Diary of a trip to the Manda language area

Tuesday 10^th June

I'm in Lituhi, in the Manda language area. I arrived here this morning together with my colleague, a young Tanzanian man called Faraja (meaning ‘Comfort’). Our journey began at 6am yesterday morning with the 4.5 hour bus ride to Njombe, where we had hoped to catch the morning bus to Ludewa, but it was full, so we had to wait 5 hours in a very cold bus stand for the afternoon bus. It was grey, windy and wet – despite my thick cardigan and scarf I couldn’t stop shivering. At 3.30pm we finally headed off, arriving 5 hours later in Ludewa. I was very ready to get off that bus! I was tired of the loud music, I’d had enough of podcasts and the road was too rough for me to be able to read a book. In the darkness we headed towards a guest house. No room at the inn! Or the next one. Third time lucky.

Left: My first bus, early on Monday morning. Right: Later in the day at another bus stand, vendors sell their wares, holding them up to the bus windows.

This morning it was another 6am bus and another 5 or so hours on the road. Faraja paid one of the young men, who was waiting to give people rides on his motorbike, to take our luggage and the box of workshop materials up to the guest house, while we made our way on foot. I’m in the same room I was in last time, which is a nice size and peaceful, but catches the sun in the late afternoon, making it rather sticky.

After unpacking I started sellotaping Bible timelines together, ready to give out at the workshop, where we will be doing an Old Testament overview and looking at how it points to Jesus. As Genesis is foundational to understanding the big story of the Bible, we will be able to use the recently published book of Genesis in the Manda language, alongside the Swahili Scriptures and a little book I wrote in Swahili called ‘Habari nzima ya Biblia’ (literally ‘News whole of Bible’, i.e. the big story of the Bible).

Kanyaga Guesthouse in Lituhi, my bedroom

For lunch I had ugali, greens and fish, with a delicious local orange for dessert given to me by a kind gentleman in the café. He even carefully peeled it for me, using the common method here of paring the skin off with a knife to just leave a thin layer of clean pith, you then suck the orange off the pith. On a less happy note, I was sad to hear from Faraja that people had complained to the café owner that last time we came here to do a workshop we didn’t provide people with the food they expected. (The café had helped with the catering, bringing up morning tea to the church, while another café had provided lunch.) This was because when people see a white person, and know you’re with a big organisation, they expect to be wined and dined (which here would mean they expect to receive meat or fish and a soda with every meal) and even be paid to attend. From my perspective, this feels topsy-turvy – if a big organisation has organised a seminar in the UK, participants would expect to pay to attend rather than get training and food for free. However, it’s an attitude we have frequently faced in our ministry, caused in part by how some other NGOs have operated. We try to explain our ministry and how we want to work with the church and often over time they come to understand, but it can be hard at first. Our Tanzanian colleagues get the brunt of it, with people even accusing them of not providing better food or not paying people’s travel expenses because they are pocketing money for themselves.

What else have I done today? Rested, attempted to deal with emails but network was too poor, took a wee stroll with Faraja, ate my usual light tea while doing a crossword, and now I’m writing this.

View from the guesthouse

Wednesday 11^th June

Day one of the workshop. We’re holding it in a classroom belonging to the Catholic church, so before starting we tried to get a brief audience with the priest to greet and thank him. He was busy meeting with different people, so while we waited we chatted with others who were also waiting their turn, explaining to them about our work and listening to the audio version of Jonah in the Manda language. After a good half hour we couldn’t wait any longer, it was time to be meeting and greeting the workshop participants, so we headed to the classroom.

Faraja and I were both somewhat disappointed. We only had half the number of people we’d hoped for and they all, bar one, came from the same church denomination and seemed to be regular church members rather than those with leadership and teaching responsibilities. However, we were at least encouraged to see everyone engaging well and asking questions, as well as making good progress with reading Manda. They particularly enjoyed learning the children’s song, “He made the stars to shine”, which is one I translated some time ago into Swahili and use with children in Sunday school.

Above: Faraja introduces participants to how we write the two vowels that exist in Manda, but don't exist in Swahili. (If you look closely you can see them, a ʉ and an ɨ.) Below: Participants learn to read Manda.

Went for a good brisk walk with Faraja in the evening as the sun set. In the distance we could see the mountains of Malawi on the other side of Lake Nyasa, though the lake itself wasn’t visible. Apparently we’re about a one hour walk from the lake.

Thursday 12^th June

Day two. Expectations of starting more promptly, and with more people, were quickly dashed. A few turned up on time, but most trickled in later, and some people didn’t turn up at all (apparently this was due to a funeral somewhere). Once again, despite the disappointment over numbers, it was great to see them engaged and seemingly enjoying the teaching. Yesterday very few came with Bibles, so I’d asked them to bring them today. But still very few came with Bibles, so apparently the problem wasn’t forgetting to bring one, but simply that they don’t own one. More than half of the participants have bought the three main books we are using in the seminar (Genesis, The Life of Moses (a compilation of verses taken from Exodus to Deuteronomy) and The Big Story of the Bible), so at least they now have some Scriptures, and I pray that this workshop gets them excited about reading them! We have put an offer on, that if they buy all three books they pay just 2000 shillings (about 60p), instead of the total price of 3500 shillings. An offer is always attractive!

Today we had invited children to come to a little class just for them. Their catechism teacher let them all know, and they turned up promptly. Over 80 children! I played ‘Simon says’ with them and taught them ‘He made the stars to shine’ and then handed over to Faraja to read them a short Bible story in Manda and give them a brief introduction to reading their language. It was good to see that all the children understood and spoke Manda (in other places we find children are no longer using the local language), though some of the words in the story they didn’t know as Swahili has got mixed in with Manda, so certain words are no longer understood by this new generation. It was so fun to see the children’s upturned faces catching the late afternoon light, watching and listening intently and laughing and enjoying what we did, with their rosary beads dangling around their necks. May these precious children come to know Jesus as their Saviour and friend.

