Wednesday Maasai Market

Wednesday Maasai Market

Today after we finished teaching, we drove through Kisongo. It was their market day. 

About 90 percent of the people are Maasai either shopping or selling. They are selling livestock such as donkeys, goats, sheep, and chickens or food such as beans, corn, tomatoes, and other garden vegetables.  

There were thousands of people roaming around the market. It was so interesting watching all the people.

The Maasai market made me think of the Madison Farmer's market on Saturdays. After my experience today, I will never complain about how many people are at the farmers market. I was actually wondering what my friend Sharon would have thought about this market today. Maybe she would want to come to Africa and try selling her vegetables..... Ha!ha!

Teaching Lessons

Teaching Lessons

I have been teaching English at the New Life Band School. It is so different than teaching in my school. I arrive at the school about thirty minutes before class begins. The English teacher, Mr. Managu, gives me the lesson he would like me to teach. 

The first lesson was on concessions. Now, I have never even heard of this word so my first thought was, "This is going to be interesting." So I read the first part of the teachers manual and it said, " Concessive conjunction signal the unexpected, surprising nature of what is being said in view of what was said before. They signal information which is contrary and surprising to your expectations." So far I have no idea what this means. So I skip down to the examples and figure out they are talking about conjunction words like but, however, as, even though, yet, in spite of, etc.

So I grab The Writer's Craft book that I sent to the school from my classroom. I read about conjunction words and then design my lesson from there. It took me a good half hour to figure out what I knew and what they wanted the students to know. I think I did a good job because in the end, the students understood all the words and they could even write their own sentences.

The second lesson was on coordinators. Again not sure what that meant, so I looked at examples and they were different kind of connecting words such as neither & nor, either & or, both & and, not only & but also. So I was to explain why these words went together, when you would use them, and how you write the sentences. A little more challenging because I couldn't find in my English book any examples of these words together. I did the best I could. Again by the end of class, students were able to write their own sentences using the correct words.

As the students were writing, they had to fill in the blanks of this sentence: You can travel either by _______ (coordinating word) ____________. I was walking around checking their answers and noticed most students were answering car or plane. However, they spelled airplane different than we do. They spelled it aeroplane. At first, I told a student it was spelled wrong but then I noticed all the students spelled it that way. So I had to ask the teacher and found out it was the way they spell it in British English. 

It is interesting how different British English is from American English. So it brings up some challenges when teaching. They are tested using British English not American English. I am learning just as much as the students are learning.


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Weekend in Dar es Salaam

On Friday evening, we flew to Dar es Salaam. The reason we went was to do a fundraiser for Hope To Others. They are forming a Hope to Others branch here in Tanzania.

Saturday morning the New Life Band began the event by playing for an hour. Then Karen and Rick spoke about their ministry of Hope to Others. After the meeting, we had about five hours before the evening concert.

Ondo borrowed his sister's car and took Judy, Kaity, and I out for the afternoon. First we went out to eat at Steers. This restaurant would be very similar to a Burger King in America. We ate burger and fries. It was really good and reminded us of our last trip to Africa because all the teenagers loved eating at Steers. Then Ondo drove us down to see the Indian Ocean. It was beautiful. We sat for awhile and watched all the people playing in the water. It was also a special place because it was where Ondo proposed to Judy. Sweet memories!

Then the best part of the day was we drove down the shoreline to a place called Slipway. This was a cove off the ocean so the water was smooth as glass. We went into a restaurant and sat in a tiki hut just enjoying the beautiful scenery! We ate ice cream and just savored the beauty. Then we walked down the pier and observed some very beautiful hotels!

Our time ended and it was time for the fundraiser concert event. The New Life Band had the place rocking. It was fun dancing with everyone. Then we had a dinner and an auction. The evening ended around 9:00.

Sunday morning we attended a local church in the area. The New Life Band were the guest worship leaders. The service began at nine thirty. We sang and danced for two hours straight. It was quite the aerobic workout! Then the pastor had the Americans do the sermon. I was first. I talked about what I wrote about in my second blog. Then Karen talked for an hour and ended with Rick sharing a good story about a fork. After the service, they catered in a special lunch for us. We finished around 3:00.

