trips.schrull.us

We really are enjoying a pretty relaxing time this year in Kasulu.  This morning after chapel, I made a breakfast of scrambled eggs and veggies along with some of the fresh bread that Esther (Andrea’s House Keeper) made yesterday.  We were just finishing up when Bill got a call from the Theological College asking for help with something on the server. 

 

We drove down to the college and I headed for the library side of the building while Bill went into the computer side.  He immediately called me over.  “Here’s you cat fix.”  He had almost stepped on the little creature.  Of course I scooped it up and started cuddling it, much to the amusement on the computer class students.  The cat actually belongs to Emmanuel Bwatta’s family, who live right next door to the college.  I did have to wash my hands after petting her as she is actually quite dusty; not surprising considering the time of year.

 

 

After Bill answered the server questions, we decided to come back to the compound for chai, after which Bill working on diagraming the network and saving off some Christain music for Cannon Wilson while I was very lazy and read, after putting up the three remaining pictures in the sitting room.  The Bishop’s grandchildren, Lisa and Adam, paid us a couple of visits.  Lisa proudly announced that she had gone to her kindergarten today.  Adam (aged three) was full of energy and Bill obligingly chased him around the compound circle a few times to try to bleed off some of his excess energy.

 

At 6:30 we returned to the chapel where members of the diocese shared a “Thank you” meal with us.  It is not yet to say goodbye, we don’t leave Kasulu until Saturday afternoon, but we have a very full day tomorrow:  The Bishop wants us to go with him to a church about 20 kilometers away for a special service in the morning; Bill will be leading a Bible Study at another Parrish in the afternoon and somewhere in the break in the early afternoon, we want to settle accounts with Cannon Wilson.  Back to the dinner tonight:  it concluded with speeches of thanks on the Bishop’s part and thanks on our part, and they presented Bill with a shirt and me with a shirt and skirt made from Jubilee Katanga cloth!

 

Life has been pretty low-key here the last few days.  Our section of the compound is very busy – a veritable construction zone, but with out the noise of power tools that you would find back home.  Yesterday was “door day” when they installed the outside doors on all the other rooms (with the exception of the free-standing room next to us which is still in the wall-construction stage).  Today they continued to work on the plumbing, did some electrical work and delivered, if not installed the bathroom doors.  They have decided to add a sitting room to the front of the freestanding room that is still being built, so yesterday they were laying out the string to mark the foundation for that room and started to dig out where the foundation will go.

Yesterday morning we went briefly to the Bible College where Bill was working with various network configurations and discovering that to keep things really solid we need a new cellular modem that can be hardwired to the network to replace the wireless cellular modern that was purchased from some British missionaries a couple of years ago when they headed home.  These modems are now available in Dar Es Salaam and we hope that one can get here before we leave so that Bill can be on hand for the final configuration.  Even if he can’t, he will be leaving detailed documentation and should be able to help them via Skype calls to get it configured correctly.

We came back to the compound where we had tea with our friend Festus and Bill spent a large part of the afternoon downloading some software that will better allow him to document the LTTC (formally known as Kasulu Bible College) network and setup.  And Cannon Wilson arrived at our door with two dozen eggs!  I don’t know how we can possibly eat them all while we are here as we keep getting invited to the diocesan lunch room for chai, which means that we don’t then want any lunch.

Edita (Mama Makaya) asked me if I would like to join her and say hello to the Mother’s Union, so I went down to the Cathedral with her later in the afternoon.  I almost drove for the first time here, but she found a driver.  The Mother’s Union meeting was a prayer service and Bible Study, which was of course in Swahili, so I understood one word in 500.  Edita taught and it seemed like she did an excellent job.

Dinner was at Andrea’s, which is always enjoyable.  She made us “spaghetti lasagna” with real cheese!  It is a blessing to sit a talk with her and get her perspective on what is happening in the diocese and hear about her ministry and that of the other German missionaries in the area.

Today was again laid back.  Bill spent a lot of time in the DWT offices setting up some laptops to be able to talk wirelessly to a printer and other network-related things.  Cannon Mafumbi supplied us with an an initial estimate of funds spent by the diocese on furnishings for our rooms.  The Bishop and the Cannon both thought that these rooms should have a fridge and Edita thought that there should be a bed in the work room.  We gave Cannon Wilson the funds to buy a small “dorm-sized” fridge and that was delivered today.  

