trips.schrull.us

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.

 

No chapel today as the diocesan offices are closed on Saturday’s but Bill and the guys wanted to get an early start on some server

setup, so we got up at the usual time.  Bill headed down to the Bible College while I stayed behind as we needed someone to be here when they installed our new screen door.  I enjoyed a lazy morning, taking a hot shower (here in Kasulu!) and writing a long email to an old friend, while the fundi (every crafts person is a “fundi” of some type) shaped and installed the screen door.

 

And does that door make such a difference:  we have twice as much natural light and a nice cross-breeze now in the sitting room because we can leave the main door open.

This section of the compound is a beehive of activity, even on a Saturday. They are rushing to get all of the rooms ready for the Jubilee.  The bricklayers were continuing to build the walls of the room next door, using actual cement this time, instead of the usual mortar made from the local clay, so I guess they can’t make any mistakes, because it will be very hard to tear out and restart…..(remind me to do a post  on how they are constucting these buildings on a “slow” day.)  Else where, they were starting to install the plumbing in the bathrooms that are part of the other rooms.  You would think that all of this construction would be very noisy, but it is quite quiet by American standards.  No loud WHHRRLLL of power saws and drills or roar of air compressors.  No power tools at all.  The fundi who installed the screen door used a hand saw to adjust the length (it was a little to long) and a hand drill like my grandfather had to drill the holes for the screws for the hinges.  Needless to say, he used a basic screw driver to fasten the screws.

As for installing the plumbing (or electrical wiring for that matter), the bricks and mortar are very soft, so they just chisel channels in the walls where they want the pipes to go, and plaster over them when they are done!

 

Bill came back to the compound to download a MS Office update as the Internet at the Bible College was very slow today and I cooked a light lunch of scrambled eggs with tomatoes and lightly fried bread on the gas cooker.  Even on low, that cooker is HOT and it was a challenge not to burn things!  

 

After we ate we went into town to buy water and washing powder and see if we could find some more vegetables and fruit.  We found some of what we were looking for on a side street, but I really wanted an avocado and I hadn’t seen any at the side street veggie stands, so we asked Olivia if she could tell us where the market is so we could find some.  Olivia very kindly closed down her shop and took us to market.  It is a SEA of  people offering all kinds of vegetables and fruits.  I posted a picture of the old market several years ago…I’ll let Bill post the picture of this new market when he gets a chance to blog.

 

The car was very disagreeable on the way back to the compound. It didn’t want to start and kept stalling, and, we realized, smelled very hot.  We made it back and opened the hood to let it cool.  Several hours later, Bill checked the radiator.  Man was it low!  It needed 3.5 liters of water – almost all of the drinking water that we had bought.  Well, we didn’t want to put tap water in it as there is quite a bit of silt in it this time of year and that would really gum things up, so to speak.   The car was MUCH happier for it’s drink of water, and we went to town to buy more water and practice our song for tomorrow with KCC (the Kasulu Cathedral Choir).

 

We had dinner tonight with Cannon Wilson Mafumbi and his wife, Jane.  We had fun after eating dancing and playing air guitar to Lincoln Brewster’s “Giving it all to You”.  Cannon Wison had a friend video it with his iPad.  It was really funny to see but Lord forbid that it get uploaded to YouTube or posted to Facebook!  And then, before we left, they gave us four fresh eggs from their hens.  I am going to make a great veggie/scrambled egg lunch tomorrow after church.

 

Hope you all are enjoying a good weekend and Happy Mother’s Day and joyful Pentecost tomorrow!

 

Bwana Asafiwe!

 

Cathy

I’v been a bit lazy about blogging the last two days, so here is what has been going on….

 

We started yesterday (Thursday) morning down at the Bible College (LTTC the school formally know as KBC).  Again, the computer room was busy with students and classes being taught.  We even saw one session going that was using the projector that we brought last year to teach some Excel principals.  I spent a little time on the library side of the building catching up on news and then went shopping – by myself!  

