Ten vehicles in three days - a short trip to Njombe

Thursday 12^th October

It’s 9.15pm and I am sitting on the bed of my room in New Ufunuo guesthouse (Ufunuo means ‘revelation’), the heavy blanket keeping my legs snug and warm. I’m in the town of Njombe, which always feels colder than Mbeya, being at an altitude of about 6450 feet (1960 metres) compared to Mbeya’s 5600 or so feet (1710 metres). I boarded a total of five different vehicles to get here, leaving home at 9am and arriving at 5.30pm. First, just a few minutes from home, I was able to flag down a bajaj (motorised rickshaw) to get to a place where I would easily be able to catch a daladala (a sort of minibus) to get to the place where there’d be buses going to Njombe. But the daladala conductor turfed us all out part-way there and we had to wait for another daladala to take us the last leg of the journey! The conductor waited with us in order to transfer our fares, and we piled onto an already full daladala with standing room only in the narrow aisle. I arrived at 10am and joined my colleague, Konga, with whom I’d be travelling the rest of the way. We found a suitable bus fairly quickly, but then sat and waited in it for over half an hour before we finally set off – this is pretty normal on all except the big, long-distance buses, as they wait for the bus to fill up before heading off. (On the big buses, you normally get your tickets in advance, so they don’t have to wait around, and also they have a long way to go so they don’t want to be late heading off.)

The travel saga continued… the last person to sit on the seat I was on had obviously enjoyed a hard-boiled egg. Egg shell was tucked into the net pocket on the seat, and gradually fell through the netting into the open front-pocket of my rucksack that was wedged between my legs. There was also the loud, beating music to contend with (I asked the conductor to reduce the volume, which he kindly did to a more tolerable level).We eventually made it to the windy highway town of Makambako. After over 5 hours of sitting on the bus, we were ready to stretch our legs, and as Makambako is where you leave the main road, which stretches all the way from the border of Zambia to Dar es Salaam, and turn right towards Njombe, we thought we might have a chance to get off the bus for a few minutes. Sure enough, we pulled into the bus stand where most of the passengers got off to catch buses going elsewhere, and the conductor said we’d be there for 5 minutes. I got off, bought some oranges and went to the toilets. Do not think motorway service station toilets – those free, nicely tiled and with fancy hand dryers toilets! But at least this toilet (not the kind with a seat) had a full bucket of water for flushing with and a door lock that actually worked. I headed back to the bus, only to find the bus wasn’t there! I quickly walked to the exit of the bus stand in case it had moved forward, but there was no sign of it. Konga wasn’t to be seen either. I phoned him, we reconnected, but still no sign of the bus. I had been gone less than the 5 minutes I had been given, so where was the bus (and our luggage)? We left the bus stand and started walking alongside the road. Konga didn’t seem too flustered, and decided we should get a bajaj to a place further up the road where he thought the bus may have stopped. That was the fifth vehicle of the journey. And there was the bus, with the conductor looking wholly unconcerned about the fact they’d left without us! We waited there for another 10 minutes or so (for the bus to fill up more) and finally we were off.

It’s nice to be back in this guest house, somewhere familiar – I’ve stayed here twice before. I enjoyed a nice little walk at sunset, in the cool Njombe air, along quiet roads where lots of house building work is going on; it’s a rapidly expanding town. Then my colleague and I went to get food. We both chose ugali and greens, though I opted for beef while he went for gizzards. We had a long conversation about food, in which I failed miserably to explain stuffing and mint sauce as there is nothing remotely similar to these things here, while he told me how gizzards are considered a delicacy, so it’s the part the of the chicken the father would normally be given as a sign of respect. We also talked about alcohol, where I did a bit better at explaining mulled wine, while he told how he grew up drinking locally brewed alcohol. He described an idyllic sounding scene of how neighbours would help each other out with their farms: his mum’s friends would help on their family farm and after a day of labour they’d all drink the local beer she’d brewed, and then another day they’d work together on someone else’s farm and finish with more beer. Unfortunately this communal spirit isn’t quite as idyllic as it sounds, as rather a lot of beer would be drunk. The general consensus I hear from my Tanzanian friends is that when people drink here, they tend to drink too much. For this reason, drinking alcohol is prohibited by most church denominations, and Konga himself give up drinking when he became serious about his faith.

The strength of feeling many Christians hold towards alcohol was brought home to me in another way today. While I was on the bus a Sunday school teacher from the church I attend (where I also teach Sunday school) messaged me as he’d just travelled somewhere to start a new job, only to find that the shop he’d be working in sold alcohol. This went against his conscience, and despite having literally travelled across the country for this opportunity (work is hard to come by) he courageously turned the job down and will head back to Mbeya at the weekend. I couldn’t help but admire him for what he did, even if I don’t have the same conscience about drinking and selling alcohol.

I have a slight headache, probably from dehydrating myself on the bus (because you never know when you might get to use a toilet, so it’s best not to need it at all) and from the flashing lights at the place we went to for dinner. But hopefully I’ll be right as rain in the morning. Good night!

Evening walk

Friday 13^th October

I’m back under the blanket, but though the night is cool and this morning a chill mist hung low over the fields, the midday sun was fierce. Walking the streets of Njombe at lunchtime to find food, it was a relief anytime we passed under the shade of a building or tree. While on the topic, lunch proved surprisingly hard to find. We headed off with a local to find something, but the first two places only served rice and beans (and I can’t eat beans due to my IBS) and the third place was closed. We finally ended up at a decent eating establishment, but the food was surprisingly expensive. I got ugali, greens and a fried egg, costing a shocking 5000 shillings. While this doesn’t sound much in UK currency, about £1.65, it’s twice the price you’d pay for the same meal in Mbeya.

