Saturday, January 24, 2009

SHOES


Two friends from USA came in December to visit, bringing 2 suitcases of shoes that students from Farnsworth Elementary in St. Paul, MN collected and donated for Kongei Primary Students.

The Kongei students have been on holiday from November 28th until January 14th. I brought the shoes to school last week, and the teachers fitted students who needed shoes most. ALL the shoes were gone, the suitcases empty, and donated to two of the teachers that needed these.

Thank you to Becky and Joan for their long journey and to Cecilia and her students at Farnsworth Elementary!

We have Begun! Kongei Teacher Housing Project

24 Jan 2009
Greetings

I am posting a short message to let you all know that I have received the funds for Kongei Primary School's Teachers Housing Project from USA. Last week Mr. Masenga, second headmaster and I went to Lushoto and purchased all the building supplies needed, including such things as metal roofing sheets, re bar, toilets, sinks, cement, nails, and lumber. It took three trips by lorry from town to deliver the items. The doors and windows are being made and will be delivered later.

The community met on Dec 5th to organize the work for when the funds arrived. On January 9th, they began clearing the site. Currently, there are bricks that have been carried to the school grounds and fired on the spot. They villagers build a kiln out of the bricks to be fired, leaving 2 holes at the bottom to build fires and then use mud to seal the spaces between the bricks on the outermost layer.

Women have started carrying granite stones to the school from places in the community where granite in mined. A lorry has delivered sand collected from the river bottom.

On last Thursday, I visited the home where more bricks are being made. This is a place 1 km from the school where the soil is best for making bricks. Also, early Thursday, many people arrived with jembes (hoes) to level the site. Next week the master builder will arrive from Tanga to begin construction.

Thank you all for your generosity to help make this possible. With the extra funds received beyond the initial proposal, we are able to complete a septic system for two other houses already built but with out toilets. It is our hope that we may have enough funds for electricity to be added. We will access as things go.


It may take a while but I will add pictures when the internet connection allows.
Remember to double click on the picture above and it will take you to my album of pictures of the events happening with the building of the house and two septic tanks.

Friday, January 9, 2009

December 2008

December 2008
Merry Christmas!
We wish we could be with you this holiday, sharing hugs and laughs and good food.

One year has passed and still it does not seem like Christmas is here. Some things I will not get used to. I miss the change of seasons, the lakes and the snow.

Yesterday I washed clothes, hung them to dry in the hot sun. I was careful to hang my underpants on the line between two other lines with towels and shirts so that they are hidden from the view of neighbors passing by. That is the accepted rule in Tanzania.

John is fixing the latch on the bathroom door and putting a new plug on the electrical cord for our 2-burner hot plate. Having electricity is nice, but the last two days it has been out and this is not nice—back to candles, kerosene lanterns and charcoal stoves.

My garden is reaching a stage of harvest again. Soon I can pick cow peas, carrots, okra, sweet potatoes and leeks. Already I have gotten 9 huge Brandywine tomatoes from one plant. I have a "pet" that got into my garden today—one of our young school cows. She broke free from her rope and was feasting on my fresh cow pea plants. The leaves are some of the best tasting greens! I pulled her back to her feeding spot, retied her tether, and brought her a bucket of water. She was very happy, nudged me and accepted a pat on her nose and scratching behind the ears.

Two friends, Becky and Joan from Minnesota came to visit for two weeks, just leaving a few days ago. I met them at the Kilimanjaro airport when they arrived and we all flew to Kigali, the capitol of Rwanda. We were driven by a guide to the National Park (2 hours) to see gorilla. For two days we trekked into the forest finding a family of 12 - 20 gorillas, then sitting for an hour watching them. I will never forget sitting 6 feet from a giant silverback male and watching the 3 year old children playing "ring-around-the- silverback daddy" and beating their chests in play. One young gorilla came running towards me just as we arrived and grabbed my pant leg. He looked at me as if to say, "You're finally here! Come play!" In a family group there is only one silver back male that is the leader and father, then there can be 5-10 females (or more) and each mom has one or more children. The gorillas live to about 45 years. One group we watched had a one month old child that clung to her mother's chest as mom walked and climbed to the tree top into a nest.

Before we left Rwanda, we visited the Genocide Museum and talked at length with our guides about how the people are moving through the process to recover from 1 million people killed over 3 months. Their stories are hard and remarkable at the same time. They talked of the establishment of levels crimes and then levels of consequences, but that all that killed must do community service to rebuild the country. Also, there is a ceremony/gathering that happens once a year where people who have killed choose to stand and tell the people what happened, who they killed and what happened to the bodies of those killed. The guides talked about how difficult this is but how healing it is for everyone.

We had another 8 days together back in Tanzania bird-watching and living in glorified camping style at our site. It is always hard for me to say goodbye. We look forward to coming home for Christmas next year.

We will spend Christmas with four other volunteers and three Sisters from our village, at Amani Forest Preserve. There is a parish at Amani that has housing for volunteers from all over the world. There are beautiful trails through the tropical forest seeing chameleons, tree frogs, African violets, exotic birds and butterflies as well as Collobus and Blue monkeys.

I have enjoyed going to the Catholic Church and occasionally the Lutheran services available when school is in session. We have also been invited to celebrate important Muslim holidays with our neighbors. All services are in Kiswahili, so I understand very little. I can sing the songs but I cannot understand the sermons. When school is in session every Tuesday morning (6am) there is a Mass in English. But this Christmas, I will bring my English hymnal with us to Amani and sing Christmas carols together.

New Years will be back at our site. Our night watchman, Twaha, has invited us to his family home for dinner. Probably rice cooked in coconut milk, local spinach, beans and tea. We expect New Year's Eve will be drumming and dancing, and church bells heard from all the hills around us ­ as usual. Greetings to all of you and we hope you are well and content with each day.

We send our love and, of course, we think of you always. We send our prayers for a joyous celebration with family and friends this holiday. John and Randee