The Incubator Preschool

Sue and I visited a preschool in Ilula called the Incubator, that has been started by Charles Kifwe who was a student at Tumaini when I was there in 2010 and now is a secondary school teacher at Ngangwe Secondary. The preschool has about 80 students and the teachers do an amazing job of maintaining order.  They do some instruction with desks in a small classroom and have found that students from their preschool are doing very well when they go to primary school. Too few young children in Tanzania have the development opportunities that students in the US have.  Most homes lack books and educational toys for children.  This is changing as there is growing interest in preschools and English medium preschools.  The fee for the preschool is 8,000 shillings/month or about $4 per student.  This gives them monthly income of about $320 which doesn't leave much for operations after salaries are paid.

Sue and I brought some soap bubbles that Margaret, from our group, had left.   When we first arrived there were only a few students and they were afraid of the bubbles but when we returned later, they gained confidence in numbers and the bubbles created quite a stir.  Charles reports that the bubbles are still a favorite activity after we left.  We have a preschool at our church with about 15 students and hope they can share some of their ideas with their Tanzania counterpart.

Charles with the assembled students in the play area.

Students interested in the camera.

Students in class, notice the UK spelling for colour and the date for Feb 6 as 6/2/17 

Students singing and dancing with their teachers.

Students enjoying the bubbles with Sue.

Ilula Hospital and Nursing School

Sue and I are with the medical group at Ilula Hospital and we are staying in Ilula.  Last Saturday, we went to Iringa by public bus which costs about 75 cents for the hour drive.  As we approached Iringa there was a lot of stopped traffic and the bus driver took a side dirt road to avoid it.  Traffic was stopped because the Vice President of Tanzania was coming to Iringa and the police stopped our bus and arrested the driver for going the wrong way on a one way road.  They took him away in a car and left us sitting in the bus not quite sure what to do.  We got out and watched the VP procession of about 10 vehicles including a truck of soldiers and then were lucky to have another bus come by with space to take us the rest of the way to town, but it costs us another quarter.  Transportation is an adventure here.  Last week we rented a vehicle for 4 days to visit Ukwega instead of getting dropped off and taking the bus back when we just go to Kising'a.  On our way back to town we saw the bus we would have been on was in a bad accident which killed several people and filled the Iringa hospital wards with injured.  We feel really fortunate to have rented the car all for all 4 days.

The guest house in Ilula is very comfortable and has great staff taking care of us and preparing really good meals.  The showers are cold but you get used to that after a while.  Groups have been coming to Ilula every January for many years and Sue came on a trip once before but this is my first time staying here.  I am doing a little work with computers for the Nursing School and will go to a couple secondary schools this week with some physics materials.  There are two classes of Nursing Students here now, 11 in the second year class and 22 in the first year, and they come from all over Tanzania.  Last evening they put on a show for us with dancing and music from several areas.   Most of the students are male which surprised us.  Apparently this is because not as many girls like to study science and math in secondary school.  Sue gave a talk on Nursing Professionalism today and had a nice response from the students who sometimes are reluctant to speak in class.  Tomorrow she is talking about wound care.

There were two medical groups with the first one coming early in January that left after a conference they put on in Iringa for health care workers from about 28 area hospitals.  Our group of 10 came for the conference and leave after this week.  The group includes a Jewish couple and two Muslim doctors, from Minneapolis and Iowa, and a Nigerian pharmacy student from the U volunteering here at a Christian hospital.  It is a really nice and fun group and we are having a good time.  The medical groups has a blog for this trip where you can read more about the work we are doing.

Ilula Friends 2017

They took our driver, now what do we do?

Glad we were not on this bus, Vitu Laini.

Nursing students dancing

Lots of pics with the Nursing Students using their cell phones.

Sue talking to the students about professionalism.

Ukwega

Last month I received a call from Tanzania at midnight and the caller said he was Pastor Shukuru from Kising'a.  I found out that Pastor Wihale was transferred to the village of Ukwega last September and Kising'a has a new pastor.   Both Pastor Wihale and his wife Yesina have family members in Ukwega which is about 37 km from Kising'a.  Pastor Wihale was at Kising'a for more than 11 years and had built a very strong parish.  Ukwega parish started 4 years ago and was formed from a preaching point of Ipalamwa, about 10 km away.  In Tanzania, parishes are growing and spinning off new parishes.

 We rented a land cruiser for our trip to Kising'a so we were able to go to Ukwega on the most beautiful mountain drive we have been on in Tanzania.  The roads are very steep and fortunately, the rains had stopped and the sun had dried the roads.  Hard to believe that they actually have bus service from Ukwega to Iringa.  Emmanuel, our driver, told us his cousin drives the Mwafrica bus and that special buses for the mountains are built in Kenya by taking a truck body and building a passenger bus on the frame.  On our way back to Iringa, we saw the Kising'a bus which had been in a bad accident crashing into the back of a stalled lumber truck and killing several people.  Sue and I have sometimes taken that bus to Iringa and maybe we should reconsider in the future because these buses are so big coming down mountain roads that they can be hard to stop or control.

