trips.schrull.us

Location update:  we are now in Dar es Salaam, having left Kasulu this morning for Kigoma, where we caught the flight to Dar.  It rained from most of the night last night, but this morning was beautiful and clear.  There were absolutely gorgeous views as we drove through the highlands (retracing much of Saturday’s route) before coming down into Kigoma.  We stopped at a secondary school run by the DWT were Bill gave his “blessing” on both wired and wireless plans to connect the school’s computers to the internet.  We arrived at the airport a little before 1:00 pm and said goodbye to Duadi and Efram.  We’ve all had our first real showers in over a week and are now awaiting for our take-out food to be delivered.

Why Wearing a Skirt in Western Tanzania is a Good Idea (for Women)

This is the TMI section.  Men can stop reading here.  (This is Cathy writing by the way.)

Wearing a skirt is culturally appropriate in Western Tanzania, all the best people do it.  A lot of Western/European women will wear pants, and this is perfectly acceptable,  but showing your knees is NOT acceptable.  So no shorts.  Just capris and pants.  A skirt is cooler than Capris or pants. 

I usually try to wear a very full skirt with an elastic waist.  The elastic waist is for all those large starchy meals that you will be offered.  (Don’t come to Tanzania if you want to lose weight.)  The wide skirt is to make it easier to climb in and out of Toyota Landcruisers, 4 x 4’s and other vehicles capable of off-roading.

So, culturally appropriate and cooler, BUT the real reason to wear a skirt in Western Tanzania has to do with plumbing.  It can be quite primitive.  As in a hole in the floor with a bucket of water to “flush” things down.  (Have I mentioned that a wise woman always carries a role of camping TP here?)  Don’t know about you, but I always found it awkward whenever I had a call of nature when hiking in the woods.  (TMI) So what to do?

When faced with a “water closet” as opposed to the preferred toilet,  a skirt is easily hiked up and tucked out of the way. 

And THAT is why I wear a skirt when leaving Dar es Salaam.  I REALLY much prefer toilets!

Today is our last full day in Kasulu.  Yesterday was a “day off” so we arranged to go to Matyazo, the first place I ever really visited in Tanzania.  It is in the mountains and absolutely beautiful.  There is also a beautiful ministry there, run by German missionaries under the auspicious of the Diocese.  They have a hospital that specializes in maternity issues and an orphanage for babies under the age of two whose mothers have died.  The hope is that after they are old enough so that they would normally be weaned and well into toddler-hood, they would be returned to their extended family.  Unfortunately, sometimes the children are abandoned by their fathers.  Bill wrote a beautiful entry and posted some lovely pictures over on the mission blog:  http://tzblog.schrull.us

The country we saw going to and from Matyazo was spectacular, but very little of the road was paved.  In Tanzania they say that driving (on the mostly unpaved roads) is “dancing without music”.  After more or less 4 hours of driving on those roads, some MUCH worse than others, I was feeling distinctly jostled.

I wrote a few days ago about the “gifts” from the tree overhanging our guest house.  Last night we were in the sitting room when it sounded like a boulder had landed on the roof.  It was after dusk, so what ever might have rolled off the roof was not easily found, even with the aid of a flashlight.  We a similar clatter this morning and I happened to be looking out of the bathroom window to see a full sized avocado roll off the roof and across the back yard.  The first picture is of what usually hits our roof.  The second is something that I would pay $2.00 for at the supermarket back home!

We went to Marusi B for church this morning.  This is the church that we visited last Saturday that has reed mats for walls and is built in an area with a lot of standing water.  The bishop wanted to go there to encourage them and we wanted to do so also.  The visit was unannounced in that the pastor knew we were coming, but the decision to go there had only been made this week so the congregation was not really aware.

Shaw preached.  Bill and I sang and gave our testimonies.  They have two choirs that did two songs each.  Having a choir and a sound system and instruments is almost more important to these churches than having a roof.  It certainly more important than having real walls.

This little one’s mother is one of the singers in the “Mother’s Choir”  (there are also Moms with babies in the other choir).  I just love how she sleeps on her Mother’s back while her Mother sings and dances.

The service ended with auctioning off those gifts that folks had brought in place of money.  In addition to agricultural products, this week’s offerings included three dresses for little girls that someone had made.  Someone bought a papaya that they gave to us, which we in turn, gave to Daudi to give to the children currently at the Bible College.  When we returned to the compound the back of the car included sugarcane that someone had bought for the Bishop and a chicken that had also been given to the Bishop.  The chicken did not look very happy when we got back to the compound.

