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)

It's a long way to Magugu

Why do they think 5am buses are a good idea? Not only does it involve getting up when all respectable people are fast asleep, but it’s also a recipe for a bad night’s repose, as despite having set an alarm you are worried about not waking up in time. I was amused to see a man in his dressing gown at the bus stand, making sure his daughter got safely on her bus – I’m guessing he didn’t want to be out of bed at that time either! But his daughter was just one of many children getting on buses, as the one-month June holiday had come to an end and it was time for them to return to their schools. Many secondary school children are sent to schools some distance from home, either because their parents are sending them to a private school (which any parent who can afford it will do in the hope of a better education for their children), or because they’ve been assigned to a particular government school in another town due to their exam results (I don’t quite understand how that works).

I was dressed in a skirt (I find this makes using long drop toilets easier than wearing trousers, and enables you to be more discreet if your toilet break is a bush stop) and had adopted the classy socks-in-sandals look, for which I used to mock my dad! The thing is, it’s cold in Mbeya at 4.30am (the time I had to report at the bus stand) on a June morning, but it will be far from cold by the time we’re a few hours into the journey and have dropped down from the highlands. So socks in sandals are the perfect solution to needing to keep your feet warm at the beginning, but wanting cool footwear later. I also had on a cardigan, a sweater and a scarf. It really is chilly in June!

Why do they think three minutes is enough for a toilet stop, when there are only a handful of toilets to service passengers? So people push and shove to position themselves in front of a toilet door so they can get their turn as soon as possible, and women leave their cubicles still pulling up trousers as they squeeze back through the crowd in the narrow corridor to exit the toilet block. I was last to reboard the bus at this hurried break at Makambako, but being white I think I stand a better chance of not being left behind – I’m a bit harder to forget! At our second, and last, toilet stop just outside of Iringa, we were generously given a whole ten minutes, though this was also supposed to include getting food. My neighbour did so, and so for the next little while I was regaled with the smell of fried chicken and chips and the sound of her chomping away. I’d brought a packed lunch with me.

The route from Mbeya to Magugu,
about 670km (416 miles)

Eleven hours after boarding the bus I arrived in Dodoma, and was welcomed by Fred and Karen, my hosts for the night. They are a lovely American couple who have recently joined the team in Dodoma; so recently, in fact, that they are still setting up their house and only got their guest room bed from the carpenter two days before I arrived. Although they’re new to Dodoma, they have spent many years in Africa, and we are looking forward to the experience and wisdom they’ll bring to the team.

Monday morning was another unpleasantly early start, as Fred and I reported at the bus stand at 5.45am. We were shortly joined by the Tanzanian colleagues who would be travelling with us to Magugu. The journey involved about five more hours on a bus plus a short ride in a little mini-bus. I felt pretty rough by the time we arrived – dehydrated, tired and with a headache. However, instead of being able to collapse on a guesthouse bed, we headed to the church where we’d be holding the Sunday school teacher training workshop in order to meet and have lunch with the teachers who had already arrived.

Why do I put myself through all of this? Because God’s love compels me. I want children to hear the stories of the Bible in a language they understand, taught in a way that is engaging, so that they enjoy Sunday school and remember what they learn. And so I counted it a privilege (except for when my alarm went off before 4am on Sunday morning) to have an opportunity to train Sunday school teachers in the Mbugwe language area so that they, in turn, can more effectively help children engage with God’s Word. In particular, with the help of the Mbugwe translators and occasional input from Magdalena, a literacy/SE worker, I would be training them to use a set of Old Testament Bible story books translated into their language, which will help the children see God’s longing to be in relationship with the people he made and loves and how he has made that possible through Jesus.

