Lupingu travel journal

Day 1

It was dark and quiet when I got up at 5am. Fifteen minutes later I was leaving the house to walk to the bus stand, accompanied by one of the night guards on our compound. My colleague, Stanslaus, was already there waiting for me. Our journey would require two buses, as the bus that goes all the way to our destination doesn’t run every day, and today was one of those days when it wouldn’t, so we had tickets for a bus that would take us to Njombe, a regional town about a 4.5 hour ride away, where we would then change to continue the journey to Ludewa, which takes about another 4.5 hours.

Things did not bode well when I found myself sitting next to a man who’s breath seemed to smell slightly of alcohol, who exclaimed over sitting next to a ‘white’ (as he described me) and who had a very loud voice. Thankfully he slept for some of the journey and later he disappeared (when I was dozing) and was replaced by a young lady with a cute one-year-old. In contrast to the situation inside the bus (which also included very unwholesome music videos), the environment outside the bus was beautiful, with the morning mist lying low over the fields like a soft fleecy blanket. As the sun rose everything took on a warm golden edge. Despite the early hour, children were already walking to school (this would be from about 6.30am onwards). When I was visiting friends over the weekend, the husband said that he leaves as early as 5.30am each day with his daughter, accompanying her along the road until she meets other students and they can continue the rest of the 1.5 hour walk to secondary school together.

Another feature of bus travel is sales merchants. So it was no surprise when someone got on the bus, stood in the aisle and gave his sales pitch, touting his wares of soap, toothpaste and various other items that are apparently able to cure all kinds of ailments, as we continued to motor along.

Our second bus set off at an alarming rate, slowing down fractionally when passengers complained. It turned out that the lights on the bus didn’t work and he wanted to make sure he arrived at the bus’s final destination before dark. We were thankful to arrive safely in Ludewa, stretch our legs with a short walk to the market (I wanted some bananas), buy 12 six-packs of bottled water ready for the three-day workshop ahead of us, and get into the car that was waiting for us for the last stage of the journey. This is a 32km (20 mile) drive down a steep mountain road, which takes about 1¼ hours – the slow pace being not so much due to the quality of the road (which has been widened and improved since my last trip, though it’s still a dirt road) but due to the steep descent and tight corners.

My room at the guest house

At some point the lake suddenly came into view, shimmering in the late-afternoon light. The mountains all around us reminded me of a big bath towel dropped on the floor, with peaks and dips and wrinkles. They look pretty inhabitable, but every now and then I’d spot a house or we’d pass through a village or you’d see a section that had been cultivated (probably with cassava). And finally we reached the lake itself. We are staying in the same guesthouse we stayed in last time we came to do a seminar – maybe it’s the only guest house here. I’m in the same room and there is the same problem of little ants crawling around on the floor and an en-suite bathroom that doesn’t have a light. Bathroom is really too grand a word for the little room with a long drop toilet and a bucket of water with a jug to flush it. And there is the obligatory pair of flip-flops at the door to wear when you enter, as this ‘bathroom’ also serves as a place to have a bucket bath, leaving the floor wet, so you need flip-flops to go in and out if you want to keep your feet clean and dry!

From my room I can hear the sound of the TV in the little shop next door, run by the guest house owner, the voices of people talking outside and children playing (despite being 9.30pm), the sound of a motorbike (the main form of transport here), the classic African night-sound of the cicadas and occasionally I can also hear the sound of a wave breaking on the beach beyond some of the village buildings. I’ve had a quiet evening in my room, after going for a short swim. I had been directed to the section of beach where the women bathe and as I swam I watched the red ball of sun drop below the horizon, behind the blue mountains of Malawi, leaving the sky a picture of pink-orange and turquoise and all shades in between that I can’t begin to describe, with a thin sliver of silver moon hanging above it all. How awesome are the works of God’s hands, how incredible this world that he spoke into being.