We’ve done a little packing up and some bookkeeping.  Tonight will be a final get together and tomorrow morning we drive down to Kigoma for our flight back to Dar.  It will be sad to leave our friends here, but I must admit that I am looking forward to a long hot shower instead of bucket baths and not having to deal with sleeping under a mosquito net.

Today is our last work day at Kasulu Bible College.  Tomorrow, Saturday, we will be visiting other areas in the diocese, Sunday will be devoted to church and “relaxation” (you can be sure that work of some type will appear) and Monday we head back to Dar es Salaam to begin our journey back to the States.

Bill spent the morning setting some printer administration and doing some training with Elysha and Antone who do the technical support for the Bible College.  Here he is showing Elysha how to put ends on network cables.  He also set the original server so that it is all set to run if the new server should have issues.  The workstations are all set to switch to the old sever if it necessary.  It has been a long time desire to have a backup server.  Some issues can be quickly resolved by connecting to the server over the internet and talking with Elysha over Skype.  Other issues are more complex and take longer to resolve so having the ability to NOT have the internet café be dead in the water while they are resolved is a GOOD thing.

The Bishop asked me to speak this morning to the third year students and their wives.  The wives are here for six weeks attending a course to help them be better Pastor’s wives.  The Bishop had paid me the great Tanzanian complement (which is still very patriarchal) of being a good Mama (wife/mother).  A lot of his complement is because I am very supportive of Bill’s work here.  Or course, as an American woman who has a career, I know that I am much more than that, but it is very true that a Pastor’s wife plays a VERY important part in her husband’s ministry here.  What to say to these women and their husbands? I gave a brief version of my testimony.  (And thank you, Faith Alive, for giving me practice in doing this.)

After introducing myself, I said that I have worked at a bank from the time I was a young woman and that I still work at a bank.  I started the testimony part by telling them that, as a young girl,  I was hesitant to accept Jesus fully and do what ever He wanted me to do, because I was afraid that God would send me to Africa and I didn’t want to go to Africa, but here I am, and I’m happy to be here.  I told them how Bill and I included working together in Christ’s ministry as part of our marriage vows, and shared some of the ways that we ministered together and apart.  I shared how my ministry changed after my daughter was born.  And how it has changed since she and our “other children” (our exchange students) have grown.  I tried to emphasize that in all of this Bill and I prayed together and supported each other in our ministries, some of which we do together and others which we do separately and that it is an adventure.  My hope:  that the women are fulfilled in their roles as pastors’ wives, mothers, and whatever additional roles the Holy Spirit puts in their paths.  As most of them have five or more children, I suspect that the roles of pastors’ wives and Moms are going to take most of their attention for the years to come.

We had lunch at Olivia’s and Daudi’s house today.  They pulled out all the stops with a traditional meal for honored guests.  (We’ve been getting a lot of these meals for the last week.)  Chicken, Beef, Pork (unusual in a country with a large Muslim population), bananas cooked with coconut, beans cooked with coconut, peas, fried potato chips, greens and rice, followed by watermelon, avocado and cucumber slices. 

Last year I posted a picture of Olivia’s kitchen, and here it is again, on the left.  Pots set over charcoal fires.  In the last year, since full time electricity has come to Kasulu, some changes have been made to the Ndahana home.  They, and most of the middle class homes in Kasulu have long had satellite TV which was run by generator a few hours of the day.  Now there is a fan, to keep things cooler when it gets hot.  Olivia’s shop has been successful enough that she was able to go to Dar es Salaam and buy a new kitchen:  a rice cooker, a micro-wave, an electric stove and a refrigerator.  The fridge has made the biggest difference.  If food was not eaten right away, it spoiled and was wasted.  Now Olivia can store it safely, and tonight, instead of cooking from scratch, they will heat up leftovers from lunch in the microwave.  (Sound familiar?)  Because the stove draws so much power it is not often used.  This is unfortunate.  The charcoal fires and not environmentally friendly and often women develop respiratory problems because of the smoke they inhale over the years.  At lease today’s rice was made in the rice cooker.

Here is Olivia’s new kitchen.  Quite an improvement! 

For any that are curious about what the Bible College looks like, Bill has created a walking tour

video: