I know, an odd combination but that’s what I’m teaching in my last semester at MTCEA. Who would’ve thunk it?! Me, teaching computers halfway around the world! At the end of last semester, Theo found out the College would receive $1000US from Eastern Mennonite Missions to fund the purchase of typewriters. The money was put aside years ago and never made it – until now. Well, the age of the typewriter is definitely over and we decided to put the money towards purchasing one, maybe two, computers for the students. I emailed Kurtis, a fellow MCC TZer, to find out about pricing and instead I get an email with possible prices but also an amazing offer: Kurtis would help us set up a computer lab and donate four computers! This meant we had enough money to purchase four screens, keyboards, computer mice, and some wiring. It all came together before the start of the next semester.
Every teacher was already saddled with a full load of classes and no one had enough computer knowledge to teach our students – except me, apparently. Well, there are only so many hours in a day and I was determined to continue with my afternoon English classes. I decided to split all of my students into groups of 4, allowing me to put them with students at the same English level. I teach two groups of 4, Monday to Thursday, for one hour each, 30 minutes for English at the beginning followed by 30 minutes of computer. The majority of my students have never used a computer so we’re starting with the basics, ie. this is the keyboard/ mouse/ screen... Thanks to Kurtis, I’ve got all of them working on this sweet typing program to get their skills up fairly quickly. They love it! They’re in here every day for extra time outside of class to practise and they’re picking it up pretty fast. I’m planning a typing tournament for the week of mid terms exams as a meaningful distraction from the stress of studying.
As for the English portion of the class, I couldn’t be happier! After the really difficult end to last semester, I had no idea what to expect this time around. This semester, there are no exams, marks, or major assignments. The smaller group size and similar English level means they all have to talk and they’re doing brilliantly. We’re practising what to say in chapel – English only! I started a week ago and since then, every chapel MC has led the service in English! One of my students totally surprised me when he got up and preached in English this past Thursday. No one knew he was planning to preach in English and he did really well. I sit in the front row and can barely contain the huge smile on my face every time they get up and try out their newly acquired English skills. I’m practically bursting with pride! I make a point of congratulating each one of them afterwards. Not in a million years did I expect this kind of a turnaround. Psalm 23 has taken on a whole new meaning for me. I feel like I’ve been through my own valley of the shadow of death and God has been my guide the entire way and led me through to the green pastures and quiet waters.
My Psychology class is going just as well. I’ve rediscovered the passion I felt for the course when I first took it in college years ago. I had the most amazing prof back then and I feel like I have an obligation to pass even a sliver of that enthusiasm on to my students. It’s tough material and a lot of the terminology is completely foreign to them. Try explaining neural communication in such a way that your beginner English student can understand it. I prepare my lecture notes and have no idea how I’m going to simplify what I’ve just written for class the next day. I walk in with lots of prayer and somehow God just puts the words and ideas in my head. I think my students just get a kick out of seeing me wave my arms around like I’m crazy as I demonstrate the sending of a neural impulse from one neuron to the next!
I just want to say again how much I appreciate each one of you who have been praying for me throughout this entire year. I would not be where I am without your prayers and support. I am enjoying these last weeks before my departure. Ten weeks and counting...
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Safari Part III: Nairobi/ Tanzania
The final leg of our journey took us back to Nairobi and our day-long layover was spent sleeping in, shopping, and touring the DIGUNA station outside Nairobi. We met some of Martin’s co-workers, including the man who was best man at my parents’ wedding nearly 30 years ago! We boarded our late night bus and began the long trip to TZ. 15 hours, one border crossing, three long stops, and a police incident later, we were in Musoma. (For the curious ones, two passengers on our bus accused a third of stealing their money. Turns out the two were con men and, once everything was said and done, we were back on the road and they were sitting in a cell.) We had two hours to rest before catching a bus to Mugumu. Talk about a road trip! All day Sunday was spent in the Serengeti searching for any and every animal. We saw 16 different kinds – Mum had me write a list. We saw lots of hippo, in and out of the water, a huge herd of buffalo, ostriches, zebras, giraffes... It was my second Serengeti trip and I was still amazed at the variety and beauty of these creatures. God is pretty creative! Kurtis and Carla had us over for dinner and Mum shared all of her African experiences, especially the Serengeti safari. We had two days in Musoma/ Nyabange with my host family. We squeezed in a short walking tour of Musoma Town, a stroll down to Lake Victoria, visits with some of my co-workers, and time with my host family. It was tough saying goodbye to Mum at the Mwanza airport. I managed to keep my tears to a minimum but Mum couldn’t hold back and that just got me going. Thank goodness for sunglasses!