Morning walk

We came to Njombe to do a one-day workshop. The goal of the workshop was to distribute audio devices loaded with the New Testament in the Bena language and train people to hold ‘listening groups’ (a kind of audio Bible study). We had a small group of eight, less people than hoped, and all bar one came from one church denomination. This was frustrating but out of our hands, as it was the local Community Based Organisation (CBO) who had chosen who should be there. This is what we did together:

• Talked about the value of audio Scriptures
• Had an audio Bible study on Luke 15:1-10 and talked about the experience
• Discussed the qualities of a good group leader
• Had another study on the rest of the chapter
• Talked about how you decide what to listen to depending on who you are listening with and why you are listening together
• In pairs they discussed who they could listen with and what they would listen to and then they wrote their plans down.
• 
  Finally we mapped out the Bena language area, and gave each person 4-5 audio players – one for themselves, one for someone else in their village (from a different church denomination) and one for each of 2-3 villages they’d identified in their part of the Bena area (they all came from different villages), as well as some money to cover their travel costs to do the distribution.

This sounds very strategic when I write it down though I have some doubts about how well it will work out in reality, but I hope and pray that God may use these efforts for good.

By the time we’d finished, got a bajaj back to the guest house and walked to the bus stand to get tickets for our return journey tomorrow, it was already 6.45pm and I was tired. I retired to my room for a light tea (rice cakes and peanut butter that I’d brought with me and carrots, tomatoes and fruit from a local market), a WhatsApp call with a friend in England and…

…time to stop writing and get some sleep ready for tomorrow’s early start (the bus leaves at 6am).

Saturday 14^th October

A headache and the night-before-travel feeling made for a poor night’s sleep. We walked to the bus stand and boarded our bus. It was not going to be a particularly comfortable ride – the seats were far too narrow so I was squished up to the window with no room to adjust my position over the five plus hours that we spent on the bus. As you can imagine it was a relief to get off, though we were straight onto a daladala for the final leg of the journey, and once again I was turfed off part-way and put on another. That makes ten vehicles in three days – four bajajs, four daladalas and two buses!

And finally I was home. I gulped down a glass of cold water, put my luggage away, had lunch (a chance to chat with my housemate), finished preparing for Sunday school and then took a rest on the little sofa in my bedroom, tired from travel and lethargic from the heat (it’s over 27C in my room). I hope the rains come soon to dampen down the dust, freshen up the air and lower the temperatures, though by that time I might be in England, and probably complaining about the cold instead!

From the hills to the tropics – travelling around Unyakyusa

Meet the people

Before we travel, let me introduce you to some of the people you’ll meet along the way. Above is a photo of the literacy/Scripture engagement team from five years ago. The people you see worked in eleven different language areas, some of them were (and still are) based in the Mbeya office, but the majority lived and worked in their home area. A year or so after the New Testament translations were completed in nine of these languages, the employment of the workers in those areas ceased (for most of them this was at the end of September 2021). However, we still partner with them as they continue to serve their language communities through local Community Based Organisations.

For our trip around the Nyakyusa language area (a.k.a. Unyakyusa), Frank (from the Mbeya office) and I would first be accompanied by David Mwangunga, who lives in the northern part of Unyakyusa (closest to Mbeya), and then by Andrew Mwangosi, who lives in the southern part. Finally, Frank and Andrew would be joined by another Andrew (not on the picture), who was one of the Nyakyusa translators, for the final leg of the journey into Malawi (while I returned to Mbeya). You can see our journey on the map below – 2 stops in the north, 2 in the south and 2 more for my colleagues in Malawi.

Wednesday

Frank and I left the office at 2pm, arriving in the small town of Kandete less than 3 hours later. The journey was uneventful, our project Land Cruiser behaved itself, and I enjoyed leaving behind the brown, dusty landscape of Mbeya (currently in the middle of our long dry season) for the much greener, lusher landscape of Unyakyusa. Unyakyusa is made up of both a hilly region that gets rain almost all year round and a low, hot, tropical region that also reaches into Malawi. Kandete is at an altitude of about 1590 metres / 5200 feet, making it fractionally lower than Mbeya, and isn’t far from Kitulo National Park (a plateau about 2500 metres / 8500 feet above sea level, and known for its rare orchids). It was colder than I anticipated! So after getting a somewhat disappointing dinner (lukewarm, slightly greasy rice isn’t very appetising) at a rather funky looking café, Frank, David and I headed to the market to find coats! It was David in particular that needed one, but I saw a long black coat that was a reasonable fit on me, costing less than £3. Okay, so it was second-hand, with some marks on it and a couple of tiny holes where the filling kept spilling out despite my best efforts to sew it up, but it would do to tide me over until we dropped down to warmer climes later in the trip. 

Once it got dark, I set up our speakers and projector to show the Nyakyusa translation of the Jesus film on the outside wall of the Lutheran church. I left my colleagues to supervise the equipment and endure the chilly, damp evening air, while I retreated to our guest house until it was time to pack up. It was one of the nicest guest houses I’ve stayed in for a long time. Everything felt new and even toilet paper was provided (an unusual luxury), as well as soap, a toothbrush and toothpaste and a little pot of scented petroleum jelly (which Tanzanians use as a moisturiser).

Thursday

I didn’t want to get out from under the blanket! But telling myself I’d feel better for a brisk walk in the cold morning air, I forced myself to get up and head out. The clouds hung low over the mountains and by the time I got back there was a faint drizzle in the air – I was thankful for my new coat! We had come to the Nyakyusa language area with the primary goal of listening to people’s stories of the impact of the work we have done there, including making the New Testament available in the Nyakyusa language in both print and audio forms. This method of research is known as Outcome Harvesting, and would later involve analysing the short stories we have collected, to look for patterns in the data to see what we can learn from it for future work.

In Kandete we hoped to meet with ten people, starting at 9am. We eventually started about 2.5 hours later with seven people, in a room belonging to the Lutheran church. Frank and I were disappointed with the small number of stories we were able to gather. On the plus side, they were very happy that we had visited, we had a good Bible study time at the beginning, we sold a few Nyakyusa books and were able to leave three audio devices behind for them to use to listen to the Nyakyusa audio Scriptures.

After a very late lunch (as disappointing as the previous day’s dinner) we set off for our next location, Mbambo. I drove slowly over the rough road, trying to avoid the worst of the bumps, and enjoying the beautiful scenery all around, from the rolling hills to the green fields of potato plants, and from rows of tea bushes to big, leafy banana trees. At a seemingly random spot, the dirt road suddenly became tarmac, and the rest of the journey was an almost constant descent on a lovely smooth road.

