Shopping and Cooking: Things Jonny didn’t tell you Part 3

1.6    Dad's Blog Post no.7

Another thing Jonny hasn't really come clean on is his improving skills in the kitchen. We recently had a fabulous curry, made from steak bought in the village, with potato wedges. Then rice pudding, made slowly on the cooker, not microwaved from a tin! Then soup made from freshly chopped marrow-thing (but as tough as a swede to cut). Then tea made with fresh lemon grass from the market.

On Friday Jonny in no time baked a couple of cakes ('tea loaves') in the solar oven then, after lunch, knocked up a couple of pizzas enough to feed the regular group meeting at the Andersens!

Preparing the meat is, in itself, a time-consuming job. Not ready-chopped chunks prepacked from Tesco but a big slab hacked off a cow by the merchant. It needs cutting up and the fat removing. And the knives aren't too sharp either.

Then there was the marrow-thing: it made a great soup, but took the best part of an hour to cut up.

It would be easy to live off packet meals, bought from Mwanza city on a shopping trip, but how much more inventive to use local produce and learn some great life skills!

Tonight we have BBQ chicken…take a look ('before and after') at the pictures!

Thanks Mama Esther - next time it's Jonny's turn!

This is how they do it in Tanzania!

"What happened next?!"

Sunday lunch: Jonny with Arne, Regan(17), Dan(18) and Darwen(19). The boys love to visit to cook, eat and chat. Pray for them, as young Christians.

This is what 'Bau' looks like (see post on 8th March). Jonny here with his language teacher - also a Maths teacher at the High School.

... and some big furnaces!

Cooking for 300 takes a lot of firewood

Ugali and beans: time for eating! (Note the skillful use of the hands, making a scoop with the Ugali then dipping it in the beans)

Ugali and beans: in the kitchen!

Bible Study on a Saturday afternoon at the High School - in Swahili!

Jonny and Arne's Washing Machine: Mamma Esther!

Preparing a meal takes time - and energy!

"How much is that one, please?" (In Swahili!)

After PE, a cup of porridge, with a vitamin too!

"Green team, over there!" (In Swahili!)

Teaching children how to kick a ball - in Swahili!

The Danger of making Judgments

1.5    Dad's Blog Post no.6

It's so easy to make judgments about things – and then be found to have made a big misjudgment.

For example:

"They have no electricity, these poor people". Yes, but going down to the lake to wash (body and clothes) means a community activity that we, with a washing machine in every house, do not have. Or, making a fire on which to cook, can be done for several families together and means a community activity which we, with a cooker in every house, miss out on.

"The men seem to spend their time standing around chatting". Yes, but they've probably been working with the crops since the early hours, while the day was still cool, to ensure they have enough food to live on.

How ironic that we, in the 'advanced West' have gained much in material luxuries but have lost so much in other, valuable aspects of life.

Home Comforts: Things Jonny didn’t tell you Part 2!

1.4    Dad's Blog Post no.5

He's got a toilet that flushes in the house! I had thought that he went to a spot, like the locals, in the bushes. I was quite relieved that we had this luxury.

They've also got a cooker that runs off a large gas container and a freezer that is cooled by a small gas flame working on a heat exchanger (I think!). Unfortunately it's not very effective so it's usually like a fridge rather than a freezer.

There's a shower too – just cold water, but it's so warm here that's hardly a problem.

The 'running water' comes from a tank that draws water from a well. Each week one of the jobs is to run a diesel motor, to power a generator that generates electricity for a pump which pumps the water into a tank some 10 feet off the ground. This then supplies the toilet and the taps in the sinks. When it first comes out of the ground, as you'd expect, it's BROWN. Obviously it needs filtering before you can drink it!

Jonny and Arne's house has a small solar panel that provides electricity to power up to five small fluorescent lights. Luxury, since most people in the village rely on candles!

A neighbouring house – until recently also used by short-termers – also has some solar panels, and these charge up a couple of car-type batteries, which is enough to provide electricity for lights, or a laptop, or battery charger for a phone etc. Quite a luxury….. At the school, for example, the lack of electricity means that the cooks have to prepare meals for ~300 kids with wood fires: you should see the kitchen!

Language Learning: Things Jonny didn’t tell you Part 1!

1.3    Dad's Blog Post no.4

Although Jonny has been in Tanzania for about six months, he's only had Swahili language lessons for about four of them, so I didn't really expect him to show any fluency – just a few greetings and pleasantries. What I got was a shock!

He can really enter into conversation with a wide variety of people in different situations.

At the kindergarten Jonny and Arne lead three groups of children in PE for an hour. This requires command of numerous instructions in Swahili, leading the children in some responsive singing, and interacting with them. It's great to see how enthusiastically the children respond.

In the Kahunda village (approx 13,000 inhabitants) most people walk everywhere and no one has a car. This means that people know and talk to one another! When you're passing someone, there is usually an exchange of greeting – and frequently people want to stop Jonny and ask how he is – and who this other white man is. Since he's involved with some of the children in the village, and he's one of a handful of white people, it seems that a large proportion of the people know him. And most of those that know him are delighted that he can engage with them in their own language!

One of the real highlights was to see Jonny run a Bible Study at the high school for teenagers. Although only a couple of them spoke English with any fluency, Jonny had done a lot of preparation on relevant passages – dealing with the subject of "The Truth" - and they really seemed to embrace what was being presented to them.