What an incredible journey filled with memories that will last a lifetime! I am so thankful that God kept me/ us safe the entire way. There were no major hitches and all the travel arrangements went smoothly. Thank-you for your prayers! I know God was looking out for me and I was blessed with great travel buddies – Theo, Pete, Mum.
Mum, thanks for coming out and visiting me. Definitely one of the top highlights of my SALT year!
What an incredible journey filled with memories that will last a lifetime! I am so thankful that God kept me/ us safe the entire way. There were no major hitches and all the travel arrangements went smoothly. Thank-you for your prayers! I know God was looking out for me and I was blessed with great travel buddies – Theo, Pete, Mum.
Mum, thanks for coming out and visiting me. Definitely one of the top highlights of my SALT year!
Safari Part II: Nairobi/ Capetown
I’ve started experiencing a lot of ‘last times’ – last time meeting as a team, last time being together with everyone, last time in Nairobi and Mwanza, sigh. I headed up to Nairobi first thing Wednesday morning from Arusha – my first bus ride all alone (my last first I hope – don’t enjoy traveling alone!). I met up with my cousin, Martin, currently working with DIGUNA (stands for ‘the Good News’) doing all sorts of crazy things around Kenya. I hadn’t seen him in two plus years and the first time we see each other again is in Nairobi of all places! I was thrilled it all worked out. He ended up picking up my Mum with me from the airport. It was so good to see my Mum again! Crazy to see her here!!! And she made it with no difficulties or lost luggage. We only had a few hours sleep before we were on our way back to the airport to catch a flight to Capetown. Everything felt so surreal, seeing my Mum, going to Capetown to see my aunt, especially after months of dreaming about this trip, planning it, and then actually having it happen. My aunt, Hillie, was waiting for us at the Capetown airport and whisked us off to her beautiful home in a posh, oops, ’larney ’, part of town. Our first meal was at this amazing beachfront restaurant in Camps Bay. The sunset was gorgeous breaking in over the crashing waves. This place is so much like Vancouver, just the vibe, the weather, the landscape.
We visited Robben Island, the prison Nelson Mandela called home for 18 years along with many other political prisoners fighting the apartheid regime. It was sobering and encouraging to know that their sacrifices brought about the reversal of years of oppression, racism, and injustice. We took a drive along the coastline to my aunt’s and her partner’s Oceanside ‘cottage‘. The views were absolutely stunning and they have the cutest village shops. We had a ‘braii’, Afrikaans for BBQ. I sampled my first ostrich steak – it’s not bad. It’s all the rage in South Africa because they have an overabundance of ostriches and it’s much healthier than beef apparently. Sunday morning caught us in a downpour and thankfully sitting inside a van on a Township Tour. When the apartheid regime was formalized, South Africans were designated as ‘White’, ‘Malay’, ‘Coloured’, or ‘Black’ with many sub-categories. Based on your ‘colour coding’, you had your choice of areas to live in. You can imagine where ‘Blacks’ were allowed to live. The disparity in living conditions can still be seen today although some integration has happened. It was eye-opening to walk thru one of the hostels containing 16 people sharing bathrooms, communal living area, and bunks. We also toured Manenberg, a poverty- and crime-ridden township, with Proudly Manenberg, a grassroots NGO working to improve the living conditions of the residents. They have some very innovative and creative projects from community gardens to a sewing co-op. We spent a day touring Capetown’s famous wine country and enjoyed the haute cuisine. The icing on the cake was our time on Table Mountain, Capetown’s world-renowned landmark. It was a clear sunny day with very little wind, unusual for this towering rock. We wandered the paths along the edge and saw the Atlantic Ocean from one side and the Indian Ocean from the other! Absolutely breathtaking! I loved every minute of my time in Capetown, hanging out with my Mum and my aunt, bombing around in her Minnie and seeing all sides of the city.
