Mission to Tanzania 8th Letter
Hello all-
I bring you post-dinner greetings from Usa River, Arusha, Tanzania. It is a wonderful night — the sun finally broke through this afternoon and the sunset was incredible. So far, the past 12 days have been downright Seattle-like (except for the total lack of Starbucks and bad professional sports teams). 12 days in the shadow of Kilimanjaro and our only glimpse of it was from the airplane on the way in.
We are very close to finishing our projects here. We have spent the past 3 days manufacturing and installing window screens in the chapel, most of the time without power tools. More on that later. We have worked alongside 2 local craftsmen. Well, to be more accurate, we have done at half-speed what they can do at full-speed. In fact, when we go away to morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, potty break (It’s a wonder anything gets done here with all the breaks during the day), these 2 guys run around like madmen and get stuff done so we can’t screw it up when we get back!
Rolling power outages are the norm here. For instance, Makumira doesn’t have power on Tuesday or Friday (or any other day of the week when the power just gets turned off for hours upon hours at a time). And the thing that seems to trigger a power outage is when our group has needed to use a power tool.
Tomorrow we visit the Massae Girl’s Lutheran Secondary School, about 90 minutes away from here. We are taking them some school supplies and will be visiting classrooms and their chapel-time. We will also be test-subjects for their English language skills. We are excited because 2 members of our group have sponsored students at MGLSS and will be meeting them face to face for the first time. This promises to be another powerful experience.
I think I speak for the entire group when I say, "I will never take Wheat Thins or hot wings or pancakes for granted ever, ever, ever again." Our meals since we have been here have consisted of rice and\or corn meal, fish and\or meat and maybe an orange. There is actually more than that, and always great tea and coffee, but man could I go for a steak burrito supreme with guac right now!
There is so much more to say — I’ll get back to the computer tomorrow night when the power comes back on.
Kwa Heri-
Pastor Rick, for the magnificent window screeners of Tanzania