The Image Weather Station

East of Iringa is a town which houses Image (Im-Ah-Gay) Secondary School and if you remember back in September, we visited the school a couple of times. One of the teachers there started work on a weather station for recording local weather. The coordinator of the weather service here in this area was not available at that time, but finally got hold of me this week. Along with the second headmaster from Image School, he came to Iringa and stopped by my office this morning. His name is Michael Ashuburi and he is the Regional Meteorological Officer stationed in nearby Njombe (neo-m-bee). This amazing fellow is coordinating about 27 schools in the region to set up weather stations and train the teachers and students to be weather observers. He first showed me the standard weather "enclosure" that houses the instruments at the school. We looked over the Image enclosure when we were there.

Included are: a rain gauge, an evaporation gauge, anemometer (wind speed), wind vane (wind direction) and thermometers for temperature and humidity. By making all the weather stations standard throughout the region, Mr Ashuburi can assure that all the measurements are made the same and all the data are comparable. He showed me his training program and was adamant that a "weather station" includes both the instruments and the trained observer. The headmaster, Mr. Longo, believes he has some teachers and students interested in this project and Mr. Ashuburi plans to go out to Image next week to train his observers. We in the U.S. had a very similar program called the Cooperative Observers. Usually farmers far from airports or other weather facilities, would record the high and low temperatures, rainfall, snowfall and other weather condisitons and mail off a card with the summary of their observations every month. Tanzania is using secondary (high) schools to do that here.

I hope that I can help them by getting some of our Meteorology texts to the surrounding schools and perhaps getting them help with more complex instruments such as sunlight measurements and soil temperatures. Both of those require electrical hookups but there are commercial instruments that run off battery that might be useful here. I am going to contact my colleagues at Augsburg and ask the Introduction to Weather students to contribute their textbooks so that the next group that comes over here from St. Paul can bring some books for the Image School library.

Other than that we have had normal teaching days. The kids are getting some basketball and soccer time in up at the International School. The weather has been downright blustery with gusty winds and temps all the way down to 65 F at night. I know! That is downright frosty for here. I know I am getting no sympathy so I won't tell you that it is cloudy today and the forecast is for 80% chance of rain.

We are headed to the Orphanage this afternoon to work with the kids. We have been out there a couple of times and it is great fun just to play soccer, frisbee and talk to the kids after school.

Oh, I forgot to tell you that I drove the truck yesterday. I didn't go far and except for the one little old lady who is still brushing herself off from leaping in the ditch, things are fine. Dale does most of the driving (as the truck belongs to him for his stay). I found it fun and it really didn't feel unusual to blast down the street on the wrong side. I would advise all of you to stay off the road in Minnesota for the week after we return. I cannot guarantee that Dale nor I will be able to drive on the right side. We will just flash our headlights and honk our horns and hope that you get out of the way!

Tuesday at Focolore

Tuesday was a day of school and teaching for all of us. I had one-on-one interviews with the Thesis students about their topics. Many are very aware of the problems with providing resources (books, teachers, libraries...) for K thru 12 students and want to see what can be done to use computers to help. Others are aware of the how small businesses need help getting their advertising on the Internet and others are interested in municipal services available on the Internet. I am trying to get them to take on projects with a smaller scope so that they don't take on all the problems of the world in one semester.

My Africa experience for today was putting a paper sign on my office door in the New Science Building. I took out my sign and Scotch tape and put it on the door, only to discover that the door had just been varnished. I saw the painter up there yesterday, but didn't notice what he was doing. I sort of stuck to the door but luckily the paper didn't stick and I was able to move the sign to the wall with some new pieces of tape. Again, since no one else has keys to the office doors, the painter will have to come back later in the week to do the edges and inside of the door. Maybe he will bring a "wet paint" sign!

The rest of the crowd went up to Focolore at 3 for the afterschool teaching of some of the local kids. They drew pictures and wrote the English words for the objects. Sharon invented a game of giving a tool or utensil each kid and they saying "who has the Paslode air-powered nail gun?" and that kid would hold up the tool and everyone would say "Paslode, air powered nail gun". Just kidding, they just had simple tools like screwdrivers and pliers, the nail gun would have been real useful to put the trim back on the apartment doors. When the wind starts in the afternoon, all of the doors slam shut throughout the complex. Since the door jams are all hand made, they slowly come apart from this slamming. I have made the rounds renailing all of the doors.

We had milk shakes tonight after dinner. We used to go up to the Warthog Cafe for milk shakes on Tuesday but their milk shake machine is broken and has will be fixed "maybe next week" for the past 3 weeks. We don't use a milk shake machine, we have Caleb. He is strong enough to get the hard frozen ice cream out of the carton and into our mixing bowl. We are trying to get him to wear a Maasi outfit while making the milk shake -- the guy at the Warthog does! Anyway the milk shakes are a very nice treat for Tuesday.

Christmas Decorating

We are all decorated for Christmas!

Tobie bought me an early Birthday present (don't worry you will all get your chance, my birthday is after we return from Africa). It is a beautiful tree decoration with NOEL on it and he couldn't resist.

Today we had school. Dale's class is giving sermons (today was weddings) and my class is learning about Relations so I guess we are teaching the same thing. For the computer geeks, I am next taking on Asymptotic Functions and Big O. I handed back the tests from Friday and they didn't appear too disappointed some did well; some not so well. They also turned in some major homework so I will be busy grading that for the next couple of days. My only frustration is that the copy machines are either busy or out of toner and it is difficult to get things copied unless I can get them turned in a couple of days in advance. (Which I guess is really my fault).

I am also talking individually to each of my Thesis students about their projects. Most of them have picked topics way to broad (eg. "Improving Primary and Secondary Education in Tanzania") and I have to nudge them to focus on something they can complete in a semester. They agree once I give them ideas on some "smaller" challenges to research.

One of the interesting things that happens here is at least once an evening the doorbell rings and it is someone looking for a person or someone apparently asking for money. We had one of each tonight. I don't know what the guards at the gate do, but perhaps these folks have been here before and expect someone else. It is a bit frustrating but we have taken the rather harsh policy of no handouts. I just hope we are not turning away someone who has come to this apartment when other tenants are more receptive. We have discussed this with some of the staff at the diocese and they recommend that we not hand out money. But the doorbell (which is really an annoying beast) rings almost every night with something.

We are all ready to return home: Annica has presents bought for all of you, Caleb has to get home to recover from soccer injuries, Dale misses his dog, Tobie misses his Grandma, Carrie is out of chocolate, Sharon has no more room in her (and my) suitcase, and I ditto all of the above. We are starting to count down the days.

