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Note: Please do NOT respond to any requests for money purporting to come
from the church in Tanzania. These
messages don’t come from the church; they come from crooks. For information on how to support the
church in Tanzania, please contact the Diocesan Link Committee. |
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January 2010 December ended, and January began with rain
and more rain. But since then it's
been heat and sun all the way. The
only part of this world that has benefited has been the weeds and the only
use for them has been as compost after being savagely dug up. I harvested my beans this week, and should
be able to plant again and harvest in June if the rain actually returns. |
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The month without rain has proved how bad the
Dodoma-Kondoa road actually is- buses are still getting stuck on it, though
not in the mud but in the ditches that have been carved out by the rain, and we
have found many an overturned lorry stranded.
Surely in an election year the government can find the money to fix
the worst parts of the road and widen it (Kondoa is a marginal area- the
opposition party has a large following and so if the ruling party wants to
keep its Kondoa seats it usually spends some money on food aid and road
repair in election year). A nationwide programme of mosquito net
distribution is currently in progress.
Every child under five and every pregnant woman will be given a mosquito
net free. What is interesting from my
point of view is the organisation that has gone into it. The nets are taken in huge lorries to the
district centres. From there they are
taken to the wards and then to the large villages in 4x4s. From those they are carried on a convoy of
bikes into the smaller villages. The
chairperson of every area and village is in charge of data collection and
ultimately the distribution. The
announcements are read out in churches and mosques and then spread through the
old women gossip network. Looks
incredibly disorganised from the outside, but it works and by the end of a
month every child under five and every pregnant woman will have a net- so
much cheaper than the way NGOs go about it.
Went to Wekense last week (St Peter’s link
parish) to see how its building work is going. I stayed with my friend's parents. The poor things had arranged loads of
meetings for me whereas I had different ideas- as soon as I got there I took
a bit of cloth, laid it in the shade and slept. To be fair they let me sleep for over four
hours and only woke me up for food then let me sleep again! All is forgiven when you mention you're on
medication for malaria (well at least I haven't had it since October; 3
months malaria-free is pretty good going for me!)! The following day I did the round of
meetings. Never seen such well kept
cash books in my life: added up to the cent.
Then we had the service under a tree (the old church building's mud
roof has collapsed in the rain). The
only problem is the moving shade; we had to constantly move benches and
people! How anyone can dance as energetically as the youth choir in the 35
degree heat I will never know. Whilst I was there we a young boy aged 4 died,
and everyone swears he died because of black magic. His parents recently split up, and the
mother came to claim the child as hers (under Tanzanian law the mother raises
the child until it reaches 7 years and then the child is handed over to the
father). The father refused to hand
the boy over and so the woman said that as she can't have him neither of them
will, and left. The next day the child
was dead. Black magic still holds
reign over many people's lives here.
This breeds a wide-spread fear that really constricts people's
lives. I'm now back in
Kondoa town until I leave for the UK. I might be preaching on Sunday in the
cathedral if they trust me! Hope all are well. Beth x |
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February
2010 December ended, and January began with
rain and more rain. But since then it's been heat and sun all the
way. The only part of this world that has benefited has been the weeds
and the only use for them has been as compost after being savagely dug
up. I harvested my beans this week, and should be able to plant again
and harvest in June if the rain actually returns. |
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The month without rain has proved how bad
the Dodoma-Kondoa road actually is- buses are still getting stuck on it,
though not in the mud but in the ditches that have been carved out by the
rain, and we have found many an overturned lorry stranded. Surely in an
election year the government can find the money to fix the worst parts of the
road and widen it (Kondoa is a marginal area- the opposition party has a
large following and so if the ruling party wants to keep its Kondoa seats it
usually spends some money on food aid and road repair in election year). A nationwide programme of mosquito net
distribution is currently in progress. Every child under five and every
pregnant woman will be given a mosquito net free. What is interesting
from my point of view is the organisation that has gone into it. The
nets are taken in huge lorries to the district centres. From there they
are taken to the wards and then to the large villages in 4x4s. From
those they are carried on a convoy of bikes into the smaller villages.
The chairperson of every area and village is in charge of data collection and
ultimately the distribution. The announcements are read out in churches
and mosques and then spread through the old women gossip network. Looks
incredibly disorganised from the outside, but it works and by the end of a
month every child under five and every pregnant woman will have a net- so
much cheaper than the way NGOs go about it. Went to Wekense last week (St Peter’s
link parish) to see how its building work is going. I stayed with my
friend's parents. The poor things had arranged loads of meetings for me
whereas I had different ideas- as soon as I got there I took a bit of cloth,
laid it in the shade and slept. To be fair they let me sleep for over
four hours and only woke me up for food then let me sleep again! All is
forgiven when you mention you're on medication for malaria (well at least I
haven't had it since October; 3 months malaria-free is pretty good going for
me!)! The following day I did the round of meetings. Never seen
such well kept cash books in my life: added up to the cent. Then we had
the service under a tree (the old church building's mud roof has collapsed in
the rain). The only problem is the moving shade; we had to constantly
move benches and people! How anyone can dance as energetically as the youth
choir in the 35 degree heat I will never know. Whilst I was there we a young
boy aged 4 died, and everyone swears he died because of black magic.
His parents recently split up, and the mother came to claim the child as hers
(under Tanzanian law the mother raises the child until it reaches 7 years and
then the child is handed over to the father). The father refused to
hand the boy over and so the woman said that as she can't have him neither of
them will, and left. The next day the child was dead. Black magic
still holds reign over many people's lives here. This breeds a
wide-spread fear that really constricts people's lives. I'm now back in Kondoa town until I leave for
the UK. I might be preaching on Sunday in the cathedral if they trust me! Hope all are well. Beth x |
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March
2010 I'm afraid my newsletter this month is coming from less sunnier
climes- 9C is the highest temperature that the great British weather has
conjured up for me (and I didn't even get to see snow!) |
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At the beginning of February I was finally allowed to preach in
Kondoa cathedral- only took 3 and a half
years! In the town they expect higher standards than in the villages so
I was rather nervous before standing up. The rules are that no one who
has not studied at a bible college is allowed to preach so they had to bend
the rules for me- plus being female does not help! So I played it safe and
did a bit of a tirade against infidelity, alcoholism and being judgemental
(yes they do all fit in together- honestly). Unfortunately I've been
invited back- for a regular slot every month! Have to mention women's
rights if I ever want a lie-in (the early service starts at 7am!)
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April
2010 The final rains are here- light showers at night, giving a bit of hope
to those who had previously been looking hopelessly at maize that is tall but
has no grain. We are slowly moving into the cold season- though still have 30
degree average temperatures! I've started my annual round-the-villages trip. I started in a village
called Paranga, where the vicar should have retired
years ago- he's way past retirement age, has had over 14 children, and really
should just be looked after by his sons and settle to a life of checking on
the family goats. He still walks for over 3 hours to visit villages that have
no vicar! And his wife accompanies him- if I am that fit at their age having
borne over 14 kids I'll be in shock! Depressingly I found the honey season is
going to be 2 months late- usually they start collecting honey in April but
they've informed me this year they aren't expecting to start until June- I
did of course promise to return as soon as honey is available! |
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I did get rather annoyed whilst I was in Paranga.
An Aid Agency wishes to dig a bore hole- very good idea. It wants every adult
to contribute Tsh3,000 (£1.50)- very good idea. It
expected these contributions to be in by the end of April when people haven't
even started harvesting, people are going to bed hungry as food has run out
and they can't even afford Tsh200 (10p) for soap- very bad idea!!! They put
the village council in charge of collecting the contributions, and anyone who
didn't pay was locked inside the village hall until a relative brought the
money. Of course, people had to sell goats though as the market was suddenly
flooded as so many people were selling to get the water contribution that
they were selling at less than a third of the market price! Some Aid Agencies
just don't think! As a response to this I've encouraged the cathedral congregation to
set up a loan scheme for village vicars so they can take out a small
(Tsh20,000- £10) emergency loan during the period of December through April
(repaid after the harvest in June), a time when there's a shortage of food
and harvest is still far off- the poor Paranga
vicar certainly did not have the Tsh6,000 needed for his wife and he, and the
church collection the previous week was just 700 shillings (35p)! How
shameful it would have been for the Diocese if one of their vicars was locked
up in the village hall for failure to pay the contribution! So the final loan
conditions are being ironed out and fund raising is taking place so the
scheme will be working by this November. The following week I went to Kambi Ya Nyasa, a village I've never been to before. It's where
the Cairo-Cape Town cyclists camped out as they were travelling the
Arusha-Kondoa road (very apt as Kambi is Swahili
for Camp). I heard many stories about the cyclists from the villagers, who
even a month later were still talking about it- women who had 'no hips'
(thin), men who had long hair (why do they want to look like women?) and
attempting to buy supplies in a tiny village where the only things sold are
sugar, salt and soap and most of the population don't even speak Swahili!
