Off to Tanzania's capital to train Sunday school teachers

Not all my trips involve being squeezed between an excessive number of passengers on a rickety bus or staying in guest houses that would benefit from some DIY. My journey to Dodoma was conducted in comparative luxury on a smart Shabiby coach, which even had a toilet and air conditioning that worked. Recognising that there were a couple of non-Tanzanians on the bus, the conductor gave announcements in both Swahili and English, which I thought was very considerate, even if I did find the Swahili easier to understand! The announcements included asking everyone to pause for a moment to pray (to the god of whichever faith you follow) for the journey ahead, which I can’t imagine ever happening on coaches in Britain!

We'd only been travelling fifteen minutes or so when we stopped
to fill up a tyre with air at this roadside puncture repair shop

The bus journey was long, 11 hours 20 minutes, but uneventful, passing through lush green scenery, as the rainy season is only just coming to an end. At some point I got into conversation with the man sitting next to me, who asked questions I have never heard from a Tanzanian before. After telling him what I do, he asked, “Why do you believe in God?” Most Tanzanians would consider themselves either Christian or Muslim, so to meet with someone who openly questioned the existence of God came as something of a surprise. I stumbled over my explanation, especially as I was talking in Swahili, but nevertheless was happy to be able to share with him why I believe God exists, starting with the wonder of the created world and also sharing about Jesus being a real person in history. More questions followed, which weren’t easy to answer, but I can only pray that the few seeds sown by my clumsy mouth might yet go on to take root. After talking about God, conversation moved onto nutrition, grey hair (he thought I was in my sixties because of my hair colour!!), the concept of supermarket monopoly (he was surprised to discover how food is cheaper for us in supermarkets compared to small independent shops, whereas here it is usually the other way round) and other random questions about life in England. In fact, it was quite hard to stop him talking when I reached a point of needing some time out with my own thoughts and a good book!

Michelle and Nicholle, two American sisters (literally sisters) who work in our office in Dodoma, had kindly invited me to stay with them. While I waited a few minutes for Nicholle to pick me up from the bus stand in Dodoma, I bought a nice-looking bunch of green grapes. The Dodoma region has many vineyards, and the vendors were selling both white and black grapes and also large plastic containers of wine. I think it’s the first time I’ve bought white grapes in Tanzania, as in Mbeya the only ones available are very expensive imported ones, though black grapes come from Dodoma when they are in season. The grapes were sweet, though I have been spoilt by seedless grapes in England, so I found the pips annoying!

A beautiful rainbow graced the skies as I waited at the bus stand and
chatted with the women selling grapes and wine

From the bus stand, we went straight to a restaurant in town to meet up with an American couple, who would be leaving one day later to go to the States, and a Dutch guy, who had been with our project in Mbeya the previous week and had now come to work with the Burunge language Bible translation team in Dodoma for a week. The restaurant proved to have good service and an extensive menu, with particularly good Indian food. I have to admit that our experience there was better than anything I have experienced in Mbeya restaurants! Most restaurants in Mbeya are attached to hotels, with a few exceptions that I would describe as cafés rather than restaurants. However, this place in Dodoma was a proper restaurant, and even the brownie I decided to try for dessert was delicious. A nice treat all round, including the company.

I was glad to get to bed after a day of sitting and take the pressure off my derriere! I slept pretty well, with cool air coming through my open window and the sound of insects chirruping loudly outside. The next morning, after a walk in which I realised I hadn’t quite got my bearings yet and ended up doing twice the distance I’d planned on, I headed to the office, which is just round the corner from where I was staying. I had come to Dodoma to facilitate two workshops for Sunday school teachers, the first being for teachers from the Burunge language area and the second for teachers from the Rangi language area. A set of fourteen illustrated Bible story books had been printed, with the stories written in both Swahili and either Burunge or Rangi, and the goal of the workshops was to train the teachers in how to plan and deliver Sunday school lessons that would use those books. The workshops would include practising reading their language, learning different ways to make a Sunday school lesson engaging and memorable, and learning how to plan a class from beginning to end.

My visual aid for how to plan out a Sunday school lesson 

I had arrived in Dodoma a day early, so that I would have time to sit with a Tanzanian colleague there, Magdalena, to help her prepare to teach some parts of the workshops, as we’d like to see her being able train Sunday school teachers herself in the future. She has sat in on my teaching in the past, so now it was time for her to actually do some of the teaching herself. I’d done my best to prepare teaching notes for her to use in Swahili as a guide. However, she spent the first half of the morning phoning around the participants to check who was coming and and then later she had to go to the bank to get the money needed to run the workshop, so we didn’t have quite as much time together as originally planned. Incidentally, on my arrival at the office, a bird chose my foot and dress as the target for its poop! Amidst much laughter, our Tanzanian colleagues insisted it was a blessing, but I think they were having me on!