Being at a lower altitude, Mbambo was much warmer, so I was finally able to shed my coat and cardigan. The guest house wasn’t anywhere near as nice as the previous place, but then again, it was also half the price (at about £3.30). The worst problem was the loud music emanating from the bar next door and the drunk people talking too loudly just a few metres away from my bedroom window. David and I went to visit the pastor of the church where we’d be holding our meeting the next day, and were invited to stay for dinner (the kind of invitation that you can’t refuse). What I really wanted to do was go back to my room and have some time alone, and I felt guilty for feeling like that in the face of such kind hospitality. When we did return to the guest house, it was to find that the music seemed even louder, so it was nothing short of a miracle that I managed to fall asleep.

Friday

We were able to start our meeting more promptly this time, going through the same routine as the previous day, but gathering even less stories than before. However, our time together felt very worthwhile as we were able to sell print and audio Scriptures and talk about how they could all play a part in raising awareness of the availability of the Nyakyusa New Testament. As they finished off their sodas at the end, which the pastor had kindly provided, they also enjoyed watching a short section of the Jesus film. It’s amazing how even in the most rural places you can find crates of fizzy drinks in glass bottles (usually from either Pepsi or Coca Cola, who produce a much wider range of drinks than I was ever aware of when in England). A common gesture of hospitality is to give your guests a soda – unfortunately my favourite sodas (bitter lemon and ginger beer) are not so easy to come by out of town, so I am very thankful when a bottle of water is amongst the drink offerings.

And then we were on the road again, to the village of Itete, where the plan was to hold a seminar on the book of Ephesians for local churches (especially church leaders), beginning Friday evening and continuing throughout Saturday. Only four people were there at the time we were supposed to start, so I played the audio version of Ephesians in Nyakyusa for them to listen to while we waited for others to come. By the end, there were still only four people! For some reason they’d omitted to tell me that most churches have a service on a Friday evening, so they couldn’t participate at that time. So, quick change of plan – I used the time instead to do a Bible overview (a quick revision of a Bible seminar I taught there last year) and to have a Nyakyusa literacy lesson (taught by David).

After teaching, I wanted to rest but David and Frank needed food, so I drove them to the village centre and waited in the car while they got something to eat, which took longer than expected. I was hungry, thirsty and tired and desperate to get back to the house when they finally emerged from the café an hour or so later. Driving at night in a rural village is a disorientating experience – the dark feels so very dark, and I lost all sense of direction and had problems turning the car as I couldn’t see what was behind me (an issue exacerbated by the tinted rear windows).

We slept in the same house I stayed in last time I was there (the owner of the house doesn’t live there anymore, and lets the pastor use it for his guests). David and Frank were given the room I slept in last time, as it has a double bed, which they had to share, while I got the room with a single bed. This didn’t seem to disturb them too much – Frank told me the main thing was that they both like to have the light off when they sleep, so at least they were in agreement on that! Later I could hear one of them gently snoring.

Saturday

I enjoyed a short but beautiful early morning walk to a crater lake, with fantastic views in all directions, to Lake Nyasa in the south and mountains in the north. Then it was off to the grass-roofed church for the seminar. This time there was a good turnout, from a range of church denominations, and we enjoyed studying Ephesians together. One of the main challenges I found was getting them to give thought-through answers that related specifically to the Bible passage in question – instead their answers were often just based on their general Bible knowledge. While the answers weren’t necessarily bad or wrong, it just meant that they weren’t ever getting beyond the basic truths we are all familiar with to discover the breadth and depth of what is revealed in God’s Word.

As soon as we had finished we were off again, saying goodbye to David en-route and hello to Andrew as we arrived at our next sleeping place less than an hour later. But no time to rest, we needed to be off again to show the Jesus film at an evangelistic meeting outside a little Baptist church, where a piece of tarpaulin had been stretched across some bamboo poles to create a big screen. Being a warm location and having been well advertised at the evangelistic meeting in the preceding days, as well as drawing in people passing by on the road less than a stone’s throw from where the screen had been erected, there was a big turnout of both children and adults. Although it was hard to tell in the dark, I reckon over 150 people had gathered, with even the children staying to the end, despite the late hour.

Sunday

On Sunday morning we headed back to the Baptist church, which was little more than a wooden hut. Andrew preached to the small congregation, using mostly Nyakyusa, though with enough Swahili mixed in that I, and any other non-Nyakyusa speakers, could still follow along. We also had the joy of witnessing the baptism of some teenage girls and a young boy, at a river a one mile walk away from the church. I wouldn’t have wanted to get baptised in the muddy water there, a place that, judging by the multitude of hoof marks on the banks, was obviously frequented by thirsty cows, but the girls didn’t hesitate to squelch through the mud and into the pool, afterwards getting changed into dry clothes behind a bush.

Singing and dancing as part of the evangelistic meeting.
In the back, left-hand corner you can see the little church.

After lunch at the pastor’s home, the ubiquitous rice, greens and meat and a soda, we headed back to the guest house where I was able to have a couple of hours of respite, while Frank went off to find a barber to shave his short beard and hair off as it was getting itchy! And then it was off again, for yet another showing of the Jesus film outside the church where we’d hold the next day’s meeting. I was amazed to discover the church was carpeted inside – I felt like I was back in a church in England! Why they would carpet their church located in a hot, tropical village, where I doubt anyone has even heard of such a thing as a vacuum cleaner, beats me! A cement or tiled floor is much cooler and easier to keep clean, which is what you will find in most churches and people’s homes.

Showing the Jesus film (we'd taped white sheets up over the window to create a screen)

Monday

Same again, another meeting, in the warm, carpeted church, with a fan whirring furiously overhead. Then it was back on the road to the district town of Kyela, and back to the same guest house and room I had slept in a couple of months previously when we’d gone to meet with the Nyakyusa team to talk about the research and plan the trip we were now in the middle of.