We visited Robben Island, the prison Nelson Mandela called home for 18 years along with many other political prisoners fighting the apartheid regime. It was sobering and encouraging to know that their sacrifices brought about the reversal of years of oppression, racism, and injustice. We took a drive along the coastline to my aunt’s and her partner’s Oceanside ‘cottage‘. The views were absolutely stunning and they have the cutest village shops. We had a ‘braii’, Afrikaans for BBQ. I sampled my first ostrich steak – it’s not bad. It’s all the rage in South Africa because they have an overabundance of ostriches and it’s much healthier than beef apparently. Sunday morning caught us in a downpour and thankfully sitting inside a van on a Township Tour. When the apartheid regime was formalized, South Africans were designated as ‘White’, ‘Malay’, ‘Coloured’, or ‘Black’ with many sub-categories. Based on your ‘colour coding’, you had your choice of areas to live in. You can imagine where ‘Blacks’ were allowed to live. The disparity in living conditions can still be seen today although some integration has happened. It was eye-opening to walk thru one of the hostels containing 16 people sharing bathrooms, communal living area, and bunks. We also toured Manenberg, a poverty- and crime-ridden township, with Proudly Manenberg, a grassroots NGO working to improve the living conditions of the residents. They have some very innovative and creative projects from community gardens to a sewing co-op. We spent a day touring Capetown’s famous wine country and enjoyed the haute cuisine. The icing on the cake was our time on Table Mountain, Capetown’s world-renowned landmark. It was a clear sunny day with very little wind, unusual for this towering rock. We wandered the paths along the edge and saw the Atlantic Ocean from one side and the Indian Ocean from the other! Absolutely breathtaking! I loved every minute of my time in Capetown, hanging out with my Mum and my aunt, bombing around in her Minnie and seeing all sides of the city.
Safari Part I: Dodoma, Dar/ Zbar
It has been far too long since I last gave you an update and now that I’ve settled back into life at Nyabange/ MTCEA, I’m long overdue for my next blog post(s). I left Musoma March 31st and didn’t return until April 27th – almost a four week absence! My travel schedule was so frantic that I never had enough time to sit down, reflect, and digest everything that happened along the way. Until now. I was fortunate enough to have travel partners for nearly every leg of my month-long journey. In that time, I spent approx. 60 hours in buses and made a complete circuit of Tanzania – Musoma – Dodoma – Dar/Zanzibar – Arusha – Nairobi(Capetown) – Musoma/Mugumu/Mwanza. It’s quite the list! The following is not a comprehensive account of what happened in those weeks but a look at the highlights. Enjoy!
Dodoma: For this 13 hour journey, I was joined by Theo (my boss) and his two kids, Oure and Joyce, on their way to visit their mother, Agnes, who is currently studying at Dodoma University. I spent a few days visiting Josh and Fairchild, both with MCC. Josh is responsible for a major water project that aims to build four sand dams by the end of this year in partnership with the Mennonite Church of Dodoma. It’s a huge undertaking but he seems to be handling it well. I was introduced to various people from the Church, including the soon-to-be Bishop. These people live and breathe Church. There’s something going on nearly every day from Sunday school to Bible studies to services to community projects – amazing! I met up with Fairchild who is the Church’s Youth Coordinator. Needless to say, her Kiswahili is far better than mine. She’s even started teaching the Church staff English, translating as she goes along. I was very impressed and reminded how lacking my language skills really are. It doesn’t help that I’m surrounded by competent English speakers at school and at home plus teaching English four days a week. Ah well, I know enough to get by. I got a personal tour of the Dodoma University campus from Agnes. The place is huge! They aim to make it the largest university in Eastern Africa. All I can say is that it’s a long hot hike up to the dorms that would encourage anyone to remember everything they need for class.
Dar/ Zbar: Unfortunately, our bus got stuck in a major traffic jam in downtown Dar and we missed the last ferry out to Zanzibar. We ended up spending the evening in the most posh hotel lounge in Dar with a couple of other young people traveling around Tanzania. At the crack of dawn, we were down by the water searching for the ferry office when a guy pulled us into his ACed office. He took our information and walked out the door – definitely weird. Pete followed him to another row of offices next door and figured out the guy was running a scam: his office is 100 meters from the real ferry office so he can snatch unsuspecting tourists, take their info, buy their tickets, and make a couple extra bucks off them. Not a bad set-up but luckily Pete figured it out. Upon arriving in Zbar, we rushed to the spice tour office and found the owner patiently waiting for us. He led us to two waiting vans and we were off. The rest of the morning was spent looking at various bushes, trees, and vines that produce the major spices we use: cloves, coriander, lemon grass, vanilla pods, curry.