Faraja checks that the children know the names of body parts in Manda

After teaching Faraja was still game for a short walk despite the long day, so we stepped it out once again, returning as the trees became black silhouettes against the red sky. Time for a quick wash. Thankfully there’s been a good breeze and some cloud cover both days, preventing it from getting too hot, but teaching and walking leave me a bit sticky, so a cool wash is refreshing. The bathroom is nicely tiled and there’s a tap and a pipe just waiting for a shower head. But there’s no water in the pipes and there’s no sink. Bucket bathing only, with water draining away down the long-drop toilet. Basic, maybe, but it does the job! And when the water gets low I just ask the resident guest house staff (a friendly young lady called Catherine!) to refill the water butt.

Evening walk

Friday 13^th June

Last day of the workshop. I was very touched by a gift of bananas from an elderly gentleman who attended. It was great to see participants doing an excellent job of putting a set of Bible story pictures in order, as they had made many mistakes on their first attempt on day one. At the end it was good to hear people saying what they had learnt like, “I’ve come to see that our redemption through Jesus stems back to Abraham, there is a whole plan of salvation” and “I used to just read the Bible any old how, but now I see I need to follow the flow of the Bible” and “If we read the Bible it brings us close to God” and “I believe Jesus to be our Lord and Saviour, I believe in Jesus personally, not just believe in what my church denomination says” and “I will explain to others that when we want to repent we can talk directly to God” (i.e. we don’t have to go to a priest).

Participants put Bible story pictures in order

Saturday 14^th June

We had hoped to get the morning bus to Nsungu, where we would be doing the second workshop, but it turned out that the morning bus wasn’t running. As we wanted to get to Nsungu early enough to prepare for the days ahead, we decided to travel by motorbike rather than wait for the late afternoon bus. This is something I usually avoid, as there are so many motorbike accidents in Tanzania, but the driver drove carefully, I enjoyed a nice chat with him as we went, and just over an hour later we arrived safely. Safely, BUT under police escort, and what followed was an experience I hope never to repeat. In brief it involved being suspected of illegal imports and being made to empty out all our luggage, with Faraja barely escaping being locked up. If you want to know more, I’ll fill you in, but I don’t feel I should post the whole story publicly. The experience also included a very random encounter with a man from Belarus who was there as a tourist! We met him in Lituhi, and then again at the police station, just going from here to there on public transport, with his backpack and tent, and with no Swahili and limited English. He’d run out of cash for his bus ride to the next town, where he’ll be able to restock his wallet at an ATM, so I interpreted between him and the immigration officers and gave him money for his bus fare to Ludewa (about £3). Despite remonstrations he insisted on paying me back for the only way he could – in Euros! I think my German colleague will benefit from those!

With relief I finally left the police station, with Faraja being released a bit later. I was desperate for a drink and was very glad to arrive in the centre of the village, buy a big bottle of cold water, get a late lunch with Faraja (chips and chunks of roasted meat) and head to the guest house by the lake. Most of the day was now gone. I spent some time in quiet preparing to teach at Faraja’s church the next day (Faraja grew up in Nsungu, and his pastor helped us at the police station and had invited me to teach at his church on Sunday morning), before going for a short walk with Faraja.

Evening walk

Sunday 15^th June

I’m sitting in my room and the smell of beer is floating through the window. Just outside my room they are stacking up packs of soda and crates of beer ready for the wedding reception that will be taking place here this evening. The guest house courtyard has been decked with fairy lights and the guests are expected to arrive about 7pm. In anticipation of very loud music and crowds of people right outside my door until past midnight, I have decided to retreat to a different guest house for the night! I’ve made my reservation and will head over there later.

Left: My room with drinks stacked up outside, though many have already been bagged ready for guests, which you can see in the far left of the picture. Right: Ready for the wedding guests!

At church the pastor had tweaked the order of service to give me much longer to teach than I had expected! I spent well over an hour teaching about the importance of meditating daily on God’s Word and how we can do that – amazingly everyone stayed engaged. I wasn’t preaching, rather using visuals, examples and questions to help them understand and remember.

There’s always so much more I could write about, like the conversations with Faraja on everything from the games they played as children to how his mum would make beer and he would be given the juice to drink before it was fermented. Or little things like the beautiful red and orange butterfly I saw, or the very broken toilet seat and dribble of a shower at the guesthouse, or the gorgeous sunset over the lake. But right now I think it’s time to attempt a swim, if the lake isn’t too rough and if I can pluck up the courage to walk through all the men outside my door still counting and organising the drinks!

…

The lake was quite choppy, so I couldn’t swim far, but it was beautiful, and the best part was sitting on some steps on the beach afterwards watching the sun set behind the mountains of Malawi. I’m now at the other guest house, which could do with bit of maintenance (peeling paint and windows that don’t shut), and finding the music from the wedding reception still intrusively loud despite being a few hundred metres away. I’m glad I’m not still there; if I’d stayed I think I’d be crying by now – I don’t cope well with noise!

Lake Nyasa (aka Lake Malawi)

Monday 16^th June

I walked back to the other guesthouse only to find the gate locked and no-one up yet. About twenty minutes later (during which time I stood praying on the beach in the cool morning air) I was finally let in, and I was able to continue with my morning rituals.

Left: My bedroom at the other guesthouse. Right: Wedding reception aftermath.