Sunday at the Cathedral

Today is Carrie and Dale's 17th anniversary. I know! with the same guy! Congratulations to them. Annica spent the last two weeks trying to keep their gift a secret -- a beautiful painting of elephant and her calf. We will celebrate tonight by letting them go off by themselves on date night to the restaurant up the hill. It will be spaghetti night at Bega Kwa Bega restaurant here in our apartment. We have to celebrate Carrie's birthday on December 7th with at least a cake.

We worshiped this morning at the Lutheran Cathedral in the center of Iringa. It is the largest Lutheran Church in the Diocese and an amazing place. Many of the staff and faculty of Tumaini University worshiped with us. Here is our view at the 10 AM service.

The afternoon was a time of rest. I graded the tests; Sharon read and rested. The power only went out once -- just as she was about to work on the sewing machine. It came right back as we will need it for Skyping later. That's all I have. Hope all your time off was great.

Tobie, Annica and Caleb had dinner with us tonight. We all had a few rousing games of Uno and Janga but the biggest contribution to the night was Annica's notes on the back of our apartment door.

In case you cannot see it, there are post-it notes on the back of our door -- one per day. Each one lists the time I have to be at Tumaini for school. I will have to get up early each morning and check the post-it notes to see where I have to be, when. Thanks Annica.

It's too late for me. Save yourselves!

OK I have gone over to the other side. Yesterday, (Friday) I was to give a test in Discrete Structures. I had the test all ready and sitting in my "new" office. I told Dale we could go up there about 8:30 and that would give me plenty of time. We arrived and there were my two class representatives from the class telling me they had to take the test before 10 because they had another lecture. You guessed it! I forgot that the class started at 8 and not 10. Classes start at different times on different days and I just put all of this on my Google Calendar. I forgot that the Friday class was from 8 to 10 not 10 to 12. I know a few of you out there are thinking "absent minded professor". OK, all of you are thinking that. I have an excuse. I changed my Google calendar from Minneapolis time to Eastern Africa Time and the class times got all messed up. OK -- absent minded professor.

I took the test up to the class and they were all diligently waiting. They took the test without hesitation and we finished only a few minutes late. In the U.S they would have all left after about 20 minutes and maybe one of them would have wandered by my office and said "we missed you". The students here waited patiently and I apologized at length.

I spent the rest of the day fixing screens at the Stiles' apartment. The old screens are slowly rusting away and there were large holes in most of the rooms. I was able to patch most of the 3 and 4 inch holes with pieces of aluminum screen. The larger hole in the bedroom screen was about 2' long and Dale fixed that with -- what else? -- duct tape -- the African handyman's secret weapon. By the way, we have 5 different colors of duct tape here -- including zebra. How many of you can claim 5 different duct tapes?

So the weekend is here. We have to make a run to the market, but otherwise this will be a couple of chill days. Dale has the Sunday off and I have to grade those tests. Hope you all are having a good holiday. We actually found some Christmas decorations up in Neema Crafts (the shop full of foreigners). There aren't any decorations on the lamp posts yet. Wait! There aren't any lamp posts; the street is really dark at night.

Thanksgiving

This is the place to have Thanksgiving. The stores are open all day; you can even go to the post office; you don't have to slip and slide thru the snow to Grandma's house. It was a little weird. For Dale and I it was a regular teaching day. I had one-on-one meetings with the 3rd year students about their Thesis projects and most of them showed up at the appointed time. Dale graded tests and papers all day. After my meetings I wandered down to the old science building to see what the students wanted to talk about in "networking" class. This is an informal class that I have run every Thursday. The students are anxious to know about the details of networking; but what they wanted to know about today was how to hack into the wireless network here in town. I told them it was not an easy thing to do and we discussed why the wireless networks use encryption and other authentication techniques to prevent just such things.

Since I am giving a test on Friday, my Discrete Structures class wanted a help session Thursday so at 2 I wandered over to the "Thin Client Lab" to find it locked up tight. This normally would not be a problem (walk across the street and get a key). However, Mother Nature had another idea and the rains came down in buckets. The drainage ditches around the buildings were 1' deep in fast moving water (I think they were about class 2 rapids). No one goes out during these rains so we were stuck. The other classroom has a metal roof and it is unusable during heavy rains. The rains let up and we had an hour of help session. I will see how the students do when I look at the tests tonight.

Since Marilyn was coming to Thanksgiving with us, she was supposed to meet me in her office at about 3, but she too was trapped in a classroom during the rain. It wasn't a problem, but these rains can last up to 3 hours and when they do, you are where you are. Once the rain let up, Marilyn was able to get her chocolate cake from home and we finally were able to head home.

Again, it looks like a normal day here so Annica and I had some shopping to do before dinner. I had to get pickles (my mother always put pickles on the table), olives (what is Thanksgiving without some black olives?) and some wine. We came home to the wonderful smell of turkey (really two chickens, but we declared them turkey for today ) and stuffing. Carrie and Sharon did an outstanding job of making the dinner as close to Thanksgiving as possible. (Thanks Ginny Johnson for providing us with such a great cook!)

After dinner and an abbreviated game of "bowls" we said good night and ended our wonderful Thanksgiving. Hope all of you had a great day. I got up early in the morning on Friday for shopping on Black Friday (I hope you get the irony of that!) but much to my dismay no one else was up. The market was empty and the only people around were headed off to work. I didn't see anyone of the merchants marking down the price of rice or beans and it appears they have just not gotten into the holiday spirit.

Is this an office?

Yes, I decided that Tuesday I would conquer the mystery of the new office. If you remember, there is an new Science Building at the top of the campus. Two of the five stories are done. This side of the first two floors are large lecture halls. The offices are in the back.

I planted myself in the secretary's office and she started calling around to find the key for office #10. After a few calls, she looked up at the cup on her desk (filled with keys that others have been taking and putting back all morning) and there was a clearly labelled key for Noel Petit #10. The key is a high security lock key and I doubt they will be able to keep these in a 5 gallon bucket, but it does open my door. In the office were two nice desks with office chairs, two computer roll-around desks and one book shelf. The office is nicely appointed and had electricity and all. No ethernet yet, but it will be there soon.

So this is the view out my window. This is basically the edge of town and the hills surround the campus. These hills were brown three weeks ago, but with the rain they are turning green. An interesting feature is the green tinted window. That will make it look green year around.

