Mission to Tanzania 7th Letter
Guten Tag -
Since I am sitting at the computer of a German missionary, I felt compelled to use the language. By the way, this will be short since this crazy German keyboard configuration is driving me bonkers. And there are monkeys running up and down the roof in this house, and they are having a wonderful time tonight showing off for the newcomers.
We are now safely ensconced at Makumira University College in Usa River, Arusha, Tanzania. This is the home of Tanzania’s only Lutheran theological seminary (meaning, that’s right, every Lutheran pastor in the country has passed through these hallowed halls. However, the college is expanding and now includes a law school plus a humanities department including a relatively new program in music. However, it is summer break — so there are very few students here. But we have been greeted warmly by many of the faculty who all live in faculty housing on campus.
For example, the provost (head honcho) is a graduate of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago but still seems to be an OK guy. Upon hearing his about his schooling in Chicago, I asked him the natural question — Cubs or White Sox? He did not have a preference, and in my eyes, that is very suspicious indeed. We have met a professor who was at Luther Seminary the same time I was, although we never met then. He spent four years in Minnesota and never went to a Twins games. I just don’t get it at all.
The women of our group have been given a very nice guest house to call their own for the next 5 days, including a live-in maid-cook-laundry person. The guys have an abandoned faculty house not far away, but we do not have a maid. Oh well — we have more monkey in our yard.
We will be working at the university chapel helping patch a steel roof and creating and installing window screens for each of the 26 windows in the facility. After a lot of contact with people over the past week, with many greetings and departures, it will be nice to be in one place for the remainder of our time here.
Pastor Godbless Mamkwe (you remember him) came by today after lunch to let me know that he had gotten all the paperwork for his new car. Unfortunately, he left the car itself back at his church because many of his congregantswere stopping by today to get a look at it. I was with his for about 2 hours and I think he got something like 30–40 cell phone calls from his people who were admiring his car.
Since we needed supplies, Godbless and his "posse" drove me to the SHOPRITE grocery store near the University. This was an experience because they had everything there, including, but not limited to, Red Bull, Haagen Daas and (no joke) Jose Cuervo. I bought the Red Bull and the Haagen Daas and some other things. Godbless and I were walking back to the car when I spotted an upscale-looking coffee shop — so I dragged him in. I order us lattes. He marvelled that I would pay the equivalent of $1.50 for a fancy cup of coffee. He added 4 spoonfuls of sugar to his, tried it and proclaimed it "very sweet". When he was finished, he proclaimed that it was his first ever cup of fancy coffee. I, of course, feel wonderful to have shared such an important experience with him. By the way, the name of the coffee shop was "Pigggybucks."
Off to bed now — we report to work at 8am.
The monkeys are now performed a WWF-style smackdown on the roof. I’m grabbing the video camera.
Kwaheri-
Pastor Rick Sherrill, for the other wazungu here at Makumira in Arusha, Tanzania, East Africa