A funeral

It was Monday midnight when I was startled into wakefulness by anguished crying. The next morning I found out what had happened. Our next door neighbour, Mwasile, together with a girl that they looked after, had been killed in a tragic road accident involving an oil tanker. One of their children, Ago, was severely burned, as was the driver. It was hard to take in. Although I’m not close to the family, I have lived next-door to them for about seven years, we exchange pleasantries and their children have played in our home. I didn’t know what to do. I was upset, but I didn’t know what the culturally appropriate way to respond was. Should I go and offer my condolences straight away? Was it okay to keep on working or should I be sitting there with the family and acquaintances who I knew would soon start to gather?

A photo from a happier day. Our house is the
one on the left, with my car in front, and
Mwasile's house is the one on the right.

I should briefly explain my living situation, so that the rest of my account makes sense. I live on the compound of a Moravian church – the compound contains not just the church, but also offices, a guest house and several houses. My house is behind the church, between two other houses, both occupied by pastors with important positions within the Moravian church for the Mbeya region. It is one of these pastors who was killed. It is the other who told me the shocking news. I normally live with another British lady, Hazel, but she had had to leave the country a few weeks earlier as her work permit had expired.

So when my neighbour told me the news, I asked him what I should do. He said I could go to the office as normal that day, but that I should be around for the funeral service which would take place on Wednesday or Thursday. Unfortunately, I wasn’t supposed to be going to the office as my work permit had expired, but I quickly realised I would not be able to get anything done if I stayed at home. Firstly, of course, I was upset by what had happened, but also wailing kept coming from my neighbour’s house as each new visitor brought on a fresh wave of grief, and that made it even worse. So I headed to the office for the day, staying in my friend’s flat on the office compound. While there, I sought the advice of a colleague about what I should do. She said it was important that I went to offer my condolences – in fact, she said I should have gone straight away. So then I was not only upset about what had happened but also worried that I had done the wrong thing and would have offended my neighbour. This feeling of being culturally very out of place and not sure how to behave stayed with me throughout the week as events unfolded. Funerals here are so very different from funerals in England. While we Brits want to give people space to grieve in private, here it’s a public affair with everyone coming together to sit with the bereaved. While we cry quietly, here they express their grief loudly. While our funerals take place some time after the death, but are then over in a few hours, here the funeral service and burial will take place within a day or two (as soon as family members can be there) and the gathering of the bereaved can last for days or even weeks. I knew all of this, but I still didn’t know how I personally was expected to react in the midst of it, and was constantly worried that I would do or say the wrong thing. Thankfully, Tanzanians are very gracious, recognising that ‘visitors’ like myself don’t always know the right way to behave.

When I returned home that Tuesday evening, I went straight to Mwasile’s home. I was relieved to find my other neighbours there, including Bahati, the mother, who is a lovely lady that I feel very comfortable with. I was briefly introduced to the gathering and carefully stepped across the room to embrace Mwasile’s wife. The room had been emptied of furniture and mats laid on the floor where about 40 ladies sat, legs stretched out in front of them in the usual way here, sitting shoulder to shoulder, with barely space to get across the room. After offering my condolences, I returned to a spot near the door where Bahati was sitting, to cry and chat and be silent. As we sat I asked Bahati about funeral customs, including when I should give my financial contribution (very important here), and apologised for not visiting in the morning. Thankfully she reassured me that it was fine that I didn’t go as everyone was in shock; it wouldn’t have been expected. More crying followed the appearance of Mwasile’s two oldest children, who had just arrived from Dar es Salaam, where they are both studying to become doctors. How will Mwasile’s wife fund their education now without Mwasile’s income, for she is just a farmer? After about an hour I asked Bahati if it was okay to take my leave, and she assured me it was, so I stepped out and returned to my house.

I was downcast but also stressed by being located in the middle of all that was going on. On one side of my house, in Bahati’s yard, they were cooking. Several iron frames had been set up, with big saucepans on top and wood burning underneath, to cook food for the hundreds of guests that would come over the coming days. An efficient team of women were at work, chopping cabbages, cooking rice, and doing everything else that was needed to keep everyone well fed. Unfortunately all this cooking was taking place right outside my bedroom window and the smoke seeped into my room, leaving it slightly hazy, and there was the constant sound of chatter as the ladies worked. I realised I wouldn’t be able to sleep well there, so removed myself to my housemate’s bedroom, which was smoke free.

View from our lounge window, with ladies sitting
on our porch. Gazebos hadn't been set up
at this point.

On the other side of the house people were constantly milling around as they came to just ‘be’ with Mwasile’s family. I kept my curtains shut, but I couldn’t really escape things, as people made themselves comfortable around my house, perched on the cement step that runs around one side and also relaxing on my porch, such that I couldn’t even open the door without first asking them to move! It was like this all day on Wednesday, with the addition of music. Sometimes a funeral feels barely distinguishable from a party, as people who haven’t seen each other for a long time enjoy meeting again and as what to me seems very upbeat music is broadcast loudly for all to hear. People continued to come and go, relaxing on the sofas outside (the ones that had been removed from the house to make space for all the ladies to sit on the floor) or on the many plastic chairs that had been hired. Gazebo-like shelters had been set up in the space in front of our houses to keep people dry (as it’s rainy season). In the evening, there were live choirs – they sang beautifully, but the drum kit was being played with gusto and the constant thudding went right through me as our houses offer little protection from outdoor sounds.

With Raheli

I slept once again in Hazel’s room, the quietest one in the house as it’s at the back. The next day was the funeral service. I stayed at home, waiting for a sign that the service was about to begin. Apparently there were so many people and cars that the funeral procession from the hospital mortuary was very delayed, and traffic police had to be called on to help. Mwasile was a well known man. My househelp, Raheli, came for the funeral, so I eventually braved the crowds and stepped out of my house to join her. My porch had turned into a feeding station (one of several), with students serving people rice, beans and meat from two massive saucepans. Rice and beans were spilt all over my porch and the flies were having a hay-day. Raheli encouraged me to have some food – eating at a funeral is an important part of attending, it shows you have really participated. So I got a plate from my house (as they’d run out) and ate a pile of rice with my hands.

In front of the church - as the service continued
inside, many stood around outside. You can just
make out  a poster with Mwasile on. It's not
uncommon for people to wear white at a
funeral as you can see many ladies are doing.

Eventually the body arrived – church officials, in their clerical robes, carried the coffin. So sad. Words aren’t enough. His wife and children were supported by others as they struggled to walk in their grief. The church was packed. I stood outside with Raheli and a lady from my office, who had come as a representative of our office. You don’t need to personally know the deceased to attend funerals here. As he was an important church figure, many were there as representatives of their churches or organisations because they relate to the Moravian church in one way or another, without having any personal acquaintance with Mwasile or his family. In front of the church was a table with a photo of Mwasile in a frame of flowers, and some people were wearing T-shirts with his face on and a Scripture verse.

Sheltering from the rain.
Big pots of sliced 
cabbage in the foreground.

It rained. It poured down. People sheltered under the gazebos as the service continued, as there wasn’t enough space for everyone inside the church. Someone who used to work with us as a translator for the Ndali language is now a bishop in the Moravian church, and he gave the sermon. There was a long period of people coming to publicly give their contributions, sharing words of remembrance or comfort to those gathered. As my name was called I also went up to give my contribution (I had no idea what amount was appropriate); thankfully I wasn’t expected to say anything! I left before the end of the service, but it finished not too much later.