When I then pointed out that these cyclists weren't even paid- the shock at
these 'weird white people' was complete! I did get to go to Dodoma however the 3 days I put aside to go there
coincided exactly with the 3 days that the Internet was down throughout
Tanzania and Kenya! The announcement hadn't reached Kondoa! However it does
mean that hopefully the Internet Service across East Africa will improve-
they were laying a new cable which comes from 'under the sea'- somewhere
across the Indian Ocean, meant to make Broadband available. We'll see! The American Missionaries had a May 5th party (a Mexican holiday I
believe- anyway we ate lots of Mexican food- made a change from beans and
rice!). It was good to see all the American Peace Corps workers who came last
year. And only one has gone home (out of 9) so not a bad drop-out rate! The
next time we'll be having a get-together (when another would have left-
though he's going to get married and will be moving to another part of
Tanzania) is of course July 4th, and I've offered to host them! Ideas for
American food anyone? This weekend I'll be going to Bereko and then by foot to Kikilo (see how fit I really am). On the 26th of this
month I'll have been here for 4 years! How time flies! American recipes to my usual e-mail address! Bethx
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May
2010 4 cold seasons, 4
hot seasons, 4 rainy seasons and 4 harvest seasons. 4 November months when
the scorpions and flies come out of hiding. 4 May months when Malaria is at
its most rife and 4 Decembers when everyone is praying that the rains will
come on time. When I think back I know I am very blessed to have had
the privilege of becoming so involved in the Kondoa community and to have
learnt so much, and to have become so content and satisfied with life.
As it is, I am returning to the UK ‘for good’ in December, when I will have
been working here for 4 and a half years. |
The new Wekense church takes shape |
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Our Diocese has been given a stand-in bishop who, when I told
him I only have 6 months left, informed me that he expects that for the next
6 months I won’t be sleeping due to the amount of work he will give me. So, as well as being the Education
Coordinator and Assistant Coordinator for Youth and Children’s work, I am now
Head of the Development Department and Advisor for every department in the
diocese. Plus he wishes me to continue
to travel around the villages and to prepare a report on every church which
can be given to a future bishop. He’s
right, I won’t be sleeping!!! I started off May in Bereko where I visited one of the Peace
Corps volunteers who works at the Health
Clinic. I found her ripe maize rotting
because she hadn’t harvested and the rains kept falling, so I forced her out
of her chair and into the field.
Laziness is not the friend of farming.
Fortunately some of the patients waiting to be treated saw us and came
to help so we harvested the whole field in just an hour (and we made sure
those who helped went to the front of the queue.) She gave me carrots and onions from her
vegetable garden as payment (she’s fast becoming a Tanzanian.) On the Sunday I awoke early, had a quick breakfast and was out
in the rain to walk to a village called Kikilo. I had been told that it would be ‘about 90
mins.’ Yeah, right! 3 hours of walking
through the rain - sometimes showers, sometimes pouring - later we got there. It was rather dispiriting as I knew the
village was on the side of a hill next to a deep valley, so every time we
were on a hill looking over a valley I thought we were nearly there, but
no. We arrived, covered in grit and
soaked through, and went straight to the unroofed church where we sang and
danced and prayed whilst being rained on.
We started the service with 2 adults and 10 children, and finished it
with 5 adults and 15 children, all totally soaked through. We had lunch and waited for the rain to
stop and finally set off at 4. Unfortunately
the toilet of the house we were waiting in had fallen down in January and no
house nearby had such conveniences, so we had to wait until we were walking
back and in the farms to finally breathe.