[I’m writing this in the evening. Just been plunged into darkness. Power cut. I always carry a little solar light with me, which comes in very handy. They’ve now turned on a generator – the fumes are wafting in through my window, so I’d better shut that!]

Day one of the second workshop. We climbed the hill to where the church is located behind some army barracks (we are using the same church I was at yesterday). It was an encouraging first day, with an almost full quota of participants from several different denominations, many of whom have attended previous workshops and could already read quite well and a good number are people with leadership roles in church. So it felt very different from last week.

The church

How would you answer questions like, “What does it mean that Adam and Eve knew good and bad after eating the fruit? If they were made in the image of God, didn’t they already know good and bad?” or “Should Adam have used his authority as a man to prevent Eve from eating the fruit?” or “If God wanted to wipe out mankind due to their evil ways, why did he let Noah and his family live? And if Noah was righteous why do things go wrong again after the flood?” Often when people ask questions, I send a quick silent request to God for wisdom in how to answer – I don’t want to lead people astray by erring from the truth or miscommunicate as I struggle to express a particular concept in Swahili. It was great to hear one elderly lady say at the end of the day that she mostly just read the New Testament, thinking that the Old Testament is just about the Israelites, but now she’s realised that the whole Bible is about Jesus.

A short reminder of how to read Manda - several participants were already proficient readers

Enjoyed a good 1.5 hour walk with Faraja, with some lovely views across an inlet of the lake to the hills beyond. He introduced me to the fruit of the tamarind tree, which was very sharp but tangy – they weren’t quite ripe yet but were still edible. As we walked, we met a number of his old classmates from school days and on our way back we also met some of the workshop participants on their way home. I hadn’t realised just how far some of them had come – one lady we met, who was getting on in years and unable to walk very fast, pointed out the area she lives in which looked to be at least another mile or two further on, making it 4-5 miles from the church. I shouldn’t complain about people being late when they are walking such distances to attend and I should be more careful about finishing early enough for people to get home at a reasonable time!

One or two interesting things I learned, or relearned, today:

• You can eat the leaves of the cassava plant – a common meal is ugali made from cassava and served with greens made from the leaves, Faraja says this meal is called a ‘suit’ as it’s a complete outfit all from one plant!
• Monkeys might look cute to us, but they are a pest for farmers, destroying maize crops.
• The Manda word for father is ‘dadi’, it sounds like our English ‘daddy’ (except for the implosive ‘d’), unlike the Swahili ‘baba’.

Tuesday 17^th June

Went for a short swim in the calm waters of the lake this morning. Beautiful. Day two of the workshop seemed to go well, though I felt quite tired and wondered if the participants felt the same – too much information and not enough time for the brain to rest? It didn’t help that lunch arrived late. Unfortunately it wasn’t the most appetising of meals for me because I can’t eat beans and there were no greens, so it was just ugali and a smallish fish full of fiddly bones that were hard to pick out. I was very touched by the kindness of one of the participants, who noticed my limited meal and insisted on giving me her fish as she had beans she could eat instead.

Group work - learning about the Passover

Once again we had invited children to come for some fun. We had a smaller group this time, but we still enjoyed playing various games, singing a couple of songs and having a little literacy lesson. In Nsungu there has been more immigration of people from different people groups, so not all of the children spoke Manda, but those who did really enjoyed the story Faraja read to them.

Back at the guest house familiar faces greeted me. Colleagues had arrived from our office in Mbeya, plus a couple of guests who I have also met before – our new SIL Tanzania director, who is Cameroonian and will continue to live in Cameroon with occasional trips to Tanzania, and someone who works with one of our financial partners, Wycliffe Netherlands. They have come to Tanzania for a short visit to see with their own eyes how things are going. They’d driven here in the project’s Land Cruiser, and tomorrow, after meeting with some of the workshop participants, they’ll continue with their journey to the Kisi language area. I joked that us ‘normal’ workers have to take buses, while the big wigs get to take the Land Cruiser, as it’s too expensive for us to use it for all of our trips. It does feel a bit ridiculous that a vehicle that is there to make our work easier is sometimes left unused because the cost of using it exceeds our budgets. Mind you, in some ways I prefer buses because then you have no responsibilities – I don’t have to worry about traffic police or punctures or other things going wrong! I can just sit back and relax, though maybe ‘relax’ is overstating things, as the journeys are rarely comfortable and have a distinct lack of toilet stops.

Another sunset over the lake

Wednesday 18^th June

Another swim, enjoying the beauty around me and the swallows flitting up and down over the water. Later, as I walked up to the church with one of the visitors, he commented that I was like a mountain goat going up the path – I guess I’ve got used to skipping over the steep rocky path up to the church! I translated for our new director, so that he could follow what was going on in the meeting. The community were asked to respond to various questions about the project’s impact and their vision for the future. After over an hour of discussion we said our goodbyes, had our morning cup of tea (black and very sweet) and mandazi (which faintly resembles a doughnut in taste, though not in shape) and got stuck into day three of the teaching.

It felt like something of a marathon, but then we were trying to cover several thousand years of history over three days! Doing actions to represent the different events in the Old Testament, singing occasional songs, and a little bit of dramatisation of the story, all helped to break things up.

[Just killed a mosquito, third one this evening, but another one escaped my grasp. Oooh, got it!]

At the end, many of the participants expressed how they now realised that the Old and New Testaments are part of one story. That was one of the key goals of the seminar, so praise God for that! Other encouraging feedback included, “I’ve come to know that salvation is through faith” and “I want to find a Bible!” (this participant didn’t own a Bible – I pray her enthusiasm won’t grow cold before she’s able to get one) and “In the Old Testament they gave burnt offerings, but Jesus was our perfect sacrifice, he’s the offering we need. I will teach this in church.”