On Friday they transported the body to his home village where he would be buried. I didn’t see the funeral procession depart as they left quite early. Over the following days things gradually quietened down. Eventually they moved their cooking station to the other side of our house, just outside my kitchen, so I was able to return to my own bedroom to sleep. Two weeks later there are still a few more people around than usual, but I think they are probably close family, and the sofas are still outside! Ago is still in hospital, but sadly the driver of their car, who was also severely burned, passed away over the weekend. I pray daily and hope with all my heart that there won’t be another funeral – may God spare the family grief upon grief by restoring Ago.

Off to Ubende

My trip to the Bende language area (or Ubende in Swahili) began with an eleven hour bus ride from Mbeya to Mpanda. My colleague, Frank, and I sat next to each other. I took the first aisle shift, getting bumped by people going up and down, and having backsides a little too close and personal when passengers who were only on the bus for a relatively short distance had to stand in the aisle for the duration of their ride. In the afternoon I got my turn by the window, which meant I was in prime position to see animals as we went through Katavi National Park - or at least, I would have been if there'd been any animals to see! Near the end I finally spotted a deer of some kind and a couple of waterbuck.

The most stressful thing about traveling by bus is going to the toilet - I never know when we'll get a chance to go, so I drink as little as possible. We actually had three brief stops, which was pretty good going. Unfortunately one was a rather humiliating experience as I wasn't sure where the toilets were and someone shouted across the car park, "Mzungu panda ngazi kukojoo" (white person, go up the steps to wee) - maybe he thought I wouldn't understand so everyone else could just have a laugh at my ignorance, but of course I did understand.

I'd only been to Mpanda once before, and things had changed in the intervening years, including the building of a new out-of-town bus stand. So from there we got a bajaj (motorised rickshaw) into town. A room had been booked for me at a nice guesthouse, called Good Morning Lodge. Desperate to stretch my legs, I decided to go out despite the rain, to reacquaint myself with the town. I got thoroughly wet, and after hunting for a place to eat, eventually came across a drab little café that had one dish available, ugali dagaa. Thankfully, this is a dish I rather like, of maize stodge (ugali) with little dried fish (dagaa) in a tomato sauce. This kind of food is the equivalent of fast food here, as they prepare large amounts and keep it in the saucepans or put in hotpots, so it's ready to serve as soon as it’s needed (though it can also mean the food may have been sitting for some time and, as was the case this time, may only be lukewarm, but I don't think I've ever been really ill after eating at these cheap and convenient cafés).

That night I slept well until I was shocked into wakefulness at precisely 3am by a loud crack and a rumbling sound and the room began to shake. An earthquake! My heart was going nineteen to the dozen as the rumble disappeared into the distance and the room stopped shaking. Apparently earthquakes are quite common there, but although I have experienced tremors in Mbeya (three, I think), think this was my first time to hear an earthquake and not just feel it.

The next morning, Erick, the team leader of our project office in Mpanda, picked us up and took us to the office, where I worked for the morning while they had a team meeting about the appointment of a new director for SIL Tanzania. In the afternoon we piled into the project Land cruiser for our journey to Mwese, in the Bende language area. Once we’d left the town behind, we turned onto a red dirt road. While the rains meant the road had a few nasty ruts, they also meant we were surrounded on all sides by lush green forest and farmland, the latter being mostly maize, though I also saw fields of sunflowers and occasional other crops. Many of the houses we passed were made from red bricks, formed out of the red soil of the area, and topped with corrugated iron roofing, but we also saw lots of mud houses topped with grass, often with a solar panel resting incongruously on top. While you are unlikely to find a grass roof anywhere in a city like Mbeya, they are not uncommon in more rural areas.

We stopped at a village where we could get a very late lunch. I asked for dona (wholegrain maize stodge) and goat meat. It's quite unusual to find goat meat at a café, it's usually chicken or beef or maybe fish that's available. The dona was rather dry and crumbly and the two pieces of goat meat, floating around in an oily broth, were barely warm. Despite its unappetising appearance, the meat had good flavour, and I determinedly ploughed my way through half the dona, moulding small portions into a ball in my hand to dip in the broth, but after a while it defeated me. There was a bowl of beans too, but much as I enjoy beans, I gave most of them to my colleague as I'm not sure my tummy enjoys them so much.

We continued our journey. For some of the way, poles stood erect just a few metres from the roadside, awaiting wires, promising the coming of electricity. Much of the countryside felt pretty wild, but every now and then you'd see someone walking alongside the road or suddenly there'd be a patch where the bushes or trees had been cleared and the land carefully cultivated or I'd spot a small herd of cows grazing under the watchful eye of their herder (often a young man).

We arrived in Mwese and headed to the guesthouse. I was concerned to discover there was a bar there with loud music. (When I say bar, don't think of a nice counter with lines of bottles behind it, rather a handful of people were sitting outside on plastic chairs drinking bottles of beer or spirits.) I don't cope well with loud noises. After depositing my luggage and discovering there were no sockets in our rooms because there was no mains electricity, just solar, and that the rooms were not en-suite so I'd be sharing a bathroom with three men (all people involved in the workshop I had come to teach), I quickly left to escape the noise and stretch my legs.

The landscape was lovely, with hills in the distance and an undulating red road to stride out on. I wasn't alone for long. I soon felt like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, with a crowd of children following me, carrying their hoes on their way home from school. I spoke to them a little, which helped me feel that we were walking together rather than me just being followed. After a while, we saw a big group of secondary school students ahead, just staring at us. How I sometimes wish that I had Harry Potter's invisibility cloak! Later I retraced my steps back to the village centre and found my colleagues there. I chatted with a few ladies who were surprised at how far I'd been. I bought some bananas and, as the light faded and the air turned chilly, I joined my colleagues in heading back to the guesthouse (I guess this would have been about 7.30pm). 

Thankfully they turned down the volume of the music a little at our request and, after having a bucket bath with lovely warm water, I settled in my basic but clean room for a light tea (I'd brought some simple food with me) and to read by the light of a solar light. I was relieved when they turned off the music earlier than I had expected, and the night went quiet. Very quiet. As a result I slept well, until 6.30am, when the sky started to lighten for another day.

The workshop was held in the Anglican church, a short walk up the hill from the guesthouse. As is my custom, we started by putting pictures of key Bible stories in order and telling the story of the Bible together, while we waited for everyone to arrive. I love this opportunity to, albeit briefly, remind people of God's desire to be in relationship with his people and all that he has done to make that possible. By the time we had finished this activity, everyone had arrived and we could officially open the workshop with greetings and introductions. It was great to see a real mix of denominations coming together. The goal of the workshop was to enable the participants to read the Bende language and to prepare and lead simple Bible studies using the Bende Scriptures (so far, they have Ruth, Jonah and Luke printed in their language). So we started with a Bible study on Luke 4:1-13, to give them a taste of what a group Bible study, with questions and discussion, is like. We did this in Swahili. During days two and three of the workshop we would continue to work through Luke 4, by having simple Bible studies, however the rest of the first day was spent learning to read Kibende, with the help of Frank and the two Bende translators.