 

I headed a couple of blocks away where I had noticed some tomatoes and bananas being sold when we drove by on Wednesday evening.  The proprietor also had some Azam Mango juice, so I picked up another box of that for Bill (“Billy loves Mango!”).  I then walked up the street I think of as “Goat Alley”.  It’s too narrow for cars, and in fact for automobile purposes it is a dead-end as a deep ditch with only a narrow cement “bridge” crossing it, divides the alley from the main drag.  I think of it as “Goat” alley because an entire herd of goats came down it when I was starting to go up it during a previous trip.  THIS was the street where I should have gone shopping when I was looking for a kettle a few days ago!  (Lesson:  never ask a man to guide you to the best places to find cooking equipment…in Kasulu at least!).  I purchased an aluminum kettle and a lid for the flat edged pot that I bought back on Tuesday.

 

Next was a trip across the “Main Street” and to the local parking lot and taxi stand to the area where the katanga and other cloth sellers have their stalls to visit with Olivia.  She is a good friend of many years, along with her husband Daudi.  This year Daudi is away attending an accounting course, as he is being groomed to be the next diocesan comptroller.  I stopped by the pharmacy to pick up something for Bill, and then strolled along the shops on “Main Street” until I found on that could sell me a small container of “Blue Band”, the local margarine, which we will use for frying eggs.

 

Feeling very pleased with myself, I headed back to the Bible College where we enjoyed lunch with the faculty.  We headed back DWT compound for the afternoon, where Bill began preparing for the Bilble Study he led today at Kidyama.  We also began practicing this year’s song.  (Tradition:  Pick a contemporary praise song, translate the chorus (simplified) into Swahili, with the help of friends here.  Teach to chorus to the congregations of the churches we visit.  Verses remain in English).  

 

Our house-girl has no place to hang the wash she does for us, so we will walk into our rooms to find the wash draped over the sofa and chairs.  I spent the afternoon jerry-rigging a drying line from two chairs and some crochet string out in front of the hostel, and realizing that the clothes would not be thoroughly dry by the time I needed to bring them in, improvised some drying lines in the second bathroom with some “command” hooks I had brought and some braided crochet string.  (Crochet string is on my list of items to always bring with us.  I always find myself improvising SOMETHING out of it.)

 

After dinner at Ephraim’s house, we had “Movie Night’ back at the hostel, watching “The Martian” on Bills’ computer (we bring a CD case of DVDs in case we start to feel “video deprived”.  I fell asleep for the last 10 minutes of it, but I had read the book and seen the movie before.

 

Most of today (Friday) was spent at the compound.  The schedule had this time reserved for Bill to finish preparing his Bible Study and for us to work on music.  He also managed to get the compound-wide wi-if access point working again.  The issue turned out to be some blown power-supplies, which they managed to find replacements for.  We also finally put up the last of the curtains we brought with us, and the “art work” in the bedroom (some sea-shore based paintings from a 2015 Lang Calender).  We had an early lunch (or really, “Elevensies”) at the diocesan lunch room – they make the BEST japati – and I bought four eggs from them that we will eat this weekend.  As for me,  I was basically lazy for most of the day, relaxing and reading.

 

Late in the afternoon we met Bwatta at the Bible College to drive over to Kidyama.  We received the traditional greeting for guests on

our arrival.  As always, everyone sang as we entered the church.  They had two choirs there, and both sang and danced.  Bill and I gave greetings from St. Paul’s and we sang this year’s song.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the chorus, but it did not go as well as I would have liked:  Bill got a frog in his throat as we started to sing and the gain on my microphone was so high that I overpowered him even when I held it more than two feet away.  Bill taught on Ephesians 2:1-10, illustrating the points he was making with some personal stories.  Bwatta translated.  Bill answered a couple of questions following his teaching and then we greeted the parishioners as they left the church.  Of course they fed us:  rice, potatoes, beef stew, fired chicken and bananas, all of which made a very nice early dinner.  As we dropped Bwatta off at his house, he apologized that they had not set up a place for us to go to dinner tonight.  We assured him that what we had just had at Kidyama was more than enough dinner for us!

 

There is no date in the heading of this post, but today is May 6th, which was my Dad’s birthday.  He has been gone more than 10 years now, but I find myself today thinking of him, and my Mom, who died last Saturday, celebrating this day together for this first time in years.

 

Blessings on you all.