Today’s evening walk was to Faraja’s home, to visit his mum. We didn’t stay long, and most of the time they spoke Manda, but it was nice to have met her. On the way back we passed by the home of the pastor whose church we’d been using – he had been an active participant in the workshop, despite not being Manda. He’d asked us to pop in – it turned out he wanted to give me a gift, a colourful woven basket!

Thursday 21^st June

Homeward bound. Up at a painfully early hour to catch the bus, which we’d been told could leave anytime between 5-6am. It left about 5.30am. The windows rattled away as we made our way along the dirt road. Always considerate, Faraja had let me take the window seat so that I wouldn’t be inconvenienced by the people standing in the aisle. On a crowded bus, you inevitably end up with someone leaning into your personal space, or their bag swinging onto your head or having to lean out the way as people squeeze round each other to get off the bus. At every opportunity to get off the bus, I did. Whether or not I needed the toilet, I would go anyhow, as I wasn’t sure when the next opportunity would be. Each stopping place had some kind of toilet option – long drops of varying degrees of cleanliness, a 50:50 chance of the door lock working and always costing 300 shillings (just under 10p).

About 3 hours later we pulled into the district town of Ludewa. After a short break, we continued to the regional town of Njombe. Throughout the 5 hour journey a woman was lying down in the aisle, obviously not feeling well enough to sit! In Njombe, we bought tickets for our next bus and had an hour to get some food and stretch our legs before continuing. We arrived back in Mbeya about 8.30pm. Phew! Tired and dehydrated, but safely home at last. As always, despite the challenges, I have enjoyed the opportunity to be out in the community instead of in the office, teaching and interacting with people and delighting in God’s creation in a different part of the country.

Battling the elements (aka rain)

Thursday 20th February

Was it just last year I vowed never to plan a village-based workshop in the middle of the rainy season? And yet here I find myself in the big village of Ilembo, in the Malila language area, training Sunday school teachers for two days. When the pastor of a large Baptist church there asked my former Malila colleague, Majaliwa, to invite me to come and teach, I felt strangely compelled to agree. The pastor is someone I have interacted with a number of times in the past, an enthusiastic man who really cares about God’s Word being faithfully studied and taught and who is a strong advocate for using Malila, so I wanted to encourage him by responding in the affirmative! So against my better judgement, and persuaded by my Malila colleague that there’s usually a break in the rains in February, I agreed to go.

As forecast, a week or so into February the weather dried up, so I lived in hope that the weather wouldn’t interrupt our plans, but when I left at 7am to drive to the Malila area, the rain began falling. The skies were grey and there was nothing to suggest it was just a passing shower; it rained all the way to Ilembo, a journey of about 1¾ hours. Thankfully the dirt road was mostly in good shape, so I didn’t have any problems en-route, but the rain refused to let up, and I felt sorry for the children walking by the side of the road on their way to school, with no coats or umbrellas, though some were using plastic sheets or banana leaves for shelter and most of them looked surprisingly cheerful despite the weather!

Majaliwa was waiting for me in the centre of Ilembo, he’d come by motorbike from his home a few miles away, and we headed to the church. The pastor welcomed us into his office, but no-one else was to be seen. And the rain continued, though not heavily. It was about a couple of hours after we were supposed to start that we finally began with the few participants who had arrived – Majaliwa did a Malila literacy lesson with them as more participants trickled in and the rain finally stopped. A lot more time on literacy was needed than we had space for in our schedule, but it was a good start, and by the time Majaliwa had gone through all the things that are different in the Malila orthography (writing system) to Swahili and given everyone a chance to try reading a sentence or two out loud, about 20 Sunday school teachers had arrived.

Majaliwa officially opened the workshop and welcomed me and then it was my turn to teach, so after getting them moving with a good game of fruit bowl, I launched into the content I had prepared. Lunch was somewhat late (about 2.30pm), but no-one complained. I find the commitment, resilience and uncomplaining nature of people here to be a real challenge to my comfort-loving, schedule-keeping outlook on life! Some of the participants had come long distances (apparently over 20km) on foot and in the rain and some of them would sleep in a couple of rooms provided by the church probably on mats on the floor. And yet all these discomforts and inconveniences were accepted with fortitude.

In the evening the pastor had arranged for local school children to come so that I could teach them in front of the teachers to provide an example of live teaching. About 80 children turned up and they were amazing! They engaged so well, which was super to see as when I’ve done this in some places it’s been really hard to get them to respond because they are so shy of this strange visitor!

We finished about 5.45pm. I played with some little children for a while and then chatted with the pastor about funerals – it’s a fascinating topic of conversation as our traditions are so different. I discovered that the Malila used to bury their dead with a mattress and blankets because they believed they should be buried with their possessions otherwise they’d come back for them. There was just time for me to take a short walk before it got completely dark and I settled into my guest house room for the night.

I was back in the same room I was in last time I was in Ilembo! It’s one of my least favourite guest houses to stay in – it smells mouldy, paint is peeling off the walls, there is still no bulb in the little en-suite bathroom, and the blanket doesn’t smell good. Annoyingly I forgot to bring the inner-sheet I sometimes carry for trips where I’m not sure what my sleeping conditions will be, as I can snuggle inside that and know that I am clean, whatever the provided bedding might be like!

Friday 21st February

That wasn’t the most restful of nights. There was a mosquito in the room and as I was its only food supply you can guess what happened. There was no mosquito net because Ilembo is in the hills, about 2030 metres  (6660 feet) above sea level, so malaria isn’t a problem and mosquitoes are scarce. After being woken up by its buzzing and the itching of its bites, I covered my face and hands with my scarf and sleep was restored.

