It’s chilly out

My sterotype of Africa before I came was that it’s basically the Sahara desert, savannah grasslands and heat continent wide, despite knowing from geography lessons past that there’s rainforest (green) too.

Well I was wrong. There are places where it’s cold and Kijabe is one of them, I also presume that the top of Kilimanjaro is pretty cold too as there’s white stuff on the top.

Place of the wind is the translation for Kijabe – the name of the town where RVA is. Logically I guess that means that the windchill factor is high especially at the altitude it’s at. So it wasn’t a smart move leaving my coat and hoodie in another bag in Nairobi, clothes I didn’t have to use very often in Kahunda! I'm sniffing and typing this with a blocked nose...I think I've got a cold, the first for a long time.

Masanga means someone who brings people together (meaning given from the guy who gave me the name).

RVA – Rift Valley Academy

Little America

An unofficial name for RVA, as far as I’m aware it’s used because the school is American therefore American teaching, food and language despite no American football pitch. It’s this way so that the students will be able to adjust easily back into school or ‘college’ (uni) in America. But there are two full size Rugby pitches at RVA, Rugby alongside ‘soccer’ (football) and basketball are the biggest sports here. This year there hasn’t been an opportunity for the titchies (grades 1-6) to learn and play Rugby. My total time here will be about three weeks with a few training sessions a week for these young guys.

RVA – Rift Valley Academy

So long & farewell

The last day was a weird feeling, half knowing that I’m not returning anytime soon and the other half looking forward to a break from Kahunda and a change of scenery. The night before I left Kahunda I went and said goodbye to a couple of the families I’d been close with. And took some pictures in the dark, it’s hard to know where to point the camera if you can’t see anything through the viewfinder.

Goodbye Party

Giving a short talk on Luke 21:34-36

On the 21^st May Arne and I had a farewell ‘party’(Tanzanian version, a very formal occasion) at the secondary school. Arne and I both gave talks mine slightly briefer than Arne’s. We gave out tracts to the students including a Johns Gospel each. There was singing from the Ukwata Choir – Tanzania Youth Christian Fellowship Organisation. And speeches from the headmaster and deputy plus a few other guys that we had invited. We understood a little bit, as they spoke in Kiswahili. There was food afterwards, and on the whole the event went well despite sitting through some rain.

Arne and I - near the end as we have just eaten

Scurrying Salamanders

A live Salamander

So it was a standard evening, Regan and Dan were over (two of our secondary school sfriends), cooking rice. They then went outside for a second and told us to come out as they had a surprise for us. Arne and I went out and they had dragged onto our doorstep a dead salamander, it had been killed up at the school, and they bought it down for us...lovely. It made us jump out of our skin when we saw it! This episode came after we watched a live salamander hide out in one of its holes below our kitchen window.

Salamanders (in unscientific language) are like huge lizards, huge as in about 4ft in length.

A dead salamander... I just happened to be brushing my teeth.

Biking cats

The other day I went with Andy to one of the islands just a catamaran sail away from Kahunda. The first stop, giving a cat to a leprous old man who can’t feel his fingers; this means he doesn’t feel the mice which nibble on his fingers during the night. The cat which had already been given away – but found its way back twice is now separated by a long stretch of water, we are definitely not expecting to see it in Kahunda again. The second and final stop dropping off a brand new bike for an evangelist a few bays over on the island. He leads one of the Churches on the island which again is a couple of bays over from his home. The push bike will definitely make his commute easier – it’s a flat journey and he will now be able to make it minutes rather than an hour or so. The bike is a model from Shanghai which is almost the only kind of bike around so getting it repaired and spare parts won’t be an issue. On the way back we had to use the engine as it was pretty calm, but when this ran out of petrol we resulted to paddling. However this gradually got easier because the wind picked up and carried us home. It certainly made me more grateful for the little breeze which makes the boat move in an entirely effortless way.

I have been given a new name, Masanga (pronounced Masanja). This name was given to me by my language helper Mr Ngokolo a teacher at Kahunda Secondary school.

Arne and I are having a leaving do on Saturday up at the school. I hope it’s not as long as some of the ‘parties’ I’ve been to while in Kahunda.