It was wonderful to sleep until dawn on Tuesday morning, except for being woken by a black cricket that I found in the corner of my mosquito net. The shrill sound it emitted startled me into wakefulness. At first I thought it must be outside, but the noise was so loud that it didn’t take long for me to pinpoint its location, knock the cricket into a tub and throw it out the window. I was still tired, but ready for the first day of the workshop. Eleven of the expected fifteen participants had arrived, coming from the surrounding Mbugwe language area. Our first day focused on how the Bible is one story about the relationship between God and man, and how important it is to begin at the beginning in order to understand the story properly. The Mbugwe translators then spent a few hours teaching how to read Mbugwe. Its writing system feels more complicated than most of the languages that I have worked with in Mbeya, having various markings for tone and tense as well as having seven vowels. Then we started to read the Mbugwe Bible story books, getting through the first two, together with questions and teaching, before finishing for the day, rather later than we should have done.

The power went out as I was eating my tea that evening. I continued by the light of my solar light, had a cold shower and then noticed that a building across the way had lights on. Did they have a generator? I wrapped a kitenge (colourful African fabric) around me, to make myself respectable as I had been lounging around in my room in a t-shirt and leggings, and ventured out of the guest house. Everywhere else lights were on, it was only our guest house that was in darkness, but there were no staff around to deal with the situation. Fred called one of our colleagues, who had the phone number of someone who works at the guest house, and he shortly arrived and turned on the solar power which meant we got lights back, but there was still no mains electricity because the money on the meter had run out! He promised he’d go and sort it out straight away. I wasn’t convinced – I could smell alcohol on his breath and doubted that buying electricity was his first priority. The power came back on in the middle of the night.

On day two we worked our way through the rest of the books, breaking up the reading and teaching with children’s songs and games. I was tired by the end, but a brisk evening walk with Fred and a beautiful sunset sky, followed by a hot shower with good water pressure (a rare luxury) was very restorative.

I always find the teaching topics that we cover on day three the hardest to communicate well. After discussing how children learn and the importance of preparation, we started to look at how to plan a Sunday school class, exploring each part of what could be included in an interactive lesson. We talked about having an opening activity (and played a game together as an example), followed by a review of your previous week’s lesson, followed by an introduction to your new lesson and then prayer. Next comes reading the Bible story and teaching. It’s the ‘teaching’ that often stumps the teachers! I had prepared a simple curriculum for them providing the main teaching points and application for each Bible story book. I explained how they can use this as a base for what they teach, but that they should make sure they engage the children through questions, illustrations or examples from daily life as they go. I did an example. Then they prepared and practised in pairs. There were some good ideas in what they did, including little dramas, but for the most part they struggled to communicate the main teaching points in a logical and interactive way. I think what they really need is repeated opportunities to observe a good teacher, as well as time to practise and evaluate several times over. I think very few teachers have had the opportunity to regularly observe good teaching, either at school or in church, so a lot more support is needed to develop these skills than a few hours in a one-off workshop can provide.

Practising telling the Bible story using the Mbguwe books

While they were preparing to teach, I headed off to the other side of the main road with one of the translators in an attempt to find plastic wallets for the teachers to keep their books and handouts in. We visited four little stationery shops, but only found two such wallets (we needed twelve). It’s only a small roadside town, so this wasn’t particularly surprising, but I appreciated the efforts of the staff who phoned other stationery shops to see if anywhere else had them. The answer was no. So we resorted to buying small bags from a shop that also sold homemade peanut butter. If I hadn’t brought my own jar of peanut butter with me, I’d have bought some to sample – it’s a staple part of my diet; I love pure, unadulterated peanut butter. It was a very pleasant experience wandering around with the elderly translator, as no-one called out silly things in silly voices, unlike when I am alone. Magugu has to be one of the worst places I have experienced for people calling out "Mzungu!" or greeting you in a silly voice or making stupid comments.

After my evening walk with Fred, in which we did our best to ignore the secondary school students imitating the way we walked and trying to speak to us in English (but in silly voices), I was looking forward to another hot shower, but every time I turned on the shower, the power tripped and went out. I’d wait a few seconds, they’d switch the power back on, and I’d try again. I tried this several times and eventually gave up and had a cold shower! I had some work I wanted to do after eating my tea (the usual carrot sticks, cucumber, tomato, oatcakes, peanut butter and an orange, which was unfortunately so dry I ended up throwing half of it away, and some chocolate), but when it came to it I felt weary and unmotivated. It had been a tiring day. But there was so much to be thankful for, from the desire the teachers showed to learn, to the fun of playing games and singing together, to having Fred there to debrief with, to God’s weird and wonderful creation seen in the baobab trees and sunset skies.