Looking towards Ilembo on a short morning walk

We were able to start the workshop more promptly today, and lunch (rice with fish in a tomato sauce) was ready at a good time. When I say fish, I mean whole fish, about 15cm long. Previous encounters with such fish and watching how Tanzanians eat them has taught me that you can, and in fact should, eat the head. They consider it to be one of the best parts, full of goodness. It took me a while to be convinced of that, but I’ve discovered that the head really is okay, if the fish isn’t too big.

Looking out from the church
as the rain poured down

Everything came to an abrupt halt in the afternoon when the heavens opened and the wind blew and it became impossible to make oneself heard over the sound of rain pounding on the tin roof. I loved the teachers’ response to this – they started singing! Despite the painfully loud sound of the rain, their voices could still be heard praising God. However, after a while, even they grew tired of fighting against the sound of the rain, and so we sat and waited until, after about 20 minutes, it eased and we could carry on where we left of, which was doing a quiz and learning how to compose questions that follow the flow of the Bible story and using creative ways of scoring.

When I asked at the end what new things they had learnt, the overwhelming response was ‘actions’ – the idea of using actions when telling the story and for memory verses, and engaging the children in all kinds of other ways, was new to most of them. Two days is very short, but I pray that they will all have learnt something that will help them teach children better and make learning the truths of the Bible fun, and that the simple curriculum they all bought based on Mark’s gospel (which I wrote a few years ago, and sold at half-price so they could all afford it, at about 15p) will help them prepare and teach faithfully through the life of Jesus over the coming months.

Practising learning memory verses using actions

Remarkably, the church covered all the workshop costs, even paying for my room at the guest house and generously giving me a sack of potatoes, and Majaliwa a long bar of laundry soap, to thank us for coming. They would love for us to do this three times a year, but with my other work commitments, I’m not sure that’s possible. This is a shame as it’s so encouraging when a church takes the initiative and shows a real concern for children’s ministry.

Group pic! Sitting on chairs (L-R): Sunday school coordinator, pastor, me, Overseer of Baptist churches in the area, Majaliwa

The drive home was uneventful, except that the road had worsened after the rains, and once I reached tarmac I got stuck behind lorries crawling up the hills all the way back home, so that I rarely got above 20 mph for those final 8 miles. I finally arrived home in the dark after 7.30pm and I suddenly felt very tired. Early night needed. I don’t know if the workshop was ‘successful’; how does one measure success? Though I went to teach, I had so much to learn, lessons which I have to continually relearn, about trusting God (whatever the weather) and wholehearted service (whatever the circumstances). May God help me to be even half as willing as those teachers to bear discomfort for the sake of serving my Saviour!

Two workshops, many hours of travel, multiple modes of transport, beautiful sunsets

Off to the Manda language area (aka Umanda)

It was dark as I left our silent house, and staggered up the drive under the weight of my big rucksack, laptop bag, a tent and a heavy box of books. As I approached the gate of our compound, my arms gave way and I called out to the guard to come and help me. I had asked him the night before to come to my house to assist with my luggage and accompany me to the bus stand, but as someone else was leaving by car at the very time I also needed to leave at 5.25am in the morning, he was engaged in opening the gate for them instead of coming to help me. I live with my housemate on a Moravian church compound; our house is one of several, but all the rest are lived in by pastors, and in addition to housing there is a church, a guest house and offices, so it’s a good sized compound. Just as I thought I was going to drop the box, the guard relieved me of it, put it on his head, turned on his torch and off we went to the bus stand.

Our compound is a convenient 5 minute walk from the bus stand, if you use a shortcut going steeply downhill between houses. Unfortunately there is often an overflowing drain halfway down the hill, so you have to tread carefully to avoid stepping in sewage. It stinks, but it’s such a short, convenient path that I take it regularly, not just for the bus stand but also for going to church and the market. It’s not so easy to negotiate in the dark, and partway down, not able to see the path properly, one of my feet slipped into the dirty water. I continued the rest of the way with a wet sock and sandal, conscious of the fact it wasn’t just water I’d stepped in, and desperate to find a way to clean myself up so that I wouldn’t have a smelly, disgusting foot for a whole day on a bus! Thankfully we arrived at the bus stand with plenty of time for me to make sure my luggage was safely stowed in the luggage compartment under the bus and find the toilets to wash off my foot, sock and sandal. Don’t think shiny service-station toilets. These were slightly smelly, very basic toilets, but handily there was a low cement sink outside, the perfect height for my task, and a bottle of soapy water I could use to launder my sock! I happily paid my 200 shillings (about 5p) for the privilege of using the facilities!

You may wonder why I was carrying a tent. A pastor in the area I was heading to had asked if I could help him get a tent for when he travels around sharing the good news about Jesus and teaching the Bible, so as to make his trips cheaper and so that he has somewhere to stay even if there isn’t a guest house. A friend had a spare tent and happily gifted it to him. He met us en-route, and the next day excitedly texted me to say he’d worked out how to put it up and that people round about were fascinated by it!

It took us 4.5 hours to get to Njombe, where we just had time to go to the toilet and stretch a bit before getting on the next, much smaller, bus to continue our travels. Shortly after Njombe you leave tarmac and continue along dirt roads, which at this time of year kick up clouds of dust. We stopped regularly to pick up or drop off passengers at the side of the road, sometimes seemingly in the middle of nowhere! At one point we waited about 20 minutes for an expected passenger, who turned out to be a mother carrying her child with their leg in a cast. While the delay was frustrating, it felt good to stretch the legs, and the views were beautiful.