The next day, Wednesday, I went for a run along a pleasant 5km loop I’d worked out on previous visits to the town, enjoying the cool of the early morning air, the views of Simba Rock (simba is Swahili for lion) and the flat roads (unlike the hills of Mbeya). Although warmer than Mbeya, the temperature was pleasant and remained so throughout the day due to plenty of cloud cover. The little thermometer I had brought with me seemed to hover around 24-26C in my bedroom throughout my stay. This was good news for the workshop, as it meant the meeting room didn’t get stuffy and we could play games outside without getting too hot.

Playing 'sheep/shepherds' with the Sunday school teachers (Photo by LP)

On the first day, we waited to start until at least half the participants had turned up, which meant that we got going late morning. Participants had come some distance and for many it had involved both a motorbike and bus ride, so for the next two nights they were hosted in a nearby guest house. In total we had fifteen Sunday school teachers, men and women, with varying experience and ability. They engaged well in the training and enthusiastically participated in the games. I enjoyed listening to them speak their Burunge language, as it’s a Cushitic language, which sounds very different from the Bantu languages around Mbeya. One of the sounds they have is like the Welsh “ll” (though they write it “sl”), and they have lots of other beautiful, soft sounds. I couldn’t understand a word (except ‘taáta’, which means ‘father’), whereas with the Bantu languages around Mbeya I can sometimes make intelligent guesses about words and the grammatical structures look familiar, because Swahili is also Bantu (though with a number of Arabic-origin words).

At the end of the workshop, we asked them what they had enjoyed and what new things they had learnt. Answers included that they used to just turn up at class and start teaching, they didn’t know they needed to prepare ahead of time or how to plan out a lesson, but now they did. Others mentioned that they had learned that they should teach in an interactive way, including using questions, games and pictures. They were all excited to leave with enough sets of the Bible story books that they would be able to hand them out to the children to read in class – in smaller classes there’d be enough for each child to have a book while in large classes (of over thirty children) there’d still be enough for them to share one between two or three children. In the final closing time, where we all had a chance to say a few words, one of the workshop participants said they wanted to give me a small thank you gift, and as he shook my hand, he slipped a 1000 shilling note into my palm (about 30p). It was both a very funny moment (because of the way he said it) and a very moving moment; I felt so touched by this spontaneous act of appreciation.

The weekend began with a meal out on Friday evening at a nearby Italian restaurant that serves proper Italian pizzas. I went with my hosts and a couple of their friends, two German ladies who I have got to know a little on my visits to Dodoma. On Saturday morning I enjoyed a six-mile run, looping around the back of Dodoma’s iconic Simba Rock. Later in the morning, Nicholle and I used Bolt (like Uber) to call a bajaj (motorised rickshaw) to take us to the edge of town where I’d been told about a nice little hill to climb, locally referred to as ‘radio hill’ because of all the radio and phone masts on top of it. The flowers were beautiful and we enjoyed expansive views in all directions. The weather was a mix of sunshine and clouds, and although at one point it looked like we were in for a soaking, the rain ended up skirting around us so that we only felt a couple of drops while still benefiting from the cool wind that accompanied the threat of rain. Instead of getting wet, I got sunburnt! On the way back I got to see the new electric train that now exists between Dodoma and Dar es Salaam, which by all accounts is an excellent form of transport, with trains always being on time and only taking 3-4 hours, compared to eight plus hours on a bus.

With Nicholle, heading towards radio hill (behind us),
beautiful flowers all around

Fantastic views across Dodoma

Spot the chameleon

In the afternoon I went on another exciting excursion, this time to the supermarket! While we have one or two shops in Mbeya with aisles, nothing could quite be considered a supermarket, so it’s always fun to see what’s available in ‘Shoppers’, as it’s called. It’s particularly amusing to find products from the UK, with UK pricing on the label but being sold for two or three times the price! Disappointingly, they didn’t have any decaffeinated coffee, which I had hoped to find, but they did have some very reduced (end of date) lactose free and oat milk that would be a real treat, so I picked up a couple litres of each of these to take back with me.

After a gentle run on Sunday morning, I spent most of the day at the house. One of the ladies who came to the Italian restaurant came over for an afternoon coffee, and then we accompanied her back to her house, just a two-minute walk away, to see her menagerie. She has dogs, chickens, turkeys, guinea pigs, rabbits, mice, doves and love birds! These are all being bred for sale. It’s very unlikely that the guinea pigs, rabbits or mice will become pets! Apparently, the mice get sold to schools, so I imagine they end up on the dissection table.

