Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Halloween!
How do you celebrate Halloween when the pumpkins are not yet in season? Watermelons, of course. Three carefully selected watermelons were carved to scare the neighbors (and any other wandering daemons).
We lit the jack-o-lanterns with electric tea lights that we found at the apartment. If this apartment doesn't have it somewhere, it doesn't exist.
Then the goblins started to show up. Tobie sacrificed a pair of his u-trousers for a lizard (we call the bomb-pop because of its multiple colors). After our house, the goblins made the tour of the other apartments (at least those who understand what Halloween is all about). One of the apartments even added to the candy haul the kids made.
We plan to drive south to Lake Nyasa along the western border of Tanzania. It is supposed to be a lovely lake and many historic and native sites along the way. It is a fair long drive so we are breaking it up in two pieces and will get to the north end of the lake Thursday night and make it to the lake on Friday. I suspect that we won't be able to update the blog along the way so you will just have to wait until we return on Sunday evening.
Constructing a Science Building
Tumaini University's new Science Building sits at the top of the campus with a commanding view of the city to the west and the surrounding hills to the east. Dale and I wandered up to the building to get some pictures and see if it really was ready for occupancy. The building is 5 stories with the front of the first two done.
Construction is done one floor at a time. The concrete structure is formed with tree
Anyway that is the short tour of the campus.
The fuel crisis continues as the roads are emptier and emptier. We may have enough diesel to make it to the end of the week, but after that, who knows. I know it is getting bad when the fellow who owns the tour company (Dennis Ngede) just parked his Lexus across the street and got picked up by one of his vehicles. Pastor Ilomo wants us to visit Lake Nyasa over the weekend and says that fuel is no problem. The amount of conflicting information easily overwhelms real information and leads to great confusion.
The Computer Science department head showed up on Monday. He is scrambling around trying to figure out who will teach and where the many missing classes are to be held. I was using a classroom that has only me on the schedule for the whole week. It appears that that room may be needed by others, but I said if I move it has to be into a room that seats 40. I held my tongue and didn't ask "where were you 3 weeks ago when classes started?" I plan to go back and use that same classroom today and Thursday so we will see what happens.
Today is Halloween and we are in a quandary what to carve to scare off the evil spirits. One has to be a little careful here as witchcraft and witches are still part of some religions and still practice their trade in some of the villages. I bought a sample of candy for the 3 trick or treaters we expect tonight. We told the Stiles kids that they will have to go "house" tonight (as opposed to house-to-house) for Trick or Treat. I don't know what to dress as but I can just not show up and go as an IT faculty member.
Our prayers go out to those affected by Sandy. All of our acquaintances on the East Coast made it thru without incident.
Be prepared for some frightening pictures tomorrow.
branches holding up the next floor. Then the beams and floor are poured using concrete carried up to the top in 5 gallon buckets. They are just about ready for the top of the fifth floor.
The two large classrooms that are complete are in use.
The offices in the rear are still under construction. The rest of the campus is single story offices and classrooms. Here is one of the office corridors for the law faculty.
The fuel crisis continues as the roads are emptier and emptier. We may have enough diesel to make it to the end of the week, but after that, who knows. I know it is getting bad when the fellow who owns the tour company (Dennis Ngede) just parked his Lexus across the street and got picked up by one of his vehicles. Pastor Ilomo wants us to visit Lake Nyasa over the weekend and says that fuel is no problem. The amount of conflicting information easily overwhelms real information and leads to great confusion.
The Computer Science department head showed up on Monday. He is scrambling around trying to figure out who will teach and where the many missing classes are to be held. I was using a classroom that has only me on the schedule for the whole week. It appears that that room may be needed by others, but I said if I move it has to be into a room that seats 40. I held my tongue and didn't ask "where were you 3 weeks ago when classes started?" I plan to go back and use that same classroom today and Thursday so we will see what happens.
Today is Halloween and we are in a quandary what to carve to scare off the evil spirits. One has to be a little careful here as witchcraft and witches are still part of some religions and still practice their trade in some of the villages. I bought a sample of candy for the 3 trick or treaters we expect tonight. We told the Stiles kids that they will have to go "house" tonight (as opposed to house-to-house) for Trick or Treat. I don't know what to dress as but I can just not show up and go as an IT faculty member.
Our prayers go out to those affected by Sandy. All of our acquaintances on the East Coast made it thru without incident.
Be prepared for some frightening pictures tomorrow.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Again, you cannot make this stuff up.
Today's interesting experience was an inspection of my new office. It is office 10 in the new science building and we were supposed to move into the offices today. I went up to the building and the guard gave me a hard hat (he didn'w wear one). We slogged up thru the construction to the second floor in the back (not accessible from the front of the building). There were two floors of very nice offices, none of which were labelled nor complete. The guard said that it would be at least a few more days before we would be able to move in. This building is well off the campus and one of the students said that the only thing I can talk to up there is the forest.
After class we returned to the apartment to take the folks to market. We needed pop, juice, butter, and lots of other heavy stuff. Unfortunately, this may be one of our last trips in the Toyota. The government established a program last year to buy fuel for the country so that they could keep track of how much tax they should collect from the distributors. Unfortunately, they signed contracts for fuel at prices the providers no longer are honoring. The other problem is that they have only one shipping port to import fuel. The result is that the fuel has run out in Iringa. They have one station open that will sell you one gallon at a time. Here is a partial view of the line of cars and folks at the station.
So now as far as I can tell, the semester is underway and classes won't be interrupted by convocations and high mucky-mucks, but with no gas or diesel the faculty and students won't be able to make it to the school. We still have 1/4 tank and will probably make it thru the week. I guess if we run out we will just push the Toyota over to the side of the road and turn it into a stand to sell cashews. (Which by the way, are really good here.).
That is the news for now. More later.
After class we returned to the apartment to take the folks to market. We needed pop, juice, butter, and lots of other heavy stuff. Unfortunately, this may be one of our last trips in the Toyota. The government established a program last year to buy fuel for the country so that they could keep track of how much tax they should collect from the distributors. Unfortunately, they signed contracts for fuel at prices the providers no longer are honoring. The other problem is that they have only one shipping port to import fuel. The result is that the fuel has run out in Iringa. They have one station open that will sell you one gallon at a time. Here is a partial view of the line of cars and folks at the station.
That is the news for now. More later.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Church at Tumaini University
Today was Dale's turn to preach at the University. Dale, Caleb and I went up for the first service at 7:30 AM. It was packed. A choir and a praise band played and we tried to lead the hymns in English. Great fun and it is good to see so many participating in the service at school. Here is a picture of Dale during the sermon. Notice the bright cross over his head. There is no cross there but a post and a florescent light. And do you want to know the real creepy thing about this picture? OK, I will tell you anyway. The picture is number 1666 on my camera. Wooo! Haunted.
After church in the quad among the buildings, the photographer had lain out all of the photos of those who graduated yesterday. The graduates were buying their pictures and pictures of their friends. It is a neat gathering of the graduates after all of the pomp (and the rain shortened celebration) of yesterday.
Today was a day of rest. I was able to read and get on the ham radio. Sharon was able to sew, read and Skype with the Wollin family. That really raises her spirits. We are ready for another week of class and adventures. I don't think there are any holidays or convocations this week, but who knows? I am supposed to move up to my office in the (partially completed) Science Building. This morning Caleb and I walked up there and noticed the solid corrugated fence around the building. I hope there will be some obvious way past the fence when they move us into that building.
Dale took Caleb and Tobie up to the International School for the Sunday afternoon soccer games. Kids of all ages and places joined in a loosely organized game. They have a nice soccer field and basketball court up there, so that will be a good way to spend the Sunday afternoons.
Today was a day of rest. I was able to read and get on the ham radio. Sharon was able to sew, read and Skype with the Wollin family. That really raises her spirits. We are ready for another week of class and adventures. I don't think there are any holidays or convocations this week, but who knows? I am supposed to move up to my office in the (partially completed) Science Building. This morning Caleb and I walked up there and noticed the solid corrugated fence around the building. I hope there will be some obvious way past the fence when they move us into that building.
Dale took Caleb and Tobie up to the International School for the Sunday afternoon soccer games. Kids of all ages and places joined in a loosely organized game. They have a nice soccer field and basketball court up there, so that will be a good way to spend the Sunday afternoons.
Compassionate Rain
Today was a day of compassion. We headed off to Kihesa church to see one of the programs the church operates for the local children. Compassion International is one of the "sponsor a child" organizations one encounters at spiritual concerts, conventions, and such. Since 1952 when Compassion began in Korea, they have supported over 12 million children. Kihesa Lutheran Church operates a compassion center for 272 children. They provide activities, schooling, health screening and connection to other social services for children whose lives need support. Saturday is compassion day and these children gather at the church from 10 to 5. We were invited up to see the how this all came together.
As we arrived, guess what? The first real rain of the season started. We found the kids gathered under the eaves to stay dry at the time they should have been out playing and running after a morning of instruction. We found Shem, the church's youth leader and Sabera, the C ompassion social worker and talked in Shem's office. He provides education for all ages at the church (Sunday school, Confirmation, Adult Ed, ...) as well as help coordinate the Compassion Kids activites (nearly every day after school and all day on Saturday).
We then walked up the hill to Sabera's office. Here she and her staff maintain files on all the kids supported by Compassion. Carrie and Dale had heard much about Compassion Children and we got a complete run-down on the program. Here Sabera and Carrie are looking over the typical records kept on each child. In the background, you can see some of the children's files.
Shem, Dale and Caleb admiring the Tanzanian flag and the new bracelet Caleb made with the same colors.
It rained for about an hour and the whole world changed. The roads were gullied, the dust settled, it cooled off considerably and some of the flowers fell off the trees from the pounding rain. In addition, the flying ants are driven out of their nests on the ground. Tobie and Caleb tried to catch some of these slow moving winged things as the rain clouds lifted.
At the end of the day, Compassion kids lined up for a meal. We will try to return on a day when we can all get outside with the kids and burn off some energy.
As we arrived, guess what? The first real rain of the season started. We found the kids gathered under the eaves to stay dry at the time they should have been out playing and running after a morning of instruction. We found Shem, the church's youth leader and Sabera, the C ompassion social worker and talked in Shem's office. He provides education for all ages at the church (Sunday school, Confirmation, Adult Ed, ...) as well as help coordinate the Compassion Kids activites (nearly every day after school and all day on Saturday).