We arrived at our destination, the village of Luilo in the Manda language area, just before 7pm, where the bus driver kindly dropped us off at the bottom of the guest house driveway, rather than in the village centre a little walk away. My rucksack, which they’d put in the boot, was thick with dust and I vowed that on the return journey I’d make sure my rucksack went inside the bus rather than underneath. It took me some time to clean things off and shake things out, though at least I’d put a lot of stuff in sealed plastic bags, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

It turned out that the guest house could provide food, so considering the hour I went for the easy option and ordered chipsi mayai (a chip omelette), which was brought to my room after I’d had a bucket bath. It felt good to wash away the grime of the journey, despite having to use a bucket rather than the shower that was there but not working. The room was spacious, with a long sofa that I looked forward to relaxing on, until I realised it was the most uncomfortable sofa I have ever sat on, with much of the padding gone and what was left being hard and lumpy, but at least it served as a place to pile up my food supplies in the absence of a table! The guest house was relatively new – last time I’d come to Luilo, a couple of years ago, we’d stayed in someone’s home, as there was no guest house. Unfortunately the guest house included a bar and restaurant, which meant unpleasantly loud music some evenings, which I repeatedly had to ask them to turn down. However, I was thankful to have been given the room furthest from the bar, so with the help of ear plugs it wasn’t too big a problem.

I had made the journey with a colleague, a young man called Faraja (which is a Swahili word meaning ‘comfort’), who is one of the Manda translators. On arrival we met up with Erasto, the other Manda translator, who had arrived a couple of days earlier to make sure everything was set up. We had come to hold a workshop on the books of Luke and Acts, which have been published in the Manda language within the last year or two. But much to my horror, Erasto informed us that he only had two copies of Luke’s gospel, as they’d sold out in the place he’d expected to get them from, and he was struggling to get hold of someone from another village to send their stock. But somehow or other, by the next morning, there was a stack of Luke’s gospels – it seems Erasto had spent half the night contacting various people to get them sent by motorbike and bus to Luilo.

Faraja leads the participants in practising to read Manda

As expected, we started later than planned on Tuesday morning, but an encouraging number came, and from three different denominations, which was also a really positive outcome as one of the denominations present rarely mixes with the other two. A number of the participants, especially the ladies, were very quiet, more used to listening quietly to preaching than engaging in interactive teaching, but by day two I felt they started to warm up a bit and become more confident at speaking. Day one was mostly introductory stuff – learning to read Manda and discussing some of the background to Luke, such as who the author is, who he was writing to, why he was writing and where does Luke fit into the big story of the Bible, before finishing with a study of the passage in Luke 4 where Jesus reads from the scroll of Isaiah about the Messiah. Day two we started to dig into key themes in Luke, and the teaching included time in groups discussing different passages. Although they often struggled to give answers specific to the text they had read, or were quick to try and say what the text teaches us for our lives rather than what the text teaches us about Jesus’ character or the nature of the Kingdom of God, it was still good to see them reading and discussing together and having confidence to share their answers when we came back together as a big group. 

Day three we finished looking at Luke and they composed a great song, in an incredibly short time, using some verses from Luke, before we started on Acts. My favourite moment that day, other than hearing the song, was a lady saying (very loosely translated), “I always thought each denomination’s building was a church, but now I’ve come to realise that we are the church, that God lives within us, and the places we go to worship are just buildings.” This came out of an exploration of the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, when tongues of fire came to rest on the believers’ heads, representing God’s glorious presence (e.g. think of what happened at the dedication of the temple in 2 Chronicles 7:1-3), and we also made a quick detour from Acts to look at Ephesians 1:18-22, which talks about how we are God’s dwelling place. On the last day we continued studying Acts together, and at the end were blessed with gifts – I received a box full of peanuts, still in their shells, while Erasto and Faraja received bags of cashew nuts, also still in their casings. We asked them how they would use the training and what had been helpful for them. Here’s a few encouraging responses, but of course the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so we have to wait and see if they will do what they said!

• I’ll put aside time to read the Bible each day.
• I’ll ask if we can start to use these books (Luke and Acts in Manda) in our fellowship group.
• In church, I’ll read the Bible passage in both Swahili and Manda.
• I’ll sing Manda songs.
• My actions need to change so that others can see (and be drawn to God).
• You’ve removed the spiritual cobwebs. It was helpful how you unpacked the meaning of fire in relation to the Holy Spirit.
• We are used to just taking one verse and teaching, but now I have learnt to use a whole passage in order to teach the truth. [We talked a lot about the importance of considering the context when we read the Bible.]

Each day, breakfast (about 10am) and lunch (always late, but just about early enough that people hadn’t totally lost concentration) was brought to the church where we were holding the workshop. Day one was fish. I sat on a mound of sand, in the shade of a mango tree, to eat, trying not to swallow any bones, and enjoying the ugali and greens that accompanied the fish. Day two was meat, and this time I opted for rice. The food was tasty enough, but the rice was so greasy that I decided I’d choose ugali thereafter! On day three one of the participants blessed us by bringing a bucket of oranges off his tree to share with us all, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed after finishing their fish. Day four was the same again, though a different kind of fish, the kind full of fine bones that are really hard to pick out, so that I nearly always get one stuck in my throat. But for once I succeeded not to swallow any.