Then the Bishop made an arrangement for us to speak with a group of people who are concerned about the education system of their country. It is very evident that the government has made it very difficult for students to be successful within the guidelines of their countries requirements. Students receive a free education through their primary years which would be equivalent to Kindergarden - fifth grade. These classes are all taught in Swahilli. Then when they pass their examination they can move on to Secondary school equivalent to our sixth grade through sophomore in high school. These classes are all taught in English. So students now have to do everything in English at school. They also have to pay for school. The fees are about $850 a year. Not including books, uniforms, and any other supplies. These are two huge barriers for the African people to continue education. Within the past few years the government has allowed for private schools to open. The people here feel that is the only way they can help their young people. Open more schools, however they need to figure out how to get the cost down so everyone can attend. Another barrier is the supplies need to teach and finding good teachers. The pay is very low for teachers and they are not motivated when hired. The people here realize they have a corrupt government and they cannot change their ways. So they are thinking outside the box on how they can best service the young people. They really care about what is happening and they want their country to pull out of poverty. We learned many things from listening to their concerns.
The meeting ended after 2 1/2 hours. I was exhausted!

Rick said we deserved a nice dinner so we ate at The African Hotel next door. It was really good. Felt like we were eating an American steak dinner.


Monday we got to experience the true Dar es Salaam! Today's mission was to visit two school sites. The first site was a secondary school outside of town. It took about an hour 1/2 to get there. The traffic was so busy and there were so many people everywhere. We toured the school site and listened to their dream of what they wanted to build on the land. They used to have dorms, but last year an army base that is located at the bottom of the hill had an explosion accident. All their bombs and missiles exploded shooting everywhere in the area and destroying  buildings. This school's dorm was hit and all that was left was a pile of rubble. The owner wanted Hope To Others to find sponsors so that she could take the orphaned children in the village to her school. The children in her area can not afford to go to secondary schools. While there, we observed a chemistry class where they were mixing chemicals to change a color into colorless. That was interesting to watch.

After we left there, we drove another one 1/2 hours to the YWAM school. Karen and Rick know the owners of this school. We began the visit with rozela juice, coconut pieces, and maandaazi. If I compared it to America snack it would be cherry kool-aid with donuts. The owner, Jeremiah, told his story of how he became to be the owner of this ministry. Then we went for a tour. They had a primary school, skills school such as carpentry, sewing, welding, and masonry. They also have a medical clinic for women and children. They are in the process of building a brand new clinic. It was actually a beautiful building. They predict it will be open in three months. The final building was a staff house. All the hired staff and visitors live in the same building. They are desperately looking for teachers and medical staff. I think she was trying to offer me a job...he! Anyone looking to serve a DTS, through YWAM, this might be a great place to serve. We left about 4:00.

Then the crazy nightmare began. We drove for about 20 minutes and then came to a complete hault. Actually all the cars turned off their engines. We sat there for two and 1/2 hours! There is so much traffic coming out of Dar, that they close off all the incoming traffic. They open all the lanes from the city so the people in the city can get out. It was ridiculous! Finally they opened the roads and then chaos happened. There was suppose to be one lane going into the city. After about five minutes there were six lanes on each side. Cars were driving on the shoulder, the sidewalks, the yards, and in between. If a car could fit somewhere it did. Of course then, noone could move again! Everyone is honking their horns. Seriously this had to be the most out of control driving there could be. Finally, we slowly crept forward and the traffic became one lane. All of sudden, Ondo yells,"Yipes, what do I do now?" We looked out and the opposite traffic has taken over all the lanes. We literally had no choice but to drive on the sidewalk. How can traffic do that? We were all getting so mad. A trip that could have taken 30 minutes, took us over three hours! I was never so glad to back at the hostel.

Tuesday morning we are at the airport flying back to Arusha. I hope that was my last trip to 
Dar es Salaam! Forever!


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Sent from my iPad

Projector Finally Works!

Today is "take three" for trying to teach about how to use the projector. We now have the generator fixed, we have all the extensions and adapters needed, and the projector is ready. The moment has come....we turn everything on.....and IT WORKS! Everyone is cheering! We spend about an hour with all the teachers showing them how it works. Each teacher goes through the steps of plugging it in, setting it up, doing a small lesson using the overhead sheets, and then taking it back down. It is so hard to imagine that this is the first time any of them has ever seen an overhead projector. It was fun listening to them come up with ways they saw on how the projector could be an advantage for their teaching.