We then walked up the hill to Sabera's office. Here she and her staff maintain files on all the kids supported by Compassion. Carrie and Dale had heard much about Compassion Children and we got a complete run-down on the program. Here Sabera and Carrie are looking over the typical records kept on each child. In the background, you can see some of the children's files.
At the end of the day, Compassion kids lined up for a meal. We will try to return on a day when we can all get outside with the kids and burn off some energy.
Friday, October 26, 2012
What does this generate?
Just thought that you might want to see what sort of generators you can buy at the Iringa market. Would Harry Potter buy one of these? You may have to click on the picture to blow it up to read the label on the right.
We are reading by dork light (LED headlamp) as the power went out about 30 minutes ago. We were suspicious that something was going on as some of the lights in the house started to dim a bit ago.
Dale and I went to the University today for class only to find that the Convocation pre-empted class. The administration and students were in the multipurpose room having a question and answer session this morning when they were supposed to be welcoming the Provost and having a state-of-the-university address. Since it was all in Swahili, we bowed out and came home about 11 AM. Unfortunately, this is the end of the 3rd week of class and we have seen our students for fewer than 3 hours of class. I hope that the students were asking: "Where the heck are the faculty?"
We did figure out the electrical meter system. The meter is a very fancy box with a keypad and flashing LED's and flashing numbers. One of the numbers it flashes is the number of kilowatt-hours you have left on the meter. The other is a mystery and as far as we can tell it is the number of years we will have to live to see the Vikings win the SuperBowl. Or maybe the number of NHL players that will be left once the strike is over. Anyway, as the number of KW-HR left draws down, we have to take cash to a little store up on the main drag. They take the cash and scan in a VIP card and give us a receipt with a code number. That number entered into the keypad gives you more electricity. How simple is that?
Still no rain but both Friday and Saturday were forecast for 50% chance of rain. Since the Italians are jailing their earthquake experts for failing to warn properly (didn't these morons jail folks who told us the earth is round?) we should start stringing up the meteorologists who give us false hope that the rains may come. Anyway, as you can tell I am a little steamed by the Italians. I may never eat spaghetti again!. We are still hoping for rain, but I am sure that when it starts, we will regret it.
Still no electricity, so I better publish this blog before the PC dies. It is quite incredible that I am sitting here updating a blog, downloading podcasts and checking e-mail from Minnesota while the rest of the neighborhood lights candles.
Dale and I went to the University today for class only to find that the Convocation pre-empted class. The administration and students were in the multipurpose room having a question and answer session this morning when they were supposed to be welcoming the Provost and having a state-of-the-university address. Since it was all in Swahili, we bowed out and came home about 11 AM. Unfortunately, this is the end of the 3rd week of class and we have seen our students for fewer than 3 hours of class. I hope that the students were asking: "Where the heck are the faculty?"
We did figure out the electrical meter system. The meter is a very fancy box with a keypad and flashing LED's and flashing numbers. One of the numbers it flashes is the number of kilowatt-hours you have left on the meter. The other is a mystery and as far as we can tell it is the number of years we will have to live to see the Vikings win the SuperBowl. Or maybe the number of NHL players that will be left once the strike is over. Anyway, as the number of KW-HR left draws down, we have to take cash to a little store up on the main drag. They take the cash and scan in a VIP card and give us a receipt with a code number. That number entered into the keypad gives you more electricity. How simple is that?
Still no rain but both Friday and Saturday were forecast for 50% chance of rain. Since the Italians are jailing their earthquake experts for failing to warn properly (didn't these morons jail folks who told us the earth is round?) we should start stringing up the meteorologists who give us false hope that the rains may come. Anyway, as you can tell I am a little steamed by the Italians. I may never eat spaghetti again!. We are still hoping for rain, but I am sure that when it starts, we will regret it.
Still no electricity, so I better publish this blog before the PC dies. It is quite incredible that I am sitting here updating a blog, downloading podcasts and checking e-mail from Minnesota while the rest of the neighborhood lights candles.
New office!
More surprises today. On my desk this morning was a list of new offices for Technology and Education Faculty. The offices were listed 1 thru 12 with two faculty in each room except for the Dean of the Division and the Assistant Dean. Hmmm! The building presently housing the IT faculty has about 7 offices with one labeled 2 and another labeled 5.(There are no signs on the other doors). This is the present "Science Park" building where I had an office until today.
Clearly this was not the building with 12 offices. I asked one of my office mates and he took me outside and pointed up the hill toward the Theology and Law office wings. (I find it interesting that the religion and law professors are separated by a moat.) Looking up there he said: "see the building with the people". Yes, there were groups of people along the nearby office buildings. But no, he meant the building with the people on top. The workers working on the 4th and 5th floors of the new Science Building. My office is #10 Science. I will have to find it on Friday.
My 2nd year students wanted help with computer networking today, so I opened the "Thin Client Lab". The door on the lab has a high security lock and is clearly meant to keep these PC's from escaping.
The class gathered and I gave most of my introductory networking talk in the two hours they had until their next class. The classroom is small but it is very easy to engage them when they cannot hide in the back. They all want to learn and this may have started an informal class that will have to continue through the semester.
The weather has been blustery (for Iringa) with lots of wind blowing the dust around. Some of the evenings have been hazy as if the monsoon moisture is getting inland this far. So far we have had a number of days with rain forecast, but no rain. As for shopping and food, Carrie and Sharon had a new adventure to the "cooking school" today. Apparently, this school teaches classes of all age groups and also cooks up bread and pastries and such for sale. We tried to find the school last week but it is hidden behind a nursery school and wasn't obvious. They found it today and bought some pastries.
My 2nd year students wanted help with computer networking today, so I opened the "Thin Client Lab". The door on the lab has a high security lock and is clearly meant to keep these PC's from escaping.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
The Send Off
I know this sounds like a Nicholas Sparks' title, but it was a mystery to us as well. Dale got a text from Pastor Coco inviting us to a "send off" for his daughter-in-law on Wednesday at 3 PM at Kihesa Church. Dale, Carrie and I bounced up the road to the church to find two inhabitants. The church was open and ready for something but except for a woman sitting outside and someone in the office -- nobody. About 20 minutes later the Kihesa pastor drove up in his motorcycle and retired to his office. A few minutes after that, the wedding party arrived. Most of the cars dressed like this:
Followed by the mobile DJ.
The group processed into to church and the bride and her maid of honor sat at the front of the church. This was a send off of the bride to be wed two days later. The bride is one of the children that Pastor Coco and his wife were guardians of after she lost her parents. Here is Pastor Coco, the maid of honor, the bride to be, the groom to be and the best man as the proud father presents them to the congregation.
This was a joyous celebration with singing, dancing, a choir and a lengthy sermon about the faithfulness of Rebecca and the importance of the family. After the ceremony, the whole family posed for a picture on the steps of the church.
What came to mind from the above picture was the Sesame Street song: "One of these things is not like the other; One of these things isn't the same!" From here the wedding party, in decorated cars and the DJ blasting, ,toured the town. We said our thanks and proceeded home for dinner. Some day we will tell you of the moral dilemma of the Mountain Dew, Fanta Orange and the water bottle. But for now that is the story of the "send off".
One one more note. We did find a young man who had helped us during our 2007 trip. Shem was our host at the Kihesa Life Skills Center and we were able to say hello after many years. Behind Shem in the picture is the completed center that includes a fellowship room, sleeping rooms, a small kitchen and a few meeting rooms.
I wish I could put up more pictures, but our Internet connection is essentially "dial up" speed from the apartment. At the University, things are a bit better, but the power there goes out every couple of hours and it takes 10 minutes or so for the Internet to recover after a power outage.
One one more note. We did find a young man who had helped us during our 2007 trip. Shem was our host at the Kihesa Life Skills Center and we were able to say hello after many years. Behind Shem in the picture is the completed center that includes a fellowship room, sleeping rooms, a small kitchen and a few meeting rooms.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Taking in boarders for the evening
A fairly uneventful day. Dale and I went to Tumaini to teach. The kids and Carrie to the "zoo". You will have to read Annica's blog on the zoo over on Stiles Sabbatical Blog. All I can say is that Annica has a story behind her cool sunglasses that few people can claim.
My faith in the University was reborn when I discovered my second year students diligently working on their Discrete Math homework and having a class meeting. The cohort of 2nd and 3rd year students meet often to iron out questions and insure that they all understand the courses (and the professors, I suspect). I was able to tell the 2nd years that I would be on campus all day on Thursday to give them whatever help they needed in Problem Set 1.
One of the problems is to put into math terms the following challenge: You have 12 coins of which 11 are identical and 1 is a counterfeit. The counterfeit weighs less than the others. With a balance scale (the one that justice is holding in her hand on currencies, etc) and three weighings, determine which is the bogus coin. Here is a hint: the second weighing is the tricky one.
OK so I met with my Bachelors Thesis group and the numbers have swelled to at least 40 in a tiny little lab (I will get pictures soon). We discussed a host of problems that are caused by, could be solved by or might be solved by Information Technology. I told them there would be a prize for the best idea and the funniest idea. One student talked about access to on-line government, health care and services -- he won the Snickers. Another student suggested using the computer to keep track of his dates with girls. He won the Mars bar. The produced many good ideas (some of which amazed me, like traffic reporting -- in Iringa?) and I am going over their suggestions now. Their next task will be to take three of their suggestions and flush out the idea with a paragraph or two describing the problem.
Dinner and a game of Jinga was uneventful and very satisfying. When the Stiles went back to their apartment, the power was off. They had run out of kilowatt-hours on their meter. So back they trekked with their head-lights a blazing to watch a movie and work on e-mails here. Good thing we have two apartments so that we can use one as a lifeboat when the other sinks. Someone will have to go to the power company on Wednesday and deposit more money for the meter. We will have to learn how to read the meter and determine when the power will be going out!
Just about ready to turn in, but we have an interesting meteorological phenomenon here this evening (OK it took me a couple tries to get those words spelled correctly). We have a mass of warm air over the top of us and the smoke and haze from the wind is staying close to the ground. This is a classic inversion where the air near the ground cannot mix with the air above. The visibility is under 2 miles (guessing from the hills we can no longer see) and the air smells of smoke. Smoke is generated from many cooking fires around the city. Once the wind let up (about 10 PM) the smoke just sort of hangs over us. Forecast is for 40% chance of thundershowers for Thursday and Friday. We still have had only one rain shower since arriving on September 18.