The only real drawback is that they are still building floors 3, 4 and 5. To give you an idea of how nice that is: take a large garbage can, empty it and put it over your head. Now invite 4 teenagers in and give them each a large shovel. Let them hit the can as hard as they can (with you in it). That is what the office is like. I am glad I kept the key to the old office as this one is only marginally useful.

We had rain today but like all these tropical rains it is short and really heavy. We are planning for Thanksgiving, but with a 70% chance of thunderstorms on Thursday, that is a 100% chance of a power outage (we had a short one today). Hopefully, the chicken and pies will get cooked in the morning before the storm. But, not to worry, if the power is out, the little restaurant up the hill (with real ice cream) has a generator and will be just fine.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and we wish we could join all of you. I really miss the pickles.

You can find/fight city hall!

Well Monday. What can I say, can't trust that day! We had class this morning and then went to the little coffee shop for lunch. The only thing available was donuts and tea. Not Dale's idea of lunch. We smiled and had a donut. I went to my little (empty) office in the old science building to grade papers and talk to students. In walked a woman who introduced herself as the assistant HR director. She was looking for offices for the 10 new faculty members that had been taken on for the fall semester. I told her that the office was available for as many as they wanted. Before there were 5 of us in there and now I sat there all by myself a couple of hours a week. She sort of looked at me like "silly American, why don't you go up the hill to the brand new office we gave you in the new science building?" She also indicated they only had one key. I told here I made my own key (hint hint, nudge nudge lady make some more keys). I was going to suggest the 5 gallon bucket full of keys that they went thru last week to get Dale's key, but that would have been too obvious.

Anyway she said that at least two faculty were coming in there. That's fine with me and I hope that I get to know some more of these new folks I see. I did go up to the new offices in the New Science Building. No one around, so I still don't have a key for the office that I supposed to occupy.

We came back to the apartment about 2:30 PM and the rest of the folks headed up the Focolore after school project they have been working with for the last few weeks. They are playing games to teach some of the kids English. Caleb's real thrill was to teach the kids about baseball. Now baseball is the most confusing game in history: if you are offense, you cannot touch the ball; some pitches are balls (I thought they all were); the foul pole is in fair territory; and so on. I hope Caleb has a lot of patience to try to explain all these strange rules. Anyway, they come back all enthused over trying to keep 20 or so little folks in line while singing "Heads, Sholders, Knees and Toes".

For the past few days, one of my students has been inviting me to his "business" which is supposed to be very near to the apartment. Timing just didn't work out and he just kept trying and found me at school on Monday morning. I told him I would be back at the apartment by 3 and he could come by. He rang the doorbell and 3 and we started off across the street. Low and behold, the large complex just 1/2 block away is Iringa City Hall. This is where most of the administrative office (HR, licenses, health services, etc.) are housed. It is not impressive from the outside, but very nice inside the walls. There are covered walkways from building to building (handy in the tropical downpours) and very nice offices down long corridors. In the back was a little networking room that connects the local area network of all the offices to the Internet. Most of the city's management is done with web based systems and they were connecting the existing network to the Internet via a Network Management System called Zanytal. This is a computer that sits between the Internet and a company's network to control security and keep the internal network from being attacked by the Russians. (What they would want from the Iringa City Offices, I have no idea, but I am sure the Russians are the source of all Internet attacks).

Anyway, they had upgraded from Zanytal 2 to 3 and couldn't get the system to work. The previous versions were sort of plug-and-play but this one had many more features and seemed to need more setup. I scratched various body parts and just started to carefully remove some of the settings they had modified and finally we were on the internet and the Firewall system was working. They had the right idea, but were inexperienced with DHCP (again, ask a geek for a 3 hour description of Dynamic Host Configuration Program if you really want some exciting times). We had a very similar system at the Augsburg Computer Science Lab so I was able to work thru most of the settings and get things running. They have much more to do, but I think I helped a little. We made City Hall very happy. We are hoping that this will help us from losing power so often, but of course, they have no control over the power company in City Hall. We can only hope.

Dinner was BLT's and the Roma tomatoes here are very good. I think it is more due to the fact that these tomatoes were picked just a couple of days ago in a place that is in the same time zone (actually there are truck farms just 5 miles out of town). We do have a little ritual with our vegetables. They are all washed in a bucket of clean water with a little bleach. This takes a little system management as we have to keep track of which vegetables have been washed and which are awaiting the bleach treatment. The sun is up now and this is the quiet time of day. The little bar across the street has music all night and then the Church of the Louder Day Saints starts about 5 and the call to prayer starts about the same time. They all get tired by 6:30 and we get some sleep.

Nduli

Church today was 20 km north of town in Nduli. This is the site of the Iringa airport where one can fly to Dar Es Salaam for $260 dollars and 2 hours instead of 10 hours in the bus. This is tempting. Anyway here is Nduli Luterhan Church -- a cute little church with a 10 year-old building.

We had the pleasure of the Tumaini University Choir at the church and they filled the building with song and dance. This little church is in an area that is very arid. One of the preaching points of this parish has had no rain in 4 years. You can look off further north and see the dry land. The area around us at Iringa is getting green and the brown hills are lush green again. The service included a long description of all the agricultural and community development projects underway: bee keeping, tree planting, corn and soy milling, peanut crushing for peanut butter, etc. The end of the service included communion at the rail.

After each service we gather around the main entrance of the church for a final blessing and it this case a peanut butter and honey sale. The Tumaini Choir sang as well.

And the kids had fun with the drums.

We made it home after 3 hours in church and another hour for lunch at the pastor's house. For such a dry and hot place, Nduli's church and pastor's house were in very good shape. The congregation is building a new parsonage next to the existing one because the old parsonage is settling and some of the walls are cracked. The new house is twice the size of the original one.

The challenge for the past few days has been electricity. We have experienced 10 hours of no power on Friday (cooked over a kerosene stove), 6 hours with no electricity on Saturday (went to the restaurant up the hill), and today we thought we had broken the streak. We started dinner about 6:30 and finished cooking the sauce and noodles and cookies just as the power went out again. We bumped into each other until someone found the headlights and got candles lit for dinner. Then 20 minutes later poof, the power returns. Then 20 minutes later, poof the power goes out for another 10 minutes. It has been on since. Some of these outages are storm related and some are due to the limited generating capacity in Tanzania -- we don't know which are which.

We now have a contingency plan for Thansgiving: if the power is out at 5 we take everyone up to the restaurant up the hill that has a generator. If the power is on, we have chicken and stuffing with some of the other Americans here in the apartment. Well the dogs are barking so that must mean it is time to try to sleep.

