Life in Tz. is all about change!

                                                                                                  October 11, 2012

   We have been here one week now....and what a week it has been.
We found out the day after we arrived that we wouldn't be team teaching the course that I had spent months preparing.  Instead, we would each be teaching---different courses. Tim teaches an Introduction to Worship course, a 3 hour class on Tuesdays.  I am teaching an Introduction to Psychology class on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 2-4 (2 preparations).  We both have the same 31 students--all of the second year seminary class. The change in assignment was quite a surprise but classes started this week and went well.
   My class is held in a small room that was completely full with only 21 students.  Ten more students are to show up next week and there will be no room for them. (Other arrangements are being looked into but no news yet.)  Not everyone has a desk. The students sit at old wooden desks from the 1950's. I have a blackboard and chalk.
  The students are very polite and attentive. They have a good sense of humor and are very tolerant of our American English.
   The students all live on campus in dorms. They only have cold water to bathe in, wash their clothes by hand in plastic tubs and often go without a meal to save money.
   We also live on campus in a house.   We now have a gardener, Santos, to cut our yard (with a hand sickle), and keep the snakes in check.  He will also be planting a vegetable garden for us since crops grow all year long.  There are 3 kinds of poisonous snakes on campus--Black Mamas, Cobras, and one other one--I pray we never see any--so far so good.
  We also have a housekeeper who started today. Because we are at the end of the dry season, it is extremely dusty. Lydia, the housekeeper,wet mops our concrete floors and wipes off the furniture daily. She will also be doing laundry by hand in 2 large plastic tubs.  All the curtains and covers on the furniture also need to be washed and hung to dry. She will also prepare chai and lunch for the 4 of us (Lydia, Santos, Tim and me). These people work very hard and they are both earning 820 Tz.s  (Tanzanian shillings)/ hour.  This amounts to 55 cents/hr.  And they are the highest paid in the area.
   We have some lizards we see ocassionally on our walls. They are our friends since they eat the mosquitoes that might carry malaria.
 There is a family of monkies that often play in our yard and at night like to run across the corrugated roof---waking us to what sounds like our roof crashing in!
  And talking of wild life---we had our first sighting of the infamous Army Ants--also known as Soldier Ants or Driver Ants. The rains are starting to come, so the ants are coming down out of the mountains. They come in long lines sometimes quite wide. They will eat whatever is in front of them. Along the outside of the line are ants standing up on their back legs opening and closing their front pinchers. If you step by them, the outside ants will crawl up your leg to your groin area--you don't even know it's there until it pinches you--which really hurts.  By that time, lots of other ants have followed the soldier ant's lead and you've got them all over pinching you. .... We're paying attention to where we walk---for lots of reasons!
  On a nicer note, it is really beautiful here--so many flowers and trees blooming, and we are at the base of Mt. Meru--the "sister" mountain to Mt. Kilimanjaro.
   Even though we've only been at Makumira a short time, I have felt many emotions---one of them is "humbled."  Since the house we are living in was vacant for 3 years, it was furnished but not really "stocked" with any daily necessities---so people have been buying used items at the market for us when they go in town 10 miles away. Plastic storage containers for food, cooking & baking utensils, towels--all of it used--just like the stuff I donate when I'm in the states to a thrift store---not in the best shape---not always really even cleaned very well---but "good enough," I'd tell myself .  Well, now I'm on the receiving end and "good enough" looks a bit different.   The small stains on the skirts (a new dress code just went into effect stating no slacks for women so I needed some skirts), or the little bit of scorching in the pan, or the lime residue inside the coffee pot, or the "hardly noticeable" crud under the lip of the plastic food container lid seem more like a "big deal" to me now,
   I am "humbled" to thing that in the States I was one of these insensitive donors whose "generous" donation ended up making more work for that very person who actually has as little spare time as me.  I'm used to "new," and "clean." Now I see what it's like to be on the receiving end.
   We've only been in Tz. one week, but one thing is for sure. When I'm back in the States, I'm going to think about the receiver the next time I donate one of my used items.  I'm going to be sure it's more than "good enough."  I'm going to have it in the condition I'd want it to be in if it were going to someone special---like my daughter or my daughters-in-law.  Then I know it really will be good enough!
   God's blessing to each of you and GO BUCKS!
         Tim & Diane