Time for my beauty sleep so enjoy Tuesday (we already have and it was fun). Good night.
My faith in the University was reborn when I discovered my second year students diligently working on their Discrete Math homework and having a class meeting. The cohort of 2nd and 3rd year students meet often to iron out questions and insure that they all understand the courses (and the professors, I suspect). I was able to tell the 2nd years that I would be on campus all day on Thursday to give them whatever help they needed in Problem Set 1.
One of the problems is to put into math terms the following challenge: You have 12 coins of which 11 are identical and 1 is a counterfeit. The counterfeit weighs less than the others. With a balance scale (the one that justice is holding in her hand on currencies, etc) and three weighings, determine which is the bogus coin. Here is a hint: the second weighing is the tricky one.
OK so I met with my Bachelors Thesis group and the numbers have swelled to at least 40 in a tiny little lab (I will get pictures soon). We discussed a host of problems that are caused by, could be solved by or might be solved by Information Technology. I told them there would be a prize for the best idea and the funniest idea. One student talked about access to on-line government, health care and services -- he won the Snickers. Another student suggested using the computer to keep track of his dates with girls. He won the Mars bar. The produced many good ideas (some of which amazed me, like traffic reporting -- in Iringa?) and I am going over their suggestions now. Their next task will be to take three of their suggestions and flush out the idea with a paragraph or two describing the problem.
Dinner and a game of Jinga was uneventful and very satisfying. When the Stiles went back to their apartment, the power was off. They had run out of kilowatt-hours on their meter. So back they trekked with their head-lights a blazing to watch a movie and work on e-mails here. Good thing we have two apartments so that we can use one as a lifeboat when the other sinks. Someone will have to go to the power company on Wednesday and deposit more money for the meter. We will have to learn how to read the meter and determine when the power will be going out!
Just about ready to turn in, but we have an interesting meteorological phenomenon here this evening (OK it took me a couple tries to get those words spelled correctly). We have a mass of warm air over the top of us and the smoke and haze from the wind is staying close to the ground. This is a classic inversion where the air near the ground cannot mix with the air above. The visibility is under 2 miles (guessing from the hills we can no longer see) and the air smells of smoke. Smoke is generated from many cooking fires around the city. Once the wind let up (about 10 PM) the smoke just sort of hangs over us. Forecast is for 40% chance of thundershowers for Thursday and Friday. We still have had only one rain shower since arriving on September 18.
Time for my beauty sleep so enjoy Tuesday (we already have and it was fun). Good night.
Tuesday and where is your faculties?
Well I learned that one of the "staff development" benefits of teaching at the university is a sabbatical to take advanced courses toward a Ph.D. That is why 2 of the IT faculty left yesterday. We have 7 courses with no instructors and I am sort of afraid to go back into work for fear of getting "volunteered" into more courses. We are three weeks into the semester and our department chairman still hasn't shown up for work. He has been coming from Uganda "tomorrow" for the past two weeks. How do I get a job like this?
Met Professor Seth yesterday. He is a 1971 grad of Luther College and teaches African History here at Tumaini. He did graduate work at the University of Minnesota and knows Augsburg and the Twin Cities well.
One of the really cool things about the University is that everyone stops and says "hello, how are you?" as you walk around campus. I must admit that we are meeting the most interesting folks just being there. The students all say "hello" and shake your hand just passing by. One cannot help but feel welcome. I am afraid that if I were Dean, my welcome would run out when I got the faculty all in one room and read them the riot act to get here and start teaching! Not my place, I guess. TIA.
I will expand this entry later in the day when I return. I have the Bachelor's Thesis class today. They are supposed to bring in ideas of IT problems they will attempt to solve and write a thesis for graduation. We will see.
The night was especially cool and believe it or not -- no dogs barking right under our window. It was a pleasant experience.
Met Professor Seth yesterday. He is a 1971 grad of Luther College and teaches African History here at Tumaini. He did graduate work at the University of Minnesota and knows Augsburg and the Twin Cities well.
One of the really cool things about the University is that everyone stops and says "hello, how are you?" as you walk around campus. I must admit that we are meeting the most interesting folks just being there. The students all say "hello" and shake your hand just passing by. One cannot help but feel welcome. I am afraid that if I were Dean, my welcome would run out when I got the faculty all in one room and read them the riot act to get here and start teaching! Not my place, I guess. TIA.
I will expand this entry later in the day when I return. I have the Bachelor's Thesis class today. They are supposed to bring in ideas of IT problems they will attempt to solve and write a thesis for graduation. We will see.
The night was especially cool and believe it or not -- no dogs barking right under our window. It was a pleasant experience.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Bulletin! -- You cannot make this stuff up!
But he also said that Mr Wanga and Mr Lusekelo (IT instructors) had received scholarships and were leaving. They were the department head and assistant department head (at least I think!). This leaves the 4 of us in the "adjunct" office with no leader. I have no idea how they are going to teach the courses as Wanga and Lusekelo both are listed on many of the courses as instructors.
That is the breaking news. If I figure out what is going on, I will add some more. I wanted to end with a picture of the campus. The moats and walls you see in the foreground are drainage ditches for the rainy season. All of the buildings are surrounded by these ditches to keep the water from coming in the classrooms.
Sunday Church and Party
Sunday service for Dale was off north of town and a little far for him to return to get us between services. Thus the Stiles (-Dale) and Petits headed to the little Anglican church near the Neema Craft Center about 3 blocks from the apartment. This is a service held in English on the 1st and 3rd Sunday by the Iringa Christian Fellowship -- a non-denominational group of folks from all over. The crowd included teachers from Australia, water engineers from the U.K., missionaries from Japan, visitors from the U.S. and Finns teaching at Tumaini. I saw the Finns at the University but never was able to corner them to say hello. There were enough children to even have two classes of Sunday School during the sermon. It was a pleasant break from 120 db church services and my ears don't ring all night on Sunday.
After the service, the group has tea and cakes (cookies to you) and fellowship hour. We finally got to meet many of the folks we had seen walking around town. We headed back to the apartment to prepare to host dinner for Pastor Ilomo and his wife and son. Pastor Ilomo taught at Luther Seminar last year and came to Fish Lake Lutheran Church one weekend during his stay. We wanted to try our hand at an African Dinner so Carrie and Sharon and Annica cooked up rice, cabbage salad, beans, papaya crisp and pizza. Wait! Who put pizza on the menu? The party went well and we made arrangements with Pastor Ilomo to visit a lake in southern Tanzania in a couple of weeks.
An interesting part of the evening was a discussion of the various tribes of Tanzania. Many of the present generation still identify with the tribes of their parents but most marriages are mixed tribes. With the mobility of the population and especially students going off to school far from home, this country is integrating the tribes. There are still many dialects and languages spoken in the villages, but most of the population speaks the language of their father, the language of their mother and Swahili (the common language of Eastern Africa).
Monday is back to school. Still no rain and we were promised at least 3 days of rain in October.
After the service, the group has tea and cakes (cookies to you) and fellowship hour. We finally got to meet many of the folks we had seen walking around town. We headed back to the apartment to prepare to host dinner for Pastor Ilomo and his wife and son. Pastor Ilomo taught at Luther Seminar last year and came to Fish Lake Lutheran Church one weekend during his stay. We wanted to try our hand at an African Dinner so Carrie and Sharon and Annica cooked up rice, cabbage salad, beans, papaya crisp and pizza. Wait! Who put pizza on the menu? The party went well and we made arrangements with Pastor Ilomo to visit a lake in southern Tanzania in a couple of weeks.
An interesting part of the evening was a discussion of the various tribes of Tanzania. Many of the present generation still identify with the tribes of their parents but most marriages are mixed tribes. With the mobility of the population and especially students going off to school far from home, this country is integrating the tribes. There are still many dialects and languages spoken in the villages, but most of the population speaks the language of their father, the language of their mother and Swahili (the common language of Eastern Africa).
Monday is back to school. Still no rain and we were promised at least 3 days of rain in October.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Saturday rest and repair
Today was down time again. I fixed the toilet in the master bedroom. It too was clogged with rubber parts and would overflow. In addition, it filled beyond the overflow even when the valve completely closed. I did the "bend the float arm" trick and it works like a charm and all of the joints are tight.
Today was Jamboree on the Air for Boy Scouts and I was able to contact the Scout headquarters in Indonesia and Switzerland and send messages to the boys gathered there. Saturday is an active day for ham radio and I added China and a few other countries to my list. Ham radio is a nice sedate hobby to keep me out of the midday sun. I took a couple of breaks to help Sharon pack our first bag for home. The Triplets are leaving Sunday and will deliver one of our bags to the Minneapolis Church Office which is about 2 blocks from our condo.
The Stiles went off to a farm that has an afternoon of games and stuff and then to the "Riverside" where a restaurant has a buffet. Sharon and I had some more straightening and cleaning to do as we will host Pastor Ilomo on Sunday. He visited us at Fish Lake last year and some of our group had dinner with him a couple of weeks ago.
Just one more note. You must have a proof of insurance sticker on your car and the stickers are placed in the windshield in front of the driver. I guess if you can't see out the window, you really need insurance.
Off to a new church on Sunday for two more fun services. Good night
Today was Jamboree on the Air for Boy Scouts and I was able to contact the Scout headquarters in Indonesia and Switzerland and send messages to the boys gathered there. Saturday is an active day for ham radio and I added China and a few other countries to my list. Ham radio is a nice sedate hobby to keep me out of the midday sun. I took a couple of breaks to help Sharon pack our first bag for home. The Triplets are leaving Sunday and will deliver one of our bags to the Minneapolis Church Office which is about 2 blocks from our condo.
The Stiles went off to a farm that has an afternoon of games and stuff and then to the "Riverside" where a restaurant has a buffet. Sharon and I had some more straightening and cleaning to do as we will host Pastor Ilomo on Sunday. He visited us at Fish Lake last year and some of our group had dinner with him a couple of weeks ago.
Just one more note. You must have a proof of insurance sticker on your car and the stickers are placed in the windshield in front of the driver. I guess if you can't see out the window, you really need insurance.
Off to a new church on Sunday for two more fun services. Good night
Friday, October 19, 2012
Students and going to market
Friday is my 8 AM class in Discreet (sic) Structures. Here is a picture of the classroom at 8:05 AM.