The walk back was at least dry, though very muddy and my flip flops
were carried away whilst crossing a knee-deep (normally dry) stream. We sprinted after them and did, thankfully,
manage to just get them before they joined the faster moving river. NB: A long skirt hinders sprinting in
knee-deep water. We finally arrived
back at Bereko as the 7 o’clock Islamic Prayers were starting, covered in
thick mud and aching all over, and just washed and went straight to bed. As compensation and out of sympathy for my
difficult walk a bike turned up the next morning with a sack of maize, 2
sacks of sweet potatoes and guava fruits. They’re so sweet! |
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In between village visits I had a meeting in Dodoma to prepare for
the Youth Concert of this year which will be held in a district called Mpwapwa (about 7 hours on the bus, South East of
Kondoa). We’ve been given permission
to bring five choirs, and the main topic is ‘Preventing Bribery and
Corruption’! Very apt as it will be
the General Election just two weeks after our concert (the candidates have
been very apt at paying for votes.)
Having come back from Dodoma I went to a village called Itolwa (from
where you can see Mt. Kilimanjaro across the plains of the Tarangire, amazing
view). I always receive a fantastic
reception there; people come out to the bus stand with drums and process me
to the vicar’s house whilst singing and dancing. The following day I went with the girls
from the choir on the half hour walk to the sand river to collect water. We dug a shallow well in the river bed, and
whilst waiting for it to fill with water we played games. |
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There were about 25 of us and we split into 2 teams and played a
game a bit like piggy in the middle, but where the piggy is trying not to be
hit and at the same time is filling a bucket with sand. Once hit, another member of the team takes
over until all members are ‘out’, at which point the number of buckets
completely full are counted. We played
this 3 times, and my team won by a whole innings. We then pulled a long vine off the cliff
and played skipping games, and I then taught them a bit of Irish dancing
(they wanted to know how we danced in the UK and they weren’t impressed with
my bobbing on the spot!) at which point the wells were filled with water and
we could then fill our buckets up, the youngest carrying 2 litre
bottles. On the way back it poured
down with rain (getting quite fed up of this) and then, whilst walking
through a puddle, my shoe thong snapped and I fell over rather comically, and
my bucket, which had been balancing nicely on my head without any hands to
support it, fell off and flipped onto its lid which then split. I was impressively calm and returned the
bucket to my head (only a litre had been spilt) and placed my shoes on top of
the bucket and walked the last 15mins back pretending I didn’t feel the
thorns stuck in my feet. My street cred rocketed at that point, and went even higher when I
spent the evening sitting by the wood cooking fire (they were amazed that my
eyes didn’t water. I omitted to tell them I wear contact lenses, which means
my eyes aren’t affected by smoke!) |
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An energetic choir in front of the new
Wekense church |
The bus left at 4:30am and by 4:45am it had broken down. One of the conductors set off on a bike to
go to Kondoa to get the spare part needed, so we sat down for a long
wait. I chatted with the local men
about polygamy The village we stopped in was completely Islamic and they used
the same argument that I’ve heard many times before; a man needs one fat, one
thin, one black, one pale wife to be fully satisfied. A young Muslim girl told me I shouldn’t
question God’s law (she’s been taught that God commanded that a man should
have more than one wife) and so I asked her if she had ever read the
Qur’an. She hadn’t as she had never
been to school and so never learnt to read as “it’s
God’s law that a girl should not be educated.” Perhaps I should start teaching from the
Qur’an to groups of Muslim women and bring about a little women’s lib. So, over the next month I’ll be travelling to more villages at
weekends and spending the weekdays in the office, and not sleeping until I
return to the UK on the 3rd December and then sleep non-stop until Christmas
Day! Take care, Beth x |
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JUNE 2010 It may not have been England-Algeria in Cape Town, but The Christians
vs. The Pagans in Wekense certainly had more goals! Gathered under the ever-darkening heavy sky
surrounded by rocky hills on a thorny field were Wekense’s answers to Rooney
and Gerard. The bare-footed number 4,
not yet finished primary school, showed himself to
have the grit and determination to rival the professionals- and a much higher
pain threshold! A perfect 1-2 was
unfortunately interrupted by a herd of cows returning from the river,
stubbornly ignoring the pitch markings and crossing the penalty box just as
the final cross was volleyed towards goal.