The pastor house in Ukwega is smaller and not as well finished as the house in Kising'a.  One thing it needs is a ceiling, right now the house is open to the rafters and metal sheets and not as well protected from insects.  We visited the dispensary and they were treating quite a few malaria patients.  Ukwega is lower than Kising'a and therefore warmer with more malaria risk.  The village is spread out over many ridges with steep roads.  We walked to one preaching point that evening and listened to a small choir.  They have a cute chant here that they do that ends with the roar of a lion and the roar is the love they are spreading.  This preaching point is made from lumber boards and they have plans to build a brick building.

The following morning, we took a two hour walk to the top of a ridge and saw another preaching point operating out of a home temporarily.  It was a beautiful morning with views everywhere and Sue is especially good at greeting people in Hehe.  I try but my pronunciation is not as good which causes great entertainment.  Everybody greets everybody here, whether you know them or not.

Ukwega has a SACCOS which is a member owned bank that makes agricultural loans.  They are also starting a AMCOS which is an agricultural cooperative that will purchase fertilizer in larger quantities at better prices and help with taking produce to market.  The SACCOS has about 79 members and members can get a 500,000 tsh loan when they have about 150,000 tsh savings in the bank.  The loan is used to purchase seed and fertilizer and then repaid in 6 months with about 2%/month interest when the crop is harvested. Pastor Wihale is a member but has not taken a loan yet. The King Foundation had just built a beautiful building for offices and fertilizer storage.  The opening celebration for the building was the day we left and we met Russel King and some board members coming to Ukwega on our way back to Iringa.

Pastor Wihale came back to Iringa with us along with Pastor Shukuru to check on victims from the bus accident.  We had an emotional goodbye.  Pastor Wihale plans to retire in 4 years with a home he is building in Kising'a and I think this new assignment at a new parish is a challenge.  He of course accepts the difficulty like all Tanzanians but this must feel like starting over building up the parish.  Anna is married now and living in Kising'a with Gody and her husband and Joyce is living in the retirement home and working the family shamba (fields) in Kising'a.  Kising'a is 37 difficult kms from Ukwega and about a 5 hour walk taking a footpath.  The bus is 8,000 shillings to Iringa and Pastor Wihale usually rides on the back of a piki piki instead which is cheaper.  We would like to help him purchase a piki piki to visit the preaching points and travel back and forth with Kising'a.

On the road to Ipalamwa on a beautiful day

Pastor Wihale and his growing boys

Children of the cooking crew, Karin with the pony tails.

Old style iron heated with coals

Main parish building near the pastor house

We left a One World Futbol for the parish which is solid so it never deflates

Preaching point with small choir roaring with love like lions

Morning walk, notice the woman at the top of the right hand trail.  She is carying 40 lbs of water on her head and another 20 lbs in her hand as she climbs up to her house from the valley below.

Ndizi (banannas) meant for us.  The mtoto (child) has one in his hand.

SanLG chinese piki piki (motorcycle) which costs about $1200 and is excellent at climbing hills.

Sue with Emmanuel, our driver, who did an excellent job.  He was fast but safe and helped us tremendously with translation and cultural understanding.  He seemed to be having almost as good a time as we were.  Usually he takes people on Safari in Ruaha but enjoys this kind of trip.

Kising'a Funeral

When we arrived in Kising'a on Saturday, we were very sad to hear about an accident in Kidumuka that killed a mother and her 14 year old son.  A lightning strike on the solar panel on their house sent electricity down a wire into a room where it exploded onto the two taking lunch.  Both were burned badly and killed instantly.  Small solar panels are becoming very common here and advances in LED lighting has made them very effective.  Unfortunately, technology is not always applied in the safest way possible and many solar units are not grounded.

The funeral was the next day after Sunday service and we were invited to participate with the group of evangelists.  We took the car to Kidumuka because it was still wet and looked like it could rain again.  The bodies were still in the small mud brick home with many relatives sitting with them grieving.  A couple pine board caskets were brought to the home and several hundred people gathered outside.  The bodies were brought out wrapped in blankets in the caskets and the service started just outside the home.  All of the evangelists participated in the funeral liturgy.  The blankets were uncovered to show the faces of the mother and child, with care to keep the burns covered.  A blanket was brought out to be held above the caskets as all the people slowly walked by the head of the caskets.  We were close with the evangelists and I was able to hold the edge of the blanket high.  After all had been able to walk by and acknowledge their deaths, the faces were carefully rewrapped and lids were placed on the caskets.

