trips.schrull.us

I hadn’t realized that I haven’t blogged since Thursday.

 

Friday was an extremely busy day, starting with Communion in Chapel at 7:30, a quick breakfast of coffee and bread in our hostel rooms and then leaving at 9:00 to go with the Bishop to Ruhita to install a regional Dean.  Ruhita is “off the beaten track”.  In fact the Land Cruiser had to ford a small river to get there (good news is that it is now the dry season).  Electrification has not made it out to the village, so after chai of fried bananas and chicken, we entered the church where the sound of the generator provided background “music” to the entire service.  So many places we go now are electrified that I had all but forgotten that typical sound that accompanied so many of the church services we have been to here.

 

The Installation of a new Dean at Ruhita.

It was a joyous service with two choirs, of course, along with Bill and myself singing twice.  As with all services of installation, the installed couple (the pastor and his wife) were presented with many gifts incuding three lovely katangas (brought down the aisle in formation like an awning and wrapped around the couple) and length of fabric for pants, a 5 gallon bucket with lid and a goat.  (And let me tell you, I was delighted to see that the goat was presented to the installed couple).  Following the gifts, we listened to the parish report, which is always given when the Bishop visits, and then the Bishop was presented with a few gifts, which included a live rooster.  (And THIS is why I was delighted that the goat went to someone else.  I was not looking forward to driving back to the compound sharing the back of the Land Cruiser with a goat!). We went back to the pastor’s house for another meal (rice, potatoes and chicken with some fruit this time) and there was a big to-do as the installed Dean’s wife was carried into the house wearing a new dress of a pretty pink pattern with gold sparkles…a fabric that I had seen several other parish leaders wearing.

 

The Ruhita church will be opened during the Jubilee in June.  Bill had visited it before in 2008 when he was here with our daughter, Abbie, for one of the choir camps.  Abbie took some beautiful pictures of the building as it was then:  the walls standing open to the sky, grass and other plants growing in the floor space.  It is good to see the building complete with roof and floor.

 

We left Ruhita a little before 2:00 pm, and made a “small” detour further up the road towards Mwanza to another church that is under construction that they hope to be able to dedicate during the Jubilee.  This church was also “off the beaten track”.  In fact we had to go through a high stand of grass to get to where we would park.  After a 10 – 15 minute consultation, it was back on the road to the the compound.

 

Bill took a 20 minute “power nap” while a finalized finances with Cannon Wilson Mafumbi and then it was in to our borrowed car to pick up Emmanual Bwatta to go to a Bible Study at a new church new the center of Kasulu called “Bethany”.  Again two choirs sang, we sang and then Bill taught.  As he’d did last week, he taught on Ephesians 2:1 – 10.  There is always a time for questions after a Bible Study;  Bwatta fielded those.  We sang again, the “Youth” choir sang again and the Mother’s choir was getting ready to sing again but was having trouble getting their act together.  We were visibly tired, so Bwatta and the Paster called the service to an end. We enjoyed dinner in the Pastor’s house and made it back to the compound as the sun was setting.

 

Bishop Makaya and his wife Edita came over for a short while to have tea and a visit with us.  Edita was suffering from a bad headache and we were very tired, so they soon left and went to bed – our last night in Kasulu.

Our Kitchen in our “Tanzanian Timeshare”

 

Saturday morning, after a breakfast where we tried valiantly to use up a lot of the eggs that Cannon Wilson had brought us earlier in the week, Bill headed down to LTTC to go over the procedure that will need to be followed when the new cellular modem arrives.  I stayed in the compound to start packing us up and put our “Tanzanian Timeshare” to bed until the next guests arrive.  Our sheets were washed and hung on the back fence to dry by our housekeeper.  I sorted through the American food we had brought and we’re leaving for the next guests and the food that would not last and needed to be given away.  I packed my duffle and got Bill’s clothes folded so that he could pack them when her returned.  The sheets were dry (execept for the corners of the fitted sheet I had brought, which were still damp), folded and stored in the wardrobe shortly after Bill returned from LTTC.  We said good-bye to our housekeeper and made a final meal of egg-drop sautéed onion and tomatoe with shrimp ramon noodles.  Two more of those eggs used up and it was surprisingly good.  Did the dishes, turned off the gas, unplugged the mini-fridge, closed the Windows and the curtains (as much to prevent the sun fading them in uneven streaks as for privacy).  The Bible College Land Cruiser arrived and it was time to load up and lock the door.

 

The road out of Kasulu.

Last night and tonight were spent in Kigoma at the Coast View Hotel, that they now style as a resort (where’s the pool?  If it’s a resort shouldn’t there be a pool?).  Dinner was late – which turned out to be a blessing – and the menu limited as they had no beef and about 2/3rd of the menu is beef-based.

 

This morning started early before we could even get coffee at the hotel.  Pastor Calibu picked us up for a 7:30 service at St. Michael’s.  It was morning prayer.  There were three choirs, we sang twice and Bill preached with Pastor Calibu translating.  The service ran very long.  There was a fund-raiser for doing more work on their conference center and everyone who came up to make a contribution got a few minutes to say something.  The initial large contributors got to sit up front and said a LOT.  These folks are NOT Mic shy!  We got out after noon, and needless to say, were VERY Hungary.  Fortunately, they had the traditional church Sunday morning breakfast laid on for us and various elders of the church:  excellent chicken soup, japati, sliced cucumbers, cooked bananas, if we wanted them and chai.  Fulfilled in more ways than one, we are back at the Coast View, enjoying the afternoon breeze and the view of Lake Tanganyika.