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| The teary goodbye at SeaTac. |
It’s been one week since Caitlin and I stepped, literally,
off of the plane and onto the soil of Mwanza Tanzania. Like Peter we weren’t sure exactly what
we were getting into, but trusting in those who had followed the call before us,
we went. Although harder tests of
faith are sure to come, this week has been a week of challenges but also many
rewards as we begin following Yesu Kristo in Tanzania.
Storks, bumps and fettucini.
We arrived early on Friday morning and undertook our
biggest challenge so far- staying up another 12 hours after flying 32 hours in
order to adjust to the Tanzanian time zone. Most likely the lack of sleep exacerbated the bumpy roads,
ugly storks and foreignness of the land we are now calling home. Needless to
say, although we were excited, our first day was a bit overwhelming.
However, the next day, New Years Eve, we began to settle
in and get adjusted. We had a
subtle, but fun New Years Eve celebration drinking wine and sharing stories
with others of our new Maryknoller family of lay missioners, priests, brothers
and sisters (one of whom has been here since the days of the British in the
1950’s). The community was very warm and welcoming as they shared about how for
3 years they have been waiting and praying for MKLM to send them new lay
missioners. It was very clear that they were all excited to have some fresh
blood in the region.
At midnight the neighborhood children began marching/running
around the neighborhood chanting “Happy New Year” or something in Swahili and
banging pots, pans and plastic jugs. Many kids stood at the gate of our house
and yelled “Happy New Year!” to us in English and then in regular Tanzanian
child fashion, followed the greeting with, “Give me my money!” In all, we
surprised ourselves by being able to stay awake for the dawning of 2012 in our
new hometown.
The next few days were a blur of visits to all of the
mission sites, talk of modems and cell phones and resident visas and a couple
of visits to some not so Tanzanian restaurants. We spent a lot of time in the
car, driving through the craziness that is the streets of Mwanza. The major
roads are paved but swarmed with people walking and pushing carts of fruits and
vegetables , people riding motorcycles and bicycles, and cars that prefer the
creative driving method and dalla dalla buses that are constantly pulling over
and then pulling back into the road at random. Just riding in the car is an
adventure and I haven’t even talked about the side roads yet.
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| Downtown Mwanza looking rather subdued. |
The roads around the house in which we stayed in Mwanza
are dirt and seem to change from day to day depending on the rain. They are
marked with potholes, deep ruts and grand canyons on the worst days. Driving
over them is a full body workout at times as it takes all of your core muscles
to keep your body from bouncing like a rag doll against the windows or the
people sitting beside you.
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| Huruma School |
Although the car rides were taxing they were well worth it
when we arrived at our mission sites. David’s school, Huruma, is up a long and
VERY bumpy road in the hills. The surrounding area is actually one of the most
beautiful places in Mwanza. The land is red and scattered with large boulders
and cement house with tin roofs. It looks almost like how I would imagine the
surface of the moon would look (except with lush vegetation and farm plots scattered
everywhere). Huruma School is in a new three room building. There are two
traditional classrooms with desks and chairs and then one multi-purpose room
that serves as both a wood shop and physical therapy room. We were given a tour of the school by Andrew,
the mwalimu mku (head teacher) and talked about the students schedules. He also showed us the very large canyon
that the surface drainage has made in their driveway which will be a big
obstacle for the dala dala (public transportation) to bring the students who
can’t walk to school. Shida Kubwa!
(Big problem!).
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| The Grand Canyon in the driveway at Huruma School. |
Caitlin’s school, or chekechea as they call preschool in
Tanzania is on the opposite end of town at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in
Butimba. Like Huruma it is also in a very beautiful area. The two classrooms
are nestled into a shady green sanctuary on the property of the church.
Although it is only a about a mile outside of the heart of the city it feels
very quiet and peaceful once you are in the gates of the parish.
Caitlin was happy to meet her Mwalimu Mku, Grace who
showed her around her two classrooms. The rooms were pretty bare at first
glance, but upon closer examination of the shelves that bordered the room,
there were several sets of math, science, and literacy manipulatives that piqued
Caitlin’s interest. Caitlin was also very happy to find out that although the
teacher’s are Montessori trained, they are very open to her ideas. As one of
the other Maryknoll Lay Missioners explained, “In Tanzania, ‘Montessori’ really
only means that the teachers don’t hit the kids and make them memorize
everything”. These are clearly two notions that Caitlin can really get behind.
Overall the week was marked by the extreme hospitality of
George and Michelle Otte and Joanne Miya, our fellow team members who have
already been living here. George,
a resourceful foodie, managed to find the ingredients for such things as
omelets, pasta primavera, coffee cake and, the best, shrimp fettuccini (with a
little help from the parmesan cheese which Katie Reid brought from the
states). Mind you this is no small
feet in a town where vegetables and meats are bought in open-air stalls in the
middle of a field.
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| George and Michelle's house. |
Now we are at language school (more on that next post) and
trying our best to not butcher the language. We miss and love you all and hope you enjoyed hearing about
our first week. Please continue to
keep us in your prayers and of course send any emails or facebook messages with
news from home!!