Kidumuka  village lies along a ridge across from the main preaching point of Kising'a and the burial site was well down the ridge almost to the valley.  The crowd went down the trail to the site where graves had already been dug. As we walked, someone collected donations from the attendees to pay costs for the funeral and reception afterwards. Two holes, about 5 feet by 7 feet and 4 feet deep had been dug in the clay with a casket sized hole at the bottom for another couple feet.  The crowd gathered around with most being far back on the hillside.  We were with the Evangelists at the graves, the choir was singing whenever the pastors were not speaking. The caskets came and about four men in each hole made measurements with a stick and dug out the casket sized hole to fit.  The caskets were lowered in the graves and Pastor Shukuru preached a message very loudly so the distant people could hear.

Bags of clothes were placed in both graves to be buried with their owners.  Dirt was added to level the casket depression and then a cover of lumber trim boards was placed on top, followed by a blanket.  Each of us in the evangelist group then tossed a handful of dirt into each grave three times. The family then did the same before a group of men filled the rest of the holes.  The dirt was a piled high and carefully patted smooth by grieving family members.  At this time, several people spoke about the departed and the man who had collected contributions read all the names with contribution amounts.

The crowd walked up the hill at the end of the service in a long line on the steep trail.  Large buckets of ugali (maize staple with the consistency of mashed potatoes) and beans had been prepared for the guests.  The entire service lasted more than 3 hours and we were standing the entire time in the open. The lives of the husband and another child will be severely impacted both by grief and by loss of the mama's role in the household.   Other family members will help to fill the void.

The funeral was much like it would be for us except bodies are not prepared for burial.  The funeral occurred within 24 hours after the accident.   When we returned to Iringa we passed the Kising'a bus which had been in a terrible accident.  Sue and I have taken the same bus back from Kising'a in the past and several people were killed with many injured.  There will be more funerals in the villages this week.

Full Car going to Kidumuka

Graveside

Returning after the service

Kising'a Visit 2017

Sue and I are in Tanzania again with the Shoulder to Shoulder medical group at Ilula Hospital.  We spent two nights in Dar and visited the fish market and purchased books at TPH Bookshop for Kising'a again. We visited Kising'a for a few days while the rest of the group was in Ruaha National Park.  A lot has changed in the last year at Kising'a.  Pastor Wihale was transferred in October to Ukwega Parish which is a village about 37 km away.  The new pastor is Pastor Shukuru Mkakatu and it was nice to meet him, his wife Atuwilye, and their daughters, Revista (15) and Lightness (4).  The other news in Kising'a parish is that Isele and the Msale preaching point are now a separate parish with a different pastor who we did not meet.  The two pastors are still communicating together as Isele becomes an independent parish.  Churches in America are consolidating while in Tanzania preaching points are being spun off as new parishes.  Ukwega parish is also a new spin off 4 years ago from Ipalamwa Parish.

Devota, the clinical officer in Kising'a, came to Iringa for the medical conference conducted by the Shoulder to Shoulder group.  The pastor and Yoram came to town also and we purchased pharmaceuticals at the Green Zone pharmacy for the dispensary.  The parish also had some funds from their Swedish partners for books and pastor and Yoram purchased many secondary school textbooks.  We were impressed by the books that they selected.

We had an excellent driver from another company since Tatanca cars were not available and we headed to Kising'a Saturday afternoon in the rain.  On the way we stopped in Lulanzi to visit with Mama Bariki and Bariki's sister and drop off some photos from Bariki and Ruthie.  Bariki's father was not home but we had a nice visit and they really enjoyed the photos.  We also dropped off some medical supplies at the dispensary in lulanzi from Shoulder to Shoulder. When we arrived in Kising'a we learned that a lightning strike had hit the solar panel on a house in Kidumuka and sent electricity down a wire into a room, killing a mother and 14 year old boy.  We attended the funeral Sunday afternoon and will tell about this in a separate blog.  We had a nice service Sunday morning and Sue and I received matching outfits to wear which fit quite well considering our non Hehe physiques and the fact that no tailoring measurements were made.

Pastor Wihale came to Kising'a Sunday afternoon on his way to Ukwega from Iringa and it was great to see him again.  He stayed with Joyce in his retirement home and Anna is married now and living with her husband and Gody who has gotten very big.  Pastor Wihale invited us to Ukwega and we all went to Ukwega on Monday.

Boats still arriving with fish

King Fish are popular samaki (fish) all over Tanzania

Women buying fish at auction

Devota at the dispensary with the purchases

Mama Bariki and Upendo at home in Lulanzi

Dentist room at Lulanzi Dispensary, pliers is the main tool

Pastor Shukuru, Revista, Lightness, and Atuwilye

Pastor Shukuru and Evangelists preparing for Sunday service

Sue's new outfit with Yoram and Ester, the other evangelist

Receiving books, Denise, in the center, is a teacher at Kising'a Secondary

Anna and Gody with a nice shirt gift from Donna. Up North here means Arusha.