Sunset on
evening walk

The afternoons were hot – stepping out of the church felt like stepping into an oven, but thankfully the church itself wasn’t too bad, and with no glass in the windows the breeze was able to blow through and keep the temperature very bearable, though the wind kept blowing my posters, that were stuck up with masking tape, off the rough cement walls. Early mornings were lovely and cool and evenings were also very pleasant, and Faraja turned out to be a good walking companion. We enjoyed conversations on everything from church issues to the kinds of exercise we like doing to whether we’d prefer to live in a village or town to witchcraft and much more besides, as we stepped it out along the dirt road, hastily moving to the side whenever a bus or motorbike came along, leaving in their trail a cloud of dust. On Thursday’s evening walk, we enjoyed watching the sun, big and red, sink below the horizon, and were returning in the dim light of dusk when I almost stepped on a snake! In the poor light I had thought it was just a branch on the road, and it wasn’t until I was almost on top of it that it moved and I leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding treading on top of it! Faraja and a man passing on a bike tried to stone it before it escaped, but it slithered away too quickly; they said it was a puff adder so I’m glad I didn’t step on it and get bitten! Some of the ladies at the workshop were fasting, and when I asked why, they said it was because of the seminar as for ministry like this we need to pray for God’s protection. I am humbled by and thankful for their prayers – surely this narrow escape from the snake was one of the ways God answered their intercession.

The final day of the workshops was cooler, with plenty of clouds around. This was great news for people’s ability to concentrate, but as clouds mean that it’s windy down at the lake, it didn’t bode so well for the next day’s boat trip to the Kisi language area!

On to the Kisi language area (aka Ukisi)

On Saturday morning, despite the early hour (before 6am), Faraja kindly accompanied me down to the centre of the village to catch the bus. As we waited for the bus to come a group of people came running slowly up the road, singing as they went. They stopped for a while in the village centre, continuing to run and sing on the spot, as the dust billowed up around them from their stamping feet while their leaders spurred them on. Apparently this daily exercise routine for a couple of hours, when all sensible people are still in bed, is compulsory for young adults, and it can help qualify them for work like being a guard. My colleagues told me that some people would suddenly find that they had an important reason to travel when the exercise season began, in order to avoid its rigours!

The bus I had a ticket for was broken down, so they changed my ticket for another bus which turned up about 6.30am. I arrived back in Ludewa about 8am, where I met up with my Kisi colleagues, Claudia and Stanslaus, as well as a new colleague, Sam, who has recently arrived in Tanzania with his family, and will be working with the Kisi and Manda translation teams, as will his wife. This trip was a good opportunity for him to visit one of the language areas. After a bit of shopping at the market and buying bottles of water for the workshop, we began the drive down the steep mountain road to the lake, where the boat was waiting for us.

The lake was fairly calm, though it got choppier as the boat ride continued, making it tricky alighting at the far end, with water splashing onto our luggage as we got out the boat and pulled it up onto the beach. They’d brought us to a beach that was fairly sandy (as opposed to the rocks further up shore) and a little sheltered, to make landing easier, but this meant there was a bit of a walk to where we would be staying, so I struggled under the weight of my bags as we negotiated the stony path and climbed the short hill to the guest house.

We were staying in a house right next to the Catholic church, which is kept for visiting padres. The rooms were small and basic, in need of some fresh paint and new windows and a bit of WD40, as the doors were possibly the creakiest doors I have ever heard, but a nice feature was a small shared space with a table where we were able to eat in the evenings, and they’d provided toilet paper! I also found that I could set up my washing line by tying my string around the nail sticking up out of the mosquito net frame to another nail sticking out of the window frame, so I could do bits of laundry. This trip is the first time I have tried taking something to create a washing line, but I don’t think it will be my last. It proved very useful as it meant I could wash out some of my clothes, so that I didn’t need to carry quite so much with me, and have somewhere to hang them rather than draping them over taps or hanging them from door handles!

After a late lunch, there was some time to rest. A swim wasn’t possible as the waves were quite big, but I enjoyed chatting with Claudia as we sat by the lake in the cool breeze and later enjoyed a brisk walk with Sam. Sunday was less restful, with Claudia and I attending one church in the morning (a 3 hour service) and another church in the afternoon (thankfully a short, quiet service, with only a handful of people present, all ladies). Stanslaus and Sam went to another church, so that between us we’d visited all three churches in the village. Claudia prepared some fried plantain and fish, nice and crispy, to share in the evening, which was very tasty. Following Stanslaus’s example, I ate the whole fish, including the head!

The workshop took place in the small Anglican church, which is still being built and as such had no glass in the windows and no door, all of which helped it to remain relatively cool throughout our time together. The content was the same as that of the Manda workshop, except that it was squeezed into three days. One of the reasons that this was possible was because nearly all of the participants had attended previous workshops and so already had a good grip on how to read Kisi, so we didn’t need to spend as long on literacy. We were right at our budget’s limit with the number of participants who came, and apparently my colleagues had to turn others away who wanted to come! I found it really encouraging to see how much people had appreciated previous workshops, such that they were keen to come back for more teaching and also that the news had spread and others wanted to come too. 

Sometimes the teaching felt like hard work, with the same few people answering questions – it wasn’t easy to tell whether others were just too shy to speak out in front of the group, or whether my questions hadn’t been understood or whether they just had no idea what the answer was. I know that my teaching method follows a fairly literary mindset, which isn’t ideal considering that I am teaching in a mostly oral cultural context, but time and again people have said how they appreciate the methodical way that I teach, that it’s clear and easy to understand, so it must be helping, even if they’re reluctant to speak out. The feedback testified to this – one person said, “You’ve taken me to college! Through the training you have given me the ability to stand in front of church and teach.” I was really encouraged to see how studying the story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts had helped people to recognise that Christians from different church denominations can and should work together in unity, as denominationalism is a real issue here, with people saying that those who worship in other churches aren’t saved. One said, “There is discrimination between churches, but now I see that we are all worthy before God, through Jesus Christ”. I was also really struck by what one young man said, “I didn’t have a Bible, but now I have seen its importance and I will do something about it.” It’s so sad that within his church tradition he’d not realised his need for God’s Word, but so great to hear that his perspective has changed, and I hope and pray that he continues to meditate on the Kisi Scriptures.