A lavish spread was provided for our morning tea break. This was people's breakfast. There were chapattis, portions of chicken in broth and a mug of milky tea. (It should be noted that this is not a typical breakfast. Usually people have the previous day's leftover rice or ugali for breakfast and black tea. Occasionally they might have bread or mandazi (fried dough, a little like a doughnut). But it's hard to make generalisations as it depends on what they grow in their area and the season, so you may get potatoes or something else). To be honest, I was surprised, as we normally try to keep things simple, to keep the budget low, to do things in a way that the community can continue with. But this workshop is the first of its kind in the Bende language area and the Erick has a different perspective to me; I wasn't involved in organising the workshop, I was just invited to teach. I did not eat all that food (I had already had my homemade breakfast bar and a banana, as my tummy issues mean I have to avoid certain foods), but I did take a piece of chicken, which felt like a rather odd tea break snack but was tasty! At lunchtime we all headed down the hill to the village centre to find food. I ended up with rice and a plain egg omelette - it was hot and fresh, and the eggs were from the freely ranging chickens all around, so they were very yellow and full of flavour.

Day one of the workshop over, I headed out along the road in the opposite direction to the previous day, in the hope of avoiding a following! I enjoyed beautiful views to the layers of hills in the distance and saw some interesting birds and unusual flowers. I met two men herding a few cows up the road - one of the cows had the biggest horns I have ever seen, they must have been half a metre long! A lady I chatted to asked if I was afraid to walk alone, and when I asked why, she said there are lions! I found that hard to believe. I asked someone else about it later, and it sounds like there definitely used to be, but they have probably been driven further back into the forests as the area has become more populated.

Day two of the workshop was rather wet, making the red clay soil of the area sticky. For a while I had to strain my voice to be heard over the sound of rain on the corrugated iron roof, but most of the time it didn't disrupt the workshop. Later in the evening, although the skies looked black, I set off to stretch my legs. En route I caught up with Frank and together we climbed the hill to the new hospital people had proudly told us about - the buildings looked new and smart and there were great views over the surrounding countryside. Thankfully it also stayed dry for showing the Jesus Film in the Bende language in the village centre that evening, running the equipment off a generator - although I didn't go I heard that a good crowd gathered to watch it.

The next day we packed up our luggage and paid for our rooms (costing the standard village price of 10,000 shillings per night, which is about £3.30) before heading to the church to begin the last day of the workshop. The three people who we had chosen the previous day to lead Bibles studies did a great job. It was encouraging to see them facilitate their groups well and it was clear that they had taken on board what I had taught them.

After discussing how we choose Bible passages for studies and encouraging them to do a series of studies on the last chapters of Luke as we approach Easter, we did an audio Bible study. We listened several times to an audio recording of Jonah chapter one, before retelling the story in our own words and discussing it. As so often seems to be the case, they clearly enjoyed listening (more than reading), laughing over the dramatic narration and sound effects, and responding eagerly to the questions.

There was a chilly wind blowing all morning and I wished I was wearing socks (here I unashamedly wear socks in sandals when the weather requires - closed shoes can become too warm, whereas it's easy to remove socks when the day warms up). By lunchtime it had warmed up a bit, and I enjoyed a plate of boiled potatoes with a bit of tomato mixed in and a bowl of mchicha (a small leafy green vegetable, also cooked with tomatoes). It was yummy, but I couldn't finish the pile of potatoes! (This cost less than 50p.) We finished the workshop by 4pm, and there was some encouraging feedback and promises to start doing Bibles studies with their families and, after gaining experience, with groups at church. At 5pm we started the journey back to Mpanda, with Erick driving the Land Cruiser at terrifying speed along the dirt road. We gave an elderly workshop participant a lift part way - he told how he had walked all the way to Mpanda in his youth and how, in those days, it would take eight hours or more by car while it took us less than two. We went straight to the bus station to pick up our tickets for the next day and found a guest house nearby. It was cheap but pleasant enough, except for the mosquitoes.

The next morning we rose in the darkness and walked to the bus station. It was still pretty dark when we reached Katavi National Park and we only saw one animal, but it was a male lion! It was lying on the road, and as we stopped it lazily got up and moved off - it was only a few feet away as it turned and looked at us unconcernedly. Awesome! Once out of the park we stopped for a brief roadside loo break, and were then joined by about twenty children getting a lift to school. They stood quietly in the aisle in their very worn school clothes, some carrying bags creatively made from old nylon sacking. They alighted nearly 15 minutes later, which means we must have gone three miles or more; I wonder how often they manage to get a free ride and how often they have to walk all that way.

My back and bottom were witnesses to the fact that it was a long bus journey. We were seated directly behind the driver and at one point we had a big cardboard box of eggs packed in rice husks in front of us. The box had ripped slightly and the husks were trickling out, and then an egg fell out, thankfully staying whole (guinea fowl eggs have tough shells)! With difficulty we lifted out the big box without dropping any more eggs and it was put onto alternative transport at the next bus stop. I think I may be finding husks in my laptop bag for a while. The trip was made longer by ridiculously long lines of lorries in both directions at Tunduma, caused by Tanzania-Zambia border checks, as the town of Tunduma is right on the border. Thankfully the line in our direction wasn't too bad, but I felt sorry for anyone going the other way - the line went on for mile after mile for about 12 miles. We also passed through torrential rain, thunder and lightning before eventually arriving in Mbeya under a heavy sky, almost exactly 12 hours after our journey began.

I walked the short distance (¾ mile) from the bus station back to my house, dumped my bags and went for a brisk walk. This walk, followed by a shower, felt wonderful, and when I went also went to the toilet I realised that this was the first time I had sat down on a toilet since Monday morning! Other than at the fancy guest house in Mpanda, all the places I had been to just had long drops, which in some ways I prefer to a sit-down toilet – it feels more hygienic to stand where others have stood than to sit where other bare bottoms have sat! They were nice ones, with a ceramic sink and a bucket of water with a jug for flushing. I also realised, as I poured myself a decaff coffee and sat down to finish writing this blog, that it was the first hot drink I’d had all week. I hadn’t missed these things when I didn’t have them, but I did enjoy them when I came back to them! And so here I am once again, until the next trip, tired but thankful for the opportunity to travel and serve, and I pray that God will cause the little seeds we have tried to sow to grow and bear fruit for the strengthening of his Church in that place.

Faith comes by hearing

Wednesday, November 10^th

Photo taken through bedroom window

It’s early morning, and I am writing this in the bedroom of a guest house in the village of Ikuwo, in the Vwanji language area. As I look out of the window, the morning light makes the red brick houses glow and the mountains look so inviting – my legs long to climb them! While that’s not possible right now, I have at least enjoyed a couple of lovely walks along the red dirt paths and roads since I arrived yesterday. Less than a stone’s throw from my room, a lady is wielding a hoe and planting potatoes in the freshly turned earth, in faith that the expected rains will come soon, and I can hear the sound of hens clucking and the occasional twittering of birds. I am here to do a three day workshop to train Sunday school teachers, at the request of the Lutheran church.

Project Land Cruiser parked in front of some shops, the 
guest house is right behind them.

I met my former colleague, Casto Nyambo, just before we needed to turn off the main road and onto a dirt road. He had come by motorbike from his home on the other side of the Vwanji area (there are mountains and steep valleys between his home and Ikuwo). He left his motorbike at a café run by people he knows and joined me in our project Land Cruiser for the rest of the journey. After a while the road deteriorated, with some very rough and steep patches – I spent most of the time in first or second gear and was glad to arrive safely at our destination about an hour and a quarter after leaving the tarmac.

So you may be wondering why I was travelling with a ‘former’ colleague. If you have been able to keep up with my newsletters, you’ll have read in the last one that we had to retrench all of our literacy/Scripture engagement workers who worked in areas where they now have a New Testament in their language. He was one of them. But thank God, he still has a heart to reach his people with the Word of God in the Vwanji language, so when he has time he continues to distribute Vwanji books, show the Jesus Film and facilitate the spread of the audio Scriptures, and he also helped with the arrangements of the workshop and willingly gave his time to accompany me.