Tuesday

Our fourth (and my final) meeting location was half an hour outside of Kyela, very close to the border of Malawi. It was hot. We met in a Moravian church, and I was very confused when participants introduced themselves and I discovered that there were two Moravian churches in the village, with slightly different names. Sadly there had been a big split in the Moravian church some time previously, leading to a family being burned in their home and a break-off of the original church being started. No wonder Jesus prayed for believers to have unity (John 17), for he knew just how hopeless we are at maintaining it in our own strength.

A late lunch was followed by a siesta and then sitting outside in the shade to work together on writing up the stories we’d heard, while mosquitoes enjoyed a sumptuous dinner at my expense. Thirsty, I crossed the main road to a little shop boasting a fridge, to buy a bottle of cold water. Shelves lined the walls, bearing pot after pot of local herb mixes claiming to help with all kinds of ailments. I told the ownders of the shop about our work of Bible translation and the Nyakyusa Bible app that you can download from Google Play Store – to my delight, they immediately downloaded it onto their phone.

There was just time to go for a short walk before it got dark. Well, I would have been back before dark if my stomach hadn’t decided it was time to complain about something or other I must have eaten that I shouldn’t have. I begged a woman, who was sitting outside her home cooking plantain, for use of their toilet, rushed to their little brick outhouse, grabbing some leaves off a tree en-route (I had made the fatal mistake of not carrying toilet paper) and ducked under the curtain that served as a door. Being dusk, I turned on my phone’s torch so I could see where the hole was and let my body do what it needed to do. I thanked the lady profusely and weakly walked the rest of the way back to my room, looking forward to having a shower. But my shower had to wait as less than five minutes after arriving I was plunged into darkness as my bedroom bulb blew. As they had no spare bulbs and no ladder to reach up and replace it anyhow, I had to move all my stuff to another room. Bed number six of a trip of just seven nights. Paint was peeling on the walls and loud music emanated from the bar across the road, but once again, God calmed my spirit and I was able to relax and fall asleep, even as the music continued.

Wednesday

After a final bit of work together, I dropped my colleagues off at the border to continue their journey into Malawi by public transport, and began my drive back to Mbeya, climbing back up into the hills and leaving the tropical heat behind. I was surprised to pass by a total of three white (or more precisely, sun-bronzed) men cycling along on bikes heavily laden with panniers, each some miles distant from the other, each persuing their own crazy goal of cycling from who-knows-where to some distant destination. (Incidentally, these were the first white faces I had seen since leaving Mbeya eight days earlier.) One sported a ‘Cross Africa’ sign across the back of his bike, and I marvelled at how different the idea of ‘a fun way to spend the summer’ could be from one person to another. While some people might think my life is exotic and adventorous, the reality is that it’s generally quite calm and ordered! It also helps that I can speak the language and any of my more adventorous trips are usually in the company of someone who knows their way around. When I do have to face uncomfortable situations I have a strong motivation to persevere because Christ’s love compels me. How does someone find ‘fun’ the idea of cycling alone day after day, up and down steep hills under a hot African sun, unable to communicate easily, not knowing whether you’ll be able to get a decent shower at the end of another dusty, sweaty day on the bike or any hope of good coffee and a bowl of porridge to get you going the next morning? We are truly uniquely and wonderfully made!

After a couple of hours of driving I stopped off briefly for one of my favourite Tanzanian lunches, chipsi mayai (chip omelette), before entering a windy and dusty Mbeya mid-afternoon. I’d driven a total of 399km (248 miles), along some interesting roads and through some beautiful countryside and remarkably diverse climates; what a privilege to work in a place like this. But it was so good to be home.

Back in Mbeya

The stories we heard

A few of the forty plus stories we gathered, both the uplifting and the disheartening:

A certain retired teacher has always liked to use Nyakyusa. If he was given a chance to teach in church, he'd read in Swahili and then begin to translate it. Since getting the Nyakyusa NT he has used it when given a chance to preach in church. Now he doesn’t have to translate from Swahili as the Nyakyusa NT can be understood straight away.

One church member said, “After attending the literacy/Bible study workshop in 2017, I haven’t known where to get Nyakyusa books. I didn’t know the NT was available here in Mbambo. And I’ve stopped teaching people to read Nyakyusa.”

A particular pastor uses the Nyakyusa audio Scriptures when he is preparing to preach. He listens to the Scriptures until he finds a passage he wants to use, and then he listens to it carefully so he can prepare his sermon. He also uses the audio Scriptures when there is a power cut and can’t see to read his Bible.

One day, a couple of years ago, this same pastor visited a lady who was unwell. He sang her a song from the Nyakyusa Christian songbook*. The lady sat up and began to sing and felt a lot better!

*The songbook has existed for some time, but a few years ago we updated the orthography (spelling system) and republished it, much to everyone’s delight. The new orthography that we developed and used in all our Nyakyusa publications is much easier to read than the old one, because it looks more like the Swahili alphabet. The new songbook quickly sold out, and although we haven’t been able to reprint it, we have been able to make it available as an app for anyone who has a smart phone.

Last year, a pastor read John 3:16 from his Nyakyusa NT to some neighbours who had visited his home. One of them came to faith!

Mountains, lake, buses, boats - another trip to Ukisi

I met my Kisi colleagues (Claudia and Stanslaus) at the bus stand at about 5.30am and we caught a 6am bus to Njombe, where we needed to change buses to get to Ludewa. A couple of months ago I had made the same trip, when I went to the Manda language area (see earlier blog) to do the same thing – a couple of workshops on Luke’s gospel. The Manda and Kisi language areas are next to each other, so getting to both areas involves a bus trip to Ludewa first, after which you head directly west to Lake Nyasa to get to the Kisi language area, while the Manda language area is further south, though also next to the lake. Although geographically further away, the Manda language area is actually easier to get to as the land slopes gently down into the lake so villages can be reached by reasonably good dirt roads, while the Kisi language area is made up of steep mountains that drop directly into the lake, so getting from one village to another involves precipitous mountain tracks or boat rides to the lakeshore villages.

Left map shows the route from Mbeya to Lupingu (at the very bottom of the map on the eastern shore of Lake Nyasa), via Njombe and Ludewa. Right map shows the different language areas – the Kisi area is the one bordered in red, the Manda area is to the south and the Pangwa area (we’re also doing Bible translation in this language) to the east. I’ve circled the town of Ludewa and the village of Lupingu in blue.

