Iringa Update

I finished visiting the diocese secondary schools and our partner village of Kising'a. Life is pretty easy in Iringa with good restaurants and internet. The organization I am volunteering for has periodic Days of Grace events where pastors and evangelists from different areas come to Iringa for seminars and health checkups. 25 people from Kising'a came in early to watch our Minnesota church service on zoom at 6 PM (10 AM in St Paul). I shared some music from our church and then we logged on. They were interested in seeing how different our services are, shorter, fewer choirs, and less dancing. We recorded a video of them singing to show at church next sunday.

When I was in Kising'a I met Fanleck, a former sponsored student of ours wearing a Trump hat. He likes the way trump sounds from his limited exposure without any understanding of what Trump is about. Quite a disconnect from all the US AID signs around here. Now I may not be able to reenter the country after this, please come to visit me.

My phone was not charging because the charging port was worn out. I found a phone shop that replaced the charging port on my phone for $10. A young man opened up my phone and fixed it in less than 30 minutes. Africans are very resourceful about repairing things out of necessity.

Another interesting business is the Quick Witted Dry Cleaning and Laundry. Marium washes my clothes so I haven't had the chance to use them and try to match wits. I also always enjoy the women's hair salons spelled saloons.

I walk a lot in Iringa but took a Bajaji, a three wheel motorcycle with a cab, back from picking up my vegetable box. Here is a picture of Sue in one from a previous trip. I got in with my box and the driver could not start it because he was out of gas. He ran to get a large water bottle filled with gasoline and he and I tilted the bajaji on its side so that a third person could pour the gasoline in the tank without a funnel. Always an adventure here.

Today, Maria, the woman who was our house keeper in 2010-2011 came to get me in a bajaji and took me to her house for lunch. Her son in law took me home on his motorcycle. It was nice to see her, she and her husband are not working but are raising a few pigs in her yard.

Kising'a Visit

I had a wonderful visit with our partnership village last weekend. I visited the secondary school, Ifingo, where we left a computer on our trip in June. I was pleased to see that they have been using it with students. Ifingo is a new government school currently with just Form I and Form II students. The classrooms are beautifuly constructed and they are building dorms and classes for advanced level Forms V and VI. The plan is to start advanced level for girls in two years. This will be the top school for the Ward. I brought a projector and computer for the primary school in 2023 and that is also being used with students and is in good condition. The Ward officer gave a letter to the parish thanking them for these gifts.

I drove myself for the weekend and that enabled me to go out to Sargent Mdegala's avocado farm. He makes grafts of Hass avocado on a local species that grows well. He has more than 300 trees in several plots and an Avocado factory in Iringa comes up and harvests them for making oil and export. He also grafts avocado seedlings for a tree project in Iringa and was the person who discovered a spring and laid pipe to bring water to the village. St Paul Partners installed a 3000 gallon tank for that water and Sargent maintains it.

The women of the church were meeting and have a rustic kitchen next to the church. In june they were given some money from the women at our church and used it to buy 8 piglets.

In June they told us they wanted to build a new house for the pastor. The current house has an X on it because it is too close to where someday the government wants to expand the road. Has been this way for more than 10 years. Any way, the main reason is they want to use the current house, which is quite nice, as a guest house to earn money for the church. This would be for Tanzanian guests and there is no place like that in Kising'a. They started digging for the foundation and have saved contributions we have made for the last three years to start this project.

The view from the new location is nice and the white house on the hill left center with blue in the windows is the house former pastor Pastor Wihale is building for his retirement on Nov. 8.

School Visits Mtera and Lutangilo

One of my tasks this trip is to visit all 6 Diocese secondary schools and get a report of needs and priorities from the headmasters. This week I visited Mtera and Lutangano, two schools set in very different terain, with Frank Mkocha and Msigwa, the DIRA BKB coordinator. Mtera was opened in 1996 when the government donated buildings for workers constructing the Mtera Dam hydroelectric project in the 70's. Thus the buildings are old and in need of repair. The school has 405 students in forms i to VI. Ten of these students are vision impaired and the school main streams them with the help of other students. They have braille typewriters and after class students read their notes to them so they can type them into braille. Exams are done by reading the questions orally. I visited this school a few times in the past working with teachers on science and installing a bump in a deep well.

Lutangilo is farther up in the mountains than Kising'a with spectacular views. Much of the area is planted with pine trees for New Forests company but there are also pockets of virgin forests which look like brocali heads with their full canopies. Lutangilo has gone from the poorest performing diocese school to the best in less than 10 years thanks to the leadership of their head master Sebastian Chaula. I spent a week here in 2019 and the school has tremendous spirit. The picture shows their desks with all of their notebooks from Form I-IV stacked. They stay in the classroom so they are not lost or damaged and that creates quite a stack with 7 or more subjects over 4 years. The form IV's and Form II's have national exams in November and are studying all of these old notebooks. They have very few textbooks, mostly for the teachers to use and textbooks as the schools number one priority.