The offending bull has of course been re-named John Terry in honour of
his beautiful save! The match itself
was very clean (no one wanting to fall on those thorns an inch long and
having too much compassion to do the same to anyone else, or knowing that
they will get paid back later on.) |
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I was in Wekense for a five-day youth conference that started each morning
at 5 o’clock with ringing of the church ‘bell’ (a rusted inner-wheel from a
lorry.) Ten minutes later the sound of
pounding feet as the youth set off on a 10km run to the next village and back
and then ran to the top of a nearby hill to collect rocks and bring them down
(to be used in the continuing building work of the church) and by sunrise
they were off to collect water and wood for cooking breakfast! And they would continue singing and dancing
until 1am! Also bear in mind that about 70% of the
girls were either pregnant or had young babies on their backs! |
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The highlight of the conference was the Saturday Choir
Competition. Every choir sang 3 songs,
and were judged. Anyone who knows how
tone-deaf I am will wonder how I ever got chosen to be on the judging panel,
but hey I’m just special! The surprise
winners were an ‘elders’ choir’, a group of mature men and women who started
a choir in response to their belief that the young people of today just use
the choirs to pick up mates and to show off, and all their songs are about
the iniquity of youth! Their acting of
a bloke smoking cannabis with a heavily pregnant
half-dressed girl on his arm was something else! The teenage daughter of the family I stayed
with, who should have given birth by the time you read this, is still waiting
for the father of her baby to marry her- apparently he’s waiting till after
the birth at which point he will decide whether to marry her- basically, he
will base his decision on whether she bears a boy or a girl! The youth of today!!! |
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Our chosen secular topic
for this year’s youth conferences is corruption, and the songs written were
rather poignant- especially when one chorus mentioned how children die in
hospitals because their parents can’t afford to bribe the staff (treatment
for all under-fives is officially free, but you may never get to see a
doctor, or may be told the medication has run out, unless you pay a
bribe). The situation at the
Immigration department is remarkably better, as I found when I went to extend
my residence permit for the next six months.
All legitimate payments must be made at the bank and so if any money
is seen being handed over it is obvious that it is a bribe (but my nice,
newly-sewn outfit and my ‘single’ status on my application form enabled the
young man processing my application to have it all signed off within a couple
of hours rather than the few days that it should have taken! I agreed to take his phone number, and oops
I’ve already lost it...) |
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Another place I was given
a phone number was at the Traffic Police post whilst waiting for a bus back
to Kondoa having left Wekense. Bribery
was much more blatant there; every lorry stopped was asked for the Vehicle
Card, which was always handed over folded up with a few thousand shillings in
it. I’m not the most observant person,
but that was just blatant. At one
point I excused myself to use their ‘office’ (toilet) simply to allow their
negotiations to get a few more shillings out of a driver of one particularly
non-roadworthy truck. It was so
appreciated that the head officer gave me his phone number- conveniently
forgetting that he had chatted to his wife on the phone whilst I was there! Next month I’ll let you
know how the 4th July went, and give you some ideas for alternative uses of
the free mosquito nets, as seen in villages...Bethx |
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July 2010 Letter from Kondoa NUMBER 50! The July abundance
of money (most have now harvested and sold some of their produce, albeit for
ridiculously low prices) have led to buses overflowing and people being left
by the side of the road waiting four days for a bus with sufficient standing
room. I foolishly didn’t buy a ticket
early enough for my trip back to Kondoa from Dodoma, leading to my sitting on
the engine cover of the midday bus on a cushion thoughtfully provided by the
bus driver to protect my backside from being dry-fried! We were just getting into the villages when
an open Land Rover shot past us then swerved in front and slowed down, full
with uniformed and armed men, pointing their weapons at the driver. In any of our neighbouring countries such a
situation would have led to fear and screaming, but not in Tanzania. Oh no, the bus boys laughed and the driver
wagged his finger at the armed men!
One of the many times I’ve been glad to live in a peaceful country
with no recent history of civil war. |
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Sadly, the girl I
mentioned in my last update had a stillborn child (she gave birth in her home
village with no midwifery provision for difficult births), and so the fiancée
has now confirmed that he has no interest in marrying her and that the family
may pay back the dowry if they feel it is appropriate!!! Her older sister asked permission from her
husband to go to the hospital to see her (the girl’s condition was very poor for
a couple of days though she has now made a full recovery) and he
refused. She started packing her bags
anyway, thinking he might change his mind, and so he beat her and literally
bit her ear off (whilst she held onto the blade of the knife he wanted to
stab her with)! The girls’ father has
returned them both to the family home and needless to say neither has future
plans for marriage. It has been a month
of funerals, marked by the toppling over of a lorry on its way to a village
market, top heavy with goods and people.
