Loving Africa

I have written a few blog entries about adjusting to life in Africa. I was thinking the other day that since I have written a few times about the differences in African life vs. American life that it was time to write specifically about some of the things I love about Africa. :)

I feel blessed because the transition to living here has not been traumatic. I think often about the people that I miss back home and wish I could see them but I have not been missing life in the U.S. to the point of it affecting my life here. I know that the Lord has called me here...that in itself brings contentment in my heart knowing that I am where I need to be.
Then there are other "blessings" that make living here so nice. So here are a few:

** The view of Mount Kilimanjaro. The mountain is less than an hour away. We have a beautiful view of it from our orphanage building. On clear days we can see the top of it covered with snow from three steps out our front door. We have stood there many times and just enjoyed the beauty of Mount Kilimanjaro.

** The people we have met. We have met so many people during our time here. Some are Christians and some are not. The Tanzanians are very gracious and kind people. They are so happy we are here and thank us for coming when they find out what we are doing here. Almost daily we are invited to someone's house for tea and to spend time meeting family members...we don't have time to accept all the invitations but we are always being invited.

** Friends. We have made some wonderful friends. The people that we are friends with make each day so much fun. The kindness they show is beyond anything I can write on a blog. My heart is touched everyday by the love that is shown to us. I thank the Lord for these friends...they truly have made my transition to African life so easy. They express love and friendship without reservation. Holding hands is very cultural here...men holding hands with men is VERY common. I've never held hands so much in my life. :) I love it!

** Bug's Life. The butterflies here are amazing. Not only are their colors spectacular but butterflies are not afraid of humans. I can almost touch one when it flies by or lands somewhere. I have taken pictures up close of butterflies...while our African friends watch and laugh...and they don't fly away.
But not just butterflies...the other night I was burning some trash in our backyard...trash is burned in the yard, there are no garbage men...and as Jodie and I were standing there watching my beautiful blaze a hedgehog walked out of the bushes. Jodie and I looked at each other and said at the same time, "That's a hedgehog." It didn't look nervous about us being less than 10 feet away. It moved around out in the open and when we walked over to get an up-close look it still did not mind at all. That was cool. :)

** Jambo! Tanzanians are very friendly. No matter where we are they are always greeting us. We could be in the truck driving by and there they are calling out to us and waving. If we are walking in town we are ALWAYS greeted by them...if they speak English then they really want to talk. It's always very a kind and gracious conversation. Jambo means hello and we find ourselves saying it at least 100 times a day. Even sitting here at the internet place they come up to me to welcome me to Tanzania...they say "Karibu sana" which means I am very welcome here. I love that.

** Practicing Swahili. We are very much in the learning stages of Swahili, but in order to learn the language we must practice. We practice Swahili on EVERYONE. We will try out what we know with our friends and the people we meet in the streets. They appreciate the effort and even though they laugh at us they always encourage us to keep practicing. The other day our friend Elli (his name is Elisongua) said that Jodie and Melissa were good Swahili speakers and I was a good cook...I am learning to cook African food and loving it! :)

** The beauty that is Tanzania. I love beauty in nature. There is so much beauty around me everywhere I go. The other day I took a bike ride early in the morning by myself. I rode until I realized that I was in a most amazing spot. Between the trees was Mount Kilimanjaro and all around me were trees and green. There was no sight of any city life. It was amazing. I got off my bike to look at the mountain and just thank God for His beauty. It was wonderful. I remembered that I had a pocket Bible in my bag so I took it out and began to enjoy God's word in the midst of His beauty...it doesn't get much better than that. :)

Pastor Mbasha

A couple weeks ago I spoke at Pastor Mbasha's church. He has become a friend of ours. He works as a handyman at the orphanage.
We get lots of invitations to visit and speak at churches but we can't go to all of them. But I really wanted to visit Pastor Mbasha's church. You see Pastor Mbasha is from a tribe known as Chagga. But he is a pastor in Massai land. The Massai love him and have accepted him as one of their own...That is not a common thing.