Today I am off to Kising'a for the weekend. I will visit the secondary school there this afternoon where I left a computer in June. Also, I want to inspect a water project and meet with village leaders about an expansion of the water project we did in 2014 designed by UMN students.

First Week

I picked up my weekly vegetable box from Masifio Estates on Wednesday. Their selection has grown since Sue and I used them in 2010-2011 and they now provide produce for restaurants and resorts all over Tanzania. Their farm is located just outside of Iringa and I pick up my weekly order at Neema Crafts.

Sue made it to Morroco and is having a good time. I get an occasional proof of life with credit card activity. We are on the same continent but Google maps says it is a 6,500 mile drive. Here is a photo she sent me of the first course of her lunch.

On Thursday, I got a crash course on Bega Kwa Bega financials and record keeping. BKB has a rigorous approval process with authorization from both the Diocese and Minnesota. This is all documented with paper records as well as electronic. Frank Mkocha is the scholarship clerk and will work with me and Kirsten is just a text away. She will even be close to my time zone because she is going to Spain. My apartment here has a woman work MWF to clean and do laundry for people staying here. Usually this appartment is only used as an office because Kirsten stays in a separate apartment. I will pay Mariam for doing extra for me. Laundry is by hand and she even irons my underwear to make sure there are no bugs.

The x-Ray machine at Ilula hospital has been broken since January and I visited Iringa hospital on Friday to see their x-Ray facilities. Their Radiology department is as clean as any hospital in the US and they have a massive voltage stabilizer to protect their equipment. They also have a staff of three biomedical engineers who maintain and calibrate the x-ray and CT scan who are willing to consult with Ilula. They were proud of their private ward where people self pay for premium accomodation. The photo is their private single that costs 300,000 tsh/day ($120/day) they also have a suite private room with a living area and a walk in shower equiped with a radio to play while you were showering. This room costs 800,000 tsh/day ($320/day) and is likely only used for important government officials. Needless to say, it was unoccupied.

On Saturday, I drove down to Ilula hospital to meet with engineers that were trying to repair the xRay. They made some progress and recommended replacing some components they did not have with them. We need to figure out if it is repairable and what Ilula needs to successfully operate it. I also got a nice tour of the projects Shoulder to Shoulder has been supporting with the King Foundation, including the Reproductive Child Health center, Maternity ward expansion, a morgue, and a waste system that generates biogas for cooking or even collecting in tanks. The RCH is already being used and one clinic room was for doing circumcisions for both babies and adults for HIV prevention, ouch. When I turned on to the main road to go back to Iringa, there were no trucks. Apparently, a big accident must have happened in the Kitonga gorge that totally blocked traffic from continuing. The gorge is one of the most dangerous stretches of road in Tanzania and maybe it was a good thing that our group in June passed through the gorge in the dark. I attended the English language service on Sunday that starts at 9 am or after the 7 am service finishes. The 7 am service finished just before 10 and the English service lasted til noon. I was the only msungu in attendance and sat next to a young man, maybe secondary school age, who had a hard time finding page numbers and I helped him find the passages for reading. I suspect he is trying to learn English. Sunday evening I had a nice dinner with a group from Gloria Dei who had just returned from their partner village of Kilengipasi. The pastor there is from Kising'a and was one of our sponsored students in secondary school. We had a wonderful meal at Ruksana's Indian Restaurant.

Trip 17 to Tanzania

 We had landing lights!  Our trip in June arrived without them and we were stuck in Arusha for a day before continuing to Dar. Trip went well, I got a lot of sleep on the plane and adjusted to the time difference quickly.  After a night at a hotel near the airport I took a larger 36 seater Auric plane to Iringa.  I arrived in Iringa at 5 PM and Kirsten, the woman that has been here since may, picked me up and we went to dinner at Sai Villa.

I have the BKB office apartment here that I think some of you may have been in.  Very comfortable and Mariam works here MWF to clean, wash dishes, and clothes.  She is very nice and I am looking forward to seeing how her English has progressed.  I didn't see her yesterday because I was out with Kirsten and Msigwa visiting parishes that are unpartnered.  We went a long ways out between the airport and Ilula.  Kirsten and Msigwa have now made visits to 47 of the unpartnered parishes.  Each gets about $1000 in scholarship support and some get a piki piki motorcycle.  The first parish was interesting because it is mixed Masai and Hehe.  They raise bees for honey and gave me a 2 liter bottle of honey which I gave to the driver who will use it or sell some.  

Last night I went to Mama Iringa's with Kirsten and two students here volunteering with St Paul Partners.  They are alumni of the UMN engineering trip two years ago and after climbing Kilimanjaro  up north they will be here until Nov 27.  I will go with them to the well dedication for their project on Oct 17 at Makungu.  http://globalblogs.cse.umn.edu/2024/01/days-7-9-our-intrepid-engineers-return.html

Today I am getting a crash course on BKB bank accounts and documentation before seeing how I fit in the Land Cruiser to drive Kirsten to the airport.  Now I am going to go pick up my vegetable box before she comes.