As I have walked around the village and spoken to people and listened to children at play, I have realised that the Vwanji language is not being used much by the younger generation. During the workshop I hear the participants switching backwards and forwards between Vwanji and Swahili, depending on who they are talking to and what they are talking about. At least one of the pastors isn’t Vwanji, and this is a common reason for finding that Vwanji is not being used much in churches, because the church leaders are not Vwanji speakers. In some ways I find all this discouraging and  start to question whether Bible translation is really worth it.

But then yesterday evening, I listened to Casto tell me story after story of how the audio Scriptures in Vwanji have changed people’s lives. While it is true that people are not so interested in reading the Vwanji Scriptures (it just doesn’t feel natural to them to read Vwanji, as Swahili is the language they learned to read in at school), many people love to listen to them, especially the elderly. I wish I had been able to record all he said, but here are some of the things I remember (I may have mixed up one or two accounts, but the sum total is still true)…

There was an old man who listened to the audio Bible and said how the words he had heard hurt, they pierced his heart. After listening he wanted to be baptised. His family were overjoyed. There was another who can’t get to church because he is old but a youngster in his family got a memory card for him so he could have the audio Scriptures on his phone or radio. And there are others who, after listening, started attending their local church. There was also a lady who had a MegaVoice player (a solar powered audio player – we have distributed 40 of these across the region), but her husband wanted one too, because he couldn’t get hold of it when he wanted to listen as it was always in use! His wife listens to the MegaVoice players with groups of other women.

And I love this one: One day Casto was getting his motorbike fixed. While the mechanic was at work, Casto got out his MegaVoice player and the people hanging around there listened to the Vwanji Scriptures. They listened and listened until eventually he said that he had to go. He gave one of them a lift somewhere and he continued to listen and talk with Casto as they went. He wanted the MegaVoice player so he could carry on listening! That wasn’t possible, as we try to distribute them among people who we know and trust, but Casto told him who had a MegaVoice player near where he lived and then phoned that person and told them to expect an elderly gentleman to visit them and that they should lend him the player. He did visit and I think the outcome was that he started going to church.

Truly faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:17)! As well as relating the impact of the audio Scriptures, Casto also shared how he is invited to speak at funerals, because people know he will use the Vwanji language and Scriptures, and he has shown the Vwanji Jesus Film at these funerals as well as in many churches. In fact, this evening he will show the Jesus Film in the open-sided market hall, using a special projection pack provided by the Jesus Film Project.

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Learning to use skits to teach

It is now Wednesday night and all is quiet. Tomorrow is the last day of the workshop. Today was hard work – the teachers really struggled to understand how to teach and apply Bible stories. Many teachers are used to just telling the Bible story and maybe giving a one-liner teaching point, but not really explaining what the story means and how it can be applied. After giving them lots of examples and time to prepare, some were given the chance to stand and teach. One just spoke without engaging us at all (despite my continual emphasis on engaging the children), another went off the topic and another basically read straight from the curriculum booklet with little real understanding. I will try again tomorrow to help them understand a little better about how to explain the meaning of the story, but when good teaching hasn’t been modelled in church or even in schools, it’s hard for them to get a handle on how to go about doing it themselves.

Thursday, November 11^th

It’s 9pm, I arrived home a couple of hours ago. The drive took longer coming back and was pretty tiring – I worked out that my average speed on the dirt road section (which took about 1.5 hours) was 12.5mph! I have returned with a sack of maize and a sack of potatoes – as always, I am so touched by people’s generosity.

With more explanation and examples, the Sunday school teachers did a better job of teaching today, so I hope that the workshop will have helped them engage children with God’s Word more effectively. It’s great that the Lutheran church there has recognised the importance of teaching their children and that even the pastors joined the workshop!

Children play together on their way home from school

A little aside… On Wednesday we invited the children from the local school to come for a Sunday school lesson, so that the Sunday school teachers could see a real example of how I teach. Before they entered the church, they lined up their hoes along the side of a building. Yes, their hoes! They have to take their own tools to school for working on the school farm. What would children in England think if they had to start tilling the soil so that they have food to eat at school?! But these are valuable lessons to learn in these farming communities.

*Note: ‘Faith Comes By Hearing’ is also the name of an organisation who’s main focus is making audio Scriptures available in all the languages that have New Testaments. We have sometimes partnered with them to record the audio Scriptures in our project.

Another trip to the Kisi and Manda language areas

The long journey to the Kisi language area always requires an early start, so once again I was at the bus station for about 5.30am for a day on the bus. This was my second trip to visit the Kisi people, so I had some idea of what to expect, but this time I was travelling alone and meeting my colleagues on arrival at the lake. All went smoothly, although there was a last minute change in plans about the time that I should leave the town of Ludewa, where I had slept overnight, as apparently the lake had become quite rough so the earlier I left and caught the boat the better because the lake can be calmer early in the morning. So not long after 6am I was driven down the steep road to the lakeside at Lupingu and at 8am the small motor boat arrived, with one of my colleagues (Claudia) in, to take us to the village of Makonde. Any roughness had passed, the lake was calm (and remained so all day) and it was a beautiful boat ride – this boat was smaller and faster than the one I’d ridden in last time, and the wind in my face felt good and the scenery was beautiful in the early morning light.

We attended the Anglican church service – it’s high church, so there was a lot of sung liturgy and ritual. The best aspect of the service is that there are multiple readings of Scripture, but as those readings aren’t necessarily the ones preached on, I don’t know how much people really take in. The worst part was the choir singing because they played a backing track to give them a rhythm for their dance steps and singing, but they didn’t sing in tune with it! They were in tune with each other, but they clashed horribly with the backing track. I also struggled to stay awake – it was very hot and the travel sickness tablet I had taken for the boat ride also made me drowsy!

Afterwards we popped into the pastor’s home to greet him and his wife, especially as we would be holding the seminar in his church the next day. With wonderful Tanzanian hospitality they quickly put food on the table, which they had obviously prepared the day before or first thing this morning and kept in hotpots as it was lukewarm, and I got my first taste of fresh dagaa served with plantain. I have eaten dagaa (tiny fish that you eat whole) many times, but I’ve never had them fresh, they’ve always been bought dried or fried. But apparently it is now dagaa season and the fish are plentiful and I found that simply boiled in salt water they are really tasty. All day I felt hot and tired, until we went for a swim in the lake in the evening. Oh it was wonderful, the cool water on my body, so refreshing, and the lake was calm and the evening sky soft.

The seminar the following day was with about fifteen church leaders from several different denominations, though mostly Catholic and Anglican as these are the predominant denominations in the area. Despite the heat (though thankfully there was a bit of breeze and a little cloud cover) and the fact that some of them had endured walking down steep hills and a boat ride (probably in a dugout canoe) to get there, they engaged well. We did a little Bible overview exercise while we waited for everyone to arrive, and then moved on to talking about what keeps people from reading God’s Word and applying it in their daily lives. One of these barriers to Scripture engagement is language issues, so we then focused on this, talking about what our project is doing, spending some time practising reading Kisi books and discussing how to use Kisi more in church ministry. It was encouraging to hear a report from one person in the group who had attended the workshop I helped teach in July – he shared how he has since used the book of Jonah in church when preaching (this was the book we used for all our Bible studies during the workshop as it is currently the only Bible book printed in Kisi), reading first from the Swahili Scriptures and then from the Kisi Scriptures. Others also testified to how other Kisi books that they have bought in the past get shared around, and how the audio devices with Kisi Scripture on (Ruth, Jonah and the Easter story) are also in popular demand.