The bus to Ludewa looked somewhat rough and ready, and the engine failed before we’d even got out of the bus station, but the bus driver fixed it and we were soon on our way without further problems. The bus bumped away over the dirt road for some time, before reaching a long stretch of newly surfaced road that provided sweet relief from the rattles, shakes and dust. We arrived in Ludewa at 4.30pm, therefore providing me with ample time to visit the market to buy some bananas and satsumas and then go for a walk. Ludewa is a lovely small town, with a sleepy, friendly feel, and surrounded by hills. It’s warmer than Mbeya, being at a slightly lower altitude, but not too hot, especially at this time of year. However, white people aren’t common viewing, so I was an object of interest everywhere I walked, especially as I walk fast, which invites comments along the lines of “She walks like a soldier” (i.e. marching along quickly) – I don’t think they realise I can understand what they are saying about me!

Enjoying an evening walk in Ludewa

I was startled awake in the night by the sound of rain. Rain in July?! It’s the middle of the dry season, we shouldn’t have been seeing rain until October or November. And it was proper rain, that kept going most of the night and it was still drizzling when we got up the next morning. We rented a car and driver to take us along the mountain road to the Kisi village of Nindi, and were duly dropped off at the Catholic church where we would be holding the workshop (not in the church itself, but in one of their rooms just down the road); the Catholic church is the main denomination in the area. Leaving the workshop resources there, we headed down a red dirt path to where we would be sleeping in the grounds of the Catholic church, which were extensive. The accommodation was basic but ample – what more do you need than a bed with clean sheets (though the mattress was somewhat thin, so I could feel the planks of wood through it), a table and chair, a toilet next-door to my room (albeit outside, with a door that stuck when you tried to open it) and a friendly welcome from a Catholic 

The classroom's toilet

sister promising hot water to wash with in the evening. My kind colleagues had made sure I had the nicest living situation, as their toilet was not just outside, but maybe 20-30 metres away from their rooms! While on the topic of toilets, the one available for use by the classroom where we held the workshop, had grass walls and no roof, so it was wonderfully smell-free, if a little exposed. Big, 1cm-long ants, with shiny black bottoms, scuttled around the hole – definitely wouldn’t want to get those ants in your pants!

Staying at the Catholic guest house in Nindi (outside, bathroom and bedroom)

We had sixteen participants on the first day of the workshop. In a nutshell, the workshop covered learning to read Kisi and studying Luke’s gospel together (recently published in Kisi). Through a mixture of group work and up-front teaching, we looked at a range of passages that helped us identify some key themes in Luke. We finished by thinking about how what we learnt applied to our own lives and how they could use Luke’s gospel (in both print and audio forms, together with the Jesus film) in their homes, their churches and their community.

Workshop participants learn to read Kisi and start to read Luke’s gospel in Kisi (Nindi)

When it came to lunchtime there wasn’t enough rice for everyone, as some participants had turned up after we’d informed the cook of how many people there would be (the usual issue of people arriving late), so we waited while she quickly prepared some ugali to go with the beef stew. Beef stew sounds rather grand for what is just beef in stock with a little chopped tomato for good measure. I was happy to wait for the ugali, which I generally prefer to rice as they often put too much oil in the rice for my taste. However, I failed to finish my lump of ugali, as I only had three small cubes of beef (which was tender and tasty) and the fatty stock (where the fat quickly solidified into orange blobs due to the cold weather) to wash it down. On a short evening walk, I picked up some tomatoes to 

Out for a walk in Nindi

supplement the carrots, cucumber and oranges that I had brought with me for my evening meals, making up for the lack of anything fresh at lunchtime. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to find any of those vegetables or fruits here, which is why I had brought them with me; typically the only fresh thing you can find in rural villages is tomatoes. Although the village of Nindi is less than an hour’s drive from the town of Ludewa, it feels very rural, as the mountain roads are not easy to traverse. This is why so little is available for sale, be it food or anything else. Phone network coverage is also poor, which adds to the feeling of remoteness – around noon the network suddenly seemed to wake up, before disappearing again in the evening. My colleague said the phone towers are solar-powered, so they only work once the sun is high in the sky, and as the first couple of days were cloudy it was particularly slow to get going. 

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4pm, Thursday 13^th July, 2023

I am writing this while sitting in the workshop room. I’m here alone – the room has an abandoned look, as if people have left in a hurry, with bottles of water standing sentinel here and there, and a few Bibles scattered on the benches. It’s because of a funeral. This morning we heard that someone had died and the burial would take place this afternoon at the Catholic church, which is just up the road – I can see it through the window from where I am sitting and I can hear the faint strains of a choir singing at the funeral service. Local tradition means it’s important for pretty much everyone to attend, whether you know the person who died or not. It was especially important for us as half of our workshop participants are from the Catholic church, and we are using their buildings for the workshop! My Kisi colleagues have gone, but I have stayed to look after the things left in the room (there’s no way to lock the door), as the fact that I am a complete stranger means it’s less necessary for me to attend.

Oh, one of my colleagues has already returned; they kept that service short! He tells me that though the service was short, the burial will be longer, as it’s there that they will begin to tell the person’s story of when they were born, what happened etc. (I found out later that he was only 27; he had become ill but despite going to several hospitals they failed to identify the real source of the problem.) At lunchtime the workshop participants were all talking about it, as apparently someone had refilled the freshly dug grave so there was lots of speculation over what was going on, with talk of him having been killed and that witchcraft was involved. (The truth turned out to be that the family had spent all their money on trying to get treatment for him, so they had no money left to pay for proper transportation of the body back from the hospital where he had died, so he’d been carried ‘secretly’ on the back of a motorbike, without the proper paperwork for transportation and burial (or something along those lines). So the grave had been refilled to prevent burial, over concern that the proper procedures hadn’t been followed and it could create trouble. However, in the end, this decision was overturned, recognising that the man deserved a decent burial, and any officialdom could be sorted out later.)

