Settling of scores

So on my first Sunday here in Kahunda and I went with the Andersens, Arne and Marlene. To a church plant on a nearby island and a fishing village called Burongero. The church is a fair few feet up the side of a hill so it has a great view of the bay Burongero is situated in. It was so cool to travel there and back on the Andersens catermerang! On the way it was pretty calm (no wind) so they have a 3.5 Hp engine to do the work of the nonpresent wind. However on the way back it was a fairly choppy and I got satisfyingly wet from the spray. The whole church service was in Swahili I couldn't understand anything – apart from Bwana Asifewe = Praise the Lord – I attempted to translate a verse into Swahili using an English-Swahili dictionary. But this will become less of a problem as I learn Swahili and sooner or later employ someone to help me learn the language.

We already employ a lady called Mama Esther – who does our laundry and some other bits of housework. This is culturally the norm, as it shows that as a wealthy person we are sharing our wealth by employing someone to work for us. It is very hard to communicate with her as I aforementioned I don't speak enough Swahili yet! So as you can already see a main current prayer point is Language learning.

My job title for my time here is 'youth worker with the AIC (Africa Inland Church)'. Arne and I had a meeting with the Andersens, a teacher from the school and the Pastor to look at the different youth groups that were already running and areas where we can be involved. The majority of them are at the AIC secondary school, about 10 min walk from our house. But the secondary school is closed for a weeks holiday next week so our schedule will fall into place when it starts back up again. (I may be confusing you because I am talking in plural, this is when I am talking about Arne and I (Arne and I are doing this year together – both having the same job title and also living together))

We went to the market in Kahunda – which is every Wednesday. Not exactly walking down Castle Street on a Saturday morning. We bought some tomatoes and cucumber. Also spent over two hours on Saturday cutting up some pork. When you buy meat here you don't so much as get a cut of meat but a portion that they just hack off for you so it is a 'cut of meat' but it doesn't represent something you would be able to pick up from Tesco, I'll get used to it. I am looking forward to getting a duck sometime, it will come alive.

We played football the other day with a load of lads from Kahunda. One guy asked for my football. That's something I am going to have to get used to as we have been told this will happen a lot. I say we played football, but it was like playing football on a really sandy beach. That's tough in itself until we figure that they were playing tiny goals – barely visible to the naked eye – made for an interesting game. But I am glad to report that the English and my team beat the German (Arne) and the team he was on, easily making up for the defeat we had to them in the World Cup.

But credit to the Germans they can make a good potato salad! Arne & I made a potato salad with potatoes cooked in a solar oven. The solar oven is basically a box with 4 mirrors attached reflecting the sunlight into the box. You just stick what ever you wan to bake in the box close the lid(made out of glass) and position the whole thing to make sure that the sun light is entering it. It was a fairly sunny day the temperature inside reached 130 C at one point. Then we just threw in a few bits and pieces and whala a German potato salad – not sure what made it German though!