Passing a passenger boat on our way to Lupingu

The evening boat ride back to Lupingu was a very different experience to Sunday’s ride! The lake was far from calm and I held tightly to the side of the boat. Sometimes it was just a matter of getting a good spray, but other times riding up a wave and then dropping down into the dip behind it, sometimes with quite a slap of boat against water, was alarming and the odd squeal escaped my lips! I wouldn’t say I was frightened exactly, as I can swim well enough (though swimming in a long dress wouldn’t be easy), but I was certainly uneasy and worried about my luggage staying dry. Even the crew and my colleagues acknowledged that it was pretty bad in places and were worried for one passenger who couldn’t swim (we were seven in the boat altogether). The ride took longer than before because of the waves and I was soaked through (firstly from getting into the boat, as they couldn’t get very close to shore due to the waves, and then from the spray). We arrived after sunset, but before it had got really dark, and surprisingly my rucksacks had remained dry, except for one pocket where my soap bag was. We alighted with our luggage, including a somewhat traumatised hen that I had been given as a gift by my colleague’s father. This hen, together with some dagaa and fruit, had been brought out to our boat by someone in a dugout canoe as we went past their village!

Second seminar – same subject matter just a different place. The seminar itself was held at the Catholic church, which turned out to be a lovely old building set on a rise, built at the initiative of missionaries. Well, it is old for here, having been built in 1932. I wonder what the people who lived here thought of this missionary building a big church, probably at a point when very few people knew about Jesus. I wish I could be a fly on the walls of those who lived at that time and hear what they said about this missionary. I hear he was also the one to first get a road built from Ludewa down to the lake, paying people for their work by giving them clothes as they didn’t use money in those days. I hear he also tried to pipe water to the villages, but that didn’t go so well, as people didn’t see the point of piped water when they had a lake on their doorstep! Instead, the pipes were stolen and used for smoking!

Lunch was much the same as the day before – rice, greens (with too much salt
for my taste) and dagaa, though this time there was also beef, which was an interesting combination with the fish! I chuckled over some string found in my fish; I think it was part of a fishing net and part of a fish was still trapped between its strands. I was thankful for a cloudy day and a good breeze which, together with the tiled roof, meant the seminar room didn’t get too hot. (Corrugated iron roofs, which are the norm for most buildings, make rooms super hot when the sun beats down.) Even so I was glad to drive up from the lake back to the cooler air of Ludewa and feel my energy levels returning.

On the bus

After a ride on a rickety bus, the aisle filled with sacks of produce and with crates of beer tucked under seats, I arrived in Luilo and joined my Manda colleagues, Erasto and Faraja, at the church where they were just finishing up a three-day workshop. They had started early that morning in order to finish early, as the Catholic church (the main denomination in the area) were having a special celebration and there would be traditional dancing in the afternoon in which some of the workshop participants were involved. I introduced myself as a Scripture engagement specialist and teacher, and was encouraged by the response of one of the older participants who essentially said that I had done a good job of teaching my colleagues because they had taught the workshop very well. Feedback like that gives me a thrill, as over many years I have felt that God’s direction for my life is to “go and teach” and my heart’s desire has been to train people such that they can teach others. So when I see the fruit of that, I rejoice and thank God for the gift he has given me and pray that I may continue to use it to build his kingdom.

The traditional dancing was a fun experience. I managed to find a spot to sit on the sand where I had a good view and where, when the big drum was being beaten, I could feel it vibrating through my body. Some dances were only done by women, while the men played the drums, while other dances were done by men. I couldn’t make out many of the words being sung, but I was told that these dances are used at celebrations and the words are usually in praise of whatever that celebration is about. There was a fascinating blend of old and new props for the dances, with cows’ tails being swung around and gourd-horns blown in one dance while torches were swung around and whistles blown in another!

Seminar participant's home

The village doesn’t have a respectable guest house, so I was staying in the room of someone’s home – like Airbnb! I was very thankful I had my collapsible solar lantern with me, as there was a power cut all day and all night. Although my computer had run out of battery, I was able to recharge my phone using my power bank and read by the light of my lantern. The next morning I enjoyed a short walk in the cool air, and passed the home of one of the workshop participants who recognised me and called out greetings. I noticed how many houses were mud huts with grass roofs, indicating a lower economic level than many other places I visit where most houses have corrugated iron roofing. I also nosed around the Catholic mission compound to see if I could see when it had been built – it had a similar air to the one in Lupingu and I found out that it had indeed been built by the same group of missionaries just a few years after the one at Lupingu.

So, a third seminar, same subject matter. The participants were the same people who had been in the workshop and included pastors and leaders of different church groups (such as women’s groups) from different denominations. They participated well and they had made good progress during the workshop in learning to read their language as several of them were able to stand in front of the group and read a few verses of Manda Scripture almost fluently, even though they would have only seen the Manda Scriptures for the first time at the workshop. I hope we can continue to develop good relationships with the local churches in these areas and partner together as the work moves forward.

We sat by the road as we waited for the bus to come that would take us back to Ludewa. We had to stop for some repair work on the outskirts of Ludewa, but arrived safely as it got dark. The guest houses were all full, because the next day would be market day so stall holders had arrived early, but we managed to find two basic but clean rooms. Next morning we were up before dawn to once again head to the bus stand and make the thirteen hour bus trip back to Mbeya. The trip had been tiring, with a different bed every night, lots of travel and hot weather all contributing to the tiredness, but I had really enjoyed the opportunities to teach and serve alongside my colleagues and to experience new places and meet new people. I pray that God may establish the work of our hands and that some people will have become more passionate about God’s Word as a result of what we sought to share.

Travel log: A trip to the Kisi and Manda language areas

Day 1 (Monday)

It was still dark outside as I forced myself out of my cosy bed just after 5am. My rucksack was packed and ready to go – it will feel considerably lighter by the time I return from my trip as half the weight is made up of granola bars I made for two weeks’ worth of breakfasts, plus the carrots and oranges I included to supplement my diet while away; and there’s the solar-powered audio players that we’ll be distributing at the workshops. Today is the first day of what will be a nearly-two-week trip to the Kisi and Manda language areas.

My colleagues (Claudia and Stanslaus) and I boarded the small bus. We left at 5.50am, and as we left the city behind us the sky started to turn red as the sun rose. I sat next to Claudia, one of my colleagues. She’d only just come back from doing the same bus ride a couple of days ago, as her father had suddenly been arrested for reasons that seem unfounded and appear to be caused by jealousy of certain family members and mixed in with witchcraft, and she’d gone with a lawyer to seek his release. Sadly family conflicts and witchcraft are not uncommon issues here.

We arrived in Njombe by 11.30am, which is a big regional town, and the end of a consistent tarmac road. I was glad for the chance to stretch my legs before getting back on for the next leg, which went quicker than any of us expected – the bus driver didn’t hang about! Last time I went that way, the road was being worked on but was still a dirt road, but this time significant sections had been turned into a cement surface. It’s a massive job, as the road winds up and down mountains, with sharp bends and sections of mountain blasted away to allow the road to pass. The dust gets up your nose and in your eyes, so it will be wonderful when the road is completed and vehicles no longer kick up clouds of dust. 