Here is my desk and single chalk board at the front of the room (teacher provides chalk and eraser)
And here is the outlet at the front of the room for my computer. I guess they forgot the socket and will let the faculty member just wrap the wires around the computer plug.
A few minutes later, Francis, my Class Representative, poked his head in and said "class is here?". I said yes and he scurried off to get the rest of the students. They showed up a few minutes later and we made it thru logic, propositions and predicates. I was proud of myself until I tried to explain Satisfiability! I put a complex logical expression on the board and asked them how to get all the variables needed to make the expression true. Blank stares! I quickly erased that and make a simple expression P and not Q and asked how to satisfy that. By brute force I found that P = True and Q = False satisfies that expression. They did well answering my questions and giving examples of P implies Q and P if and only if Q. The two hours went quickly and I gave them the assignment to do the MIT assignment 1 by next Friday.
After class, I found Dale in the Multipurpose room listening to the Provost lecture the first year students on how to be a good student. We snuck out of that and went to Dale's office. The discovery there was one of the vehicles from "Cars".
I have no idea what that is and there is a reward if you can figure it out.
Once back at the apartment we went on a "mission" (refraining from calling it a "Mission from God" for obvious reasons, Dale was driving) to find the beer store. We went to Mama Eda's and did some basic shopping (she remembers -- or makes up -- the prices for all the items in her little store). We had been to the beer store a couple weeks ago, but forgot the location. Everyone said it was by the bus depot. There are three depots within a few blocks of each other so this made the search a challenge. Caleb and I started down the street to the bus depot and found a pop store whose owner lead us to the beer store. I will take a picture of the place but again it is about the size of a large closet and stacked high with empty and full cases of pop and beer. We got a 24 bottle case for 28,000 shillings after we gave Dale directions to the store via phone. He found it and we put the new case of beer in the car and sent him home with our spoils. Caleb and I headed across the main highway to the farmer's market to help bring Carrie and Sharon's shopping home. Here are some pictures of Carrie getting tomatoes and peppers.
Rice and beans are piled in these clearly conditionally unstable pyramids of product. Every once in a while one of the piles (today it was cabbage) becomes unstable and tumbles to the floor. I have no idea how you keep these piles in that shape.
We finished our shopping and headed home. There are actually clouds in the sky and it looks like it may rain. The forecast is for 40% rain today, but Sharon says those meteorologists don't have a clue what the weather will be doing. See what I have to live with? Thanks for reading. Saturday, I have to get more pictures of the market and some of the interesting things that they sell.
After class, I found Dale in the Multipurpose room listening to the Provost lecture the first year students on how to be a good student. We snuck out of that and went to Dale's office. The discovery there was one of the vehicles from "Cars".
Once back at the apartment we went on a "mission" (refraining from calling it a "Mission from God" for obvious reasons, Dale was driving) to find the beer store. We went to Mama Eda's and did some basic shopping (she remembers -- or makes up -- the prices for all the items in her little store). We had been to the beer store a couple weeks ago, but forgot the location. Everyone said it was by the bus depot. There are three depots within a few blocks of each other so this made the search a challenge. Caleb and I started down the street to the bus depot and found a pop store whose owner lead us to the beer store. I will take a picture of the place but again it is about the size of a large closet and stacked high with empty and full cases of pop and beer. We got a 24 bottle case for 28,000 shillings after we gave Dale directions to the store via phone. He found it and we put the new case of beer in the car and sent him home with our spoils. Caleb and I headed across the main highway to the farmer's market to help bring Carrie and Sharon's shopping home. Here are some pictures of Carrie getting tomatoes and peppers.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Leaping Technology
Just a short note for today. We had the day off from school, so I stayed home and worked on a few more projects around the apartment. I patched a couple more screens (duct tape only sticks so long). I tightened some door handles and Sharon worked on sewing projects.
This is a picture taken out our kitchen window of the woman in the house behind the apartment. She starts a wood fire in the morning for cooking and then calls her friends on her cell phone while waiting for the water to heat. I see a little contrast here.
There is a 20% chance of rain on Friday. This will be our first rain since September 29th and perhaps the beginning of the "green" season. Once it starts to rain, I will take some pictures of the rain gutters all over town and you will see why they have these moats on both sides of the road that you have to leap over to get to the sidewalk.
This is a picture taken out our kitchen window of the woman in the house behind the apartment. She starts a wood fire in the morning for cooking and then calls her friends on her cell phone while waiting for the water to heat. I see a little contrast here.
There is a 20% chance of rain on Friday. This will be our first rain since September 29th and perhaps the beginning of the "green" season. Once it starts to rain, I will take some pictures of the rain gutters all over town and you will see why they have these moats on both sides of the road that you have to leap over to get to the sidewalk.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Where is my shadow?
I am starting this blog early because Tuesday's got too long. Just for fun I looked up the sun's position in the sky from here in Tanzania. We are one month past the equinox (Sept 21) and the sun is now south of the equator.. In fact, it is directly overhead (like straight up - dude) at 12:06 PM here in Iringa. I took some pictures of shadows just for fun.
My shadow.
Shadow of a bush at Tumaini
Thus, only one part of your body gets sun burned at noon. And this really only affects certain of the males who are follicle challenged! The highest the sun gets in the sky in Minnesota is about 68 degrees (our latitude 45 plus the 23 degrees the sun is north of equator at Summer Solstice (June 21). The lowest the sun is at noon in Minnesota is 22 degrees (our latitude minus the 23 degrees the sun is south of the equator at Winter Solstice (Dec 22). You now have an interesting view of shadows. Next time you watch "Lion King", see if they have the shadows correct!
I got up to write the blog on Wednesday morning early because the barking dogs, car alarms, and call to prayer all start about 5 AM. Since the sun sets at 6:30 it is easy to go to sleep early and the neighbors don't really want to let us sleep so long. That is so considerate of them to save us from having to wait for the alarm clock. My Internet worked until exactly 6 AM and then quit. I can post all of this when I get to the University, but I suspect that the Internet provider has hosed up their system to reset at 6 AM and throw legitimate users off.
Today Dale has two classes and I will work on assignments for the classes and try to figure out why my "Bachelor Project" class hasn't started on their projects! There are still a significant number of mysteries at the University so we are still trying to work our way thru them. I must admit that we found the faculty cafe very nice. It has real hamburgers and hot dogs. The interesting thing is that the ketchup is really a sweet tomato sauce and in the yellow squeeze bottle and a spicy mustard like stuff is in the red squeeze bottle. Hmmmm!
In addition, Dale and I solved one of mankind's millennial challenges yesterday. These are challenges like cataloging the human DNA, solving Fermat's last problem, conquering all disease but our solution was far more significant. We saw the chicken cross the road. In the middle of traffic near Kihesa, a chicken scampered across the main highway--dodging the mini-buses, push carts and cars passing each other 3 abreast across the entire pavement. We didn't figure out why, but we suppose the chicken felt the urge to live life on the edge and cross that road. We will interview that chicken if we get a chance -- I am sure that will get us the Nobel Prize for animal behavior! But we may have to share the prize with the chicken if we ever can find it again.
This evening's treat was papaya and mango crisp. Two deserts in two nights (last night we had Greg Triplet's birthday cake). We had a surprisingly normal day. None of Dale's students showed up for class after he was guaranteed that 20 would show up. I went to the computer lab. It is called the "Thin Client Lab I" in the schedule. Believe it or not (and I am sure you won't believe this) there are no thin clients in the "Thin Client Lab I". There are a dozen PC's running windows XP professional. Two don't work at all and one cannot see the Microsoft network so you cannot log into it. In the corner is hidden an Apple Imac with the big screen. You guessed it! I pushed the power button and a small cloud of smoke came out of the back with a few appropriate sparks. At least there are some computers that students can use. Now we have to download the latest Java and see if we can get them working with a real language.
The rest of the day was spent trying to figure out how to get my computer back on the internet. I bought 3 Gigabytes of service for 25,000 TSH on September 25th and apparently that was enough to last until October 13th. I kept checking the BALANCE on my 3G card and it said 1.3G 8K Balance. Well I took the 3G modem to town and checked with the Airtel sales folks and they said you had to have some 500 TSH on the phone part of the SIM to use the Internet part. I bought 1,000 TSH worth and it worked for about an hour and stopped. So I looked at the BALANCE again and it said 1.3G 8K Balance. I thought that I had 1.3 Gigabytes left of my 3 Gigabytes that I bought last month. I decided that I really should just buy another 3 Gigabytes. So, I logged on and it offerd a whole month for 30,000 TSH (about $20). That offer was not available before and there was some confusion when we looked at their web site. Anyway I went to the little store on the corner (and I do mean little, these are just a box that holds one guy who sells cell phone time. I bought 35,000 TSH worth of scratch off cards and went back to the apartment and entered them in my Airtel account. I signed up for 30 days of Internet for 30,000 TSH and voila the Internet came back to life. I am using it now. I checked my balance and it said "Dear Customer Your Bundle Balance is: 1. 3GB : 8KB, expiry-time 2012-Oct-25 00:00 2. MONTHLY : 2012-Nov-16 18:25" what they meant was I now have two contracts #1 is a 3GB contract with 8KB left in it and it expires on October 25th. #2 is a MONTHLY contract that expires on November 16th. I kept interpreting it as 1.3 GB left. Obviously, Airtel never tested this with real customers. But, I now have internet. We also had to reinstall the MagicJack and had to get the login name and password re-entered for that. It is also working now. A lot of work to get right back to where we started.
We also made a shopping trip to find a new coffee pot for the Stiles. Theirs failed on low water. We found one at the first shop for 25,000 TSH and the same one down the street for 12,000 TSH. We have typically found wide ranges in costs for items in the many shops. We now are a little more sophisticated and will shop around or ask folks what typical costs may be. I also found 4" shower drain strainers. Apparently, even though the country is metric, some things are just not part of the metric system.
My shadow.
Shadow of a bush at Tumaini
I got up to write the blog on Wednesday morning early because the barking dogs, car alarms, and call to prayer all start about 5 AM. Since the sun sets at 6:30 it is easy to go to sleep early and the neighbors don't really want to let us sleep so long. That is so considerate of them to save us from having to wait for the alarm clock. My Internet worked until exactly 6 AM and then quit. I can post all of this when I get to the University, but I suspect that the Internet provider has hosed up their system to reset at 6 AM and throw legitimate users off.