Once we were back in town, we met ‘the scooter guy’, Salim. For some reason, we thought it would take us five hours to get to the North Beaches. Salim assured us it was only one, tops two, hours and we still had plenty of time to make it before sundown. An hour later, we were on the road, driving rented scooters – the bruises and scratches I’d incurred learning to drive my host father’s piki piki were worth it. Driving scooters was a blast! The island is beautiful, lush and green. The people aren’t fascinated by mzungus because they see so many of them, so no cat calls and stares, just smiles and waves. By the time the sun was setting, we were sitting on a fine white sandy beach, sipping bitter lemons, my favourite TZ soda. We ran into a girl from Toronto we’d met on our spice tour the day before and ended up hanging out on the beach. We slapped on 40 lotion and I still managed to get a serious burn. It felt like I had this perma-red glow for a week after. We got back to Stonetown safely and Salim ended up being our tour guide through the winding alleys of the Old City. We were hunting down gifts and he knew all the local shops. Once we hit the tourist district, the prices skyrocketed and we realized how good a deal we’d made. I loved pulling out the little Kiswahili I know to impress the locals and wrangle a better price out of them. Bargaining is definitely the name of the game and most tourists don’t even try – half the fun is arguing over the exorbitant price of a scarf that should really only cost half of what they’re asking. Our time on Zbar came to a close much too quickly and then we were on our way to a team meeting in Arusha.
Dodoma: For this 13 hour journey, I was joined by Theo (my boss) and his two kids, Oure and Joyce, on their way to visit their mother, Agnes, who is currently studying at Dodoma University. I spent a few days visiting Josh and Fairchild, both with MCC. Josh is responsible for a major water project that aims to build four sand dams by the end of this year in partnership with the Mennonite Church of Dodoma. It’s a huge undertaking but he seems to be handling it well. I was introduced to various people from the Church, including the soon-to-be Bishop. These people live and breathe Church. There’s something going on nearly every day from Sunday school to Bible studies to services to community projects – amazing! I met up with Fairchild who is the Church’s Youth Coordinator. Needless to say, her Kiswahili is far better than mine. She’s even started teaching the Church staff English, translating as she goes along. I was very impressed and reminded how lacking my language skills really are. It doesn’t help that I’m surrounded by competent English speakers at school and at home plus teaching English four days a week. Ah well, I know enough to get by. I got a personal tour of the Dodoma University campus from Agnes. The place is huge! They aim to make it the largest university in Eastern Africa. All I can say is that it’s a long hot hike up to the dorms that would encourage anyone to remember everything they need for class.
Dar/ Zbar: Unfortunately, our bus got stuck in a major traffic jam in downtown Dar and we missed the last ferry out to Zanzibar. We ended up spending the evening in the most posh hotel lounge in Dar with a couple of other young people traveling around Tanzania. At the crack of dawn, we were down by the water searching for the ferry office when a guy pulled us into his ACed office. He took our information and walked out the door – definitely weird. Pete followed him to another row of offices next door and figured out the guy was running a scam: his office is 100 meters from the real ferry office so he can snatch unsuspecting tourists, take their info, buy their tickets, and make a couple extra bucks off them. Not a bad set-up but luckily Pete figured it out. Upon arriving in Zbar, we rushed to the spice tour office and found the owner patiently waiting for us. He led us to two waiting vans and we were off. The rest of the morning was spent looking at various bushes, trees, and vines that produce the major spices we use: cloves, coriander, lemon grass, vanilla pods, curry.
Once we were back in town, we met ‘the scooter guy’, Salim. For some reason, we thought it would take us five hours to get to the North Beaches. Salim assured us it was only one, tops two, hours and we still had plenty of time to make it before sundown. An hour later, we were on the road, driving rented scooters – the bruises and scratches I’d incurred learning to drive my host father’s piki piki were worth it. Driving scooters was a blast! The island is beautiful, lush and green. The people aren’t fascinated by mzungus because they see so many of them, so no cat calls and stares, just smiles and waves. By the time the sun was setting, we were sitting on a fine white sandy beach, sipping bitter lemons, my favourite TZ soda. We ran into a girl from Toronto we’d met on our spice tour the day before and ended up hanging out on the beach. We slapped on 40 lotion and I still managed to get a serious burn. It felt like I had this perma-red glow for a week after. We got back to Stonetown safely and Salim ended up being our tour guide through the winding alleys of the Old City. We were hunting down gifts and he knew all the local shops. Once we hit the tourist district, the prices skyrocketed and we realized how good a deal we’d made. I loved pulling out the little Kiswahili I know to impress the locals and wrangle a better price out of them. Bargaining is definitely the name of the game and most tourists don’t even try – half the fun is arguing over the exorbitant price of a scarf that should really only cost half of what they’re asking. Our time on Zbar came to a close much too quickly and then we were on our way to a team meeting in Arusha.
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