38 people were injured with 15 people dying and the top surgeon being
brought from the capital to Kondoa.
The press were out in force. I
managed to get on the TV: I was
visiting someone who was just ill, but they decided a white woman sitting on
the hospital floor (no chairs), feeding uji (porridge) to an ill person was a
good picture! Whilst the press were
there the ward was full of doctors and nurses, when usually 1 nurse being
present is a welcome sight. The whole
town went into communal mourning and the greeting became ‘pole’ (‘sorry’) as
everyone knew well or was related to someone who died. The fact that the owner of the lorry is an
MP who wishes to be returned again in the upcoming election ensured that the
seriously ill patients were taken to the best hospitals and money was doled
out to the bereaved (not very helpful to the woman I know who has four young
children and depended on her husband for money and now has no possible source
of income; the money barely covered the cost of the funeral.) I was invited to
Paranga to attend a ‘dua’ (about 40 days after a funeral, marking the end of
the mourning period and when the late person’s possessions are divided
up.) It started Friday evening with
all the women sorting and cleaning rice and beans and cooking chai, and then
started proper at 9pm with the youth singing and dancing, the old men sitting
in a circle around a fire, and the women sitting against the house wall
gossiping and watching the dancing. At 11pm we heard drums in the distance
and 10 minutes later a women’s choir turned up from a village an hour’s walk
away and they really got things going with drumming and whistling, and this
continued until 5am!! I have to admit
I curled myself up on the ground at 2am and woke up with bruised ribs. We all then had chai and prepared for the
service. The man who had died was a
Christian but the whole neighbourhood turned out- both Christian and Muslim
(same as at Islamic funerals- the whole community turns out) and I was called
on to preach! And I haven’t even
mentioned July 4th- well, needless to say we had hamburgers (with gherkins!)
and hot dogs and even played with different coloured sparklers (the Peace
Corps volunteer is a Chemistry teacher!)
And the mosquito nets will also have to wait again. Enjoy the hot
weather whilst it lasts. Bethx |
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August 2010 Driving
through the wastelands, side saddle on a motorbike, driven by a Masai warrior
in full traditional outfit. How many other
people can lay claim to that? The
purpose of the trip was to go to Mombose, a village far from the bus routes
populated by the Masai and Sandawe (hunting tribe that speaks a clicky
language). The bizarre thing about the
village is that it's just Masai and Sandawe, but the lingua franca is not
Swahili but Gogo (would love an anthropologist to explain why this is). Fortunately I've become pretty fluent in
Gogo so communication was not so much as a problem as it could have
been! |
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The
area the Masai live in is 5km from the nearest Primary School and so have
asked for me to help them set up a Pre-Primary School. I was very reluctant as I have previously promised
myself I will not set up any new schools in my last few months here. Having said that, a Masai elder who has 600
cows decided that he would build the classroom himself by selling some of his
cows and that he would ensure the school was run properly and that the
teacher would be paid. After that, how
could I say no? So, at the end of
September I will again be on the motorbike being taken to a community meeting
with the elders and village government officials to officially set up another
school! The
following day, having returned to a nearby village called Farkwa, a goat
arrived, tied to the very same motorbike!
I returned to town with the goat in the bus boot and it's now living
very happily with a neighbour, being fattened up until it's due time- at the
end of November at my leaving party!
The return bus journey was rather amusing- it's basically a school
bus, picking up children in one village and taking them to the nearest school
which is in the next village, then onto the next , picking more children up
then dropping them off at the next.
