An eventful trip to Santilya

The church where workshop was held

I woke up to a chilly morning typical of June in Mbeya. Where I was heading was going to be even colder – Santilya, a village in the Malila language area which, at nearly 2000 metres, is a few thousand feet higher than Mbeya and consequently a few degrees colder. I was going there to train Sunday school teachers for three days along with two colleagues – Mwanjalanje, the Literacy & Scripture Engagement Coordinator for the Malila language area, and Mwangunga, the same for the Nyakyusa language area, who was coming to gain experience in teaching this kind of workshop.

I had packed my warmest jacket (a Roxy coat picked up from the second-hand market a couple of years ago) as well as longs socks and even a hat just in case! I had no idea where I would be staying – previous trips to the Malila area had involved dank guesthouses, so I was prepared for such an eventuality. I picked up Mwangunga from the Benedictine Centre where he had stayed the night, and we headed off in my Toyota Prado on the nearly 30 mile ride (about one and a quarter hours of driving), much of which would be on graded dirt roads. As we drove, my car started to make some alarming noises. It wasn’t the first time, but the car had been checked over at the garage and the fundi (a generic word for a craftsman, in this case a mechanic) couldn’t find anything wrong, so I had set off with lots of prayer but not too much concern. However, now the sounds were getting louder and not stopping, whereas before they would come and go and I noticed black smoke coming out of the exhaust. Thankfully we arrived safely and I promptly phoned the fundi. A plan was put in place for his colleague to come and look at the car on Friday, the last day of the workshop. 

My bedroom

It turned out we would be staying at the pastor’s home, while our colleague, Mwanjalanje, would come and go every day on his motorbike from his home just a couple of miles up the road. The workshop was scheduled to start at 9am and we had arrived around this time, but as I had expected we didn’t start until much later. First we were welcomed by the pastor and shown to our rooms and given tea, chapattis and fried plantain. My room was small and neat with a double bed and a thick blanket, but it all smelt a bit musty, an inevitable result of the cool, damp climate. I wondered if I had been given the pastor and his wife’s own room; I think this was quite likely. They took good care of us, providing us with mountains of food (sometimes rice, sometimes ugali, usually with cabbage, beans and meat) and bringing a metal basin of glowing charcoal into the living room in mornings and evenings for us to warm ourselves. They heated up water for us to wash each evening, though I balked at the idea of washing outdoors in a little area round the back of the house, under the cold night sky! The toilet was a long drop in a clean tiled room, and even toilet paper was provided – it was one of most nicely kept toilets I’ve seen in a village. The only downside was that it involved going outside and a few metres down the hill (the house was on the side of a steep valley) and fiddling with the padlock every time I needed to make myself comfortable, which was a little awkward in the middle of the night.

Practising teaching memory 
verses using actions

About fifteen people attended all three days of the workshop, with a few others attending here and there. There was a huge range of ability, from some who had a number of years of experience of teaching to others who had never taught. As usual, we looked at different aspects of a Sunday school lesson and how to do them interactively as well as how to plan the lesson from start to finish. Majaliwa also spent time helping them learn to read their Malila language – some could already read it quite well (for example, one lady had been trained to be a Malila literacy teacher), while for others it was probably the first time they’d read their language. While it will be challenging for the teachers to put into practice everything they learnt at the workshop, and some haven’t even started teaching in their churches yet, I hope that each one of them will at least have picked up something that they will try and find helpful. I particularly pray that they will become readers of God’s Word, as this is not only foundational to teaching children the Bible, but also foundational to their own relationship with God. Some of the participants didn’t even have Bibles, but during the workshop a few people bought Mark’s gospel in the Malila language. Most of them also bought the Sunday school teacher manual that I developed and use as the basis for most of the teaching. Now it is Majaliwa’s job to follow up how they do and to continue to provide support and training if they want more in the future.