Now its time to show the students. We were going to use the overhead to show them how to use the MP3 players we brought them. We move down to the classroom and set everything up but we didn't have long enough extension cords to reach from the generator to the projector. So it took a few minutes to figure out that all the students will need to move from this classroom into another one. So we crammed all the students in one room next to the teachers lounge. We finally got everything working. I talk about the projector and showed them what it did and why teachers would want to use it. Then I showed them how to use the MP3 players. We had a student come up and deomonstrate the players to be sure they understood how to change chapters and make it louder. The teachers were all excited about having such technology brought to them. The headmaster was telling the students they go to a good school and they have good supporters who care about them. I ended my time at the school talking to a group of students. They all wanted me to take their picture and they wanted to know my Facebook address. It is so funny how they all know about email and Facebook.

After we left, we went back to the family we visited that had no roof on their house. Over the weekend, we paid a young man to build the roof. We also brought a new mattress and some blankets. When we got there, the young man who had done the work, greeted us. He lived real close to this family and he did not know she was living there with no roof. At first, he didn't even believe it, so he kept watch the night before and found out that it was true. She was cooking the rice we brought her family and then sleeping in the house. He felt so bad that he did alot more than just fix the roof. He added more bricks to make it level, a window, two doors, put extra tin over the children's part, and he built some benches outside the house. We were quite impressed with the work he had done. He told us he gathered some neighbors to help so it cut down on labor and he didn't charge much. He was concerned about the children because they were actually sleeping in the animal pen. So after some negotiating we decided to add a small room on so the children could have a safe place to sleep. The young man said he would gather the children in the neighborhood to help make the bricks so they wouldn't have to buy them and he would build the room this week. 

I think the mother was overwhelmed with the generosity shown to her. The nurse with us said that she has never seen her look so good. She said her face was fuller and she had cleaned up the area, herself, and the children. The nurse said that the mother finally felt some hope in her life.

As we were leaving, we found out that the neighborhood children came in and stole her rice. We decided to give her some money so she could buy a little food each day and no one could steal it. Her daughter was so overjoyed that she kept hugging us. It was like she couldn't stop hugging us all the way to the car. It was so sweet how happy she was. 

I can't wait to see the house in the final stage. Even though I have the seen the place twice, I still cannot fathom living for five years without a roof. It is inhumane! We know that coming to Africa made a huge impact on this family!

Shanga Visit

Today we went to the New Life Band School again to teach about the projector. The guys have figured out how to get power to the classroom so we should be set.

We get everything ready. The generator is ready, projector is set up in the teachers lounge, and everyone is watching. We start the generator but it won't start. After a few minutes they figured out it was out of gas. They fill it up, start it, and then the projector won't turn on. After 30 minutes we discovered the bulb had broken during the trip so we replaced it. Now we try again, but the generator won't work again. After about two hours of trying to get everything to work, the conclusion is the generator is broken and they need to take it to town for some adjustments. So we scratch the projector lesson and decide to hand out flip flops.

We brought enough flip flops for every student to receive a pair. We organized all the flip flops according to their size outside in the yard. The students came by classes to pick out their pair. They were really excited to get a new pair of sandals. We had so many different colors it took them a long time to choose which pair they wanted.

We had to leave after the passing out of shoes because we had a reservation at Shanga for lunch. Shanga is a place that employs 55 handicap people. They may be deaf, blind, mute, or have a physical disability. They figure out what skills they do have and they put them to use.

This was the neatest place we visited. You would never have even known it was there because it was hidden down a little road. When you arrive you are greeted by some employees and brought down to the area they serve lunch. It was such a cute outdoor restaurant. It was designed like a tiki hut. Inside the tiki hut there were tables and they had ours ready all decorated up with beaded placemats, folded napkins, and fancy glasses. At first glance, I thought, we can't be in Africa right now. 

The lunch was wonderful! First, they served you some passion fruit juice in champagne glasses. Then we got pumpkin soup, which was delicious! After the soup, they brought out a vegetable samosa with a special white sauce. These were the best samosas ever! The main course was a buffet of salads with barbecue chicken and beef. Finally, they brought us a dessert which was really good because it was made with a chocolate topping. Everyone loved it. 

After we ate we went on a tour of the facility. Next to the restaurant was as a yard with lots of couches to sit on and lounge. It was so peaceful. I would love to have just sat out there and read a book. 