Gonna Dance!

This morning we spent at Compassion Kids at Kihesa Church just north of us here in Iringa. The 280 or so kids are taken in by this large organization to provide food, health assessment, education and spiritual support. The church acts as a center of this event but it is ecumenical and throughout the world. We played number games, hand jive and sang to them. The best part was a game where one child in the center of a large circle of kids sings about their favorite person and then goes to the edge of the circle and invites that person into the middle. Kids called on each other until one kid decided that Dale was his favorite person and Dale called Carrie in and the kids and then the kids called Sharon and I in. We danced and sang along with this great throng of eager little ones.

We then gathered them in little groups to hear their names and play more games. Their favorite was numbers and letters. Most could count easily in English and they were so happy when we counted in Swahili. Many just wanted to talk to us and hear us try to pronounce their names.

We had to make a market run after Compassion Kids. Dale, Tobie, Caleb and I went off to see if we could get all the things on our list. Tobie knew the market well so he led us to the tomatoes, cucumbers and the bananas. We sort of looked like a silly parade of white folks weaving our way thru the narrow aisles with a little boy (Tobie) in a green Fish Lake Lutheran Church shirt leading the way. We did well and completed our list. We had 5 cucumbers instead of two so I guess we will be eating cucumbers for the next few days. After the market we tried to some cooking but Thomas Edison was not happy with us and send us a nice little thunderstorm.When it rains there is a front stoop on the building that is lower than the parking lot and garden around it. We have to ford a small lake to leave the apartment.

The power went out again. We have been without electricity 10 hours on Friday and 6 hours on Saturday morning. This time the power stayed out until we were up at the restaurant up the hill and it has been back on for the past 2 hours. We finally have our internet running at a speed where Skype and Magic Jack work just fine. Now if we could only keep electricity long enough to recharge the laptop, we could use those cool services. Time for a little reading and bed. Church tomorrow at Nduli, a little town 20 kilometers north of Iringa. This church only has one service and I am sure they will feed us lunch so it will be a full day.

Art Boma

On our way to and from Ruhaha National Park a few weeks ago, we passed thru a small town of Nzihi which advertised an Art Boma (art center). The sign was prominent in that it was a big sign with fewer than 200 (unreadable) words. I am not sure why they put road signs along the road. The vehicles who know where they are going don't need them and we can't decode the 10 lines of words on the signs as we cruise by. Anyway, later we heard about Art Boma from the woman who is its director. She was in Iringa a few weeks back and encouraged us to go out and see their shop. So off we went.

The pavement ends about 10 km out of Iringa and we are back on the dirt and rock road. We rattled along for another 10 km or so and found our little shop.

The shop includes many crafts by local artisans: carvings, baskets, pillowcases, beadwork, wire sculptures...

Some of us just have to ham it up. I am sure many of you will see the results of this shopping trip and I won't spoil it for you. We will encounter this group again as they plan to participate in a "Christmas Craft Show" in early December.

School was rather uneventful this morning; I tried to explain the map coloring problem in 2 hours. The problem is how many colors are needed for a political map so that no two adjacent countries have the same color. The easy answer is that if you have 50 countries on a continent, color it with 50 colors. Unfortunately, the map printers wanted to limit the number of colors to the smallest possible. Turns out you can color most maps with 5 or 6 colors but no one has figured out a simple technique to decide the colors. If you thing you have the answer, write it on the back of a sleep number bed and send it to "Car Talk". Oh, I am sorry, I drifted off there and got lost in a podcast. Anyway if you can solve this problem you will get $1M and the Nobel Prize in Mathematics.

Just one more note for today. The power was out from 9 AM to 7 PM. We made mendazi by kerosene for lunch and stirfry by kerosene for dinner. Just as we ended dinner and sat down for a game, the lights came back on. We had been running out to the porch for the last hour or so looking at the lights coming on in various parts of the city. We had power all around us for a good 30 minutes before our block came on. We were tempted to go to a restaurant for dinner but most of them got power back when we did, so the kerosene was just fine. I now have the little single burner stove and two kerosene lanterns all cleaned up and filled and ready for the next outage. Ironically, this week we spent over $200 buying electricity for the upcoming month for all of the Bega Kwa Bega apartments and they still decided to turn off the power for 10 hours today. The country doesn't have enough power generation capability so they must use rolling blackouts to control the peak load. Ironically, when they turn the power off during the day, no one knows if they left their office lights on so the office buildings light up like Christmas Trees when the power is restored.

Beer and Ice Cream

Today we arose early for Dale's preaching class. I had the opportunity to sit in for while and take a picture of the class for Dale. I hope you are reading http://stilessabbatical.blogspot.com along with my ramblings. Dale has been challenged by some very probing questions from his students "Can we give communion to known sinners?" and such. I also had a networking informal class this morning and discussed the Domain Name Service. This is really exciting stuff for us geeks and they are always asking questions which make me think about the best way to present this material.

Following that we had to make a run to the Catholic Cooking School (don't ask me how to cook a Catholic). They make a wide assortment of food there: noodles, mini-pizzas, ravioli, spaghetti sauce and samosas, just to name a few. Then off to the beverage store and then the "super market" to get juice and rice and TP. Our little Mama Eta's store was closed so we had to load the truck with the ice cream and send Dale home with that precious cargo. Caleb and I walked home to get more juice and rice along the way.

We still marvel at the most interesting things that happen. When we return a case of beer the fellow at the beer store takes our plastic case of 20 empties and gets a perfectly good full case (1/2 Tusker and 1/2 Serengheti). He then carefully moves all of the empty bottles out of our case and into the full bottle case and the full bottles back into the case we brought. Why? Just asking. Additionally, when we shop at the little super market it is laid out just like Cub. The staples (cooking oil, etc.) are in the far corner and the candy is right up front. A typical candy bar costs $2 but now that we have all run out of our stashes of treats, the highway robbery is worth it.

Caleb and I love walking down the main market street and looking at all there is. One shop is 8 or so manual sewing machines lined up along the sidewalk with each seamstress and seamster (I can't find a word for a male seam person) working away and watching the parade of shoppers. We even found a video game arcade. The arcade has poker as well so children are not allowed. Anyway, after a few blocks we came to the farmer's market, found more Pineapple Juice and two kilos (mbili kilo) of rice. I pick the stand based on the smile of the merchant. With our final shopping items in hand we headed back to help get things back up stairs and into the refrigerator. A successful day.