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Despite everything, we were able to get through all the material I had prepared, as we went faster than we did in the Manda area because they asked less questions! I was wishing they’d ask more, as questions give me a sense of where people are at, what their level of understanding really is and what issues there are in their biblical understanding and Christian living. However, despite this lack of feedback as we went along, the feedback at the end was really encouraging.

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Here’s some of what was said (loosely translated and abbreviated from Swahili):

“This workshop has opened my eyes to how to read the Bible.” and “I didn’t know how to use the Bible, but from now on I’ll be a teacher of the Bible!” (Many participants were from churches where reading the Bible isn’t something that is particularly encouraged, so it was an eye-opening experience to discover how we can study the Bible and learn from it for ourselves.)

“I’ve learned what principles to use when reading the Bible, and tools for teaching, such as sitting in a circle and discussing.”

“I’ve learned about prayer. Even Jesus prayed for something he didn’t get.” (This referred to one of the themes we looked at in Luke of Jesus being a man of prayer. We talked about how Jesus prayed for his cup of suffering to be removed, but may God’s will be done.)

“This has been a new thing for me, do we preach Jesus or do we preach the development of the church? We need to make changes. If someone comes to my church, will they meet Jesus or a request for money?” (This came out of our discussion about the themes in Luke, and how those themes compare to the things we normally teach in our churches.)

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With my colleagues, Stanslaus and Claudia, in
Nindi (in front of the Catholic church)

Workshop over, we were picked up by the same driver as before to be taken to Lupingu, down by the lake, where we were welcomed by warm air and the sound of waves breaking on the beach. (I had felt cold the whole time we were in Nindi, due to overcast skies and a chilly wind.) I killed four big cockroaches in my room and en-suite bathroom before bed – warmer weather always means bigger bugs! The next morning we went to visit the pastor of a church, who so far has refused to support and be involved in the work we are doing. Working cross-denominationally can be challenging, with some people being very denominationalist, unwilling to work alongside people from certain other denominations. We praise God that a side effect of our work is often bringing about co-operation between churches that previously wouldn’t have associated with each other. Unfortunately, the pastor was out fishing and wouldn’t be back for some time, so we spoke to the pastor’s wife and then headed back to the guest house, packed up our stuff, and got in the small motor boat waiting to take us to Makonde further up the lake.

Thankfully the lake was fairly calm, an answer to prayer after how rough it had been in recent days – we heard that just a few nights previously (when we had that unexpected rain) it had been really stormy, with big waves reaching beyond the usual shoreline, and sweeping away or damaging fishing nets and boats. As we progressed towards Makonde, I was amazed to see telegraph poles hugging the shoreline and to discover that electricity had made it all the way to Makonde. That must have been a challenging job, with no roads for transportation of the poles and cables, and most of the shoreline being rocky so that it would have been hard to get close with a boat.

Being Saturday, we took it easy, but we still went to visit another pastor to invite his participation in the workshop and our work in general. He was of the same denomination as the pastor we tried to visit in Lupingu and he proved equally reluctant to get involved; incidentally people from that same denomination had participated happily in the Nindi workshop. We also visited a couple of other pastors (who are fully supportive), though I spent most of my time subtly reading a book on my phone while my colleagues chatted with them in Kisi (whenever they switched to Swahili, I joined in, but I don’t understand any Kisi, though sometimes I can pick up the gist of a conversation by occasional Swahili words that get thrown in). I also enjoyed a short swim in the evening, and a few moments of quiet by the lake after the sun set before hiding away in my room. Although we were staying in a guest house, it was more like an AirBnB in feel as the guest rooms are within the family’s own home, so I could hear the family and my colleagues talking together in the living room, a strangely comforting sound. I enjoy chatting with folk here, but I find I also need time to myself – the fast conversation of a group can be hard for me to follow and engage in, either because I lack context or because I don’t know the relevant vocabulary, all of which can make it quite tiring to follow along. Sunday was a fairly quiet day, other than attending a local church in the morning (the one where we would hold the workshop) – I was really encouraged by the good teaching of the elderly pastor, who faithfully taught the truth. Despite spending much of the day just sitting around reading, doing cross-stitch or listening to audio stuff, I didn’t find it very relaxing, though it would be hard to put a finger on why, other than maybe just that sense of being a guest in a strange place so that you are always conscious of how you behave.

Moody sky one evening in Makonde

The workshop got off to a promising start on Monday morning, with a good turnout (we had around 25 participants by the end of the first day) and a good mix of denominations. The translators have visited Makonde many times (it’s sometimes considered the place where the purest Kisi language can be found), so there has been a lot of exposure there to our work. This was evident in people’s proficiency in reading Kisi and the fact that the majority of participants had already got a copy of Luke in Kisi and had brought it with them to the workshop. They also asked more questions and showed a greater readiness to answer questions, all of which made my job of teaching much more enjoyable.

Left: Claudia teaches about the letters that exist in the Kisi alphabet that don’t exist in Swahili. Right: Group work, discussing various Bible passages in Luke. In the foreground, you can also see the basket of cups and thermos flasks ready to serve chai (morning tea – black, very sweet and lightly spiced).

After we finished, Claudia and I went to a participant’s house to enjoy oranges freshly picked off her tree (I tried to explain to Claudia that oranges in England were actually orange, but I think she found it hard to take in, as oranges here are typically green, maybe with a bit of yellow or orange on them). I also had a fun conversation with her about hair, explaining that we use shampoo and not oil in our hair like they use. When I came to eating my tea, I was disgruntled to discover that tiny ants had got into my food tub. I proceeded to knock and blow them off my homemade granola bar as best I could, clean out the tub and clean off the floor where they were now scuttling around. I then noticed some of the ants on my neatly folded pile of clothes and realised that ants were running around all over the place. I shook out my clothes, moved everything to a different part of the room and resolved to ask that my room be cleaned the next day. Ants are a relentless problem in a place like Makonde. In Mbeya I sometimes find ants scuttling around my bathroom or crawling over our waste food tub or along the worktop in the kitchen, and much worse are the termites in the garden constantly eating away at our fence, but I think in this warmer, more humid environment by the lake, the situation is much worse.