[On the other hand, there is a real cultural desire to please – which can sometimes even mean being economical with the truth, if a friendship is thereby preserved.]

Go to Church on a boat!

1.2 Dad’s Blog Post no.3

Andy and Margaret Andersen have been working to plant churches, on some of the many islands of Lake Victoria (by the way it’s over a hundred miles wide and three times larger than Wales!) for more than 15 years. Many churches have been started, and Andy seeks to pastor and encourage the pastors. Sunday was a regular visit to see how one of the congregations was doing.

Andy has two boats and is a highly competent sailor. This Sunday we used his catamaran (I think that means it has two hulls?), a motor when the lake was calm and sails when there was a breeze.

When we arrived, after a journey of more than an hour, we had a short walk up into the village. We arrived unannounced but were made so welcome it was quite overwhelming. Especially given the obvious material poverty in which the people lived. I say “material” because these dear people had a warmth and a genuine hospitality that is rare in our own society. It reminded me of the Macedonians in 2 Corinthians.

After the church service we were invited to a meal that had been prepared since we arrived. It was obvious that they had used their best rice and fish and we were expected to take what we wanted whilst they would have what was left over.

Margaret had brought some Swahili Christian booklets and these were received and read with obvious eagerness. What a joy to see real spiritual hunger for God’s Word!

Please pray for the preacher. He walks for an hour each way – from another part of the island – to lead their services, but a bicycle would make the journey so much easier for him. And he could get a good one for a mere £50.

Arrival 1.1

So we were dropped off in a village and looked for a "pikki-pikki" (motorbike taxi) to give us a lift for the remaining few miles.

I got one but Jonny got a 'croggie' on the back of a push bike first (and paid a tip of course!). Riding on the back of a moped, no crash helmets, at 30-40mph along a pothole-ridden dust track, in the dark, with all the other people and animals sharing the road, was quite hairy! My moped ran out of fuel so we stopped in another village, asked around, and a man brought a can of fuel out from the back of his house – which was probably actually a fuel station! There were quite a few people out in the village, staring & wondering what this white man was doing!

We finally made it to Kahunda…and had a warm welcome and meal from the Anderson family (long-term missionaries) who live next door to Jonny and Arne.

Heathrow to Kahunda in 22 hours! I wonder how long it took Livingston to get to Lake Victoria?!

 

 

Arrival 1.0

So my Dad is in Kahunda and would very much like to do a blog post so here it is:

Thanks Jonny for letting me have a go on your blog! I'd like to describe the journey from Mwanza….

I arrived on a (Gulfstream?) jet seating 50-100 people. Very fast & comfortable. Sat next to a Somali lady from Oslo! Her family (mother & sisters) had fled the country during the civil war 20 years ago and, with hundreds of thousands of other Somalis, settled in Norway. She was on holiday to visit her father, who had decided to stay in Africa rather than live in cold Europe.

In Mwanza (large town some 60 miles from Kahunda) I met Jonny and we immediately got onto a dala dala (minibus with 10-12 other people) and headed for the lakeside to catch a ferry.

This 'dala dala' stopped frequently by the side of the road to pick up and drop off and somehow they knew when to stop and who wanted a ride (the man operating the sliding doors put the fares in his pocket – no tickets – and liked to ride with the door open!).

At the lakeside there were several hundred people waiting for the ferry: some makeshift BBQ's, numerous people wandering around trying to sell jewellery, or peanuts, or mobile phones. As soon as they realised we were looking to get to Kahunda people started offering lifts – on motorbikes or in a truck – and seeing how much money they could charge. Difficult to know who to trust and who was trying to rip you off. Litter everywhere – no-one notices it.

After the ferry we paid a small sum to a man with something like an Toyota Landcruiser. 60 miles on a dirt track, often at 50-60 mph! Barely wide enough for two cars to pass; people also using the road as a path, sometimes herding a few cattle along; small kids on man-sized bicycles, wobbling dangerously; women balancing huge water-containers or bundles of sticks for firewood.

We passed through about 20 villages – all with homes looking more like shacks. Dogs roaming around, people chatting, toddlers playing by the side of the road, people trying to sell stuff from what was no more than a hut. And clouds of dust every time a vehicle went past. That was how we knew when something big was coming towards us!

When the lift finished – because the driver realised his lights weren't working – we were still 10 miles from Kahunda and it was nearly dark!

Bao

I’m getting a couple of the students to teach me how to play a game called Bao. It’s a game where a piece of wood is carved out 8 ‘holes’ by 4 – all the same size. It’s a two player game with a fair few people who watch on. You each have a turn to move a load of the little balls (they are called kete in this game) around, with a few extra bits such as changing direction and taking the other players balls. It’s pretty much a mathematical game.

The first friend we made here Manasi, has just arrived back from his school on a month break. We picked up him, his dad and a lady who is staying in Kahunda for a while. We picked them up about a 20 min drive from Kahunda because their bus fell over/half of a flip, it appears as though the bus driver had been drinking. Praise the Lord that nobody was injured. Their first bus that they had left Mwanza on had broken down which resulted in a 4 hour wait then they either got back on that bus or it was a replacement with which they had the accident after the accident there was another wait for the car to come and get them, not the best way to arrive home from school or on your first trip to Kahunda.