We arrived in Ludewa at 4pm. My first time here. It’s a small town, but the main supply centre for a large area. I enjoyed a walk around the outskirts, along bright red dirt roads between houses and wide tarmac roads in the town centre, with views to the surrounding hills. A football match was taking place on a central football field and the air turned chill as I headed back to the guesthouse in the golden evening light. The guesthouse is clean and pleasant, except for the loud music coming from somewhere nearby, and costs a mere 10,000 Tanzanian shillings (just over £3) a night. We went to a local café for dinner, where we had rice (which had a hint of cardamom in it, which was a delicious surprise), with roasted beef (don’t think of a joint of beef sliced, rather think of chunks of meat that have probably been deep fried) and greens, peas in a sauce and a banana. The food is more expensive here than in Mbeya (but even so, it only cost about £1).

Back at the guesthouse I asked for some hot water to have a wash, which was promptly brought to my room in a bucket. Then I curled up in bed and settled down to checking my emails and writing my journal.

Day 2 (Tuesday)

By 8am we had arrived at the immigration office to make them aware that I (as a non-Tanzanian) was working in the area for a few days, so that we wouldn’t have any problems during our travels. As we arrived, the guard was sticking up posters requesting that anyone who entered should wear a face mask and wash their hands. We did neither, but then neither did the officials we had come to see, who eventually turned up about 45 minutes later. They were friendly and polite, taking our details and requesting a copy of the relevant pages of my passport. But they didn’t have a photocopier, so my colleague quickly walked back to town to find a stationery shop to get this done!

Back at the guesthouse the car that would take us over the mountain road to the

lake was waiting for us – a small 4WD. On our way out, we got a container filled with fuel for the boat that we’d be renting. The road twisted and turned, up and down the hills, with some stunning glimpses of mountains and Lake Nyasa. Less than two hours later we arrived at Lupingu, where the boat and its crew were waiting for us. We clambered aboard (after some hasty application of suntan lotion when we saw the boat had no covering to create some shade) and headed off, put-putting our way parallel with the shore, stopping at a couple of villages to drop off letters we’d been asked to deliver. When I say ‘stopping’ we didn’t moor the boat at a pier, but instead called out to whoever was around to come and get the letters. The first time it was some school children – after ascertaining that they knew the person the letters were intended for, one of them waded out and took the letters and headed off with them. The second time a fisherman passing by in his boat (a kind of dugout canoe, rowed with a single paddle) was collared for the task. A unique postal system! It’s pretty difficult to get news to the villages in any other way than by boat, as mobile phone coverage is limited and the mountain paths are steep and can mostly only be traversed by foot (though motorbikes can get to some places).

The lake was fairly calm, but I’d taken travel sickness pills just to be on the safe side, and the boat ride was shorter than I’d expected, being only about an hour and a half. If we’d been on a public boat, it would have taken a lot longer, as it would have stopped at each village for passengers. The crew consisted of four young men (though one may have just been getting a lift), one of whom steered, another sporadically bailed water out and another was ready to throw the anchor out as needed. When we arrived we gingerly stepped out of the boat onto the rocky ground and waded to the shore.

We headed to the guest house, where I was shown to a small, simple room. We left our bags and headed to another place for lunch. Food is much more expensive here than Mbeya, because of the high transportation costs. We were served ugali, fish (kambare), greens and avocado, which was all very tasty.  The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around the village, visiting the homes of various key people and sitting and chatting with them for a while. I found this draining, as most of the time I couldn’t follow the conversation (either because they were speaking in Kisi or because I didn’t have enough of the context to understand what they were discussing) so I just sat, feeling drowsy. Points of interest included visiting the Anglican church where we would hold the workshop, visiting the diwani (local councillor) and watching him mend his nets and visiting and eating oranges (which are green) freshly picked off a tree that I was sitting under. It was sad to see the fairly large group of people drinking locally brewed beer in the late afternoon – unfortunately this is a real problem in many places I have been to, though it was more public here. After our wanderings, I went off on my own down to the beach to enjoy watching the big red ball of sun sink below the horizon. Now I’m back in my room, having crunched away on some carrots and peanut butter and homemade oatcakes for tea, and a banana. The house has solar power, so my room is lit, albeit a little dimly, but there’s no sockets for charging devices. I’m very thankful for a power bank I have for when I travel that will charge my phone at least twice.

Day 3 (Wednesday)

I often think of village life as quiet and peaceful. But it only takes one night in a village to remind me that this is not the case. I was woken early by roosters crowing (it’s a myth that they don’t crow until dawn) and hens clucking and not long after people getting up before sunrise to get going with the day’s activities. I didn’t feel very rested. Yesterday, the pastor of the Anglican church (where we would hold the workshop) had expressed that he wasn’t happy that I would sleep in a guest house, instead they wanted me to have the guest room at their home. I was touched by their kindness and as I write this I am in that room, comforted by the sound of the family in the living room.

I was surprised to see how promptly many of the workshop participants turned up, which was testimony to what the translators had told me about how keen people were. Breakfast had been prepared for them at a nearby guest house. The workshop participants obviously liked their language and wanted to learn how to read, which was the main focus of today. A good number could already read remarkably well. Lunch was rice or ugali, greens and fish. Interestingly, they had prepared two different kinds of fish, as the main kind can’t be eaten by Seventh Day Adventists (who follow Old Testament food laws), and we had a number of them in the workshop. My two colleagues did most of the teaching.

In the early evening, Claudia came down to the lakeshore with me, to a spot where it’s appropriate for woman to bathe in the water, and I enjoyed a swim (though it was a little tricky swimming in trousers as it wouldn’t have been appropriate for me to strip down to a swimming costume), though Claudia didn’t join me! The lake is truly beautiful in the evening sun and the sunsets are stunning, and I enjoyed a little walk around, ending up at the lake just as the sun was once again a red ball sinking in the sky. I’m starting to get a sense for how to find my way along the myriad of little stony paths that weave between houses and trees on the hillside.

After I’d finished eating in my room, the pastor’s wife invited me to come and eat with them. I politely refused, but did go and join them to watch the news (their house is well set up with solar), though I find the news hard to understand as the Swahili is more complicated than I am used to and it is quite fast. Mind you, we spent less time watching the news and more time just chatting, which was lovely. I headed to bed early, knowing I would be woken early by some noise or other!

Day 4 (Thursday)

Sure enough, at 6am some kind of church bell was rung (I don’t think they have an actual bell, but there was definitely the sound of metal striking metal), and I was already half-awake before that, probably disturbed once again by the sound of hens and the family stirring. Then there was the school drum being beaten not much later to call children to school.

At the workshop I was pleased to see how my colleagues led the Bible study groups and generally worked together well as a team. Today was my day to do most of the teaching – I am always aware that I am only able to scratch the surface when it comes to how we seek to understand Scripture. For example, how does one explain in just a few minutes the difference between the Old and New Testaments, when you realise that most of them have no idea what the difference is? The best that any participant could suggest is that the Old Testament is when God spoke through the prophets and the New Testament is about Jesus. And then how do you explain how knowing whether the book of the Bible you are reading is in the Old or New Testament impacts how you read and interpret it? The reality is, I end up just giving them some pointers, but probably not leaving them with much of any value. I’d need several weeks to teach these matters in depth. What I do hope is that our time together shows just how much more there is to learn about God’s Word and to motivate them to become regular readers and listeners of His Word and people who take the time to meditate on it.

It was hot in the morning, so I struggled to stay focused as I taught and the participants struggled to stay awake! Lunch was rice, beans and fish. As I can’t eat beans, they’d prepared me some sauce – unfortunately they didn’t realise that I also can’t have onions, so I left most of the sauce, which was too salty for me anyhow, and tried to avoid getting fish bones stuck in my throat as today’s fish had very fine bones. Thankfully the afternoon was cooler, with more cloud cover and a good breeze.