For entertainment tonight we played a game and then Sharon and I watched "Hotel Rwanda" -- the story of the ethnic genocide in 1994. Nearly 800,000 were killed by rebel forces. Considering that Rwanda is a small country of 7 million wedged between Tanzania and Congo it is rather frightening to watch what went on so close by. After one watches a movie like that we always ask "where was I when this was going on?". Anyway watch it if you can and you will get a good idea of what this part of the world looks like. On that not-so-bright note I will say good night.

Barrel of Monkeys

I thought it was a cleaver title. You have been in suspense since Monday wondering how we got into Dale's office. Even if you haven't, the story is typical. Dale asks his department secretary what can be done to let him into his office. Remember, the key broke into three pieces when dropped from too large a height. The secretary called maintenance and they said they would be right over. After a 20 minute wait, Dale decided to go over to the library to finish grading papers. When he returned, the maintenance folks had been and gone -- without opening the door. Another faculty member called them back and they arrived with a 5 gallon bucket full of keys. All of the doors come with two keys, one they give to a random person so that the rightful owner of the office has to search out this unknown (or not in the country) person to find their key. the other key goes into this bucket.

The bucket was poured out onto the concrete floor in front of Dale's office and two maintenance folks and two faculty got down on their knees and compared each of the 1,000 or so keys with the broken key. Rejects were thrown back into the bucket until a reasonable facsimile was found. It opened Dale's door. The rest of the keys went back in the bucket for the next emergency. I guess this is one way of doing it. Unfortunately, now the spare key is in use and the next time a key is lost or broken, this office will have to be abandoned.

Today Caleb and I bought 250,000 Tshillings more electricity for the three apartments so that Stiles, Petits and Bega Kwa Bega don't run out of power before we depart on the 17th of December. After that, who knows? We also found more Airtel (cell phone) minutes for our phones and Internet and a replacement power strip for one flooded in Marilyn's apartment. We considered ourselves fairly successful even though 2 months ago we had no idea how to do this. I like bringing Caleb on our trips to various offices. We can form a human barrier so that others stay in line. At the electric company today as Caleb is about to turn in his money and meter ID card, a hand reaches around under his armpit and puts a card and money on the counter. Queues are not in any order here -- my students in queuing theory would be confused by the algorithm to decide who goes next.

Dinner was topped off by chocolate milk shakes. We figured that even though a 2 liter container of ice cream is $10, it is far better than the things they call "milk shakes" at the Warthog Cafe. Another thing we have encountered is ice cream that doesn't melt. We think it is mostly chocolate flavored wax as it melts a little but looks much the same 10 minutes after delivery to our table. We pretend it is good. Also, if you haven't seen radiated milk, that too is a treat. It is totally unbaceriaed (I made that up.). It comes in a liter carton and has an expiration date usually about 6 months from filling time. It need not be refrigerated until opened and acts very strangely in the microwave. I think it curdles when it reaches room temperature, so one must be careful not to leave it out of the fridge too long. It has been irradiated (with like x-rays and kryptonite) so it cannot be sold in the U.S. -- that would make too much sense. And I only glow for a couple of hours each night -- enough to read my "Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency" books by.

Well the dogs may stop barking soon and I think the party at Mama's across the street is quieting down, so I will wrap this up and get my beauty rest. Take care and we miss all of you.

Focolore After School

Sharon writes:

Focolore is an after school program for orphans and other disadvantaged Tanzanian children. It is run by a group of mostly women out of a nearby Catholic Church. We went for the first time a week ago. We met with the volunteer teachers and then divided into two groups. Annica, Tobie, and I went with the younger kids and Carrie and Caleb went with the older kids. We really didn't have a clue what we were doing with the younger kids and only one of the two teachers spoke English to where I could understand what she was saying. So we just winged it. Annica had a deck of UNO cards and worked on colors and numbers with her group. I had about 7 little boys age 7-9.

They had a workbook that was in Swahili but had pictures so I just started pointing out what the pictures were in English. I didn't always get it right. Like when I thought the picture was of a shirt it turned out to be the word "dirty" because it had a stain on it and I'm pointing to a kids shirt and saying is this a shirt (dirty)? I was so embarrased and felt so bad for the little boy. It haunted me all week. I knew I needed a plan. We went again yesterday. I had gathered foods from our kitchen, tomato, potato, rice, sugar, flour, etc. and made flashcards in English. I wrote the word in Swahili on the back just in case they didn't understand me. The kids seemed very happy to have us come back and as soon as I got out of the car a very little boy grabed my basket in one hand and my hand in the other and we walked together to the classroom. Our small groups were expanded to one large group and Annica and I passed out the foods to the children. Then I would hold up a flash card and the child with that food would hold it up and we would all say the word in English several times. Pretty soon we were making up new ways to get them to identify the foods in English.

We drew pictures on the blackboard and wrote the name of the picture in English. Some of the kids came to the board, drew a simple picture and wrote the word in English. With twenty minutes left of our 2 hour class I wasn't sure what to do so I said, "Can you sing me a song?" Last week we had sung "Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes" and the Tanzanians love to sing!

They sang for 20 minutes and would have gone on longer if we didn't have to leave. I can't wait until next week. My face was so tired from grinning ear to ear. The children made me so happy!

The Electric Key

Monday started off at school. Classes went well; I taught about Graph Theory and Dale's students started their in-class sermons. I usually give a little sermon every day (nuclear power, living on the coast, driving like maniacs, etc.) so maybe I should join his preaching class. My students turned in their homework and I turned back a couple of assignments that I graded over the weekend.

At lunch we fought off the flies. For some reason the flies are out in great number and all of these places leave doors wide open. We have started to leave the caps of our pop bottles loosely on the top to keep the flies from invading our Fanta. I also use a napkin on the top of my tea to keep them out. The apartments have screens on all of the doors and windows but for some reason, the little cafeteria at school does not. We may have to try the other cafeteria which appears to have screens.

Now the electric part. Our electric meter shows how many kilowatt-hours remain before it turns off the power. We got down to 8.9 KW-HR on Monday morning and we use about 10 per day. That meant I had to go to the power company, get in line and give the lady 100,000 Tshillings. This bought me 352 more Kilowatt-Hours for our meter. I treked back from the store and entered the 20 digit number and the pound sign and voila! we had 361 Kilowatt-Hours to use. I have also been monitoring the power usage on the Stiles' apartment and the Bega Kwa Bega apartment (A-5 and A-3) and made a spread sheet to show how much we have used in the last couple of weeks and when their power will run out. The basic attitude is to let it run out and then go to dinner at the nice restaurant up the hill. We are trying to limit our restaurant eating to once a week so letting the power run out on Saturday is not a good idea. After entering all the data I found that A-5 and A-3 will run out of electricity on Tuesday next week and our apartment (C-6) will run out at 7 AM on Monday December 17th -- the day we leave. I plan to add some more electricity so that we don't go dark the minute we try to take showers the morning we depart.