Funeral

One of the pastors who work on the islands here has died. I met him once when I went on an island trip for 2 nights, I know some of his kids (my age and older) who live close by. The whole occasion is very communal, when news gets out people start turning up at the house. So Tuesday afternoon I went and sat there for a couple of hours and returned after doing sports at school at 7pm. Later on in the evening a few boats full of guys come over from a couple of the islands where he had been a pastor. I knew a few from my visit. The body and a load of fellow pastors arrived and everyone who was there (between 120 and 200 people) went to greet them as they arrived. At the house the men and women stay separate, the women sleep with the body in the house and the men stay outside, so I stayed out. There was some singing and a devotion and a big open fire. The church choir finished at 2am and at 3 some ladies came and gave us chai (tea). Then all the guys thought it was going to rain so we went to find some shelter, there was almost enough room but not quite. So I and a couple of others returned to the fire and there was no rain.

From 6-7am so I got a little bit of shut eye. But then it was morning and it did rain. I found my house key which I lost during the night. When it stopped raining the men went up to the church and dug the grave (I only watched on). It wasn’t just a couple of guys, everyone pitched in. One guy would use a jembe (hoe) and break up a load of soil then someone else would jump in and use a spade to get the dirt out, but they were swapping these guys all the time. Back to the house where the ladies (who do all the cooking and washing) had made sweet potatoes and chai. Then everyone went up to the church. Every funeral I have been to here has been open casket and so was this one. There was also 17 pastors there. When the service finished I went back over to the house where I helped get some more firewood and start get the fire going (a job for the young men). There was a devotion and a late lunch. At about 8pm I went home where I slept.

Land of the Datooga

So last week Arne and I went on a home stay to Reagan’s house. But for 3 nights and two days we went to visit some other friends. They are a family working with the Datooga (one of the 100 or so tribes in TZ). They are on the south side of Lake Eyasi (just south of the Ngorongolo crater). The environment was fairly green as it is wet season but for 9 months of the year it’s dessert like.

We were able to visit some of the Datooga homes where I helped shepherd some goats with my fimbo (stick) that every Datooga man carries. We also helped stretch out a skin of a cow (covered with cow excretion) cutting little slits and then hammering with a rock little stakes to stretch it out, it wasn’t a clean job but it was something I’d never done and I enjoyed that. The women when they are married are presented with a leather skirt, which shows that they are married. They don’t take it off for years apparently they have a pungent smell especially when in a enclosed space with someone wearing one for instance a car. When we went into a house I was given a challenge by our host to find 10 non organic items apart from their clothes and jewellery, I saw a cooking pot, plastic bags, plastic cups, packets of animal medicine, and one or two other things but that was it, and not 10. By non organic I mean things that they hadn’t made themselves or sourced naturally like the grinding stones or the wooden stools.

One of the homes we visited was one of the richest guys around, he has hundreds of cows and hundreds of goats. He is also a witch doctor, we didn’t meet him, but going into his home we saw and were told about the pointed sticks in the house under the roof pointing out the door. The number sticks represents how powerful a witch doctor you are 1 being low and the highest being around 6 and this guy had 6. You could see that one stick was pretty recent as it wasn’t too black from the soot (cooking). In his thorn enclosure there were 5 houses one for each of his wives.

We went to the school in the village although you couldn’t tell it was a village because the centre consists of about 3 buildings: a café, house and a stable or roofed enclosure. To say you’d blink and miss would be a severe understatement. The houses are in thorn enclosures over 500m apart so it’s not what you’d picture when you think of a village. In the school Arne and I taught them the “God is so good” song in Swahili and spoke to them a little and a story resembling the Gospel.

It really gave some meaning to the saying ‘in the sticks’ the separating of the sheep from the goats and a picture like that of the Old Testament.

Whistling Drums

So recently at KSS (Kahunda secondary school) there was an inter dorm sports competition and more recently a regional interschool competition. The main sport is football and as far as I’ve seen exclusively for boys, though I’ve seen a couple of girls doing more kick ups than I can do by far.

When a goal is scored the avid drumbeating fans (other students) run onto the pitch to congratulate and celebrate with their scoring team. The sideline is not objective but subjective – it’s debateable. For the interschool competition they marked out a sideline but before that it was where the ref decided it was the watching students or where the players determine.

Most students don’t have a pair of shoes to play football in (it’s not a necessity). But you’d see a few pairs of shoes on the pitch. Often one student would have one shoe and another the other of the pair.

The referee’s cards can only be seen by the ref and anyone who has really good eyesight because they are about the size of your small fingernail. The ref would often have his discussions with a player by blasting on the whistle in quick succession almost like he was talking through it like Morse code.

In the way of first aid, there is none. If someone can’t get off the pitch themselves a handful of students come on and pick the injured player by his limbs and then walk him off the pitch.

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!