Found this fascinating large bug on a walk - an
armoured cricket

Monday 27^th April marked the beginning of the second workshop. We weren’t able to start until after lunch because of the time it took for people to get from the Rangi language area. During the coffee break I enjoyed chatting with one of the Sandawe language translators, who told me about how many snakes there are where she comes from, many of which are highly poisonous, and how sometimes she’d be afraid to go out, especially during the rainy season when they would be hidden by the vegetation that grows fast in the warm, wet weather. She once got bitten on her head, but recovered after swift treatment from an electric shock machine. Some churches had been given these machines, and she herself was involved in helping people who received snakebites – witnessing to them, praying for them and treating them. I am glad that I hardly ever encounter snakes in Mbeya, as they prefer hotter climates!

The workshop kicked off about 1.30pm, after the usual lunch of rice, greens (cabbage), meat, beans and fruit. As people introduced themselves, I realised that they were all from Catholic churches. The Catholic church is the main denomination in the Rangi area, but even so, I hadn’t expected all the participants to be Catholic! I also noticed the character of the group to be different to that of the Burunge – they seemed quieter and their faces were harder to read, but that didn’t mean they were listening any less. Indeed, as the workshop progressed, I could see that they were trying hard and they did a particularly good job of forming actions or composing a tune to help children learn a memory verse. I hope that the participants left not only with ideas for how to teach children in a fun and interactive way, but also with a fresh desire to read the Bible for themselves (only one of them had brought a Bible to the workshop) and a deeper understanding of salvation and God’s love for them.

Participants practise teaching

Some of the feedback we received at the end of the workshop included that they had learnt to teach using actions and songs, they’d learnt the importance of reviewing what you’ve taught before teaching something new, they’d learnt to read using expression, and they’d learnt to read Rangi and that they can use Rangi with the children. They also said that the teachers (i.e. me and my colleagues) taught with love and joy, and one said that he’d discovered the Bible is for all people, not just Catholics! More amusingly, other feedback included that they’d never slept in a guest house with more than one storey before and that they had been surprised to discover that their teacher was an mzungu (a white person).

The night before I left, loud music started playing from a neighbour’s home. We didn’t know what the celebration was all about (they’d erected a gazebo in their compound and had hired plastic chairs for their guests), but we feared it could go on late into the night. It did indeed mean getting to sleep later than I’d hoped, but fortunately it was over by about 11.30pm, so I still got a reasonable amount of sleep before my alarm went off at 5.15am on Thursday morning. As soon as I’d finished packing up my bags, Michelle and Nicholle kindly gave me a lift to the bus stand for 6am, and the Shabiby bus arrived just after 6.10am.

View from the bus - fields of sunflowers with hills in the distance

The bus journey was long (taking just over 12 hours), but it went smoothly. Around lunchtime we had a ten-minute food and toilet stop, where I bought a tray of lukewarm chips and a bottle of water. A little while later, we stopped briefly at the town of Makambako while we waited for some passengers to join us. As we waited, a man took over the bus’s microphone and started sharing some local history with us. He explained that there were two tribes, the Hehe and another, who were at war with each other, and were kidnapping each other’s wives. At some point, the Hehe chief said that they should stop fighting each other and instead join forces to fight against the German colonists. They met together and made a covenant of reconciliation, offering oxen as sacrifices. In the local language, the word for oxen was ‘makambako’, hence the name of the town. Then they turned on the Germans. The Hehe are famous for their war against the Germans – according to Wikipedia, they vanquished a German expedition and maintained their resistance for seven years in the 1890s.

The man also regaled us with local beliefs and facts about Mbeya, one of which was that it is the town with the most churches in Africa, after Lagos. He also turned out to be a successful entrepreneur, having recently received an award for his soap and creams made from natural ingredients, which he advertised with skill and humour as we continued our journey. It is not unusual for tradesmen to get on a bus at one stop, sell their wares, and alight at the next, and normally I find their advertising patter rather annoying, but this man had the gift of the gab and had us all laughing.

Another snapshot taken through the bus window - roadside vendors selling root vegetables

With my big rucksack on my back, my laptop bag on my front, and the bag carrying my four cartons of milk in my hand, I walked uncomfortably home, rather desperate for the loo! Although the bus had a toilet, you weren’t allowed to use it in built-up areas, which we had been in for the past hour. It was with relief that I arrived home, made myself comfortable and spent a few minutes with my housemate before she headed off to our weekly English Bible study. It was definitely good to be home, but it had also been good to be away, to have a change of scene and be doing what I love to do – train people to engage with God’s Word.