The workshop finished well on Wednesday, with people who had come from further afield beseeching us to visit their village with workshops like this, and even the people of Makonde itself asking us to come again. It was encouraging to see the spirit of unity between churches that was fostered through the workshop – there had been some awkward questions and comments that could have been divisive, but at the conclusion of it all it was clear that they recognised that we share one message of good news for the people of Makonde and we need to work together to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to make the Kisi Scriptures available. And this message is needed just as much in Makonde as anywhere. One evening I walked past a house where a lady had created what looked like a very shallow paddling pool (maybe 2 metres long by 1 metre wide), filled with a slightly brown liquid with froth on top, which she was stirring. I found out later it was local brew (usually made from maize) – what she was doing was a quick way of cooling it off so that it would be ready for selling and drinking. From afternoon to evening, every day, people sit around next to the football field, down by the lake, drinking. It seems that alcoholism is a real problem here. (And not just here, I’ve heard it’s a problem in many many places.)

Views around Makonde

Each evening that we had stayed in Makonde the lake was quite rough, so on Tuesday we made the decision that I shouldn’t try to leave on Wednesday evening straight after the workshop, but should wait until Thursday morning, as the lake is usually calmer in the mornings, even though this meant I wouldn’t get home until a day later. So the boat and car was accordingly arranged for Thursday. Remembering the last time I had visited Makonde and the very rough boat ride back to Lupingu, which made even the locals somewhat anxious, this felt like a wise course of action. But when Wednesday evening arrived, there was hardly any breeze and the lake lapped gently against the shore; people here always say, “The lake is unpredictable!”  At least this meant there was a chance to have one final dip in the lake, enjoying the beautifully coloured fish swimming around the rocks on the lake bed and staying until the big pink disc of the sun sank below the hills of Malawi on the other side of the lake. Idyllic though this sounds (and it was truly beautiful, causing me to break into song, “Oh Lord my God, when I awesome wonder, consider all the works thy hands hath made”) I also felt very ready to head home, to where I can speak English with friends and not feel so very much like a fish out of water. Still, I spent a pleasant evening chatting with the landlady for a while outside, while marvelling at the stars, and then chatting with her husband and Claudia indoors and watching the news together, before retiring to my room for a bit of time to myself and to make sure I was ready for the next day’s early start.

The next morning I was up at 6am. Half an hour later I was ready to go. By that time, one of the landlady’s children, who couldn’t have been more than ten years old, was already outside sweeping the yard and a wood fire was already lit in the kitchen (a brick building, separate from the house), with smoke billowing out the open door and windows. The landlady shortly headed down to the beach to try and find some fish or meat for the cooking she’d be doing that day. We had kept her busy, as she had cooked all the food for our workshop, and now she would be cooking for the 5-day meeting my colleagues would be holding with the ‘Reviewers Committee’ (a group of Kisi Christians) to check through the first half of Genesis. I didn’t get to have any fish while I was there, despite being next to the lake, as the choppy waters meant hardly any fish near the shores and no fishing. We had pork one day though – there are lots of pigs roaming around the village, and while I waited to board the boat to leave, I could see a pig lying lifeless on the beach, with a man hard at work cleaning the skin ready to butcher it. Next time I turned around to look, there was the head, eyes staring sightlessly up into the sky. It almost made me want to turn vegetarian, but I’m rather partial to pork!

And finally I was off. Stanslaus (who accompanied me) kept up a loud conversation with the boat people over the noise of the engine and every now and then got busy with a scooper to get rid of the excess water sloshing around in the bottom of the boat. Within a couple of hours we’d arrived in Lupingu, where they somehow managed to drop my rucksack in the water as we climbed ashore, so my clothes all got rather damp! I said goodbye to Stanslaus and got in the waiting car, together with Stanslaus’s wife and daughter-in-law, as the latter was pregnant and needed to go to the hospital in town ready for giving birth. An hour and a half later we were in Ludewa and I had bought a ticket for the 11am bus to Njombe. Arriving in Njombe about 4pm, I couldn’t face getting on another bus, so I bought a ticket for a 6am bus the next morning and headed to a guest house. I struggled to hold back the tears when I was finally alone in my room. The travel, the tiredness, the unwanted attention because I’m white and the resulting bad attitude I had to people who were trying to help me (albeit with the hope of getting money out of it) left me feeling miserable. But after hanging out my damp clothes to dry, a shower, a walk with lovely views, some grilled maize and a friendly chat with the guest house worker, I felt a lot better.

Waiting for the accident to be cleared – the queue of traffic
stretched into the distance. The bus I was travelling on is
the one on the left.

By lunchtime the next day I was home, though we got stuck for an hour or so due to an accident, so it had been a longer journey than anticipated. My head was reeling from the loud music on the bus – can you believe it, they were playing Michael Jackson music videos! I was exhausted. I’d enjoyed my travels, I was thankful for the privilege of teaching local Christians and for their warm appreciation for what we are doing, the mountains, lake and night skies were food for the soul as they pointed to our loving Creator, and I’d enjoyed chatting with Claudia, but it felt so good to be home again.

Off to the capital

One advantage of an early start - getting to watch the sunrise

5am. Seriously? When did they change the bus departure times from being 6am to 5am?! So I had to get up in what felt like the middle of the night to catch the bus to Dodoma, the administrative capital of Tanzania, where I was going to be teaching two workshops. At least the bus stand is only a five minute walk from our home! Nearly eleven hours on the bus, with only one toilet/food stop (of just ten minutes), doesn’t make for the most comfortable experience, but it was nice to arrive in Dodoma mid-afternoon and have time for the excitement of a visit to the supermarket. That may not sound exciting to you, but Mbeya’s biggest food store has three very short aisles, so you can browse everything they stock in less than five minutes. Not that I’m complaining, as we can get almost everything we need, and for a terrible decision maker like me it’s a good thing to not have a lot of choice! But I’ve always rather enjoyed food shopping, so it was fun to have this chance to browse a bigger store. I bought some juicy sultanas off the bargain shelf – amusingly the packaging declared a price of ‘£1.45’ (about 4400 Tanzanian shillings), so it had obviously been imported from the UK. Usually such items are two or three times the original UK price, but it was on a date-offer of just 3000 shillings!