On the way to Majaliwa's home 
(he is the one in the middle)

As Majaliwa lived so close, I had hoped to visit his home one evening, but now my car was out of action. I suggested we walked. I was only semi-serious, but to my surprise they took me up on it and off we went, along the road! The surrounding countryside was beautiful, mostly covered with small farms. Arriving at his home we had the pleasure of meeting his wife and his youngest child, but by the time we left it was already dusk and distinctly chilly. We walked briskly back along a shortcut, involving some steep ups and downs and wooden bridges in the rapidly fading light. I loved the walk, and am used to ups and downs from my rambles on the hillside in Mbeya, but Mwangunga wasn’t so impressed and chose not to join me the next evening when I went for another walk with one of the workshop participants to her home, complaining that we marched like an army! 

Being towed home

My fundi’s colleague turned up on Friday morning as planned, having caught a local bus, and looked over the engine, discovering the source of the problem to be that the oil pump wasn’t working properly. It would damage the engine to drive it home in that state and it wasn’t possible to fix it on the spot, so my fundi came out to tow us all the way home. After lengthy goodbyes (involving lots of thank yous and being given a gift of some local fabric) we finally set off. Thankfully the fundis did the driving. The tow rope broke six times, but the fundi didn’t seem particularly fazed by this and we eventually made it back to Mbeya after sunset, around 7.15pm, very thankful to God for a safe arrival. While God may not have prevented the problems from occurring, He was certainly with us through them as I had felt unusually free of anxiety about the whole situation. 

I am writing this on Monday. I wonder how the Sunday school teachers who were on duty yesterday got on with their classes. I wonder if they tried any of the new games they learnt, or made the story more dramatic and exciting by acting it out, or used a quiz to review the lesson or used actions to help the children learn the memory verse. While what we were able to do felt like a tiny drop in the ocean of need for education and training, I just hope and pray that God may multiply the work of our hands and use it to strengthen His Church.

Taking the bus

It’s 9am. I sit on a blue plastic chair with a blue plastic table in front of me with a few flies on it meticulously cleaning themselves. If I pause for a moment and look around, my vision is filled with the colour and bustle of the bus station, with vendors selling their wares, from flash drives to leather flip-flops, and with glass cabinets filled with fast foods ideal for a quick snack before you travel such as some popcorn or bread, a mandazi (doughnut-like item) or a piece of fried cassava. Further away I see a range of beautifully woven baskets for sale, while nearer at hand is a display of gaudy, cheap watches and sunglasses, probably made in China. Others are holding boxes of drinks and biscuits up to the windows of the buses that have arrived, hoping to earn a few shillings, sometimes running alongside the buses as they begin to depart, still desperate to make a last minute sale or get the money they are owed off a passenger who has bought something. And then there’s the sounds. I shut my eyes for a moment and hear music playing from a radio somewhere, conversations, bus engines, a vendor advertising his wares and a caterer calling for food.

I am waiting for the Al Saedy bus to arrive, the one going to Mbeya. It will have started in Dar es Salaam this morning at 6am. It has a reputation for being fast and I just hope it will also be safe. Someone from the bus company comes to tell me to get ready, the bus will arrive any minute. I stand with a few others, luggage at my feet, needing the toilet but not wanting to risk going in case the bus comes while I’m away. It arrives. We get on board. I realise my ticket is for a seat right near the back and I slowly make my way up the aisle, not relishing the prospect of a rear seat on roads liberally spattered with speed bumps. The back of my seat proves to be somewhat unfixed, freely moving from upright to relaxed and back, adding further interest to the ride, and there is no way to reduce the length of the seat belt, which would have been enough to strap in two my size! Not a promising start.

And we’re off. We’ve gone but a few hundred yards when we pull into a service station and are told we have five minutes to use the facilities. With a sigh of relief I make my way back down the bus and hurry to the toilets – a short row of long-drops, with doors that don’t shut and buckets of water available for flushing. Not quite the ‘Welcome Break’ service stations of England, with sparkling sinks, mirrors and powerful Dyson hand dryers, but I return to bus feeling more comfortable and ready for the trip ahead.