Now the key part. Our offices at the university have skeleton keys. Caleb threw the keys down to Dale to get some supplies for dinner and the his keys hit the pavement--shattering the key to Dale's office. We now have a skeleton key in three pieces. We need to get into Dale's office on Tuesday because all of our graded homework is in there and my big paper sheets are in their for class. We thought of a number of ways to weld the key together. (Of course it is pot metal and cannot be welded or brazed or soldered.) We thought that if we wait until a lightning storm and then put up a kite we might get a good strike to come down the wire and weld the key together (Ben Franklin eat your heart out). But that technique was vetoed. We will have to get someone to let us in at school and then make another trip to Saalim Keys and have the fellow hand cut and file a new key. This should be fun.

Sorry to hear that it is cold and snowy in Minnesota. We saw snow on Skype yesterday and couldn't really understand it. Every morning is bright and sunny and 70 F every afternoon is strong sun and maybe a few puffy clouds and 85 F. The weather is going to be the hard part to leave. Talk to all of you soon.

And the Trophy goes to!

What a celebration! We worshiped today at Mlendege Lutheran Church on the other end of town here in Iringa. Their choir was one of the competitors at yesterday's choir "battle" of the Iringa Diocese. Among the 40 choirs scheduled to compete they were the overall winner -- and clearly the most theatrical and musical of those we saw (or heard on the radio later in the day). The competition went from 10 AM to 7 PM on Saturday and only when Dale got to the church did we find out the winner.

We arrived for church just as the first service was wrapping up and the choir was just performing their program from the competition. It gives you goose bumps!. After tea and sambusas (meat filled pastries that you find everywhere in the world, but are especially good here), we were seated around the alter for the second service. Following Dale's sermon, the choir performed their winning program again. We must have looked like a bunch of statues up there because Tobie, Annica, Caleb, Carrie and I were just mesmerized as the choir entered with at traditional Maasi chant. I recorded all of the piece and will upload it to where you can hear it. Once the choir was formed in a large semi-circle at the front of the sanctuary, the pastor (who was going to be away this Sunday but came back for this celebration) held up the choir's winning trophy.

What a privilege to be part of a celebration! Following the service, the choir led us out to the front steps of the church and gave us one more short song. Here is most of the choir after all day at the competition and all morning still beaming from their victory.

For most churches, this is the traditional end of the service. The choir leads the congregation out to the front of the church. The congregation forms a large circle around the front steps and the pastor comes out for the final blessing: "Go in peace, serve the Lord", "Thanks be to God". Everyone shakes hands and wishes each other good health and the service is over. By the way, they don't have coffee hour and they don't run home to watch the Vikings. We are getting used to this routine, but miss our fellowship with all of you at Fish Lake Lutheran.

We Skyped with Sharon's children and grand children Sunday night. Brinn (14 months) is walking, Brooke and Hannah (6 years) read us from one of their books. It was great to see them, but hard on Sharon -- who really wants to be there for every one of these new events. Sharon cared for the 6 year olds for the past 5 years and Brinn for the past year. It is hard to watch them grow up from afar. She decided that 3 months is too long and wants to come home.

At 6 PM we started Skyping with the congregation at Fish Lake. They could see and hear us as we huddled around Carrie's laptop in the Stiles' living room. We all gave a little greeting and Dale gave the final blessing to the congregation. We then talked to many of them as they filed out (for coffee and treats, I am sure). It was great to see all of you and we miss you even more now that we can talk to you. Thanks to Paul Stewart for setting up the computer and projector in Minnesota. Thanks to Connie Warner for doing such a great job of caring for Fish Lake Lutheran. And thanks to Annalese for not letting the candle fall over.

We are back to Monday now and this will be another week of school and shopping at the market. Tom Nielsen will leave for Minnesota on Tuesday. He has been our Bega Kwa Bega coordinator since our arrival and has come here to Tanzania for 10 years to do his part helping visitors. The next coordinator will be the Fultzes who come in January so we will have to make it on our own. The Bega Kwa Bega office is staffed by locals so we are not totally rudderless, but we will miss Tom and his enthusiasm. Thanks Tom, you have done a great service to BKB and the folks who travel here.

We are counting the days. Keep those e-mails coming!

Sinq Choirs of Angels

Another surprising day! We saw hundreds of plastic chairs set up around a stage at the Lutheran Diocese center yesterday. Rumor was that the choirs from around the area were coming for their annual competition at 9 AM. Caleb, Dale Sharon and I walked down to the center at 9 and yes there were choirs, drums buses and people everywhere. By 9:30 the PA system was set up. By 10 the Bishop showed up and blessed the proceedings. The rest of the Stiles came in by 10:15 or so, not missing a thing. By 10:20 AM the first choir took the stage. Then one after the other, choirs from the surrounding churches sang a processional song, a required song from the hymnal and songs of their choosing for about a 10 to 15 minute performance. It was incredible. We called it Tanzanian Idol only these folks had talent, enthusiasm and were doing for the sheer joy and love of God. The courtyard of the Diocese was packed with people. This is a picture of the next choir lining up to take the stage. The stage was very dark and I couldn't get a good picture.

We stayed thru 5 choirs and listened to the concert on Radio Furaha back at the apartment. I am sure that Handel would have been proud of the Tanzanian version of "Lift up Your Heads" from the Messiah. The real thrill is that the best choir we saw will be performing again on Sunday morning. Dale is preaching at their church. I had do pinch myself again to believe that we really were sitting among about 1,000 Africans listening to their music. Some was in Swahili and some in other tongues but it was all incredible.

We rested the in afternoon and headed to Kabili Farm at 3:30 for the Saturday afternoon volleyball game. This has been a tradition for nearly 20 years that every Saturday night the various foreigners are invited out to a farm 20 minutes from town. They serve tea and have a rousing game of volleyball. Caleb showed off his style and his bright shirt. Annica is hoping to get some horse riding in there next week.