The last day went well. They did a good job of putting memory verses to music or actions and had fun seeing different ways to do quizzes to review a lesson. At the end my colleagues from Dodoma and I each received a gift of a bag of rice, as Magugu is reputed to have delicious, aromatic rice. So we said goodbyes with smiles all round, phone numbers exchanged and invitations to come back. After another good walk with Fred, I was thankful that the shower behaved itself this time and I wouldn’t have to wash my hair in cold water.

Saturday morning, ready to leave the guesthouse

I was relieved to find out that our bus back to Dodoma would be coming from Arusha and therefore wouldn’t be arriving until 8am, so no need to get up any earlier than normal. By 7.30am we were at the bus stand. We waited. And waited. The bus finally turned up at 9am and our seats were right at the back. Thankfully several people got off at the next stop and so we were all able to move forward a bit so that we weren’t flying out of our seats over every bump. Occasionally a vendor would get on the bus at one stop to sell their wares and then get off at the next. One such vendor was a boy with a big pan of fried something. On closer inspection it turned out to be full of what looked like tiny roast chickens (each one no more than 10cm long). I have no idea what kind of birds they were and wasn’t sure I wanted to ask!

With Magdalena (back) and Emilia (front), colleagues from
Dodoma, as we wait for our bus

Fred arranged for a bajaj to come and pick us up from the bus stand, using Bolt, which is a service like Uber. A few minutes later it turned up, we squeezed in with our luggage and 15 minutes later had arrived at Fred and Karen’s house. It was wonderful to gulp down a glass of iced water and enjoy a baked potato and cheese, a refreshing change after a week of having rice or ugali, greens and a couple of pieces of fried beef for lunch every day. I enjoyed a quiet afternoon, doing a bit of work and going for a short walk before relaxing in Fred and Karen’s company over dinner and into the evening.

Sunday morning was another early start. We got to the Shabiby bus terminal (Shabiby is the bus company I used) just before 5.30am only to discover that my bus was at Dodoma’s main bus stand (despite a colleague calling to confirm the bus stand and time), but I was just in time to get on one of their other buses going to that bus stand. It turned out that most of the people on the bus were doing the same as me, so when we arrived at the big, almost empty, bus stand, we alighted and found our respective buses. Just after 6am we were off again. But instead of the 11 hours it had taken to get to Dodoma, it took us 13 hours to get to Mbeya, mainly due to the Prime Minister! We were held up twice by police, who were stopping vehicles so that the PM and his retinue in their shiny 4WDs could speed past to get to wherever they were going (I heard it was something to do with opening a new school). The second time this happened at least gave me a chance to get off the bus, make myself comfortable, stretch my legs and have a friendly chat with the bus conductor.

Sunrise from the bus, as we left Dodoma

During the journey I exchanged occasional remarks with the lady sitting next to me. At one point she asked the usual question (one of the first questions one is likely to be asked when getting to know someone) of, “How many children do you have?” When I answered none, she looked at me compassionately and asked whether I’d not been able to conceive yet. I replied, “I’m not married, that’s why I don’t have any children.” She looked at me in surprise, and basically said, “Why should that stop you?” I explained that as a Christian, I believe that children should be conceived within a marriage. She told me, “We don’t really worry about that here.” This was despite her telling me she was Catholic. Sadly this conversation was no surprise to me, because I have heard it before and seen it lived out time and time again, both inside and outside of the church. I’m sure there are many reasons why this is the case, though I think a contributing cultural factor is the high value placed on having children, such that it’s shameful for a woman not to have children and men will leave their wives or tell them to return home to their parents if they don’t conceive. In turn, this leads to women having children before marriage, almost, it seems, to prove that they are fertile before they’ve tied the knot (sometimes those children are had with the man they then marry, but often not).