The main part reminded me  of Old Wisconin or Silver Dollar City. There was one area where they were recycling glass bottles using hot kilns. They were making beads, glassware, and stain glass windows. It was really interesting watching them work. Then they had a section for working with fabrics. They had some wooden machines ran by the workers that made blankets, tablecloths, placemats, and scarfs. There were about 10 sewing machines used to make outfits, purses, and table napkins. There was an area of bead work. They were making necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and keychains. Finally they were making mosaic candles holders out of small pieces of glass.

This is a non-profit organization. So all their income comes from the restaurant and the gift shop. There were so many things that I would have liked to have boughten. I bought a beautiful bracelet! 

This place started only five years ago and has grown every year. It is a beautiful place. It also won some awards for being one of the best places for visitors. You can tell they are very proud of what they are doing to help their community. 

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Sent from my iPad

Visiting Nickson's Village

Friday 

Today we went to Nickson's village. His village is normally about an hour 1/2 away from Arusha, but they are resurfacing the road so there were many diversions. Which meant that you had to drive on the bumpy dirt road next to the main road. This made the trip four hours! AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH! It was not fun traveling.

We finally reached the village and we picked up Nickson's brother, Vincent. We checked into a place to stay for the night. Then we went shopping at Vincent's shop. He has a small shop that sells paintings, carvings, necklaces, and a few other items. As soon as all the people saw that were in Vincent's shop, they were lining up outside to try and get us to buy from them. They did not like that we were doing all our business with Vincent. We all bought something and even put in a large order for some items to sell back in the states.

The first thing we had to do was deliver a suitcase of medical supplies to a church. When we got there we found out the person was from America. She was just in Madison, WI making connections with some nurses and teachers there to connect in with the school she works at here in Africa. What a small world!

Then we went to visit Nickson's mom. It was so nice to finally meet her. His younger brother was also there. Vincent's little girl was there and she recognized Karen right away. It was so cute how she came running to the car and gave her a big hug! After some greetings and family photos, we began handing out some shoes, t-shirts, and pillowcase dresses. It didn't take long before all the neighbors heard we were there and they all came for clothes. Pretty soon there must have been 50 kids trying to get shoes and dresses. We gave out all we had. We also gave some soccer balls to Nickson's brother. He was really excited about them.

After that, we went to Vincent's house and met his wife and two year old daughter. He took us on a tour of his place. He had a nice two room place with an extra room for cooking. He moved there this past year and is planning on building a house for his mom next to his.

Finally back to our place for the evening. We had a nice dinner outside.

The next morning, we went to visit Vincent's church. This church is also a partner church with Hope To Others ( the organization we came with). Last year the Muslims came to the village and burned down their church and the pastor's house. So right now they are in a temporary building and they are in the process of building a new church. The have a two year bible program being offered through Joshua Nations that Vincent and his wife Sophia attend. Vincent is studying to become a pastor. We are so proud of the change we are seeing in Vincent. He is growing spiritually and prospering in his life. 

After we left the village, we had the long bumpy road back to Arusha. When we got back to Arusha, we had to attend a rotary club meeting. This is the first rotary club in Arusha and they are partnering with the rotary club in Sun Prairie. They are all hoping to partner together to have a medical clinic built at the New Life Band School site this year. The rotary club shared several stories with us of how the clinic would benefit their area. They are excited about anything that will help their community.

Most Adventurous Day!

Wednesday

Secondary Luthern School at Ngarenanyuki  Region

Today had to be the biggest adventure of my life! We went with the New Life Band to see them perform for a secondary school. 

We were picked up from our house at 9:30 by a dala dala. A dala dala is an inexpensive public transportation which has 21 seats and unlimited capacity. The African joke is "How many people fit in a dala dala? Nobody knows!" You fill it completely up and then add ten more. There is a driver and one person who hangs out the side yelling for people and then hits the top of the roof when the driver needs to stop which could be anywhere. The people know which one to ride because of the colored stripe on the side which represents the route or region it is going. There are hundreds of dala dalas driving crazily and wrecklessly through town as if they own the road. 
I will be honest that we actually had a private dala dala for all of us to get to town. So the people were looking at us funny because the dala dala was filled with white people. 

We all met at the New Life Band office and loaded up for the trip to the school. There were 13 of us stuffed into a van. One person was sitting on a stool in the middle and another one was just squeezed in between the seats. You would never fill a van like that in the states. We had no idea what the trip would be like. It took us 2 1/2 hours to reach the school. Two hours of the trip was driving around the mountain on an old cow path. It was like off-roading through the Australian outback. There were periodic washouts covered with rocks and boulders. It wasn't like we were driving carefully and slowly, it felt like we going as fast as a roller coaster. For those with car sickness, a continuous drip of Dramamine wouldn't even come close to helping. Along the way, we saw endless signs of poverty.