The problem was that the children were so excited about going to
school that they wouldn't patiently wait to go out the door, they jumped
through the windows! 60 children
jumping out of 10 windows is quite a spectacle! Unfortunately,
I am now rather scared of going to the toilet in the night. In Farkwa I stayed with an old woman who
locked the door at night and tied the keys on the cloth around her waist. I had stupidly drank a soda before sleeping
and so was caught short in the early
hours of the morning. I woke the lady
up to ask for the keys. Her response:
What? You want to go outside? You can't go outside, there are wizards
waiting to steal your soul! I decided
I would prefer not to be soulless and so meekly returned to bed! My
neighbour went to Dar for a wedding and decided it would be good practice for
me to look after her 3 year old daughter for the week. My respect for parents has now
tripled! Just getting her ready for
school on time in the morning was a miracle, ensuring she was fed and then
getting her off to sleep... well, lets just say after a week of it I was
ready for some sleep! She (Winnie)
also chose to come down with malaria and hook worm so I spent the day at the
hospital just waiting to see a doctor and get the medication. I was very proud when her mother returned
and remarked that her daughter was looking well and despite the malaria had
actually put on weight! Having said
that, any desires I had of motherhood have taken a beating! This
week I've been in Mpwapwa District organising the Youth conference we'll hold
there in October, and I've been asked to preach in a church in Dodoma Town
(the Capital City!), then I'll return to Kondoa via a village; Wekense. It's currently Ramadan, so there's no food
or drink available in Kondoa during the day; if you want to eat you have to
hide indoors. Having said that, the
daily evening meal is now taken off my budget as a Muslim neighbour brings
food over at 7pm every day! I'm now
very much looking forward to Eid- the annual house-to-house feasting really
is something! Enjoy
the last of the Summer. Bethx |
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Possibly the Pre-Penultimate
Letter from Kondoa Recovering from what
was hopefully my penultimate, if not last, bout of malaria, though
particularly nasty this time (3 days not managing to eat, I might even get my
'farming figure' back!). Am in Dodoma
for a Provincial Council meeting (the council that runs the entire Anglican
Church in Tanzania- I'm a very important person, though I may not look
it.) Unfortunately 3 days after taking
the drugs I felt worse and so went back to test only to find that the malaria
count in my blood had actually increased!
Fake drugs are a major problem in the developing world and actually
kill (someone takes a drug, thinks they will get better, goes back to their
village, gets worse, takes paracetamol as they think the symptoms are due to
the drug and dies). Now taken a drug
brought straight from America by American doctors, and feel remarkably
better, despite the Provincial Council meeting! I have
singlehandedly infiltrated the Khat (a drug that looks like spinach root and
is chewed, with a cannabis like effect) smuggling ring! Khat is illegal in Tanzania though legal in
all surrounding countries (and legal to use but not to import into the UK,
but you didn’t read that in Spiral.)
It's grown mainly in North Eastern Africa, and the supply into
Tanzania comes from Kenya. It's
smuggled into Arusha and there put on the Kondoa bus, wrapped up in brown
paper parcels and then put into the many gaps in the bodywork of the
bus. At Babati the bus is thoroughly
searched by police, including all the gaps in the metalwork, and so before
coming into Babati bus stand they take all the parcels out and give them to a
guy on a bike. When the bus has been
searched and leaves the bus stand the guy on the bike has cycled further on
and meets the bus, handing over the packages and getting a couple of thousand
shillings for his work. The bus then
carries onto Kondoa where Khat is sold in all the villages, and very
expensively too. I of course asked the
conductor why they put it in suspicious brown paper bags and not chucked into
a basket with market produce, or wrapped in clothes in their overnight bags -
my logical advice was not gratefully received! So as well as aiding
illegal drug smugglers on the Arusha Kondoa trip I also dealt with their
questions about Qur'an-burnings! Yes,
the news that an American church was planning to burn the Qur'an on September
the 11th, the day which this year coincided with the end of the Ramadhan fast
(Eid-ul-Fitr) was greeted with the enthusiasm you would expect from Muslims!
