trips.schrull.us

Shaw and I started the day by attending the English Language Holy Communion service at the Bible College, while Bill represented our little team at the Diocesan Morning Devotions.  After breakfast we had our annual “official” meeting with the Bishop, where we got an brief update on the diocese and traded prayer needs.

A DWT driver brought us down to the Bible College where there was just a little work to be done today.  There were a few things that Bill wanted to check out and he wanted to do some training with some of the College personnel here.  He also planned to do a video tour of the Bible College to post on You-tube.  Shaw is continuing to meet with teachers to orient them to the on-line training.

While Bill started his training, I had some shopping I wanted to do, so I tapped his wallet (mine is a little light from paying for the extra weight for the flight to Kigoma) and grabbed Shaw, who also wanted to do some shopping.  I am not yet completely comfortable walking all around Kasulu Market by myself.  Shops here are TINY.  They are little 8’ x 10’ or so, little cubbies really, with doors that open across the width of the shop.  Most often there is a counter across the entire front of the shop and you tell the shopkeeper what part of his our stock you are interested in.

Our first stop was a little Christian Book Shop that has opened up a little more than a block from the Bible College.  I was interested in finding a book of children’s Bible Stories in Swahili.  There is a class going on here for the third year students’ wives.  One of the wives is illiterate and it has been arranged for her to have a private tutor to teach her how to read.  I wanted her to have a book to aspire to read.  She also has many children and I hope that she will read to her children from the book.  While Shaw continued to browse around the shop, I went back to the Bible College where she was working with her tutor to give her the book.  She has no English and her tutor has very little.  It took a little while to get them to understand that the book was for her.  The tutor kept saying “she doesn’t know how to read” and I kept saying “You are teaching her.  She WILL be able to read.  This is for when she can read.”  It is very unusual for the average rural Tanzanian to have books in their homes.  Maybe this will start to change this, in one home at least.

I went back to the Bible Store and Shaw and I started off to find my friend Olivia’s shop. She sells ketangas.   Her husband, Daudi had driven us by there a few days ago, but I had never walked there.  We turned the corner to go toward the Main Street and found… 

KASULU TRAFFIC JAM – an entire herd of goats  came down the middle of the street!

After the goats passed us by, we proceeded up the side street, across the main road and into the market area.  It took us two tries to find the shop but we did eventually.  Olivia gave us stools to sit on and we visited for a few minutes, which is the normal Tanzanian way to do business.  Shaw wanted a ketanga to bring home to use as table clothes but didn’t know which he should chose, so he asked Olivia to show him which ketanga represented Kusulu culture most to her.  It took a little while to get the idea across, but once she did she was quick so select a lovely and colorful ketanga for Shaw. 

I wanted a ketanga that would coordinate with the ketangas I bought the other day for my family room.  I asked to see three and picked one that I think will coordinate nicely with the other fabric.  I plan to use this fabric to recover the front of my rocking chair cushions and use the other fabric for the backside of the cushions and window treatments.

As usual, my customs declaration from Tanzania will read “fabrics and arts and crafts”!

As you may be able to tell, Cathy is continuing to post.

This morning began with a heavy rain, which, as you can imagine, is rather loud on a corrugated tin roof.  What is also loud is the periodic gifts falling from the tree that over hangs our house.  It sounds rather like rocks being throw up on the roof and bouncing down at irregular intervals.  After several days of this we went outside  to look around on the ground and find out exactly WHAT was interrupting our rest.  We found many small hard green fruits on the ground that were maybe 3/4 of an inch in diameter.  After seeing a similar fruit on a tree in the center garden that I know is an avocado tree, I suspect that these are baby avocados.  It makes me rather sad to think of all those avocados that will never grow up to be eaten. 

Today, May 1st, is  a public holiday in Tanzania.  Some business is done, but many people take the day off.  Bill decided to make use of the fact that the DWT offices would be pretty much closed to work on the internet there.  There were complaints about the service be very sporadic and despite the large repeater antenna in front of the offices, no signal was reaching the offices in the back building.  He discovered that there were two wireless devices that were broadcasting on virtually the same  frequency.  This was confusing any computer trying to connect wirelessly.  He changed the frequency of one of the devices and internet in the DWT compound started working MUCH better.  He also installed a repeating router which pushed the signal to the offices in the back building.

While Bill was working at the DWT offices, Shaw and I were working (Shaw) and relaxing (me) at our house.  We became aware of some very strange thumping that sounded like it was coming from the roof.  I went outside and looked up to find a crow, picking at one of chicken bones from breakfast on the  ridgeline.  (The crow flew away before I could get my camera.)

I did find other things living on the roof though.  They are not that easy to see, but those are impatiens, like I will be planting in my garden shortly after I get home.  While we buy them pre-sprouted from some agriculture company at home, here they appear to self-seed.

We are at the Bible College now, where we enjoyed another lovely lunch cooked by several of the teachers’ wives.  Bill is working on rebuilding the operating system of the pc we brought that wasn’t working correctly and I went for a quick wander in the market with Helen where I bought another Ketanga to use for decorating our family room.