We stop again. This time officials board the bus to check everyone’s ID. Not satisfied with my Tanzanian ID card, they ask to see my passport and they notice that my residence permit is out of date. I whip out a copy of my new work permit, which satisfies them, and the inspection is soon over. I estimate that the bus journey will be about eleven hours. I have some sleep to catch up on, a book to read, a sermon and a couple of podcasts to listen to and a puzzle book. It is hard to imagine that these will keep me entertained for all eleven hours. But then there’s the scenery! Most of the country has been blessed with rain in recent weeks, so we travel through a lush green landscape, some parts devoid of any human life while others are a hive of activity. I spot some people hard at work making bricks from the local soil. I see ladies balancing buckets on their head as they go to fetch water, elegantly holding their poise even as they walk along an uneven dirt path. I see others busy in their fields.

A lady boards the bus to sell a random selection of health products and socks. She launches into her sales pitch, making remarkable claims as to the unique qualities of the various products she has on offer. For the first time ever, I buy something – a mosquito repellant cream that I have used before and found to be at least partially effective. This costs me the exorbitant price of 35p. I doze until speed bumps jerk me awake. We’ve entered Mikumi National Park. I keep my eyes peeled and am rewarded by seeing two zebra, then a wildebeest, then impala after impala, some storks, baboons, giraffes and even a waterbuck.

Shortly afterwards we stop again. Lunchtime. We are given eight minutes to use the facilities. I quickly make myself comfy and buy myself some food and get back on the bus. Lukewarm chips finished, I swig a few sips of Mirinda (akin in flavour to fizzy Vimto), cautious of drinking too much because I have no idea when the next comfort break might be, and return to my various forms of entertainment. We pass by beautiful mountains, vast tracts of wilderness, fields, small hills dotted with huge boulders as if thrown there by God himself, rice paddies, rivers, villages and towns. We are given a final opportunity to ‘chimba dawa’ (literally, ‘dig medicine/roots’, a euphemism for going to the toilet), this time in the bush, men on one side of the bus and women on the other. I try to hide as much as possible, embarrassed to be seen squatting by the side of the road, but there is little time to force one’s way through the thorny bushes to find a secluded spot.

The evening skies are breathtaking with golden clouds behind the hills, later turning to soft pinks. It gets dark. The conductor announces that we are approaching Mbeya, where there will be three drop-off points. I will alight at the last one, the main bus stand in town, just a few minutes from my house. We arrive, 8pm on the dot; we have made good time and I thank God for bringing us here safely, as the swaying of the bus at times indicated some dangerously fast driving.

I fend off the taxi drivers trying to offer their services as I claim my luggage from under the bus and lug it across the bus station to the road outside, where my housemate awaits in my car to pick me up. She is a very welcome sight and I again thank God for His care.

I’m home. I’ve enjoyed a bowl of crunchy salad and a fruit smoothie to make up for the somewhat less healthy snacks I consumed on the bus, and a good chat with my housemate and the chance to put up my swollen feet. Unpack. Shower. Bed. Sleep.