Today Dale has two classes and I will work on assignments for the classes and try to figure out why my "Bachelor Project" class hasn't started on their projects! There are still a significant number of mysteries at the University so we are still trying to work our way thru them. I must admit that we found the faculty cafe very nice. It has real hamburgers and hot dogs. The interesting thing is that the ketchup is really a sweet tomato sauce and in the yellow squeeze bottle and a spicy mustard like stuff is in the red squeeze bottle. Hmmmm!
In addition, Dale and I solved one of mankind's millennial challenges yesterday. These are challenges like cataloging the human DNA, solving Fermat's last problem, conquering all disease but our solution was far more significant. We saw the chicken cross the road. In the middle of traffic near Kihesa, a chicken scampered across the main highway--dodging the mini-buses, push carts and cars passing each other 3 abreast across the entire pavement. We didn't figure out why, but we suppose the chicken felt the urge to live life on the edge and cross that road. We will interview that chicken if we get a chance -- I am sure that will get us the Nobel Prize for animal behavior! But we may have to share the prize with the chicken if we ever can find it again.
This evening's treat was papaya and mango crisp. Two deserts in two nights (last night we had Greg Triplet's birthday cake). We had a surprisingly normal day. None of Dale's students showed up for class after he was guaranteed that 20 would show up. I went to the computer lab. It is called the "Thin Client Lab I" in the schedule. Believe it or not (and I am sure you won't believe this) there are no thin clients in the "Thin Client Lab I". There are a dozen PC's running windows XP professional. Two don't work at all and one cannot see the Microsoft network so you cannot log into it. In the corner is hidden an Apple Imac with the big screen. You guessed it! I pushed the power button and a small cloud of smoke came out of the back with a few appropriate sparks. At least there are some computers that students can use. Now we have to download the latest Java and see if we can get them working with a real language.
The rest of the day was spent trying to figure out how to get my computer back on the internet. I bought 3 Gigabytes of service for 25,000 TSH on September 25th and apparently that was enough to last until October 13th. I kept checking the BALANCE on my 3G card and it said 1.3G 8K Balance. Well I took the 3G modem to town and checked with the Airtel sales folks and they said you had to have some 500 TSH on the phone part of the SIM to use the Internet part. I bought 1,000 TSH worth and it worked for about an hour and stopped. So I looked at the BALANCE again and it said 1.3G 8K Balance. I thought that I had 1.3 Gigabytes left of my 3 Gigabytes that I bought last month. I decided that I really should just buy another 3 Gigabytes. So, I logged on and it offerd a whole month for 30,000 TSH (about $20). That offer was not available before and there was some confusion when we looked at their web site. Anyway I went to the little store on the corner (and I do mean little, these are just a box that holds one guy who sells cell phone time. I bought 35,000 TSH worth of scratch off cards and went back to the apartment and entered them in my Airtel account. I signed up for 30 days of Internet for 30,000 TSH and voila the Internet came back to life. I am using it now. I checked my balance and it said "Dear Customer Your Bundle Balance is: 1. 3GB : 8KB, expiry-time 2012-Oct-25 00:00 2. MONTHLY : 2012-Nov-16 18:25" what they meant was I now have two contracts #1 is a 3GB contract with 8KB left in it and it expires on October 25th. #2 is a MONTHLY contract that expires on November 16th. I kept interpreting it as 1.3 GB left. Obviously, Airtel never tested this with real customers. But, I now have internet. We also had to reinstall the MagicJack and had to get the login name and password re-entered for that. It is also working now. A lot of work to get right back to where we started.
We also made a shopping trip to find a new coffee pot for the Stiles. Theirs failed on low water. We found one at the first shop for 25,000 TSH and the same one down the street for 12,000 TSH. We have typically found wide ranges in costs for items in the many shops. We now are a little more sophisticated and will shop around or ask folks what typical costs may be. I also found 4" shower drain strainers. Apparently, even though the country is metric, some things are just not part of the metric system.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Tuesday -- Good Bye, Jill!
Our prayers go out to the Gustafsons and all of you celebrating Jill this day. Thank you for your love, prayers and hard work in this time of sorrow and change.
Dale and I have class today. The students are all here and it appears that the place is running normally. It is sort of exciting to wake up and see what surprises are in store. Life in MN is gonna be very boring. Today's excitement is our weekly Maasai Milk Shake. Again, I have no idea why the guy at the counter has a Maasai uniform on but it is cool. The shop closes at 4 PM so our whole day revolves around getting to the Maasai guy before they close.
I met with my "Bachelor's Project" students this morning. Silly me, I assumed that the key to the room was close at hand and started the search at 9:30 for a 10:00 class. After a trip to the library and the IT department in the back, no key! The young woman in my office offered to get the key and showed up with it at 10:00. I waltzed into the room to find a room with computers and a projector. After putzing with the projector for 10 minutes, I got the image to come up on the screen and was able to bring up my syllabus. This course is the second year (I think) of a 2-year course to create a "senior paper". From the course description, they should have already chosen a "problem" and started to research a "solution". When I mentioned this -- no response! We talked about some problems (long lines at the Bank...) and solutions (more tellers...) but apparently no one has started their project. This is gonna be interesting. By the way, here most banks have lines of 10 or 20 to get to the teller. Quite the opposite in the U.S. where there are 3 tellers and 1 customer. Apparently the banks don't really need to compete for customers. The ATM has caught on here but most transactions are with the teller. They do have "SIM money" here. You deposit money with the phone company (it becomes associated with your SIM card in your phone). Then you can issue a text message to transfer that money to other phones or bank accounts. Cool. It is much simpler than going on line and giving 12 passwords and your cholesterol count and social security number of your first born the way we do on-line banking today.
Dale had no students in spite of the fact that these students should be first year students and have been here since last week. We found this announcement on the wall outside Dale's office. Please note that school started on October 8th!
Dale was able to arrange his office and get things ready for students. He found out that there should be 20 students in his New Testament class so he was able to get the copy machine warmed up and running. We will see how many show up on Wednesday. With Dale's spacious office he was able to spend some time counselling Elmer. Elmer misses his family and is wondering if he will ever see the farm again.
This evening we gathered at the Stiles apartment for Jill Gustafson's funeral. Thanks to Devon Mlinar for the excellent Skype coverage. I have to admit that Dale Stiles tried to keep our watching a secret, but Pastor Warner announced it because Erik Gustafson asked him to. We wanted not to make a big deal, but in the end it worked out well. We called it "Tobie cam" because we had a view from cushion of the front pew. Not the best view for seeing faces but we were able to identify most of you as you came up for communion. Thanks to all who participated and all who were part of Jill's life and the life of Fish Lake Lutheran.
This entry has become too long. We did make it for Milkshakes and more buying at the Maasai market. Right now Sharon had 3 suitcases full of stuff to bring back. (She has one suitcase.) This is an NP Complete problem (called bin packing) and if you want the computer science solution, you will have to come to my class in a couple of weeks where we discuss packing boxes into the UPS truck that fit exactly. (again you will have to ask a local geek for an explanation, but it is actually a problem we talk about in computer science.)
I met with my "Bachelor's Project" students this morning. Silly me, I assumed that the key to the room was close at hand and started the search at 9:30 for a 10:00 class. After a trip to the library and the IT department in the back, no key! The young woman in my office offered to get the key and showed up with it at 10:00. I waltzed into the room to find a room with computers and a projector. After putzing with the projector for 10 minutes, I got the image to come up on the screen and was able to bring up my syllabus. This course is the second year (I think) of a 2-year course to create a "senior paper". From the course description, they should have already chosen a "problem" and started to research a "solution". When I mentioned this -- no response! We talked about some problems (long lines at the Bank...) and solutions (more tellers...) but apparently no one has started their project. This is gonna be interesting. By the way, here most banks have lines of 10 or 20 to get to the teller. Quite the opposite in the U.S. where there are 3 tellers and 1 customer. Apparently the banks don't really need to compete for customers. The ATM has caught on here but most transactions are with the teller. They do have "SIM money" here. You deposit money with the phone company (it becomes associated with your SIM card in your phone). Then you can issue a text message to transfer that money to other phones or bank accounts. Cool. It is much simpler than going on line and giving 12 passwords and your cholesterol count and social security number of your first born the way we do on-line banking today.
Dale had no students in spite of the fact that these students should be first year students and have been here since last week. We found this announcement on the wall outside Dale's office. Please note that school started on October 8th!
This entry has become too long. We did make it for Milkshakes and more buying at the Maasai market. Right now Sharon had 3 suitcases full of stuff to bring back. (She has one suitcase.) This is an NP Complete problem (called bin packing) and if you want the computer science solution, you will have to come to my class in a couple of weeks where we discuss packing boxes into the UPS truck that fit exactly. (again you will have to ask a local geek for an explanation, but it is actually a problem we talk about in computer science.)
Students!
Maybe today! Dale and I set off to the University at 9 in anticipation of class at 10. When we arrived, most of the student body was gathered around the lecture hall of the "mulitpurpose building". Apparently, a student had died over the weekend and it is custom to close the University for a day when such a tragedy occurs. The School didn't close but they were having an open casket memorial service for the student at 1 PM in the Multipurpose building. They will take the casket later to the cemetery and have an extensive service there. We have observed a few of these cemetery services. A most interesting experience. I am not sure if I should go over there and see the memorial service or not.
Our first challenge of the day was to test the key we had made last week. After some jiggling and testing it appears to work on the common IT office. There I met an additional instructor, Mark. When I entered, most of the staff was still typing on the grade entry system on their computers. I tried Airtel again, to no avail. So in order to get on the internet, I will have to connect to the wired ethernet here on the campus. I connected, but DHCP doesn't actually work so you get to make up your own IP number (using private numbers, thank goodness) and try it. I guessed 192.168.155.107 and it let me in. Hopefully, no one else uses that number before we leave today. For those of you who don't understand what I just said contact your local network geek and tell them what I said. After a two hour explanation, I am sure you will be just as confused as when you read it for the first time. I can simplify it by saying that here we get to make up our own house address for the mailman. It doesn't have to be relative to our next door neighbor, and anyone could make up an address the same as yours.