The morning we were to visit his church we drove to his house first and had tea...I love African tea (chai). Then everyone piled in our truck. Normally Pastor Mbasha rides his bike to church with two or three of his kids (he has four kids) on his bike, rides back home and takes his wife and one more child to church. I knew he did this before we visited but I didn't realize what that meant. As we drove in our truck along the dirt road that was filled with massive bumps and dips, I couldn't believe that he rides this twice in the morning with family members on the bike...And that doesn't count the rides back home after church services. My heart ached for him...Especially when I found out the distance one way on bicycle is an hour and that he has been doing this for SIX YEARS. I actually cried...What a faithful pastor...What an amazing man. I loved the church and the people. I enjoyed meeting Pastor Mbasha's family and spending the day with them.

For the next few days my heart was burdened over this man and his one bicycle. Jodie, Melissa and I talked and the three of us felt the same. That day we took an African friend with us to purchase a brand new bicycle for Pastor Mbasha.
I wish I could describe to you the scene when we drove up in the truck with his new bike in the back. I have a picture of him with his bike...He is holding it up over his head. :) (I tried to take my laptop to the internet cafe to download pictures but I have not been successful yet)

Pastor Mbasha and I have become friends. We are the same age and were born on the exact same day. He calls me his dada (sister) from the Lord. I tell him he is a gift from the Lord to me. He never asks for anything from us. He takes a bus 45 minutes to our orphanage and shows up on time everyday and works very hard. He is a blessing.

I have been praying for a vehicle for him. He is one of the nicest people I know in Africa. He is a wonderful person. I am asking the Lord to bless him and his family with a vehicle. In Africa vehicles don't cost as much as in America so a good running vehicle could be purchased for around $5,000 U.S. dollars.
I don't have that money but I know that the Lord is going to bless him with it...And soon I'll be writing all about it in one of my blog entries. :) Just wait and see!

Riding My Bicycle in Africa

I have a bicycle that my 5th grade students gave me at the end of the school year as a going-away to Africa present. I put it in the container that was shipped with all our supplies. It it a beautiful bike. I call it my dream bicycle in Africa. But if I had that bike in the U.S. it would still be my dream bike. It's cool looking and cool to ride. :)
Even in Africa they know a cool bike when they see one. Every time I ride my bike so many people comment about how much they like it. We rode our bikes to the "market" and the guard outside the store guarded my bike like it was Fort Knox...So sweet.

It is like a parade when we go out bike riding. Everyone waving at us and us waving back at them as we hold on for dear life with one hand on the dirt roads. We call it the "Muzungu Parade." White person parade.
I haven't seen any other non-Africans riding bikes here where we live...So I suppose we are a rare sight to see. :)

Swahili Teacher

I have gotten many emails and responses about our Swahili teacher since I wrote about her in a previous blog entry. I just wanted to send out this blog entry to inform all concerned friends and family that we fired our Swahili teacher on Friday. It was finally time to say good-bye. The final straw was when she spent over an hour of class time telling us what terrible students we are and how her European (she pronounces it as: Your-oh-pea-en) students are much better and brighter. On that day class went over an hour because she went on...And on...And on...And on. We walked out of class and looked at each other and just stared. Finally one of us said, "We are paying money for her to talk to us like that." My response to that was, "Not anymore."

One of our African pastor friends is taking an English class. He always says how much he loves his teacher. He says he is so encouraging. One evening I was helping him with his homework and he was having a problem understanding the word "polite." The next thing I knew he dialed his teacher's cell phone and asked him. His teacher was telling him what a good student he is and how he is so proud of him. I thought to myself that one time my teacher told Melissa that she was mjanja (clever) and then she turned to me and told me I need to try to be mjanja too...I think that had the potential to be a compliment...But it didn't get there. :)

Our African pastor friend...His name is Zablon...Felt sorry for us and how our Swahili teacher was yelling at us. He asked his teacher if he could make time to teach us and he said yes. We start on Monday with our new Swahili teacher. This will be our third teacher...Yikes! But that's ok...This time it's going to work. :)
I'll keep you posted on our progress.

My Weekend

I had a very nice weekend. I wanted to write about some of the highlights.