-----

What precipitated taking the bus? After an inspiring week in Cameroon at a Scripture Engagement conference for SE workers from across sub-Saharan Africa (deserving of another blogpost), I was heading back to Mbeya. I was scheduled to fly with Ethiopian Airlines to Dar es Salaam, via Addis Ababa, followed by an Air Tanzania flight down to Mbeya. Ethiopia Airlines decided to change the time of the Addis to Dar flight, meaning an overnight stay in Addis. While I enjoyed a chance to sleep in a nice hotel and eat some delicious Ethiopian food (injera with a very spicy beef dish), all courtesy of Ethiopia Airlines, it meant that I arrived in Dar with less than half an hour to spare before my next flight departed. Despite getting through customs and reclaiming my baggage with incredible speed, they were not able to get me on the Air Tanzania flight as they had sold my seat to someone waiting on stand-by, and the plane was now closed to boarding. Disappointed, I headed to the airline’s office to rebook for the following day (there is only one flight a day to Mbeya), only to find the flights were fully booked until Tuesday. Not wanting to wait this long to get home, I decided to go on an adventure by travelling by bus, as I always used to do in pre-Mbeya-airport days. To break the journey up a bit I set straight off on an afternoon bus that took five hours to get me to Morogoro, where a kind missionary, who I had not seen since Bible college days over twelve years ago, picked me up at the bus station and took me to a guest house. The next morning, after a breakfast of boiled eggs, yam, chapatti and bananas, I walked to the bus station just a couple of hundred yards from the guest house. And the rest is history.

"I want to feel your love, God"

He answered,
"It's all around you.
    It's in the blade of grass,
        the Red Campion flower,
            the fronds of bracken,
                the flowing stream,
                    the wind in the trees,
                        the windswept bush,
                            the red deer bounding,
                                the shiny chestnuts,
for all these were made by me, through my Son, for him, for you. The whole universe is my gift of love to my Son*, and he loved you enough that he died for you so you could share in that inheritance with him. Yes, the world is marred, marred by human sin, which is why you should trust me rather than man. I made it perfect! So drink in my love, it's all around you, in all I have made. As you walk and gaze on my handiwork, I am enfolding you in my love."

*Colossians 1:15-17

Being back

Central heating – what a wonderful thing! My parents will be horrified to hear that I have turned on the heating when September has barely begun. But really it’s very simple. It’s cold. There is a heating system. I can turn it on. So I have! This is in stark contrast to Mbeya, where the situation goes more like this: It’s cold. There is no heating system. Put on your thickest jumper and warmest socks. Still feel cold. Get a hot water bottle.

And that leads me onto another thing. Hot water straight out of the taps. No waiting for the kettle to boil to fill that hot water bottle or to wash the dishes. There I was, thinking I really didn’t feel like washing up, all that palaver, and then I remembered, it’s easy – the water will come fresh and hot out of the tap, and there is water, and that water will be clean!

So that’s another thing. Clean water. The first day back I was given a glass of water by my friend and it took a second to overcome the shock of her filling the glass up straight from the tap. You’d think I’d be used to the fact that things are different in England compared to Tanzania, but somehow there can still be that split second feeling of confusion or surprise until you remember how things work again.

Like when you realise that the bus driver is speaking English. Or that my first food shop cost me as much as a month’s worth of shopping in Mbeya. Or that you can go to a shop and the shop attendant shows you just the right amount of attention, neither too in-your-face or ignoring you. Or that when I walk down the street no-one gives a second glance, even when I walk fast. Or that blue skies in early September do not necessarily mean that it will be warm.

Those things are minor issues though. I think this year I have more of an awareness that my home is Mbeya;  here in England I pop up in people’s lives for a few weeks or months and then I am gone again. I am very blessed by the friendships I have here, but I know my UK friends have their own lives, in which they make space for me for the bit of time that I am back, but in which I might not fit so easily if I returned here permanently. The uncertainties over work permits in Tanzania and the awareness that any one of my expat friends there might have to leave when their permit is due for renewal or that I myself might have to leave, mean that looking ahead I have less certainty over Mbeya feeling like home too. Once again, all of these changes and uncertainties force me to consider where my true stability is to be found, which should be in the One who is unchanging and in the certain hope that we have in Him. Really living out this trust in Him in my daily life, especially when those anxious thoughts come, is harder than one might hope. I think it is going to be a life-long lesson! But as a sermon by my brother, based on Philippians 4:4-9, recently reminded me, “The Lord is near. Do no be anxious about anything.” (Emphasis mine)