After doing a few bits and bobs, I headed down to the lake again for a swim, finding Claudia by the football field; she sat on the rocks while I enjoyed a good splash. And today was a real splash as the wind had picked up and the water was choppy, it felt more like the sea than a lake, with proper rollers coming in. Mind you, the lake is so big that is really like a small sea, with the hills of Malawi on the far side of the lake only faintly visible. The wind had brought in the lake flies, so when I was chatting with my host family later I could see these little things everywhere - they were somewhat irritating. Apparently, during the rainy season, when they come in clouds, people catch them and make food from them! You’d have to catch thousands of the things to make anything worth eating as they are tiny.

While down by the lake I could see cassava lying out to dry. Cassava is the main crop here, as the soil is very clay-like and not good for many crops as well as the fact that the Kisi villages are on the slopes of the mountains that fall into the lake, making farming difficult. Many people eat ugali made from fermented cassava. It seems like they soak the cassava for  a day or two (depending on how warm it is), before pounding it to flour and cooking. (Ugali is made from cooking the flour with water until it thickens and forms a solid lump that you can mould with your hands.) I haven’t tasted cassava ugali, but I’m told that for people who aren’t used to it, it can be hard to tolerate.

Day 5 (Friday)

Today we encountered a problem with providing water for the workshop participants – there were only half a dozen or so bottles left in the little village shops! We already had budget problems as water costs 1.5 times as much here as it does in Mbeya, so this extra problem was particularly frustrating. I am learning just how hard life can be here in the Kisi area where transport options are so limited – this affects not only the availability and price of food, but also affects access to health services. Claudia told me about how her grandmother died in childbirth because she couldn’t be transported quickly enough to a clinic with facilities for operating. In days gone by a sick person would be transported by dugout canoe, taking hours to get to a village with road access from where they could begin the hairy drive up the hill to a town with a hospital. At least these days there are petrol powered boats that can do the journey more quickly, but they are expensive to run.

Lunch was rice or ugali with what I think was beef, or at least, bits of material that came from a cow! It was tender and full of flavour, but I’d rather not think about what ‘bits’ they were! Nothing fresh to accompany it, no vegetables or fruit of any description. It’s the fresh things that are hardest to come by here. There’s a few orange trees around, and I can see a papaya tree from my window. There’s lots of mango trees, but the mango season is quite short. Some people have created small gardens for growing greens, surrounded by netting to protect them from the many chickens roaming around.

It rained! We weren’t expecting that. It’s very unusual to get rain in the middle of dry season, but the lake seems to have its own unpredictable climate. Tomorrow the plan is for me to leave as early as possible by boat, because the lake is usually at its calmest first thing in the morning.

I decided to try going up the hill a bit, so a child showed me the start of the path and up I climbed – going up was hard but coming down was worse, because the dry soil, filled with lots of little stones, was so slippy and the path was steep. I didn’t go far at all, but it was enough to get a birds-eye view of Makonde, which was fun. I was sweating and my legs were trembling by the time I got back down and a dip in the lake felt like a wonderful idea. The pastor’s wife decided to come down with me and she sat on the rocks, somewhat surprised that I wasn’t afraid of the waves. A little later Claudia came too, to check on her laundry that she had done earlier in the lake and left on the rocks to dry, and another lady, and it was lovely to just sit by the lake as the sun went down chatting with these ladies. The sunset was beautiful, with the gold of the skies reflecting on the choppy waters so that each wave had a golden edge and the mountains looking soft and faintly pink in the background.

Day 6 (Saturday)

The one day when I could have slept in as there was no church bell or school drum was the one morning I needed to be up early! I left the house before the rest of the family had really stirred and headed down to the lake. We were supposed to leave at 7am but the young guys who would be manning the boat were nowhere to be seen. The lake was choppy, despite being early morning, and I took another travel sickness pill to be on the safe side and tried not to get anxious about the trip ahead and whether my luggage would stay dry. Some men were butchering a pig they had just killed – I wasn’t expecting to see a pig’s head sitting on a beach first thing in the morning! About half an hour later we were

ready to go and with help I scrambled aboard the boat between waves. It was a very different experience from our outward journey (when the lake had been calm), with the boat going up and down in a somewhat alarming fashion. Thankfully it calmed down further into the ride and there was the same car and driver waiting for me on the beach that had brought us there a few days before.

Back up the winding mountain road and suddenly my phone got a signal and in poured several days’ worth of messages! Arriving in Ludewa, my Manda colleagues were waiting for me. I made a quick trip to the market to restock on carrots, bananas, satsumas and a cucumber, before settling down for the four hour bus ride to Nsungu in the Manda language area. Not the most comfortable of rides (with small seats and sacks of something under our feet), but I was drowsy so I dozed for some of it and listened to an audio book for the rest of it and somehow got off at the other end without a bad back or too desperate for the toilet. And wow, what a contrast to the Kisi area. Instead of a rocky beach and steep hills, there is a big sandy beach and the surrounding area is pretty flat. It really feels like being at the seaside. We’re staying in a guesthouse right by the beach and it has electricity. The water isn’t working so they brought us buckets of lake water to use; I was startled by a white frog in the bathroom!

I’d heard there were crocodiles here and that I wouldn’t be able to swim, but on asking a lady at the guest house I learned that as long as you go during the day time it is safe enough; it’s from dusk to dawn that it’s dangerous. As the waves were pretty big today, I decided to leave it until tomorrow to test the waters. Went with my colleagues to visit the pastor of the Anglican church where we will hold the workshop, which is on a little hill about a five minute walk from the guest house. Everywhere we went my colleagues were greeting relatives and friends and pointing things out to me, including a tamarind tree and the big baobab trees.

Day 7 (Sunday)

The lake had calmed down so I went for a swim – it was wonderful! I went to the morning service at the Anglican church. Anglican churches in this region are all high church – there was a lot of liturgy and sitting and standing and kneeling and me not knowing what I was supposed to do but just copying the person next to me. To be honest, I understood very little of what went on in the service, as the liturgy was hard to follow and the preacher spoke super-fast, but I did appreciate the various Scripture readings and I had a chance to share briefly about our work. After the service I was invited to the pastor’s home for chai, and enjoyed a pleasant chat with him and his wife. His wife had prepared some boiled eggs and a thermos of tea. I left with the last two eggs wrapped in an envelope with a pinch of salt for me to enjoy later. I decided to head straight from there to a café to get lunch, just some ugali and greens as I’d already had a good lot of protein with the eggs.

After lunch I had some quiet time in my room, reading the Bible, praying, resting and listening to some Bible teaching I’d downloaded before the trip. After all that sitting I was ready to stretch my legs, so for the first time in a week I got out for a good walk along a dirt road, enjoying the scenery and the small villages I passed through. A special treat was coming across a small group of people doing traditional dancing, with two drummers in the middle, singing songs about Tanzania – one man with them recognised me from church and said he would be at the seminar tomorrow, so that made me feel safe and gave me the courage to ask if I could take photos. I think they enjoyed performing for me!