The population in the center of Kasulu is dense. But everywhere there are little pockets of “farm”.  As I sit in the Bible College internet café, I here a rooster crowing.  Every so often a cow will low and you realize that it’s just on the other side of the reed fence next to the drive way.  Cows in backyards!  Our zoning commission would have a fit (so would the neighbors.)

Everywhere there a little pockets of green.  At first it looks as if it is just general overgrowth, and the you look again and realized that you are not looking at weeds, but at bean or potato or tomato plants. Corps are interplanted with each other here, so you don’t have a patch or row of just tomatoes or just beans but a whole mixture of plants coexisting with one another.  Corn stalks are not pulled up after the corn crop has been harvested.  Instead they are left in place and pole beans are planted next to them.  No need if the expense or trouble of putting stakes in the garden!

The fuzzy gold streak in the picture to the right is Cannon Daniel’s new kitten. (We had dinner at Cannon Daniel’s house last night.) If you click on the picture to enlarge it and look at it carefully you can just make out a front paw and the tail.  The kitten has only been at Cannon Daniel’s house for three days and does not yet feel at home.  He got the new kitten because there are many mice about – sometimes they eat his books – and a dog ate his previous cat two weeks ago.  When we were here 16 months ago there was also a kitten at his house.  If I understood correctly, the cat that was eaten by the dog was a replacement for that kitten, which had also been eaten by a dog.  Cats do not have long lives in this area, but they are needed.

Bill made friends with the kitten, patting and stroking it.  It purred madly.  When he put it down on the floor, it yowled like crazy and found its way back into his lap.  When it was time to go, I tried to give the kitten to one of Daniel’s daughters, who wanted nothing to do with it.  Cat’s are needed, but they are not always given affection.

It’s still dark out, 5:00 am and the Islamic call to prayer “floats” up the hill from the Mosque.  I say “floats” in quotes because sometimes it is quite off-key and can sound quite angry.  Other times it is quite tuneful and just a part of the Tanzanian environment.  The first morning we were here it was on the angry side and Shaw, who was already awake, took the Islamic call to prayer as a call for him to pray the Lord’s Prayer.  He shared that with us that t morning and ever since, we taken the the mosque’s calls to prayer as a reminder to pray ourselves.  Why should it only be the Muslims who pray five times a day when we are called to pray constantly?

It is still dark.  Perhaps it will be a sleepy rooster that will next sound, or perhaps it will be the local dog chorus.  While dogs are kept close tied and I never see them (no vets and rabies shots around here) there is no doubt that they are around as the chorus travels from the area on one side of the compound to the other.

The birdsong starts a little after 6:00 am.  (The sun comes up around 7:15 here, and it comes up suddenly…first a deep twilight and then, in a matter of minutes, it is light.)  A warble outside the window from the garden.  Chirps from the trees a little further away.  Still a different warble off to the left.  There are some birds that we have come to recognize by birdsong alone, we don’t know what they look like so we name them after their song.  There is the “Pan Flute Bird”.  It sounds just like a Pan Flute.  We enjoyed it’s song many times on past trips but it seems to have deserted the compound this year.  We did hear it off in the distance when we took our walk on Sunday and were at the top of the hill.  Bill says the the Pan Flute Bird has abandoned the Anglicans for the Roman Catholics!

Another bird with a distinctive call is the “Harrigan Bird”.  It’s song repeats the melody of the part of the chorus of “Harrigan, that’s me!” that goes “It’s a name that a shame”.  It repeats it over and over again, but never finishes the song which can drive us a bit crazy.

As far as I know, the bird on the left is NOT a “Harrigan bird” or a “Pan Flute bird” (nor is the picture one that we took) but we did see one like it on our Sunday drive.  The tail is fantastic.  Google identifies  it as a widowbird from South Africa, but we saw a bird not unlike it (without the orange on the wings) when we took our walk on Sunday.

Kasulu also has crows.  They are not all black like North American crows but have white “shoulders” like the birds in the Windex commercials.  They have loud raucous crow calls, with a Tanzanian twist.  They sound rather like our elderly short-haired Oriental cat, Woody, when he announces that he is in the room and it’s time for dinner.

As the people awake, so does the sound of children, music and conversation.  Occasionally there is the soundd of a truck, car or motorcycle engine and the honk of a horn to warn folks to get off to the side of the road.  But always the sound of industry, children yelling, people talking , a choir practicing, often the sound of a loud broadcast, and five times a day or course, the sounds from the mosque.  Roosters chime in throughout the day, as is their nature.  Windows are open at all times and there is no escaping the realization that you are surrounded with many people.

The bird song dies down at dusk to be replaced by the whirring of insects.  If we are lucky we will NOT hear the high pitched whine of a female malaria mosquito looking for dinner.  The human sounds continue until long after dark, and if it is a weekend night, it is not unusual to hear to loud music of a party going until 2:00 in the morning, accompanied by an occasional dog chorus.

Bill has just about finished up the major work at the Bible College.  Today we switched over to the new server,have  got TTLC (Tanzanian Telephone) to double the DSL speed, and connected the printer and copier to the network. The new pc in the staff lounge needs to be rebuilt in order to talk to the printers and Bill plans to recondition the old server so that it can serve as a backup.  We have been wonderfully blessed in how well the work is going.