Groggily getting onto the bus at 6 o’clock on the morning I was greeted with
the statement: "Your people are burning the Qur'an!", a bit
different from the usual "how are you this morning, did you sleep
well?" The news that the burnings
didn't actually happen failed to reach us, so as far as everyone in Kondoa is
concerned their Qur'an has been burned by white Christians- that man has a
lot to answer for! As it was,
Eid-ul-Fitr was a fantastic day and we had two days of feasting to finish off
a goat my friend had slaughtered. It
even rained for 3 minutes, though it's been incredibly hot and dry ever
since, and will be for the next couple of months. For the first 2
weeks of October I'll be accompanying our over-seeing bishop on his
confirmation tour of Kondoa, using the opportunity to say goodbye to all the parishes
(many tears are expected- mainly from me!), and then I'll be in Mpwapwa for
the Youth conference, in Dodoma for a Tanzania-wide youth conference and then
sleeping for a week, then I'll be into my last month. I've also been asked by
a publisher here in Tanzania to write a book on my experiences, the idea
being for it to be an orientation resource for incoming missionaries, but
also one in Tanzania to encourage pastors in difficult rural situations in
Tanzania! Might be my November
project! Beth x |
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The Penultimate Letter from
Kondoa Having written my previous
update (many have commented on the bad English. I put it down to still
recovering from the effects of malaria, though it could also be due to my
brain attempting to translate from Swahili; perhaps the Government will pay
for me to have Literacy lessons when I get back) I ran back to Kondoa in time
to wash my clothes and start out on the Confirmation tour of every parish in
the diocese. 2 weeks, 2 services a day
and sleeping anywhere available at night is a recipe for severe
tiredness! I used the opportunity to
also say farewell to all the churches; cue many tears and hugs, though the
churches which I have grown the closest to have asked me to return again so
for the whole of November every Sunday I'll be having a farewell service:
lots of prezzies!!! I'll be having a
party for the women in Kondoa on the 27th (slaughter the goat and chickens,
BBQ all the meat and eat with jacket potatoes, yummy!) and then a
thanksgiving at the Kondoa cathedral on the 28th, then leave for Dodoma and
Dar on the 29th, cue lots more tears! I think the most memorable part
of the village tour was getting sucked into a pit latrine! Instead of a flat mud floor over a wood
lattice over a pit a village called Mpendo had built a sand mound over the
wood, and the wood had obviously not been latticed very tightly as when I was
climbing back over the mound to get out my right foot got sucked through the
sand into the pit, and as I was trying to pull myself out my other foot got
sucked in! Anyone who had accidentally
walked in on me would have been rather amused by the sight of me attempting
to get a hand grip on the sand to drag myself out! Amazingly I successfully retreated and
hadn't even lost a shoe! The most positive time I had was
at Kinang's prison where we held one of our services. The 3 Christian prisoners sat at the front
of the church, next to me, and the guards were in civvies. I gave my service book to one of the
prisoners who immediately started reading it through and reading it to his
friends, one who I judged to be semi-literate, the other illiterate, but he
read it to them whilst pointing to each individual word! He has 3 more years of his sentence left
(of 14 years) so I've put in a recommendation that when he is released he
gets accepted into bible school- he would be an asset to any church. Having returned from the
villages at 9pm I then got the 6am bus the next day to go to Mpwapwa for the
youth conference. I had a slight mishap on the way; having arrived in Dodoma
I put my luggage in the ticket office and went for a wander around town. When I returned to get my bag so I could
get the bus to Mpwapwa they couldn't find it and after a lot of ringing
around found it had been put on the bus back to Kondoa! Result: an unplanned stop-over in Dodoma,
but I did get bought a soda by the man who had mistaken my bag for someone
else's so I couldn't stay angry for long!
36 choirs turned up to our conference, so more than 1,000 people and I
spent the entire time in the kitchen and working out the budget (ended up TSh
3,000 in profit, or £1.50!) but the 20 odd speakers ensured I heard every
note, and as always the Friday Culture day had the most amazing outfits on
display- feathers strapped onto shoulders, head and arms and grass skirts and
colourful bead necklaces as choirs competed to be the most talked-about! Mpwapwa is an area that has
economically boomed recently as precious stones have been discovered in the
nearby hillsides and gem dealing offices are to be found on every
corner. However the local population
has generally been disadvantaged by the trade as food prices are much higher
than in comparable towns such as Kondoa as those who come to take part in the
trade don't farm and so push demand up without increasing the supply, and
meat and fish prices are constrictively expensive, decreasing the number of
sources of iron for the poorer section of the population. And I was shocked when walking around the
town at midday to see a girl of about 14 getting into a man's car, and having
overheard the conversation before she got in she was obviously a
prostitute. Precious stones are
apparently to be found in the Kondoa area; if they get to the point of mining
them being economically viable, I just hope that doesn't happen. So, half a million jobs being
lost in the public sector, anyone got a job spare for me? Beth x |
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