Day 8 (Monday)

Day one of the workshop. It felt quite different working with Erasto and Faraja, compared to working with Claudia and Stanslaus last week. C and S are both openly enthusiastic and used their language most of the time and were very open with me and fun to work with, referring various decisions to me and doing a good team-job of teaching. E and F are a bit more serious, with E taking the lead (as the older man and also a pastor) and coming across confidently but I often needed to prompt him about ways to teach. On the whole I think the first day went well with people doing a really good job of reading the Manda language, even though some of them weren’t Manda! A couple of the pastors particularly enjoyed the first thing I had done while people were still turning up, which was to give them pictures of key biblical events, get them to put them in order, and then I told the whole story of the Bible briefly, tying all the events together and showing how they were fulfilled in Christ.

Guess what I had for lunch? Yes, fish! I feel like my hands have smelt of fish for most of the time I’ve been here! You need to do some serious hand washing with soap to get rid of the smell!

After the workshop, I was taken to see a Manda class in action. A local pastor, even though he’s not Manda, was concerned to see the Manda language not being valued by the community or used by children, and so he recruited a couple of ladies to start Manda classes for the children, starting with his own children. He related how it was hard work at first, people thought he had a hidden agenda or mocked the idea as they don’t see the value of their language, but over time the number of children grew, drawn by the games, drums and dancing, and parents (at least some) have become more accepting. Around thirty children did a long dance to the beat of a big drum, their steps following the commands (in Manda) of different children and then some children said all the parts of the body in Manda and others counted to twenty in Manda. Tomorrow the pastor wants to take me to another village, some distance away, to see another class.

I had just enough time left to go for a short sunset walk and enjoy yet another glorious sky. Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the works thy hands hath made!

Day 9 (Tuesday)

Perfect morning for swimming, so I did, in the calm lake under a blue sky. The workshop seemed to go well, though as it was a much warmer day than yesterday people were sleepy. At the end of the day we chose five people to prepare to lead a Bible study tomorrow, so we’ll see how they do.

The pastor who started the Manda class wanted to take me to visit another class in a village a few miles away (one of the teachers is in our workshop), so one of the Manda teachers from Nsungu (the village we are holding the workshop in) and I climbed on the back of one motorbike and the pastor on another and off we went. I laughed to myself over the surprised faces of people we passed when they saw a white person on the back of a motorbike! When we arrived a group of young children were gathered (the older ones having been given the work of cutting reeds by their school teacher, so they couldn’t come) and they showed us things they had learnt. The teacher said how hard it had been at first, with people saying unkind words about it and taking their children away. It’s still hard, but more accepted now than it was.

We came back by foot, a walk of over five miles! As we went they pointed out landmarks, explained which areas are flooded during the rainy season, told me where the crocodiles are, shared some old traditions that are being lost (including respect for elders such that in days gone by they would be given fish for free and children were expected to greet them and carry whatever the elder was carrying, and if they didn’t they would be punished) and related how the lake has receded over the years and how the cutting of trees is causing erosion by the rivers. As we walked the sunset and sky was magnificent, with trees of all kinds silhouetted against the various shades of red and orange, and by the end we were walking by light of the moon with our moon shadows keeping step.

Back at the pastor’s home he briefly showed me a small project of his – he is breeding rabbits and guinea pigs for food! This is the first time I have seen guinea pigs in Tanzania, but he said that breeding them is common practice amongst the Pangwa people (a people group that neighbours the Manda area, but is up in the mountains, and he himself is Pangwa).

Day 10 (Wednesday)

I am writing this by the light of the bathroom light! A weird quirk of the room I’m in is that if my colleague in the next-door room and I both have our lights on at the same time they flash in a horrible headache-inducing kind of way. I can hear a mosquito’s high pitched buzz, but I can’t see it – there’s quite a lot of mozzies around, but the bed has a decent mosquito net so I haven’t been bothered by them at night. It probably doesn’t help that none of the windows shut properly and I can see the sky through gaps between the window frame and the wall.

Last day of the workshop. I think it went as well as can be expected. The questions is always whether they will put it into practice. I am particularly conscious of the fact that the Manda only have one book in their language so far – Jonah; they don’t even have any short story books, so people will soon get tired of reading and re-reading the same book. Also here in Nsungu children are not using the Manda language, so there may be less motivation for what we are doing, though I think in other areas their language is used more. The participants certainly seemed to have appreciated the workshop and saw the benefit of studying God’s Word through questions that help people to think about and apply it to their daily lives.

One dear older lady (she is the one in a light orange dress in the picture) gave me a bag of peanuts, saying that although my mother is in England, wherever I go there is a mother. I was so touched by her kindness. She had shelled the peanuts for me as she thought I would find it hard, and it’s true, I’ve done it before but if you’re not used to it, it’s slow work and after a while you thumbs feel sore!

I don’t think I’ve mentioned the pigs – they’re all over the place, grunting away, left to roam around to find food during the day. And the chickens likewise. And then there’s the odd goat here and there or cow.

Tomorrow it will be an early start and a long journey – I need to be heading out about 5am and Erasto is willing to get up at the same hour to accompany me to the bus stand, even though he is staying on for a while longer with Faraja to test the gospel of Luke with various Manda speakers.

Day 11 (Thursday)

I was up about 4.30am after a restless night. The bus was sitting in the layby and a lady sat next to it waiting. No other sign of life in the darkness. A couple more people arrived and then there was the faint glow of a phone inside the bus. The conductor had slept inside the bus and was finally stirring. We set of about 5.30am. This bus would take me all the way to Makambako, stopping for a while (20-30 minutes) in Ludewa and Njombe and arriving in Makambako shortly after 2.30pm. In Njombe I was able to stretch my legs by a quick walk to the toilets and then to the food stands to buy a bag of chips for lunch.

The last leg of the journey from Makambako to Mbeya was not less comfortable. I had to change in Makambako, and the conductor helped me get onto a bus heading for Mbeya. I appreciated his kindness and his concern that I would be overcharged if I let the hawkers at the bus door find me a bus – he took my bag and made took my money to pay for a ticket. Later I discovered that he may not have been as altruistic as he appeared, as when I was finally given my bus ticket it said 4000/- rather than the 5000/- that I had given him!

It was one of those small buses where they use every inch of space, so down the central aisle were fold-down seats for extra passengers. The bus was full, so it was a squeeze. The ride from Makambako to Mbeya should be no more than 3.5 hours, but it took us 4.5 hours due to stopping several times for passengers to get off and on; my back ached, my feet were swollen, the bus was warm and I was dehydrated (I generally don’t drink much on journeys because you never know if and when you will get a toilet stop), but eventually we arrived on the outskirts of Mbeya. I thought the bus would go all the way to the main bus stand in town, but when it arrived at the big out-of-town bus stand most people alighted and the driver decided not to carry on, so those of us who were left were put on another small bus, which also decided not to go to the main bus stand! However, I was able to get off at a bus stop not far from home, and at 7.15pm Lizzie (one of my housemates) was waiting there to pick me up (just a five minute drive from home). It felt strange to be speaking English again after eleven days of no English conversation and not seeing another white face!

Back home

It’s Friday and I’ve taken the day off work. I feel slightly disconnected – it feels unreal to be back in my home after being in such a different environment for over ten days. I slept long and well but still feel tired.

I hadn’t been desperate to return to Mbeya. I had enjoyed my trip. God had been wonderfully faithful as always – I had felt well taken care of, my stomach hadn’t been much of a problem, I’d been able to get some exercise and had got on fine with my colleagues. The workshops seemed to go well, though we wait to see what fruit they may bear. I’d enjoyed some beautiful and varied scenery as well as swimming in the lake and learning about Kisi and Manda life. All in all it was a good trip and I look forward to more adventures and thank God that He is always there enabling me to do things I think I can’t do.