Day 2

I slept pretty well, protected from the mosquitos by a capacious net. We headed up to the Catholic church buildings that we would use for the workshop, arriving to find a lady we had met the previous evening in Ludewa already busy sweeping. She had been at a meeting until 1am in Ludewa the night before! Due to the nature of travel here, with people travelling by a passenger boat from the lakeside villages, I learned that the church arrange their leadership meetings to take place in the evening, after the boat will have arrived and people can get up the mountain to the town, and go on into the night so that they can finish in time for people to catch the next morning’s boat to return home, all helping to keep costs down.

Planning pictures of key biblical events

An hour and a half after people had been told the workshop would start, only five people (mostly catechists in the Catholic church) were there. Each was served a plate of boiled potatoes accompanied by a steaming mug of sweet tea for their breakfast. They patiently waited, attempting to read the book of Ruth in their Kisi language in the meantime until I led them in a Bible challenge. I gave them a set of pictures of key biblical events, which they had to put in order. I was sad to discover how low their level of biblical literacy was – I’ve done that same exercise in many places but their attempt was one of the poorest I have seen.  I then used the pictures to talk them through the big story of the Bible, trying to show how it is one story of God’s relationship with man and how the Old Testament points us to Jesus. Spending an hour or so on this can do nothing more than hopefully give them a desire to learn more. As we continue through the workshop, teaching them how to prepare and lead simple Bible studies, I’ll be referring back to what we did in order to emphasise how knowing the whole Bible’s story can help us in understanding any one part of the Bible.

When it looked like no-one else would be coming, we officially started the workshop. After introductions, we did a Bible study on Luke 24:13-27, talked about the benefits of a Bible study and then got stuck into learning to read the Kisi language. Tomorrow we’ll continue with how to prepare and lead simple Bible studies, using both the Kisi and Swahili Scriptures. At one o’clock the church bell began to ring, and I was startled as nearly the whole group stood and began to pray! They were obviously praying a set prayer for the time of day – it felt like being in a monastery, with set times of prayer. In fact, this place has something of the feel of an old European monastery – I believe it was founded by a padre from Europe and most of the buildings are red brick with tiled roofs.

By lunchtime there were nine participants, all bar one from the same denomination, and only two had arrived with Bibles. Disappointing. I’m sure there are many reasons, but I think one of them may be a lack of unity and acceptance between denominations and another may be communication. The latter isn’t easy here! As far as phone calls are concerned, networks don’t work until the sun has risen high enough to reach into the shadow of the mountains and charge up the solar-powered phone towers. And even then, only certain networks work and in certain places.

Lupingu beach

After the workshop was over we tried to visit the pastors of the churches that hadn’t sent anyone. We succeeded to meet one but failed to find the others. There was still time for a swim when we got back, so off I went again, waiting until the sun had dropped below the horizon before getting out of the water, despite the fact that I was getting cold, because the sunset was just too beautiful to miss. On my walk back to the guest house I was greeted from afar by a lady I’d met the previous day when I went swimming, so I went over to chat with her and the lady braiding her hair (well, ‘twisting’ would be a better description) – it will take her some time to do the whole head.

While eating my tea in my room, I heard a scuttling around the water bottles. A large cockroach emerged. It did not live long – flip-flops are a great weapon against all unwanted crawling bugs! I hardly ever see such large cockroaches in Mbeya – it seems that the warmer the environment the bigger the bugs, and Mbeya is generally not very hot, unlike this area by Lake Nyasa, though at this time of year it’s cool even here. A sharp headache has just started – did I breathe in too much of the bug spray I used to try and conquer the ant invasion?!

Day 3

Breakfast supplies - the yellow bucket
is full of potatoes and the flasks full
of tea.

Today was much the same. I found it hard to read the faces of the workshop participants to get a sense of what they were thinking, but they seemed to be taking in what we were saying and responding well when asked questions. A lady who had been helping with organising the workshop (communicating with people, organising the food etc) invited us to her home after we had finished. I assumed this was just to be a little visit, but it turned out she wanted to serve us food, so we sat out in the shade for some time waiting for the food to be ready. I would like to say I enjoyed just sitting and being, but I didn’t, I was restless. I talked a little with my colleague and the lady (who came and went as she supervised the meal preparation), but otherwise tried to battle impatience. I wanted to be moving, doing something, swimming or going somewhere. My legs were itching to be exercised and my mind wanted stimulation. I felt very un-Tanzanian! And I felt guilty for not accepting the situation and appreciating her hospitality. My tummy still felt full from lunch, despite being around 6pm by the time we ate, but I was able to eat a respectable amount of the chicken and rice set before us. Our host had to disappear before she’d eaten more than a couple of mouthfuls, as a guest had arrived, a fellow ‘diwani’. Diwani seem to be representatives of the people, taking local issues to a higher level in the government, and our host was a diwani voted in by the local women to be their voice.