After 3 or 4 games we raced back to the apartment to change and get to the International School for their International Dinner Night. Under the stars, the students gave a program of talents: singing, dancing and such. And then the parents of the school children supplied foods from all over the world at booths surrounding the central courtyard. We had sausage from Australia, pita from India, custard cakes from Japan and the list goes on. You could go from tent to tent sampling each of the foods from all the various families that attended the school. The only real challenge was that by the time dinner was served, it was pitch dark. Did I tell you it is dark here? At about 6:20 the sun sets and by 6:22 PM it is pitch dark. There is no twilight. I brought my dork lamp to dinner and we could see the delicacies we had chosen, but I don't know how the rest of the dinner guests figured out what they were eating.

Following the dinner, we walked the 3 blocks back down the hill to the apartment and I am finally able to blog after a busy day. Tomorrow is church at the far end of town and maybe soccer or basketball at the International School yard. We are all bushed and ready for a day of rest. Good night and stay warm.

Over the hump

This week marked our "over the hump" week as we have passed our 1/2 way mark. Our routine is fairly steady now and each of us has found what we like to and how to spend our time. Dale and I go to Tumaini every morning and most of our classes are done by 2. The rest go to the market about every other day. The Stiles have school in their apartment most days and Sharon has taken up sewing table runners and pot holders. By 5:30 or so we start dinner and by 8:30 the dishes are done and we get in a game of Yatzee or such

Dale and I visited the new office suite in the new science building on Friday. Some of the faculty have moved in and there are printers and desks and copy machines. We found 4 faculty and a secretary in the secretary's office huddled around the printer. The offices have numbers taped to the door so I found #10. The key is nowhere to be found but apparently my office mate may have it. I will keep trying next week to see if at least I can find the key. I don't plan to use the office as the building is a block away from all the classrooms and I have settled into a computer lab where the students can easily find me.

Dale has his own very nice office in the Theology wing. He has many office hours and many visitors. Daily, someone comes by looking for money. Each has a story about needing to get money for tuition or food. It is a challenge to figure out what to do with these. Friday, a young man and his father came by with a list looking like a Girl Scout Cookie list. Everyone who donated marked down their name and an amount. Since the Dean had contributed, Dale made a donation and put his name down. This is very strange. No one comes to the Computer Science offices looking for money -- I am not sure why.

We also have occasional visitors at our apartment doors looking for something -- sometimes money but other times we cannot tell. I just shrug my shoulders and say hapana (no) and they wander off. I am not sure why the gate guards let these folks in, but that is just another one of the mysteries of Africa.

We cooked dinner for some of the other Americans here in the apartment on Friday night. We had Marilyn (an English teacher at Tumaini), Natilee (coordinator of St.Paul partners at the Lutheran Diocese), Fred and Phil (agriculture advisors here training farmers), and Tom (our Bega Kwa Bega coordinator). Tom leaves for the U.S. on Tuesday so we wanted to at least give him a send-off.. We dispensed with the portable DJ but had a great evening and found out about all of our neighbors. Tonight we have an International Dinner at the International School and will find our more about our other neighbors. Many of the children here in the apartment attend the International School and the headmaster lives in Block A. The Stiles considered sending their students there, but the cost was quite high and they have been fairly successful continuing home-schooling as they were back in the U.S.

I spend the afternoon at the FM radio station on Friday. We have the station streaming at http://furaha.listen2myradio.com or http://tinyurl.com/radiofuraha. Either one loads a little radio player and connects to the music and information radio station here at the Lutheran Diocese. The whole thing is still in the "experimental" mode so it may not work all the time.

A couple more notes. Dale made us oatmeal cookies yesterday. The first batch came out just fine, but the second batch burned before its normal cooking time was up. The third batch cooked quickly and we started to feel the heat radiating from our little stove. Carrie asked what temperature the stove was set to and Dale said the highest setting on the oven was 250 and that was as close to 375 as he could set it. You guessed it! The control on the stove is Centigrade and 250 is close to 500 F. The rest of the batch was outstanding and we are going to encourage Dale to keep baking cookies in spite of his initial difficulties.

Additionally, remember 6 degrees of separation? Well at our dinner party last night we had Phil (a retired ag teacher) who taught at The Ohio State Univeristy and Natilee (who graduated from The Ohio State University in ag engeineering). And Fred (the other ag engineer) was a classmate of the brother of Mark Engebretson (a faculty member at Augsburg). Come 1/2 way around the world to reconnect with people.

Thanks to all of you for your notes keeping us up to date on what is going on at home. We miss all of you. We will be participating in the Fish Lake Lutheran's sunday service on the 11th. We plan to send a greeting via Skype at the end of the service. It will be 8 PM here and hopefully we can at least say hello to all of you.

Radio Furaha spreads its wings

Sorry for the missed day, we were busy teaching and getting diesel. When last we heard from our intrepid professors, they were on a mission to obtain diesel fuel. The fuel truck arrived some time on Tuesday and we pulled into the station as the initial surge of folks gassed up. The line clearly stretched down the street and as Dale maneuvered the assault vehicle (oh, sorry, I meant the Range Rover), the little attendant waved us in the out direction and said just wait, he has an extra long hose for us. We waited a couple of minutes nose to nose with the outgoing vehicles and then when the one in front of us was done they backed out into the street and we pulled up. I handed the attendant 150,000 Tanzanian Shillings (about $100) and said 150,000 please. He never counted the wad of money but filled it and stopped when the money numbers reached 150,003 shillings. We are paying 2020 shillings per liter or about $5.00/gallon for diesel.

After that victory, we headed home to pick up the rest of the crew. They went to an after school program run by the nuns nearby. Some played games, some worked on their English and some just watched. This is a chance for Sharon, Carrie, Caleb, Annica, and Tobie to get to know some of the kids and help with these programs. The kids are also going up to the after school events at the International School to play soccer and basketball.

I have been working on getting Radio Furaha streaming on the Internet. With limited resources and Internet connectivity here, it is best if we send the audio stream off to some server provider and let them worry about too many people connecting to the service. I chose "listen2myradio.com" as our provider as they have servers in Germany, England and the U.S. We have the streaming service set up so that all one must do to connect to Radio Furaha is to set your browser to "furaha.listen2myradio.com" and let the little radio player download. We finally got that all working on Wednesday afternoon and are in the testing mode. We should have the streaming going permanently in the next couple of days.

Radio Furaha is at the headquarters of the Iringa Diocese of the Lutheran Church of Tanzania. That is about a 2 block walk from our apartment and many who work or volunteer at the Diocese live in our apartment block.

The radio studio includes two control/studio rooms and a central conference room that can also be a large studio.

The station is on FM and runs 24/7 with music, spiritual, health car and personal advice programming. It is hoped that by putting Radio Furaha on the international Internet, others (especially in the U.S.) will help support the radio station and be able to reconnect with their families and friends here in Tanzania.