They also tried to deliver the bed.  With everything that is going on in the work room, there is not enough space in there for anything larger than a single bed.  The local wood furniture shop only had full sized beds but said that they would make it smaller.  Their way of making it smaller was to drill new bolt holes (and make narrower bed boards) in the full (double) bed head and foot boards to the that single sized mattered would be centered on the head and foot board….which meant that the bed would take just as much space as if it was a full bed, plus you would probably trip on the extended head and foot board!  Needless to say, the bed frame went back.  We kept the mattress.

It’s strange to think that we only have two more full days here in Kasulu.  Saturday we will be heading to Kigoma so that we can worship and St. Micheal’s Church there, and then Monday we will be flying back to Dar Es Salaam.  I still have a few pictures to put up, and then I intend to “stage” and take pictures of our rooms so everyone can see our “Tanzania Timeshare”.

We are continuing to settle in to the guest house here in the DWT compound and I am actually starting to do a little “real cooking”.

 

Yesterday was church at the Cathedral.  We attended the 9:00 service and sang two songs with KCC (Kasulu Cathedral Choir) as back-up singers for one of them.  It was a comunion service – which is not done every week here in Tanzania, and as always, ran long.  It was 10:30 before the sermon even started, and sermons here are NOT short.  (Neither are the announcements, I think that they took up a good 10 minutes, at least just by themselves.)  We stayed through all of the worship, but left as the auction was starting.  (Often parishioners will bring “gifts in kind” instead of cash-money.  The gifts are auctioned off to the congregation at the end of the service.)

 

After church we returned to the compound and I made lunch by first frying some bread and then sautéing a small onion, some chopped mushroom and chopped tomatoes in margarine and then adding three beaten eggs.  It was tasty, but I managed to smoke up the place pretty good.  The margarine has a really low smoke point (folks here cook with oil but trying to find a small container of oil to buy is impossible).  Also the burner I was using does not know the meaning of “low”.  It was really hot!  I think that the other burner might be a little better behaved.  After lunch we napped for a while and the went for a drive into the hills above Kasulu to be tourists and admire the view.  Lovely isn’t it?  

 

Dinner was at Alberto’s house.  He is an instructor at LTTC and normally teaches church history and New Testement.  Last fall he tried to put a bit of Swahili into our brains.

 

Today was spent at the bible college.  Bill worked with our friend Festus on configuring the servers so that they students can use either Office 2003 or Office 2007.  He also re-discovered that we will not be able to use Winodows Server 2012 at the Bible College with the original thin-clients that we brought 10 years ago, although it will work with the “replacement” thin clients we have brought over the last several years.  (Even though we brought replacements, and the old thin clients’ control buttons a prone to sticking from the dusty environment along with other differences in older technology, LTTC prefers to have as many client stations as possible and won’t retire the old ones.)

 

While Bill was playing with technology, I was a student for the day.  It is the time of year when the wives of the graduating students who will be becoming priests are in residence for training on what is expected of a Pastor’s wife.  Deacon Elda, who teaches the class had invited me last week to come and sit in on a class.  The class was entirely in Swahili and from the approximately 10 words I recognized, which included “karabuni” (welcome), chai (tea) and chakula (food), I think that the lesson was on practicing proper hospitality, especially for important visitors.

 

We came “home” for lunch (Mashed Avocado, with a packet of chicken of the sea smoked Salmon (brought from the States), sliced tomatoes and a pan toasted slice of bread each, all drizzled with balsamic vinegar (also brought from the states) and returned to LTTC; Bill, once again to the computer room while I attended a debate in English on the proposal “It is better to receive salaries from the central Anglican Office than from the Parrish”.  The students did not arrive on time, which annoyed the instructor, an older Tanzanian gentleman who is used to teaching Form’s 1 through 3, where a strict schedule is kept.  The debaters did a pretty good job of making their points and it was an interesting discussion.  I will refrain from stating my opinion to the students (or anyone else) unless someone in authority asks me, as this is not my diocese!

 

Andrea came over for tea and conversation when we returned to the compound and then Bill and I took ourselves out to dinner at the Kasulu Motel, as no dinner host had been arranged for us this evening.  That was absolutely fine.  The chicken was very good and we are pretty proud of ourselves that we feel comfortable enough with being here in Kasulu to be able to be responsible for ourselves and not have to bother our hosts for everything.

 

Time for a shower and bed.  Blessings to all.