A few minutes after arriving a gentleman handed me my teaching schedule and course descriptions for both of the courses. I have 10-11 Monday, 10-Noon Tuesday and 8-10 on Friday. It doesn't match well with Dale's courses but we will have to see how things go.
Each section of a course has a course representative (CR) and my Discrete's CR is Francis. The way things work is that I provide any handouts to the CR who is responsible for copying things for the rest of the class. He headed off to copy the syllabus and will come back to take me to the class in a few minutes. That seems like a good way to take a little of the load of the instructor. We will see how well this works.
So off to class. Supposed to be 39 students; but, if they close the school, I guess I will have to wait until Friday to see these students. Seventeen of the students showed up for the class. I introduced myself and explained that I have a hobby of driving trains (gare lamousi) and made a motion like steering a steering wheel. They laughed. I guess they understood my first joke. I asked their names and their favorite movie (mine: "The Jerk" and "This is Spinal Tap"). Most responded that they didn't have time for movies (I thought everyone liked Hollywood!). About 1/2 said they liked gospel music. Dale and I will have to sing them some songs. I think I will put some Vince Gill on my iTunes and see if they like that.
Dale had all 5 of his students in his "preaching" class so he was able to start them off on the right foot. So let me understand this. Last week, when the students were supposed to be here, no one (not even the department heads) was here. Today, when classes were supposed to be cancelled for a funeral, all the students in Dale's class were here. Really, you can't make this up!
I finally met Sanna Nevala, the Finish girl living in our apartment building. She has been here two months to work on English teaching in the primary schools and various other community programs. She is here at Tumaini to work with other community programs on problem solving -- especially when it comes to using technology. She lives with three other women who teach at the International School. The others are an American, a Canadian and one from the U.K. I invited them up to meet all of them, but they are all off to workshops in South Africa and Dar Es Salaam for the next week or so. I guess we will have to meet them when they return.
We took Sanna and another Finnish student/teacher, Kaala, to Neema Crafts where they were to discuss some options for helping each other teach and then stopped for diesel. We have a number of interesting challenges for the truck: first the gas filler cover won't open by just pulling the lever under the steering wheel; it is a two man job. One pulls on the lever while the other pulls on the cover. Then we pulled up to a pump and handed our 100,000 shillings ($60) to be then told that that pump isn't working so we have to back that beast up and pull up to the adjacent pump. In front of us on that pump is a little pickup truck that they are filling. Every once in a while the two attendants and the driver start rocking the truck back and forth and then add more fuel. I guess if you rock the truck some of the air bubbles come out and you can pump more in it! You can't make this stuff up. After the fill we headed back to the apartment for dinner and a game. The rest had been on a couple of shopping trips and had many stories to tell. Therefore, we have a new procedure. We have the numbers 1 thru 7 on little slips of paper and after grace (the prayer, not the housekeepper) we each get a number. We then can tell our stories of the day in that order. No one can jump in and tell the others' stories unless it is a clarification or expansion. This takes us at least 45 minutes to go around the table.
Our first challenge of the day was to test the key we had made last week. After some jiggling and testing it appears to work on the common IT office. There I met an additional instructor, Mark. When I entered, most of the staff was still typing on the grade entry system on their computers. I tried Airtel again, to no avail. So in order to get on the internet, I will have to connect to the wired ethernet here on the campus. I connected, but DHCP doesn't actually work so you get to make up your own IP number (using private numbers, thank goodness) and try it. I guessed 192.168.155.107 and it let me in. Hopefully, no one else uses that number before we leave today. For those of you who don't understand what I just said contact your local network geek and tell them what I said. After a two hour explanation, I am sure you will be just as confused as when you read it for the first time. I can simplify it by saying that here we get to make up our own house address for the mailman. It doesn't have to be relative to our next door neighbor, and anyone could make up an address the same as yours.
A few minutes after arriving a gentleman handed me my teaching schedule and course descriptions for both of the courses. I have 10-11 Monday, 10-Noon Tuesday and 8-10 on Friday. It doesn't match well with Dale's courses but we will have to see how things go.
Each section of a course has a course representative (CR) and my Discrete's CR is Francis. The way things work is that I provide any handouts to the CR who is responsible for copying things for the rest of the class. He headed off to copy the syllabus and will come back to take me to the class in a few minutes. That seems like a good way to take a little of the load of the instructor. We will see how well this works.
So off to class. Supposed to be 39 students; but, if they close the school, I guess I will have to wait until Friday to see these students. Seventeen of the students showed up for the class. I introduced myself and explained that I have a hobby of driving trains (gare lamousi) and made a motion like steering a steering wheel. They laughed. I guess they understood my first joke. I asked their names and their favorite movie (mine: "The Jerk" and "This is Spinal Tap"). Most responded that they didn't have time for movies (I thought everyone liked Hollywood!). About 1/2 said they liked gospel music. Dale and I will have to sing them some songs. I think I will put some Vince Gill on my iTunes and see if they like that.
Dale had all 5 of his students in his "preaching" class so he was able to start them off on the right foot. So let me understand this. Last week, when the students were supposed to be here, no one (not even the department heads) was here. Today, when classes were supposed to be cancelled for a funeral, all the students in Dale's class were here. Really, you can't make this up!
I finally met Sanna Nevala, the Finish girl living in our apartment building. She has been here two months to work on English teaching in the primary schools and various other community programs. She is here at Tumaini to work with other community programs on problem solving -- especially when it comes to using technology. She lives with three other women who teach at the International School. The others are an American, a Canadian and one from the U.K. I invited them up to meet all of them, but they are all off to workshops in South Africa and Dar Es Salaam for the next week or so. I guess we will have to meet them when they return.
We took Sanna and another Finnish student/teacher, Kaala, to Neema Crafts where they were to discuss some options for helping each other teach and then stopped for diesel. We have a number of interesting challenges for the truck: first the gas filler cover won't open by just pulling the lever under the steering wheel; it is a two man job. One pulls on the lever while the other pulls on the cover. Then we pulled up to a pump and handed our 100,000 shillings ($60) to be then told that that pump isn't working so we have to back that beast up and pull up to the adjacent pump. In front of us on that pump is a little pickup truck that they are filling. Every once in a while the two attendants and the driver start rocking the truck back and forth and then add more fuel. I guess if you rock the truck some of the air bubbles come out and you can pump more in it! You can't make this stuff up. After the fill we headed back to the apartment for dinner and a game. The rest had been on a couple of shopping trips and had many stories to tell. Therefore, we have a new procedure. We have the numbers 1 thru 7 on little slips of paper and after grace (the prayer, not the housekeepper) we each get a number. We then can tell our stories of the day in that order. No one can jump in and tell the others' stories unless it is a clarification or expansion. This takes us at least 45 minutes to go around the table.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Dinner and a Serenade
This morning's church service was at the bottom of the hill along the main highway in the town of Ipogoro. We have been there twice but neither time to a service. The church is led by Pastor Nickson (I previously misspelled it as Nixon). The first service was at 7 AM so Dale and I headed down the hill. (I knew how to get there, two rights and a left at the microwave tower).
The first service lasted from 7 to 9 so that Dale could drive back up the hill to get the rest of the bunch. Last night we were joined by Greg and Sue Triplett from the St. Paul Area Synod office. Greg handles the finances for Bega Kwa Bega from the St. Paul end and Sue works for the church that is partnered with Pastor Nickson's Ipogoro church. They had just arrived on Saturday afternoon about 4 and still have sort of the deer in the headlight look. It will be great for them to see all the places they hear and write about.
The second service lasted from 10 AM to 1 PM and included baptisms,
blessing of a hand powered bike that Pastor Nickson got for one of his handicapped parisioners,
introduction of the bunch of Minnesotans that were sitting behind the alter rail (us), and a short talk by visiting educators from Rochester, Minnesota. One is a retired health educator talking to villages about cleanliness for cooking and eating, sleeping under mosquito nets and family planning. The other, a business educator talked at the first service about educating both boys and girls and how family planning would allow for more opportunities for their children. Both these women will be up at Tumaini University for the next few days as they prepare educational material for distribution to the small villages around here. At the benediction, Pastor Nickson presented Carrie and Dale with a beautiful print. By tradition, the cloth is wrapped around the recipient during the presentation.
Following the service, we were treated again to lunch at Pastor Nickson's. Tobie played with the pastor's son and eventually all of the kids were outside playing different games with the children of the senior choir members. The choir was practicing in the sanctuary during our lunch and it was a thrill to hear those booming voices singing classical chior pieces seranading us for the entire meal. The way they practice is interesting. They sit in a large circle, sort of by section. The director and a few of the members have copies of the music and nearly everyone has copies of the words written by hand in their notebooks. The director sings thru a section, part
by part and then they practice. She stops if a section is faltering, but usually they sign it straight thru. No notes, just words -- amazing.
Following lunch, the Triplets toured the church's facilities and Pastor Nickson discussed how his church is handling its finances. Integrity of church business has become a very important issue now that these churches are growing and employing and building and serving. Each church, large or small, has a treasurer and careful records are kept for all transactions. That was not the case previously as usually pastors handled the money.
Dinner was left overs and a game of Yatzee ended the evening. I have had troubles with my Internet this afternoon and so we were unable to check on e-mails and such. I suspect that Airtel (our 3G provider) is down to 1G or maybe 0G because speeds have been very slow. I checked on my account balance and it said I have 1.3 Gigabytes of download left until the 25th of October, but I am still unable to connect. We have a different service over at the Stiles apartment, so I might try that.
The first service lasted from 7 to 9 so that Dale could drive back up the hill to get the rest of the bunch. Last night we were joined by Greg and Sue Triplett from the St. Paul Area Synod office. Greg handles the finances for Bega Kwa Bega from the St. Paul end and Sue works for the church that is partnered with Pastor Nickson's Ipogoro church. They had just arrived on Saturday afternoon about 4 and still have sort of the deer in the headlight look. It will be great for them to see all the places they hear and write about.
Following the service, we were treated again to lunch at Pastor Nickson's. Tobie played with the pastor's son and eventually all of the kids were outside playing different games with the children of the senior choir members. The choir was practicing in the sanctuary during our lunch and it was a thrill to hear those booming voices singing classical chior pieces seranading us for the entire meal. The way they practice is interesting. They sit in a large circle, sort of by section. The director and a few of the members have copies of the music and nearly everyone has copies of the words written by hand in their notebooks. The director sings thru a section, part
Following lunch, the Triplets toured the church's facilities and Pastor Nickson discussed how his church is handling its finances. Integrity of church business has become a very important issue now that these churches are growing and employing and building and serving. Each church, large or small, has a treasurer and careful records are kept for all transactions. That was not the case previously as usually pastors handled the money.
