterday, I hit the wall. It was a relaxed but busy day, starting off with Dad fixing the wi-fi access for the DWT compound. The access point had stopped working before we got here last year and something had fried it enough that we couldn’t get it to take new settings. Bill brought the equipment to replace that, plus an amplifier and a lightening arrester so that, in theory, there should be internet access all over the compound, as long as the power is not accidentally turned off to it. It is really powerful and reaches down to the new guest hostel.
After (a very late) lunch we went down to the Kasulu Bible college to store all the rest of the equipment we brought with us…the five monitors and thin-clients, four boxes of toner, two lap-tops, and the color printer and projector…(and the partridge in a pear tree). While we were there Bill got one of the wireless access points working again. It had gone off-line when the new method of accessing the internet was installed after we left. He will work on getting the rest of the access points around the campus working again tomorrow.
We had a lovely dinner with Canon Wilson Mafunbi and his wife and by the time I got back, shortly after 9:00 pm, I could not keep my eyes open. I crawled under the mosquito net and was asleep in minutes.
Today has been a fairly quiet day. We went to the 9:00 am service at the cathedral. The service, as always, ran long. Today was baptisms, and when there is a baptism service a LOT of folks and babies get baptized. The font is in the back of the church and we were sitting in the front so I couldn’t see exactly how many, but it was a LOT.
Tanzanians truly believe in first fruits when it comes to offerings. If they don’t have money they bring whatever they have and it is auctioned off at the end of the service. The gifts today included peanuts, a huge stem of bananas, etc. Someone in the choir bought a bag of cassava as a gift for Bill. Cassava is a starchy root vegetable that is ground up and used to make ugali. Something (like wringing a chicken’s neck) that is beyond our talents! But we will figure out a wau to make good use of it.
Someone had brought a bunch of kangas as an offering and Dad was going to bid on one for me when Efram bought it for me!
Early this morning, Daudi Ndahana’s dad died and he and Olivia had to travel to Kibondo. Daudi will be there all week as his Dad had “many wives” and many children and there will be much to discuss. Olivia will be back on Wednesday. Needless to say, we did not have Dad’s chicken for dinner tonight, but ate by ourselves at the German house.
However, Bill did pickup Daudi’s car before they left (they will be taking one of the diocesan Land Cruisers to Kibondo) and it has already given us a real sense of freedom. We are discouraged from walking between the DWT compound and downtown Kasulu and now we can drive on OUR schedule.
And now we are going to enjoy a movie night!
Quick Saturday Update
Even if you have already read them, check out Thursday and Friday’s blogs again. There are now pictures!
More later on today’s doings.
2015 – Friday – More Words
Kasulu – We are home in the DWT compound in Kasulu and our current internet connectivity is limited to cellulart edgenet. I have issues even getting some text messages out on this network. So tomorrow I hope to find a wi-fi connection and add pictures!
When last we left our intrepid adventurers, they (we) were metaphorically waving farewell to the baboons sitting on the beach at Gombe and heading north up Lake Tanganyika to Kagunga. The morning was beautiful, calm and somewhat misty. Much of the vegetation on the hills had muted autumn colors from the stress of the tail-end of the dry season. The hills, I am told, will turn very green when the rains come in a month.
Bill was feeling very exhausted and not at all well and laid on the small side deck of the boat – in the full sun – dozing during the two hour journey. When he stood up after we arrived at Kagunga, he was not a happy camper, badly in need of some shade and fluids, which fortunately were what was next on the agenda. The parishioners who had gathered on the shore to greet us escorted us up to a lovely outside dining room with reed sides and a thatched roof. It was cool, shady and the chai was just what was needed. I enjoyed chapati, some fruit and a small piece of chicken. Bill stuck to a hard boiled egg.
The service (on a Thursday afternoon!) was attended by representatives from two or three other villages along the coast whose churches are part the of the Kaguna Parish. There was a combined choir that sang several songs including a great song with a spoken part in both English and Swahili about Jesus’s temptation by Satan. They also sang a song about us coming to visit them. We sang three songs, two of which had choruses that we had translated into Swahili (Imba qwa furaha). Bill and I both shared our testimonies and Daudi preached, because there ALWAYS has to be a sermon at a Tanzanian church service. As I listened to the sound of Daudi preaching (of course I did not understand what he was preaching about as I have almost no Swahili), I gazed out the open church door at the beautiful waters of Lake Tanganyika. If I did not know how difficult it is to get to Kagunga and what limited sources they have to derive income, I would have thought that I was in paradise, it is that beautiful. At the end of the service we were presented with gifts. Daudi was given a huge jug of coconut oil. I was given a Kitenge and Bill was presented with his very first chicken! Live of course.
The chicken was placed in the bow of the boat and we loaded a number of the people who had attended the service also piled in. We made four stops on our way south to drop them off. Along the way we also picked up two more passengers and took a small boat in tow. We dropped them off at our next stop as well.
The kitenge came in very useful as we were able to use it to make an awning that Bill could sleep under for the four plus hour trip back. By the time we had checked into the Coastal View Lodge and showered, he felt well enough to eat real food!
This year we are staying in the German House. Andrea, the German missionary who is based here, is currently away, but is expected to be back next week. We took a tour of the Hostel they are building (our “Tanzanian Time Share”) and it is going to be REALLY nice. They still have a ways to go, but can really see what it is going to be like. In the mean time, the bed that we bought last year is in our room in Andrea’s house and we expect to sleep well tonight!