Last Thursday night, for dinner, we were served a delicious meal of beef stew, but instead of potatoes, it was made with green ndizis (bananas). The skin on this special kind stays green and the bananas inside stay kind of hard when they are cooked, like a boiled potato. See the coconut husks on the pile of banana peels? The milk & fruit of the coconuts were used both for the oil and the flavoring.
We woke up early Friday morning to find there was no electricity anywhere in the area. The sky was full of clouds and rain, but occasionally we could see Mount Meru, just a few miles north of our house here.
In fact, the electricity never came on all day or into the early evening. By 7:30 PM, it was very dark, so Sharon prepared and we ate dinner by candlelight. After dinner, while reading by candlelight, we heard a very loud cheer as the lights came back on at the school across the street from our house. There are about 600 boys attending that school, and they were obviously very happy to have lights on again. Notice that Mike is wearing a band-aid on his forehead, testifying that doors can be very hard to see, and very hard if run into, in the dark.
We spent Saturday night and Sunday with the Stubbs Family, DeKalb missionary friends teaching at Makumira University. It was a great change of pace, American food, enjoying talents of Randy which were new to us after knowing him for many years, and some further sharing of educational perceptions of TZ schools.
Randy on keyboard leading his jazz sextet, with Megan and Nathan on acoustic guitars, also 2 of his students , a drummer employed by the UN, & an excellent sax player from New Orleans.
Megan showing her room — cleaned, painted and stocked with books for supporting and tutoring local female students.
Megan showing her room — cleaned, painted and stocked with books for supporting and tutoring local female students.
Saturday night we joined quite a group of US and European ex-pats gathered in a ground level open-air restaurant, then followed the musicians upstairs to a jazz club where Randy's group was the opening act. They were very good and much appreciated by all in attendance.
Megan, their 16 yr. old daughter, has set up a tutoring room in an older building outside their home. She has 3-4 Secondary School girls (from her Mother's girls' choir) coming for content instruction in English. She was very proud of her cleaning, painting and configuring her small educational center. Megan has always been home schooled so has personal experience with 1 on 1 learning. It was wonderful hearing her excitement and focus. The girls shared with her that they haven't had any sciences since the beginning of the year because the school couldn't find teacher/s. They also are caned if don't give the correct answer. One of their teachers came into class, wrote on the board for 10 minutes, then gave the students directions to copy it in their exercise book, then go home and learn it. This is a Gov't School!
Makumira U. had a 'cantata' Sunday afternoon with 15 or so Church choirs and University groups. The music was excellent, but our bottoms got sore sitting for 3+ hr. on hard wooden chairs. The people attending were all dressed up which is typical of Tanzanians - men in suits and sport coats, women in very dressy dresses. It was good seeing the results of the Music Dept. development and the darling girls' choir 'dancing' and moving to their singing and/or music. Megan was the leader of the movement and their performance was appreciated by the audience. We always like to see younger children performing, don't we?
Carol was kind enough to head us home before dark, but because we forgot a bag of groceries and thereby delayed our trip, it was certainly dark before she could get back to Makumira. While the following pictures are not of good quality, please look closely to see what her driving conditions were. Mike, in the back seat, took these 2 pix seconds apart, so all the vehicles and people you see (and don't) in the left picture are also in the right. For instance, can you tell there are 3 dala dalas (minivans used as taxi/buses, often carrying as many as 15-20 people/animals each) on the left side of the road and 7 on the right? Do you see the 2 bicycles beside/just in front of our vehicle? -- the folks between vehicles who are wanting to cross the highway? Do you notice the oncoming traffic? -- as the road rules are British, they are on the "wrong" side of the road as they top the hill.
Now, imagine Carol's challenge in the picture on the right, when she knows that all of those people and vehicles are there, but can see almost nothing. The fact that we are writing this email is a clue that she did very, very well and passed this Tanzanian driving test..
Peace and love,
Mike & Sharon
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