Lunch stop - I was on the bus in the middle

I was staying with friends and colleagues in Dodoma, Michelle and Nicholle Haupt (they’re sisters) – they were the ones who had invited me to teach as they are coordinating Scripture Engagement work in the projects that are based out of our Dodoma office. The first workshop wasn't held in Dodoma itself, so on Monday we had to catch a bus to a small town called Magugu, which spreads out on either side of the main road that connects Dodoma (in the centre of Tanzania) to Arusha (in the north). This meant another five or so hours on a bus! Magugu is in the Mbugwe language area, and the three Mbugwe translators had arrived over the weekend to make sure everything was set up. It was my first time to visit, and I can’t honestly say I will be in any hurry to return! Compared to the highlands of home in Mbeya, the landscape felt bland and the town somehow reminiscent of a Wild West town with sand, dust and drab looking buildings on either side of the highway. On my third evening there I was thankful to discover a road that led me away from the highway and houses towards a village, where I finally felt I could breathe as my surroundings opened out to fields and vegetation, with low lying hills ahead. The second (and last) time I walked along that road, I caught up with a teenage girl walking home to the village (apparently 6km away from Magugu) who wanted to chat with me, so she picked up her pace to keep up and we exchanged pleasantries. I learned that she walked that 6km every day to get to her school in town!

Going for a walk

The workshop was for Sunday school teachers. The goals of the workshop were:

• to teach them to read their Mbugwe language
• to introduce them to a series of Old Testament Bible story books that have been translated into Mbugwe that they can use in Sunday school
• to do a Bible overview with them (using those books, which covered creation, the fall, Noah, the tower of Babel, God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac and the Exodus, as part of that overview)
• to teach them interactive methods for teaching children
• to provide guidance for preparing a Sunday school lesson.

Playing games

We had around 15 teachers, coming from villages across the Mbugwe language area. They had varying levels of ability, but all engaged well and by the end each one was able to share something they had learnt, from understanding the significance of sacrifice and how that began right at the beginning in the Garden of Eden, to enjoying new games that they can use with children, to learning how to read Mbugwe. They were a fun group to be with and at the end we were touched by many kind words and each of us facilitators received a gift of a big bag of rice. Apparently Magugu is known for its rice – at the edge of the football field outside our guest house were piles of rice husks. In the mornings I saw ladies winnowing (using a shallow basket to toss the rice husks in the air and let the breeze blow them away); I think they were looking to see if they could find any grains of rice left among the husks. We finished the workshop early Friday afternoon, and before departing they performed a traditional song and dance for us, in their own unique Mbugwe style, circling around the drummer with careful footwork and moving their shoulders in time with the beat.

Traditional Mbugwe dancing

Saturday morning we were back on the bus to return to Dodoma, wondering exactly what we would find in the Haupts’ house, as we’d received news while we were away that it had been burgled. We arrived at the house to find their househelp had kindly stayed around while people were there repairing the window frame and iron bars that had been cut through by the thieves in order for them to get into the house. Thankfully nothing of any significant value had been taken, it was mostly kitchen items and a few other things, but knowing someone has broken into your home is unsettling to say the least. We visited the supermarket that evening in order to replace the kettle and iron!

On Sunday I went with Michelle to the church they attend, which is pastored by the team leader of our Dodoma project office; he proved to be a great Bible teacher. The service was a real encouragement to me – the last time I had felt fed and built up by a church service was in February when I was in Dar for our strategy meetings! It was such a contrast to the far-too-loud church I normally attend, with endlessly repeated choruses, four choirs to listen to and sermons that seem to contain an unnecessary amount of shouting. (I don’t really know much about the content of the sermons as I’m usually out teaching Sunday school, but from the odd chance I’ve had to stay in for a sermon it seems that the teaching is usually milk rather than meat.) You may wonder why I don’t find another church, but the reality is that the alternatives may be no better, in fact they may be worse. At least in the church I attend most of what is said is faithful to Scripture, there seems to be genuine care for people in need, the pastor appears to be a man of prayer and I feel part of the church family to some degree.

Group work - practising telling the
Bible story and teaching

Monday we began again – workshop number two, this time held in the Dodomaoffice, with the Sunday school teachers coming into Dodoma from the Rangi and Burunge language areas. The goals of the workshop were similar, but the Rangi and Burunge books we were sharing with them to use in Sunday school were very simple books of teachings and stories of Jesus, so I spent less time on doing the Bible overview and more time looking at these different stories and learning how to teach children. I was amused at lunchtime on the first day to find out that one of the Bible translators, who was supposedly working away in his office, was actually listening into our seminar and making notes on it! After talking about how there is no more need for sacrifice since Christ gave his life for us, one participant asked how do you respond as a Christian when there has been a fire on your land and the neighbours say you must join them in making sacrifices (I think to appease the gods or ancestors). It would have been easy for me to say you need to stand firm and refuse to participate, but I’ve never had to face that kind of community pressure! I invited the group to respond to his question and I was very glad when a participant was able to share a personal example of standing firm in a similar situation.

Performing a memory verse song they had
composed (first workshop) - there was a power
cut, and the room was rather dim, so they
were using torches on their phones to help
them see the words!

At the end of the workshop we invited people to share something new they had learnt about God, something new they had learnt about how to teach children and one thing that they had really enjoyed about the workshop. It was great to hear people saying that they’ve seen God’s love right from Genesis, how he wants to be near to us, how he came to seek and to save the lost etc. It was encouraging to hear lots of them say how much they enjoyed the teaching, that they didn’t get tired because it was so engaging and that they have learnt a lot about how to teach children.

Thursday morning it was back on the bus for 11.5 hours to return to Mbeya (it always takes longer on the return journey, maybe because of climbing the hills to get back up to Mbeya and the traffic jams on the way into town). It was good to get home. I was exhausted after the trip, both from the fairly intense programme and the travel itself, but I was thankful for all that God had enabled us to do. I pray that the Sunday school teachers will have the courage to implement what they learnt, and also have gained an appetite for reading God’s wonderful Word.

I was fascinated by the unique housing style in the countryside outside of Dodoma -
long, low, flat roofed mud houses.
(Apologies for blurry image - it was taken while on the bus.)