Dinner was left overs and a game of Yatzee ended the evening. I have had troubles with my Internet this afternoon and so we were unable to check on e-mails and such. I suspect that Airtel (our 3G provider) is down to 1G or maybe 0G because speeds have been very slow. I checked on my account balance and it said I have 1.3 Gigabytes of download left until the 25th of October, but I am still unable to connect. We have a different service over at the Stiles apartment, so I might try that.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Pizza Night!
A day of firsts, sort of. Caleb and I started off across town to acquire 3 things: a 12 volt power supply for my ham radio, wire to ground my ham radio and a black board eraser. We stopped at every electronics shop and hardware store from here to the edge of town. The major hardware store had a battery quick charger for 185,000 Tanzanian Shillings (about $130). I said thanks and got some wire there. Moving down the street, all of the merchants looked at my little note "12 Volt DC, 25 Ampere Nguvu ugavi (umeme), battery charger". They each said 3 doors down. But nothing! Finally we went into a computer store that sells Internet time and International Calls. They have sort of been overcome by events as you can dial international calls on our cell phones (+016123301061 and my Augsburg office phone rings!). They cost is about $2/minute, but it is easy. Texting overseas is about 10 cents per SMS message. But back to the computer store. There on the shelf was a 450 watt computer supply that has 18 amps of 12 volts for the computer. Just the ticket and it cost $28 with a cable. Unfortunately, it is for 240 VAC input so bringing it home is a waste of time. We found the rest of our goals and headed home.
By that time it was lunch time and we started to think about dinner. We got a flyer for pizza delivered and decide to try that. About that time, I sat down and hooked up the power supply to the radio. After about 10 seconds of operation, the apartment's power went out. Good, now I fried the entire Tanzanian power grid with just the one more computer it couldn't handle! Turns out we had run out of Kilowatt-hours on our meter. What you have to do is take a VIP card to the power company with a fist full of shillings. They give you a secret code to enter in the keypad on your power meter. We didn't have the card and were pretty sure the power company was closed for the weekend. So the plan for pizza was meant to be. (I guess I am not that much of a VIP to have power for a weekend!).
But again Tom Nielsen came thru and magically got our secret code to enter in the meter and by about 4 PM we had power. In the process, we moved all the computers to the Stiles apartment in anticipation of an evening of Skyping. We started some Skypes and ordered pizza. The first call was poorly understood so a little later another fellow called back and asked in English "what kind of pizza and where are you?". Dale did his best to tell him one salami and one veggie and we were across from the lutheran center. A little later we got a text with the same questions and Dale responded with the same answer.
About 6:15 we got a call that the pizza was on the way and low and behold, there was a fine fellow with pizza each on a homemade cardboard circle covered with aluminum foil. The pizza was great as we ran from room to room saying hi to the folks back home on Skype. One time we had 2 Skypes and a Shutterfly going at the same time.
It was good to see all of you and glad that Carrie's folks made it home safely. I don't know whether it helps to see all of you having such a great time at home! Even the cats and dogs got on Skype. Sharon and I Skyped with Wollins as this is Brooke and Hannah's sixth birthday and they are also having a birthday party for their father, Larry.
I now have my complete ham station up and operating. Sunday I might get some operating time after church. We are going out to Ipogoro, the church at the bottom of the hill, that Pastor Nixon has grown into a very large and active congregation. First service is at 7 so Dale has to be ready. We have one more Skype with Molly, Brad and Brinn and then we will get sleep. The weather is cooler in the morning, but it has been windy all day. The sun is directly overhead at noon. I will have to take a picture of our zero shadow time. A string held up with a weight has only the shadow of the weight on the ground. Very different from the lengthening shadows in Minnesota.
By that time it was lunch time and we started to think about dinner. We got a flyer for pizza delivered and decide to try that. About that time, I sat down and hooked up the power supply to the radio. After about 10 seconds of operation, the apartment's power went out. Good, now I fried the entire Tanzanian power grid with just the one more computer it couldn't handle! Turns out we had run out of Kilowatt-hours on our meter. What you have to do is take a VIP card to the power company with a fist full of shillings. They give you a secret code to enter in the keypad on your power meter. We didn't have the card and were pretty sure the power company was closed for the weekend. So the plan for pizza was meant to be. (I guess I am not that much of a VIP to have power for a weekend!).
But again Tom Nielsen came thru and magically got our secret code to enter in the meter and by about 4 PM we had power. In the process, we moved all the computers to the Stiles apartment in anticipation of an evening of Skyping. We started some Skypes and ordered pizza. The first call was poorly understood so a little later another fellow called back and asked in English "what kind of pizza and where are you?". Dale did his best to tell him one salami and one veggie and we were across from the lutheran center. A little later we got a text with the same questions and Dale responded with the same answer.
I now have my complete ham station up and operating. Sunday I might get some operating time after church. We are going out to Ipogoro, the church at the bottom of the hill, that Pastor Nixon has grown into a very large and active congregation. First service is at 7 so Dale has to be ready. We have one more Skype with Molly, Brad and Brinn and then we will get sleep. The weather is cooler in the morning, but it has been windy all day. The sun is directly overhead at noon. I will have to take a picture of our zero shadow time. A string held up with a weight has only the shadow of the weight on the ground. Very different from the lengthening shadows in Minnesota.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Who knew today would be today?
Started out simple enough. Caleb, Sharon, Annica and I headed out for a walk/run at about 8:30 AM. We found many nice gardens and houses just behind our apartment. Then we turn around and there is a herd of cattle headed down the street. We stepped aside and tried not to look like some alfalfa and they passed us by. A couple of blocks later the donkeys were moving in our direction so we moved across the street to the safety of on-coming cars careening well beyond sensible speeds on dirt roads. Who needs Valley Fair when we have Iringa streets.
As we headed back we encountered the Iringa Diocese of the Lutheran Church. We didn't realize it was less than a block away on the road behind the apartment. We stepped inside to be greeted by Pastor Isreal, a retired pastor who has lead many of the Bega-Kwa-Bega groups but now is just visiting the offices. He claims to be the tallest man in Tanzania but is about as tall as Annica! He took us to the offices of Radio Furaha, the Lutheran radio station here started by Paul Harris (whose apartment we are renting). I told them I have Paul's phone and apartment and would like to meet the rest of the staff when they return from the transmitter site trying to trouble shoot some difficulties.
Back at the apartment Sharon and housekeeper Grace were going at the cooking with vigor. We will blog that in a couple of days. I sat down with lunch and the knock on the door was Protus, the Radio Furaha manager. He was headed back up the hill to try to fix the transmitter. I tagged along and found the Crown PA2000 2000 watt FM amplifier overheating.
The fans were not running and some complex system of control between the power supply and amplifier was failing. I helped hold the many screws as they removed the covers and tried to look into things. After about an hour or so we decided to bring the power supply and amp back to town and the Iringa Electronics shop just on the other side of the Farmer's Market. We rattled down the "road" to bring things to the shop.
We found that the fans worked fine but something in the control circuit was failing. After much poking and trying, the amplifier was fixed. I had returned to the apartment and Protus called to say they were headed back up the hill at about dinner time. I begged off and have yet to hear the transmitter back on the air. At least the transmitter site is well guarded. Here is our guard sleeping while we work.
Dale, Annica and Tobie went walking down the same road in the afternoon and crossed a field only to sink to their knees in muck. They wandered home and washed up. We haven't figured out what that was, but will stick to the roads from now.
Saturday is Skype day for us. We will try to Skype back to the home folks as Carrie's family will be together and it is our Grand daughters's real birthday on the 13th. In addition, we found a place that will deliver pizza (with two hours' warning!) so we might try that. Next thing you know, Jimmy John's will show up before we even find they have moved into Iringa. I just hope that Jimmy is not Maasai!
As we headed back we encountered the Iringa Diocese of the Lutheran Church. We didn't realize it was less than a block away on the road behind the apartment. We stepped inside to be greeted by Pastor Isreal, a retired pastor who has lead many of the Bega-Kwa-Bega groups but now is just visiting the offices. He claims to be the tallest man in Tanzania but is about as tall as Annica! He took us to the offices of Radio Furaha, the Lutheran radio station here started by Paul Harris (whose apartment we are renting). I told them I have Paul's phone and apartment and would like to meet the rest of the staff when they return from the transmitter site trying to trouble shoot some difficulties.
Back at the apartment Sharon and housekeeper Grace were going at the cooking with vigor. We will blog that in a couple of days. I sat down with lunch and the knock on the door was Protus, the Radio Furaha manager. He was headed back up the hill to try to fix the transmitter. I tagged along and found the Crown PA2000 2000 watt FM amplifier overheating.
The fans were not running and some complex system of control between the power supply and amplifier was failing. I helped hold the many screws as they removed the covers and tried to look into things. After about an hour or so we decided to bring the power supply and amp back to town and the Iringa Electronics shop just on the other side of the Farmer's Market. We rattled down the "road" to bring things to the shop.
We found that the fans worked fine but something in the control circuit was failing. After much poking and trying, the amplifier was fixed. I had returned to the apartment and Protus called to say they were headed back up the hill at about dinner time. I begged off and have yet to hear the transmitter back on the air. At least the transmitter site is well guarded. Here is our guard sleeping while we work.
Dale, Annica and Tobie went walking down the same road in the afternoon and crossed a field only to sink to their knees in muck. They wandered home and washed up. We haven't figured out what that was, but will stick to the roads from now.
Saturday is Skype day for us. We will try to Skype back to the home folks as Carrie's family will be together and it is our Grand daughters's real birthday on the 13th. In addition, we found a place that will deliver pizza (with two hours' warning!) so we might try that. Next thing you know, Jimmy John's will show up before we even find they have moved into Iringa. I just hope that Jimmy is not Maasai!
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Electrical Death Trap with Milk Shakes
Spent the morning rewiring a power strip that had been brought here -- maybe from Europe. It had no ground pin on the plug and was wired opposite from the East African standard. It meant that the wire that was supposed to be ground on all equipment was really at 240 volts. Yikes! They also have 13 amp fuses on bedside lights. The wire will melt long before the fuse blows. I am in search of some 1 and 2 amp fuses for the lights so the fuses do what they are supposed to do.