On day one of the workshop the lunch was rice, greens and goat meat, which was deliciously tender compared to the usual tough chunks of fatty meat (or innards) that one often gets served. On days two and three, it was the same, except that offal was thrown into the mix and the mountain of rice they generously put on my plate seemed to get bigger so that by day three I barely got halfway through it!

As we did most evenings, Sam and I took a walk on the last evening, this time heading south, crossing over a river, with the mountains rising steeply to our left and the waves crashing onto the rocks a little to our right. We greeted the many people that we passed, with our limited Kisi, but were saddened by the number who were drunk. Getting drunk on the local brew is a big problem in the Kisi area, with Stanslaus saying it’s due in large part to people not having much to do once they’ve come back from fishing, so they just sit around and drink. Although drinking is a problem in many language areas, it feels like it’s worse in this fishing community than it is in any of the farming communities that I have visited. The sunset was breathtaking as the red ball of sun sank down towards the horizon, with the water and wet rocks reflecting the pinky-red light. At some point on our way back we must have passed through an area with better network connection as when I looked at my phone later I saw that over 50 WhatsApp messages had come in! However, by the time I saw them I’d left the magic spot and my answers failed to send. But it’s quite nice being off-grid for a few days!

Heading home

On Thursday morning, after a poor night’s sleep, we were up bright and early for our boat ride. We headed down the path to the shore, with considerably less and lighter luggage, and were soon in the boat with Stanslaus paddling us out into the lake until we were in deep enough water to start the engine. An hour and a half later, after a beautiful ride on the gentle swell of the lake, with the sun occasionally peeping out over the top of the mountains to our left, we pulled into Lupingu, where our ride up the mountain was waiting for us.

Arriving back in the small town of Ludewa, we were surprised and disappointed to discover that neither of the usual buses were running that afternoon and so we wouldn’t be able to continue our journey to Mbeya until Friday morning. After what had been a rather long trip I just wanted to get home, and my colleagues were missing family and their families were missing them, but there was nothing we could do about it. We found rooms at our favourite guest house, and I appreciated time to rest, to catch up on WhatsApp messages now that I was back in a place with better network coverage, to pray and make some decisions about certain work things and deal with a few emails. We got lunch at a nearby café, where I ordered ugali, greens and fried chicken, which was hot and crispy and a nice change from the stewed meat of the past few days. Sam and I enjoyed a little walk in the cool evening air (Ludewa feeling quite chilly after the warmth of Ukisi), with the hills that surround the town softly outlined against the sky as the light faded.

Sunrise as we waited for the bus at Ludewa bus stand

On Friday morning we boarded the bus sometime after 7.30am. The windows rattled noisily as we rumbled along the dirt road and Christian songs played out over the sound system. However, any hopes that we might be home before dark were dashed when the bus broke down about three hours into the journey – some issue with the gears. At first we waited patiently as their mechanic tinkered away under the bus, but after some time it became evident that all attempts to fix it had failed and we were told that another bus would come to pick us up. After over an hour of standing by the roadside this other bus arrived, but it was smaller than our original bus so we were packed in like sardines. I was tightly squeezed between Stanslaus and Claudia, from which position we couldn’t move an inch until we finally arrived in Njombe about three hours later (3pm), where we’d need to find another bus for the next leg of the journey. With great relief I headed to the toilets, we got food, and then found a bus for Makambako. The seating situation was marginally better, but only because when the bus conductor wanted to squeeze in an extra person on our row, I told him in no uncertain terms that we had each paid for our seats and so we should not have to share them with anyone else! In Makambako we changed buses yet again, for our final bus to Mbeya. This time I was sitting next to Sam, right behind the driver, where the solid partition behind the driver meant that we had hardly any leg room. Books and podcasts helped the time to pass as the bus headed slowly to Mbeya, stopping multiple times to let people on or off, such that we didn’t get to Mbeya until after 10pm. It didn’t go all the way to the main bus stand, but stopped at a bus stop a little way out from the town centre, from where I got a bajaj home, finally arriving about 10.30pm.

Squeezed between Claudia and Stanslaus

An empty house. My housemate is in the UK. It felt very quiet after the last two weeks of nearly always being with people. I looked forward to a Saturday of getting unpacked, doing laundry, having a shower, going to the market and generally getting myself settled back in. After going for a run and having breakfast, I discovered that there was no water in the taps, no water in our big tank, and very little water in our water barrel. So no shower and no laundry. Instead it was another bucket bath, using as little water as possible. And attempts to do laundry later, when the water came back, failed, as the pressure was so low that the washing machine couldn’t cope. Apparently they’d cut through a water pipe while doing some roadworks in another part of town a couple of days ago. I took a load of laundry over to my friend’s house in the evening, so as to make a dent in the pile (as not only was there my two weeks’ worth of laundry, but also towels and sheets from my housemate and a friend who’d been staying with us) while we enjoyed catching up and watching a fun TV drama.

I’m thankful to report that by Sunday the water was back. I couldn’t face a long, loud church service. I just wanted to be quiet and alone. Instead I did three more loads of laundry, scrubbed my rucksacks as clean as I could get them (which wasn’t very clean, as they are ingrained with travel dirt from many trips), baked bread and cookies and spent time in quiet with God’s Word.  By the end of the day I felt like I was just about ready to start another week at work.

Though my journey was a trial, and exhausting, it was nothing like as bad as Paul’s journeys, which we’d studied in the workshops! And as my Saturday morning devotions reminded me, 

“It will be worth it all when we see Jesus! Life’s trials will seem so small when we see Christ. One glimpse of his dear face, all sorrow will erase. So, bravely run the race till we see Christ.” 

(From hymn by Esther Kerr Rusthoi, 1909-1962)