Some way through the bus journey I really fancied a juicy orange. When a bus stops somewhere, vendors usually come running to the windows of the bus, holding up boxes of snacks and drinks or bowls of fruit or a particular local product (like when we stopped near a reservoir the vendors were selling fried fish). Oranges are often among the options – they shave off the skin with a knife, just leaving the clean pith underneath to make them easier to eat. So, when we came to a bus stand I looked out at the vendors. The only orange vendor was some distance away at another bus. Fail. At the next bus stop, I saw oranges and indicated that I wanted the vendor to come over but just as she arrived at my window our bus pulled away. Fail. At the next bus stop I saw my chance – the lady told me it was two oranges for 500 shillings, and just as I was about to hand over the money the bus conductor opened the doors of the under-bus storage, which rose up right in front of my window, preventing any further communication with the orange seller. My desire for an orange seemed doomed! But when the conductor pulled the doors back down, there was my lady holding up two oranges in a little bag and change ready for my 2000 shilling note. Stretching my arm as far down as I could, we were able to make our exchange. The orange was a welcome relief for my thirst, as I was afraid to drink too much water because there wouldn’t be any more toilet stops until we reached Mbeya several hours later.

Arriving at Mbeya’s central bus stand, I alighted from the bus, claimed my backpack and hoisted it onto my back for the ten minute walk home. It was heavy, with the big bag of rice (5 or more kg) in the bottom of it, but it felt good to stretch those legs and enjoy the cool evening air and the pink sky over the mountains as dusk turned to night. I’d enjoyed my trip, the teaching had been fun, the participants enthusiastic, my colleagues engaged and supportive, and the travel exhausting by safe, but it was good to be home.

Faith comes by hearing (and hearing in your mother tongue helps), in Umalila

June in the Umalila* is chilly, with the small town of Ilembo, where we were staying, being nearly 2100 metres (7000 feet) above sea level. On our first night there it wasn’t until I put on my coat to wear in bed that I managed to fall asleep! The guest house room bore the marks of a cold, damp climate, with walls looking in need of some treatment and paint, and the blanket on the bed was rather thin and smelt musty. I tried not to think about whether it had been washed since it was last used. I was glad we were only staying two nights!

(*Umalila: this is the Swahili way of describing the Malila language area – the ‘U’ denotes place, while if I were talking about the Malila language in Swahili, I would say ‘Kimalila’, and the Malila people are ‘Wamalila’).

The cold weather and unwelcoming guest house environment weren’t the only reasons that I was glad the trip would be short. We (my Malila colleague, Heri, and I) had come to facilitate a one-day seminar about the distribution of Malila materials, particularly the New Testament, followed by a day and a half of training on how to prepare and lead audio Bible studies. While discussing distribution is something I always find frustrating, this wasn’t the main reason for wanting the trip to be over as soon as possible. Instead it was the presence of a particular person who isn’t always easy to work with. I felt like I was walking on egg shells for much of the time, worried that I would say or do something to bring out the side of his character that can reduce me to tears.

Planning distribution trips

The first day was good but long, having left home at 7am in order to arrive by 9am, and then not finishing-up until nearly 7pm. Although we finished the meeting before that, there were various things to discuss with the Malila NGO* leadership, including a letter to edit that could be used to advertise where New Testaments are available for sale plus the printing and photocopying of said letter. Most small towns will have at least one small stationery shop where you can print and photocopy, so I took my flash drive to just such a shop and waited as he printed over a 100 copies of the letter, playing him some Malila audio Scriptures while he worked.

(*Malila NGO: this local organisation was set up to facilitate ongoing ministry in the Malila language area. It is made up primarily of former and current SIL Tanzania staff, local church leaders and other members of the community committed to seeing the local language Scriptures distributed and used and, possibly, an Old Testament translation begun. It is independent of SIL Tanzania, but we seek to work with them and support them in various ways.)

The path to Heri's house - just about
managed to negotiate it with my
Toyota Prado!