Went to the market today and restocked on soda (pop, soft drinks, tasty sugar water, the Dentists' full employment liquid, ...) Also got a box of wine. What is a kitchen without a box of wine on the counter. Suave! Carrie, Sharon and Annica took the farmer's market by storm and we brought back pineapple, beans, carrots, peppers, and all sorts of stuff. It is great fun and the shopkeepers are very helpful now that we sort of know what to buy. Tom Nielsen took us up the hill to a house that sells eggs. I think we are mostly restocked for a while. Our housekeeper, Grace, hasn't been here since Tuesday as Wednesday was her daughter's graduation from 7th grade. We sort of blew that one because we gave Grace a card thinking it was her graduation. I think she got the point. We are running low on bread, cooked beans and completely out of banana bread. Grace will come Friday and we will scurry out to the market to get whatever she needs to restock our shelves.
The houses just outside our window are very nice but don't have indoor cooking or plumbing facilities. They cook on charcoal fires in the back yard and have little outhouses in the back yard as well. Our latest find was a beautiful Easter Lilly in the yard behind us. The flowers continue to amaze us. Without them, this would be a very dull scene.
I don't know if I mentioned the milk shakes. I had promised Toby and Annica that I would buy milkshakes for them at the Amsterdam airport on the way home. I even set aside some Euros for the purchase. But what to my wondering eyes should appear but a Maasai dressed fellow at a little bookshop/travel agent/cafe with milkshakes only a block away. Who knew that milkshakes are a traditional Maasai drink? I just smiled and ordered a vanilla (to be changed to a strawberry by consensus of the crowd because vanilla was too boring) shake. If you can't find it in Iringa, you don't need it.
Sorry, but I now realize that I had not turned on snide remarks -- I mean comments, on the blog. You are now free to add comments and questions. I would love to try to answer some of them. Praise or accolades are just fine too. If you don't ask questions, I will be forced to write run on sentences about the amazing organization of things here at the University.
Say good night, Gracie. Good night, Gracie!
Went to the market today and restocked on soda (pop, soft drinks, tasty sugar water, the Dentists' full employment liquid, ...) Also got a box of wine. What is a kitchen without a box of wine on the counter. Suave! Carrie, Sharon and Annica took the farmer's market by storm and we brought back pineapple, beans, carrots, peppers, and all sorts of stuff. It is great fun and the shopkeepers are very helpful now that we sort of know what to buy. Tom Nielsen took us up the hill to a house that sells eggs. I think we are mostly restocked for a while. Our housekeeper, Grace, hasn't been here since Tuesday as Wednesday was her daughter's graduation from 7th grade. We sort of blew that one because we gave Grace a card thinking it was her graduation. I think she got the point. We are running low on bread, cooked beans and completely out of banana bread. Grace will come Friday and we will scurry out to the market to get whatever she needs to restock our shelves.
The houses just outside our window are very nice but don't have indoor cooking or plumbing facilities. They cook on charcoal fires in the back yard and have little outhouses in the back yard as well. Our latest find was a beautiful Easter Lilly in the yard behind us. The flowers continue to amaze us. Without them, this would be a very dull scene.
I don't know if I mentioned the milk shakes. I had promised Toby and Annica that I would buy milkshakes for them at the Amsterdam airport on the way home. I even set aside some Euros for the purchase. But what to my wondering eyes should appear but a Maasai dressed fellow at a little bookshop/travel agent/cafe with milkshakes only a block away. Who knew that milkshakes are a traditional Maasai drink? I just smiled and ordered a vanilla (to be changed to a strawberry by consensus of the crowd because vanilla was too boring) shake. If you can't find it in Iringa, you don't need it.
Sorry, but I now realize that I had not turned on snide remarks -- I mean comments, on the blog. You are now free to add comments and questions. I would love to try to answer some of them. Praise or accolades are just fine too. If you don't ask questions, I will be forced to write run on sentences about the amazing organization of things here at the University.
Say good night, Gracie. Good night, Gracie!
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Day 3 -- Still no Students!
Dale and I headed off to Tumaini University at 7:45 AM in hopes of having an 8 AM class for Dale. We were ready but no students showed up. I spent the morning in the IT department and the library. I read more of the Bachelor Reports (senior projects) and took down the structure of the report so I can discuss format with the students. I also surveyed all the library books on Discreet (sic) Mathematics and Discreet Structures. I am trying to pick a middle ground for number of topics and depth of each topic. I want to cover the intended topics of the course but not so quickly that noting is learned.
I ran into one of the IT faculty and asked for the guidelines for the Bachelor Report and he said he would track one down for me. Then up came Pankaj our Napalese friend who is also teaching in IT. He suggested that I use the common office that most of the adjuncts use. It is a fairly sparse room with 4 small desks and 4 small chairs and a nest of ethernet on the floor in the middle. I don't know if I dare hook something to that!
Pankaj wanted a ride into town and we thought we could get a key made for the office at the same time. Dale was told that there wouldn't be any students until maybe Monday so we left the campus and stopped by the bank for Pankaj and then the adventure began. Pankaj speaks some Swahili so we started at the far end of the main road through town to ask for a locksmith. In Swahili a general handyman is called a Fundi. Pankaj asked for a Ufunguo eko wape? Each of the helpful merchants weren't quite sure what he was asking (even after showing them a key) but pointed down the road. Dale followed us in the truck -- dodging pushcarts and buses and trying to keep out of the eye of the parking attendant who sells 1 hour parking for 1000 shillings. As far as we can tell they only charge our white truck. All the other cars parking along the way are sitting there and the attendant walks by them.
To top this all off, neither Dale nor I have any money. We left our wallets at the apartment. Finally, we find a real locksmith with a collection of about a dozen key blanks on the back wall. He smiles, puts one of the blanks in the vice and starts to shape the key with a hacksaw, files and a micrometer (yes a real precision instrument). This takes about 30 minutes while Dale is playing dodgem cars on the main road. I also want to remind you that the roads are almost 2 lanes wide with a 3' deep and 3' wide ditch on either side for the rainy season. One wrong step and you break a leg.
OK the key gets done and we drop Pankaj off at the bus stop so he can get back to the University to talk to another instructor. We head back for lunch (both of us near starvation with no money).
Adventure next -- not quite in chronological order. In the morning, I got up to go to the bathroom and found that as soon as I turned the light on in the hallway bathroom, the bees entered a 2" hole in the screen. This place has full window screens on everything. Even the iron security door has a screen so you can open it for ventilation. But here on the bathroom window is a large hole in the screen 2' from a bees' nest. They are very active in early morning so they moved right in. I turned off the light, slammed the door and killed 3 of them that had gotten into the hallway. I looked in the adjacent shower room and there was another 2" hole in the screen. How I never noticed these before? Anyway they are now covered with new aluminum screen and hopefully the rooms are safe to turn the light on.
Next I tackled the hall toilet which has had a wet floor since we arrived. I took the flusher apart and it was clogged with a piece of rubber gasket -- probably from over tightening all of the fittings. Once cleaned the flusher worked like a charm and the floor is drying as we speak. Luckily the Harris's have a full set of tools here and many of the hardware items needed to keep a house in top shape.
As a side note, we just found out that our good friend Jill Gustafson died after a courageous fight with cancer. Her daughter, Emma, is with the Fish Lake Church group here and they will be flying back tonight. She should be home by Thursday afternoon and our prayers go out to Emma, Tess, Eric and the rest of the Fish Lake family.
I ran into one of the IT faculty and asked for the guidelines for the Bachelor Report and he said he would track one down for me. Then up came Pankaj our Napalese friend who is also teaching in IT. He suggested that I use the common office that most of the adjuncts use. It is a fairly sparse room with 4 small desks and 4 small chairs and a nest of ethernet on the floor in the middle. I don't know if I dare hook something to that!
Pankaj wanted a ride into town and we thought we could get a key made for the office at the same time. Dale was told that there wouldn't be any students until maybe Monday so we left the campus and stopped by the bank for Pankaj and then the adventure began. Pankaj speaks some Swahili so we started at the far end of the main road through town to ask for a locksmith. In Swahili a general handyman is called a Fundi. Pankaj asked for a Ufunguo eko wape? Each of the helpful merchants weren't quite sure what he was asking (even after showing them a key) but pointed down the road. Dale followed us in the truck -- dodging pushcarts and buses and trying to keep out of the eye of the parking attendant who sells 1 hour parking for 1000 shillings. As far as we can tell they only charge our white truck. All the other cars parking along the way are sitting there and the attendant walks by them.
To top this all off, neither Dale nor I have any money. We left our wallets at the apartment. Finally, we find a real locksmith with a collection of about a dozen key blanks on the back wall. He smiles, puts one of the blanks in the vice and starts to shape the key with a hacksaw, files and a micrometer (yes a real precision instrument). This takes about 30 minutes while Dale is playing dodgem cars on the main road. I also want to remind you that the roads are almost 2 lanes wide with a 3' deep and 3' wide ditch on either side for the rainy season. One wrong step and you break a leg.
Adventure next -- not quite in chronological order. In the morning, I got up to go to the bathroom and found that as soon as I turned the light on in the hallway bathroom, the bees entered a 2" hole in the screen. This place has full window screens on everything. Even the iron security door has a screen so you can open it for ventilation. But here on the bathroom window is a large hole in the screen 2' from a bees' nest. They are very active in early morning so they moved right in. I turned off the light, slammed the door and killed 3 of them that had gotten into the hallway. I looked in the adjacent shower room and there was another 2" hole in the screen. How I never noticed these before? Anyway they are now covered with new aluminum screen and hopefully the rooms are safe to turn the light on.
Next I tackled the hall toilet which has had a wet floor since we arrived. I took the flusher apart and it was clogged with a piece of rubber gasket -- probably from over tightening all of the fittings. Once cleaned the flusher worked like a charm and the floor is drying as we speak. Luckily the Harris's have a full set of tools here and many of the hardware items needed to keep a house in top shape.
As a side note, we just found out that our good friend Jill Gustafson died after a courageous fight with cancer. Her daughter, Emma, is with the Fish Lake Church group here and they will be flying back tonight. She should be home by Thursday afternoon and our prayers go out to Emma, Tess, Eric and the rest of the Fish Lake family.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)