An eventful trip to Santilya

The church where workshop was held

I woke up to a chilly morning typical of June in Mbeya. Where I was heading was going to be even colder – Santilya, a village in the Malila language area which, at nearly 2000 metres, is a few thousand feet higher than Mbeya and consequently a few degrees colder. I was going there to train Sunday school teachers for three days along with two colleagues – Mwanjalanje, the Literacy & Scripture Engagement Coordinator for the Malila language area, and Mwangunga, the same for the Nyakyusa language area, who was coming to gain experience in teaching this kind of workshop.

I had packed my warmest jacket (a Roxy coat picked up from the second-hand market a couple of years ago) as well as longs socks and even a hat just in case! I had no idea where I would be staying – previous trips to the Malila area had involved dank guesthouses, so I was prepared for such an eventuality. I picked up Mwangunga from the Benedictine Centre where he had stayed the night, and we headed off in my Toyota Prado on the nearly 30 mile ride (about one and a quarter hours of driving), much of which would be on graded dirt roads. As we drove, my car started to make some alarming noises. It wasn’t the first time, but the car had been checked over at the garage and the fundi (a generic word for a craftsman, in this case a mechanic) couldn’t find anything wrong, so I had set off with lots of prayer but not too much concern. However, now the sounds were getting louder and not stopping, whereas before they would come and go and I noticed black smoke coming out of the exhaust. Thankfully we arrived safely and I promptly phoned the fundi. A plan was put in place for his colleague to come and look at the car on Friday, the last day of the workshop. 

My bedroom

It turned out we would be staying at the pastor’s home, while our colleague, Mwanjalanje, would come and go every day on his motorbike from his home just a couple of miles up the road. The workshop was scheduled to start at 9am and we had arrived around this time, but as I had expected we didn’t start until much later. First we were welcomed by the pastor and shown to our rooms and given tea, chapattis and fried plantain. My room was small and neat with a double bed and a thick blanket, but it all smelt a bit musty, an inevitable result of the cool, damp climate. I wondered if I had been given the pastor and his wife’s own room; I think this was quite likely. They took good care of us, providing us with mountains of food (sometimes rice, sometimes ugali, usually with cabbage, beans and meat) and bringing a metal basin of glowing charcoal into the living room in mornings and evenings for us to warm ourselves. They heated up water for us to wash each evening, though I balked at the idea of washing outdoors in a little area round the back of the house, under the cold night sky! The toilet was a long drop in a clean tiled room, and even toilet paper was provided – it was one of most nicely kept toilets I’ve seen in a village. The only downside was that it involved going outside and a few metres down the hill (the house was on the side of a steep valley) and fiddling with the padlock every time I needed to make myself comfortable, which was a little awkward in the middle of the night.

Practising teaching memory 
verses using actions

About fifteen people attended all three days of the workshop, with a few others attending here and there. There was a huge range of ability, from some who had a number of years of experience of teaching to others who had never taught. As usual, we looked at different aspects of a Sunday school lesson and how to do them interactively as well as how to plan the lesson from start to finish. Majaliwa also spent time helping them learn to read their Malila language – some could already read it quite well (for example, one lady had been trained to be a Malila literacy teacher), while for others it was probably the first time they’d read their language. While it will be challenging for the teachers to put into practice everything they learnt at the workshop, and some haven’t even started teaching in their churches yet, I hope that each one of them will at least have picked up something that they will try and find helpful. I particularly pray that they will become readers of God’s Word, as this is not only foundational to teaching children the Bible, but also foundational to their own relationship with God. Some of the participants didn’t even have Bibles, but during the workshop a few people bought Mark’s gospel in the Malila language. Most of them also bought the Sunday school teacher manual that I developed and use as the basis for most of the teaching. Now it is Majaliwa’s job to follow up how they do and to continue to provide support and training if they want more in the future.

On the way to Majaliwa's home 
(he is the one in the middle)

As Majaliwa lived so close, I had hoped to visit his home one evening, but now my car was out of action. I suggested we walked. I was only semi-serious, but to my surprise they took me up on it and off we went, along the road! The surrounding countryside was beautiful, mostly covered with small farms. Arriving at his home we had the pleasure of meeting his wife and his youngest child, but by the time we left it was already dusk and distinctly chilly. We walked briskly back along a shortcut, involving some steep ups and downs and wooden bridges in the rapidly fading light. I loved the walk, and am used to ups and downs from my rambles on the hillside in Mbeya, but Mwangunga wasn’t so impressed and chose not to join me the next evening when I went for another walk with one of the workshop participants to her home, complaining that we marched like an army! 

Being towed home

My fundi’s colleague turned up on Friday morning as planned, having caught a local bus, and looked over the engine, discovering the source of the problem to be that the oil pump wasn’t working properly. It would damage the engine to drive it home in that state and it wasn’t possible to fix it on the spot, so my fundi came out to tow us all the way home. After lengthy goodbyes (involving lots of thank yous and being given a gift of some local fabric) we finally set off. Thankfully the fundis did the driving. The tow rope broke six times, but the fundi didn’t seem particularly fazed by this and we eventually made it back to Mbeya after sunset, around 7.15pm, very thankful to God for a safe arrival. While God may not have prevented the problems from occurring, He was certainly with us through them as I had felt unusually free of anxiety about the whole situation. 

I am writing this on Monday. I wonder how the Sunday school teachers who were on duty yesterday got on with their classes. I wonder if they tried any of the new games they learnt, or made the story more dramatic and exciting by acting it out, or used a quiz to review the lesson or used actions to help the children learn the memory verse. While what we were able to do felt like a tiny drop in the ocean of need for education and training, I just hope and pray that God may multiply the work of our hands and use it to strengthen His Church.