Signposts have recently popped up all over
Tanzania, such that even in this rural village
the road now has it's own signpost.

There didn’t seem to be any point in sitting around, so once we’d eaten our fill we said our goodbyes and headed off. We climbed up the church (where we were holding the workshop), before dropping down the other side, accompanied by a crowd of children all vying to walk as close to the ‘mzungu’ (white foreigner) as possible. I know I should be used to this by now and able to accept that it’s exciting for them because they hardly ever see any non-Tanzanians, but much as I try to shake off the stress it causes me, I can’t. I just want to run away and hide or scream at them to leave me alone, but instead I try to smile as my colleague laughs at how the children are enjoying themselves.

Thankfully there was still time to go for a swim and by the time I had changed the children had gone. The sun had already set, and the remaining golden light in the sky reflected off the water such that I felt as if I was swimming in a sea of liquid gold. I stayed until the sky had changed colour and started to fade and the shore was becoming harder to see, before slowly walking back along the shore and returning to the guesthouse.

Day 4

Stanslaus demonstrates teaching 
someone to read their language.

Last day of the workshop. Nothing special to report. There was some positive feedback at the end, with participants saying that they had learned more about the Bible that will help them in turn to teach others. They are obviously looking forward to having the Jesus Film in their language. Translation of the script has already taken place and it is hoped the recording will happen in early October. Two guys wanted me to put the Kisi audio Scriptures on their phones (so far Jonah, Ruth and Luke are available), so they patiently waited as I transferred the files via Bluetooth, and then another participant ran off to find his flash drive so that I could give him the Kisi audio plus the Swahili audio New Testament and some Swahili film resources.

As I said goodbye to the guesthouse owner, he was asking how I had trained for the job I was doing. I told him about my Masters in Bible and Mission, and he said his son had a Masters in Education but no employment is available so he lives there in the village and drives a motorbike (for carrying passengers). How sad that this young man should have achieved that level of education, probably at great cost to his father, but not be able to use his training. I have heard this kind of story before. Education is highly valued, parents will do their utmost to get their children through school and even university, but professional jobs are few and far between and many of these students end up doing something like that young man.

The same car that drove us down the mountain was ready and waiting to take us back up the mountain, and I could feel the air getting cooler the higher we got. We went first to the bus station to get our tickets for the next day and then to a guesthouse, which was deserted. A piece of paper stuck on the door gave the phone number of the receptionist, so we called and a few minutes later she turned up and we got our rooms – spacious and pleasant with a shower and, I discovered, a light that at night was blue (but white during the daytime), presumably so as not to wake one up too much!

Day 5

The bus set off promptly at 6am. The bumpy dirt road shook us around like lottery balls and every bit of the bus rattled, which coupled with the occasional person talking very loudly on their phones, did not make for a quiet ride! There was occasional reprieve from the rattles though, as the road is being worked on and some sections already have a concrete surface. At one point we passed them putting digger loads of cement into a shallow iron framework that covered the road and being smoothed down by people with shovels.

It was cold, and didn’t get any warmer as the skies were heavy with clouds and it rained lightly until we arrived in Njombe. I got a bag of hot chips at the Njombe bus stand, delivered through the bus window, before we set off again. With various other stops and slow traffic on a hill due to an accident, we arrived late in Mbeya. I was glad to stretch my legs on the short walk home after fourteen hours on the bus. Much as I enjoy these teaching trips, it’s always good to get home. And this time was especially exciting, as in my absence a new toilet had been put into my bathroom and the big cracks in my wall had been filled in. I thank God for his protection, for the privilege of serving here and for the blessing of a comfy home to return to and a fab housemate to share it with.