As usual, I was glad that I had brought my own food for tea, as lunch was distinctly unappetising. The rice was nice, but the three lumps of chewy beef in an oily tomato sauce were not. On the plus side, I was able to put in an order for day two to have greens cooked without onions or oodles of oil and salt. And very nice it was too, though the cook couldn’t quite get over the fact that this was all I wanted with my ugali! I had hoped to find some eggs to provide some protein accompaniment, but I failed on that front, so I chomped on peanuts instead. While on the topic of food – on Wednesday evening (day two) Heri asked if I could give him a lift to the house he has built (and continues to add to and improve) in Ilembo, so that he could greet his tenant and check up on it. Heri has been on crutches for a few years, since a motorbike accident, which is why he wasn’t able to walk the fairly short distance to this house along the rough roads and sometimes slippery, hard-packed dirt paths that would be difficult to navigate on crutches. His tenant welcomed us warmly and disappeared to prepare a little something for us. She apologised for the meagre fare, which was not meagre at all, a hotpot full of white sweet potatoes (it’s rare to get orange ones here), and was so happy that we had ‘blessed her’ by eating her food. People truly value guests here, and the blessing of having a guest is not complete until you have eaten something in their home. I find this to be both a humbling and beautiful aspect of the culture, while at the same time one that can be quite hard when coming from a culture where you generally only eat at someone else's home if you have planned in advance to do so. For me it’s a particular challenge because of my diet, as it would be rude to not eat anything, though the food offered isn’t always something that will be agreeable to my intestines!

The second and third days also went well, with people engaging in the audio Bible studies and showing a readiness to learn and a desire to use the audio Scriptures in their different contexts. They were encouraged by the testimonies of Majaliwa (the former literacy/SE worker for the area) of people coming to faith through hearing the Malila Scriptures. It feels like enabling people to read or hear the Scriptures in Malila is really important because their language is still being used by people of all ages. In contrast to our experience in the Vwanji language area just a couple of weeks earlier (see my previous blog post to read more), I rarely heard Swahili being spoken. As I listened in to people’s conversations (without understanding a word), I could hear that even most of the children and youth were using Malila.

Practising how to prepare to lead an audio Bible study

The audio Scriptures were on special audio devices that can be charged by a solar panel on the back of the device or by using electricity, making them ideal for rural situations. These ‘KULUMI X’ devices are smaller than a smartphone, so you can easily carry them in your pocket, and produce enough volume for a small group to sit around and listen. This wasn’t our first time to provide the Malila community with audio devices. After the Malila New Testament translation was completed it was recorded, and at that time we gave 40 audio devices to the Malila community. Having seen their impact, I wanted to increase the number out there, which I was able to do as a result of someone I barely knew leaving me and other Wycliffe UK missionaries a generous gift in their will. This gift not only funded the purchase of the KULUMI but also the costs of the trip as well as many other Scripture engagement activities in the past year.

Here are a couple of testimonies from people who received an audio device in recent years:

In March 2023, Huseni (who had recently come to faith through hearing the Malila audio Scriptures) listened to the Malila audio Scriptures with people at a funeral in Sanje. When one elderly person heard, they said they said, “God has decided to seek us out with our language, surely God is amazing!” The following Sunday, this person went to church and has become a believer and continues to attend that church in Sanje.

Eliza, in Ugaya, said that since she got an audio player she has been listening to it with the women at church and now these women have been strengthened and are able to lead Bible studies for the women without fear because they have come to know the Word of God well through listening to the Malila audio Scriptures in the group audio Bible studies.

Although we finished more or less on time on Thursday, around lunchtime, it then took a couple more hours to finish giving out money for participants to buy lunch and to cover their travel fares, and also for the participants to go and pick up boxes of Malila New Testaments and other books from the Malila language office a few doors down from the church. Heri and I went back to the usual café for a quick lunch (more rice and greens) before starting the journey home with four passengers crammed together in the back seat, who were dropped off at different points along the way.

I was very thankful for how God had answered prayers, such that for much of the time the individual who I was so anxious about had been engaged and supportive, though one or two blips in his attitude had left me on edge and battling to focus on why I was there rather than worry about what he might say. Despite that, it was clear to me that God was at work, and my prayer is that the participants will be faithful in implementing the plans we made and passionate about listening to the Scriptures with people in their churches and wider community.