We saw corn being grown in every square feet of land available, brick huts half built, round water troughs for a village so they could bring their cattle, lots of homemade bricks drying, kids walking or waiting on the side of the road to go to school, donkeys carrying supplies, men with machetes cutting down the grass to carry back for their livestock. 

In the midst of all of this was some beautiful countryside. We stopped one time to take pictures of the valley. It was so beautiful with Mt. Meru in the background and streams running through the valley. It was a very plush area.

We finally arrived at the Lutheran Secondary School campus. It seemed to be a really nice campus in the middle of nowhere. James told us it was one of the best secondary schools around and it was obvious as soon as you pulled in. We found out that James was very good friends with the Headmaster/Principal. If someone wanted to come to Africa and experience life on a campus, this would be the place to go. They actually had a group of six students and two teachers visiting at the time from Germany.

On the campus, there were about a dozen buildings. An office, library/auditorium, 5 dorms, 2 shower houses, 12 classrooms, 4 staff houses, guest house, and a community room. They received most of their funding for the buildings from a sister school in Germany.

We were very impressed on how they used their natural resources. They had four ways of generating electricity. They had solar roofs on their classrooms, two windmills at the top of the hill, hydro-electric power from a small creek running through the property, and a generator for back up. During the day, they actually create more electricity than they need so they store it in batteries. It was amazing how they had all these systems running. 

For water, they had gutters on all the roofs to catch the rain during the rainy season. The water was stored in large 5,000-10,000 liter containers. The water collected was expected to last until the next rainy season. So they had to use it sparingly but they had enough. They would do their laundry in the creek and use the creek water for watering their crops.

After the tour of the campus, we were served a special lunch. They had decorated a room and had it catered for all the visitors.

Then it was time for the concert. We were impressed with the behavior of the students. They sat quietly for an hour and a half waiting for the band to set up their equipment. The concert was about two hours long. It was so fun because all the students were dancing and participating. Of course we joined in with them. One boy was showing me all the moves and interpreting the Swahilli songs. Pretty soon all his friends were laughing at him and watching him. He told me it was because no one has ever danced with a white girl. It was really funny!

When the concert was over, it was dark. To start our journey, we were getting in the van and the sliding door fell off, that created an interesting situation. The men did figure out how to get it on but we weren't sure if it was going to stay. Then the trip back down the mountain was quite the adventure. I was sitting in the front  seat and it was the scariest ride ever! It was like riding the scariest roller coaster in the dark that you can imagine. I actually had a death grip on the bar by the door. I had my seat belt on even though they never wear them here. I am pretty sure I screeched a few times as we went over bumps that looked like they were going to be drop offs. 

I have never been so relieved as we finally hit the paved road. However after about 10 minutes I noticed my seat was feeling really hot. I was joking with James, the driver, about having heated seats when all of sudden the motor stopped running. We pulled over and I found out the motor was under my seat and it was overheating. So they put some water in it and we were on our way. The problem was the car wouldn't go very fast, so were crawling along the road for about 20 minutes. All of sudden my seat was getting extremely hot and I told James there was smoke coming out of the seat. So we pulled over and everyone got out of the van.

This made an interesting situation. 13 white people piling out of their car at 9:30 at night. It was really dark because they have no street lights. As soon as we started to get out, all the village people started coming over. The children and young people swarmed us. They all wanted us to take their pictures. It was pretty funny how the children would pose and then laugh as we showed them their pictures.  Luckily, some of the men went to get us some water. A hose had come off and it took about 45 minutes to fix.

One big problem was after the long bumpy ride, we had to pee soooooo bad! I always said that I would not go on the side of the road but sometimes you just have to. So we hiked up into the bushes on the side of the road. The children knew what we were doing so they snuck up around us and started making wild animal noises. We didn't know it was the children so it scared us to death so we came out running. Everyone had a good laugh over that. Especially the children! Everyone was teasing that we should have recorded it and put it on u-tube....really I just want to forget it..He! It was a good thing we went because it was two hours before we actually made it home.

I do believe this had to be the biggest adventure of my life! You just never know what a day in Africa will bring.