* Saturday: I learned how to cook an authentic African meal. We have met an African young man from Sudan who is in Tanzania doing an internship with a group called "Light in Africa." His name is Ben. I plan on spending a whole journal entry talking about Ben another time because he is such an amazing person. Ben came over to the orphanage and cooked a whole meal. I was in the kitchen the whole time taking notes and helping him out. The meal was great. Later in the evening two of our African Pastor friends came and tried the food. They loved it! I am planning on cooking the whole meal again without the help of an African. :)
I think I can do it!

* Sunday: Melissa, Jodie and I went to Massai land for church. I am going to try to post some pictures on my blog from church. Hopefully you will be able to see them soon.
Pastor Mbasha invited me to speak on Sunday. His church is out in the middle of nowhere. But when you get there you are somewhere. The people are wonderful. The Lord is truly there in this little building that Pastor Mbasha built himself.
We had a great time of worship and I loved sharing God's word. Everyone was so receptive during the whole service. Unexpectedly, Pastor Mbasha asked the three of us to share a song...ha ha...We came up with one really fast and then sang as a trio for the first time together. The Bible says to "make a joyful noise." I just thank the Lord that we were still welcome after that song. :)
After church we spent the day at Pastor Mbasha's house with his family. It was wonderful. He has a sweet family...A beautiful wife and four great kids. They said we were the first white people in their house. Pastor Mbasha is a very good man. He loves God and prays with such fervor. We loved being in his home and praying together and sharing.

It was a great weekend. I thank the Lord for these new friends.

Still Adjusting

In some ways life in Africa is very different from life in the U.S. I am still adjusting to the changes. I thought I would write a blog entry about some changes I am still adjusting to:

* Washing my laundry by hand.
I never washed laundry by hand in the U.S. I even put hand-wash items in the delicate cycle. But now EVERYTHING is done by hand. It takes HOURS to wash what would equal one load of laundry. I usually stop washing when I am completely exhausted...Not when I finish with all my laundry. I always have dirty laundry because I don't have the energy to do it all in one day. :)

* Days without electricity
We have had three days this week without electricity...And one of those three days we also had no water. We use flashlights a lot and enjoying sitting in the dark eating our American snacks. :)

* Dirt everywhere
I always have dirty feet. My toenails are caked with dirt...Yes I do clean them. I spend so much time in the evenings trying to find my original skin under all the dirt. I have to be careful when washing my feet because there are also lots of bug bites I don't want to irritate and then have to scratch. :)

* Unpaved roads
Sometimes I think I am just about used to the roads here and then we'll be driving and hit a bump that sends me flying and I realize that once again I am not used to the roads. We ride our bikes on the dirt roads and even that experience is something like mountain biking with a little kick. :)

* Swahili Class
We had to fire our last tutor. She didn't show up to class on time. I am ok with a little late on occasion but she was late for EVERY class...Well she was late for every class she showed up for. The final straw was the day she was 2 hours and 45 minutes late...Usually she was only 45 minutes to and hour and a half late. But now we have a new Swahili teacher. She is a bit intense. We bought our own notebooks to take notes in class and she collected them and told us that our notes were very bad. She didn't like it when we crossed out our mistakes and she didn't like the way our previous teacher was teaching. She told Jodie her notes were "dead notes." I'm not sure what that means but she was very intense about it. She speaks in Swahili to us and wants us to tell her what she is saying. Most of the time we are clueless and make blind guesses because if we don't guess she gets really intense with us...Almost yelling but I don't want to call it that. Classes are for two hours three days a week and she takes up the full two hours and usually goes over by a half hour.

* Internet Cafe experience
They call it an internet cafe, but there is no cafe involved. Usually the power goes out during my visits and I loose everything I'm typing. Then I sit there...If I have the time to wait for the power to return. Most times I just leave. Sometimes we are at the internet cafe in the evenings and when the power goes out it's not just at the internet it's the whole area (that part of the city) so we are sitting there in complete darkness laughing about the whole experience and then one of us eventually says "we live in Africa now."
By the way as I am sitting here typing I noticed that a bird flew in. No one really did much in response to it so I just kept on typing. Upon closer observation I just realized that it isn't a bird but the largest butterfly I have ever seen. :)