Just a couple of other interesting happenings. Last night we went to Lulu's for dinner. Tobie ordered a "cheeseburger" and what arrived was a cheese sandwich on a large burger bun. He was disappointed but a quick order of the beef to accompany the cheese brightened his spirits. I have not been checking in with the IT faculty as I have been busy with class. This morning I looked in on the original office assigned to me in the "old" science building. Previously there were 3 or 4 faculty members and books and computers. All of that is gone now and apparently the faculty have moved to their offices in the new Science Building. The new science building is still under construction and the workers are still putting up forms for pouring concrete on the 5th floor above the offices. But, the faculty have moved there. No facilities, no network, and no students in the area, but the faculty has moved up there!

It is late and I need my beauty rest. Tomorrow is an early class and then we are hosting dinner for the Americans in the apartment complex. We will need to drive to the market to buy cases of milk, pop and other heavy stuff. This is always fun as the Range Rover attracts lots of attention when the 7 of us pile out and spread out to the surrounding stores. See you later!

Dewey Wins!

Actually, I think Obama took Tanzania. The polls have closed in Tanzania. (They really never opened, Sharon and I never got our ballots and Dale and Carrie voted before they left the U.S.) An informal poll says that Obama took Iringa by a land slide (my guess 2 to 0). Dale and I asked our classes yesterday and there were students on both sides of the election. Even though Obama had Ugali (the traditional food of eastern Africa) on his trip, some of the students said he did that for a publicity stunt. I didn't ask them to raise their hands and count the votes but the class seemed split down the middle.

Monday was a typical day: look for diesel fuel (coming tomorrow), have class, look for diesel, go to market, look for diesel and come home to an apartment without electricity for the past 6 hours or so. It was challenging to cook bread without power so Grace made donuts in the outdoor kerosene burner. They are little fried buns that are very good and may be our new favorite. The power returned as Dale and I pulled into the driveway. (Must be our electric personalities!). We had our fried rice dinner (Carrie's way of disguising rice, what a tricky girl!) and headed off to bed. We tried for diesel again this morning but there are lines at the gas pump with no gas!

I thought it might be a good time to talk about highway driving in Tanzania. The main road had improved since our last visit so speeds of 65 thru town and 80 in the country are not unusual. When I say thru town, I mean thru town with vendors and shops 5' from the driving lane. The idea is to go as fast as you can until you see the cops. Because of this, they have speed bumps in every town. The speed bumps are marked with little concrete posts on either side of the road. Usually there is a bump with 4 little bumps and then a big one 3' wide and 1' tall as you come into town. Going over the bump in any lane (irregardless of oncoming traffic) is encouraged. Once past the speed bumps one accelerates to 70 long before the sign tells you it is the end of the 35 mph speed zone. On our trip to Lake Nyasa last week we were clocked at 71 kilometers/hour in a 30 kilometer/hour zone. The police stopped us, showed us the radar gun reading and said come there on your way back to pay the fine. Anyway speed limits are normally 30 kph (20 mph) in town but clearly ignored and the speed limit is as fast as you can go and still have a reasonable grip on the steering wheel. In Iringa, the speeds are very moderate as traffic and pedestrians keep the congestion in control.

Another strange driving experience is the police checkpoint. Some are clearly marked some ad hoc. The police are standing there in their yellow rain slickers (regardless of the fact is hasn't rained in 3 months). They pull over random vehicles for inspection ("do you have your hazard reflector and your fire extinguisher?"). Once they see a car full of foreigners they ask "how do you find Africa?". We all say "very nice", though I am tempted to answer "take a right at Gibraltar". They smile and send us on. Truck inspections are more detailed and there are truck weighbridges (weigh stations) along the main road too. The one we passed on Sunday had a line of trucks 50 long. These police checkpoints are on the main road and on side roads as well. Additionally, there are barrier gates as one passes out of various agricultural areas. The gates are up for us but trucks carrying produce are stopped and a local tax is assessed for the crop. Sort of a Value Added Tax for that region. The bottom line is you are stopped by either police or speed bumps every 15 minutes on any trip.

It is Tuesday and since your polls won't close until 5 AM our time we won't know how the election is going until Wednesday morning. I don't know if Tanzania is any sort of indicator, but I think that Mitt should just throw in the mitt and say thanks for the memories. As we say in Minnesota "vote early, vote often".

Lake Nyasa

This lake is the southern extension of the Rift Valley and forms the southwest border of Tanzania and the northeast border of Malawi. We headed out on Thursday afternoon down T1, the major highway thru Tanzania. Our trip was slowed by construction zones where traffic is only one way (sort of) and by 7 PM we made it to the Moravian Hostel in the town of Mbeya. Hopefully, your Swahili is getting good by now so you can pronounce all of these words (e sounds like long a, a sounds like 'ah'). This is a busy little border town that serves mines and farms all around. The Hostel was pleasant but certainly not the Holiday Inn that Dale promised us. I thought you might want to see a typical Tanzanian bed. Note the mosquito net which surrounds us every evening. The mosquitoes come out after dusk and this is the primary way to prevent Malaria. Highlands such as Iringa are dry enough that Malaria is not a problem, but Mbeya is back in the valley and care must always be taken.

Friday morning we proceeded south again tho Matema Beach by way of a 55 km swamp road. We stopped twice along the way: once for Masoko Crater Lake and once for the German Barracks. The Crater Lake required a drive thru the rain forest and a hike straight up the side of a rain slicked hill. Sharon and I took a rain (forest) check and waited for the others to bring back pictures. Here is a picture of one of the Range Rovers as we approached the Crater Lake parking lot.

Now one would think that the truck is stuck. Not in Africa and not Dr. Ilomo's truck. No! This is where we found the park ranger who collected the fee. We stopped here to argue about how much to charge the Mzunugi (foreigners). The ranger wanted $3 and Ilomo would pay no more that $1.50. Negotiations continued for a few minutes (while we idled thru $5 worth of diesel) and we went on our way.

The next stop was the German Barracks. German settlers occupied this part of Tanzania in 1891 and by 1910 had established a colony here in this area. Later the tribes got together and attacked the Germans and drove them back to the coast. At these barracks, they had a parade grounds, a beautiful recreational lake and many facilities -- some are still in use by the local government.

By the way, did I tell you it has rained since Thursday night about 6 PM? Yup, we are hiking and sightseeing in a rain the modulates from torrential to a heavy drizzle. Anyway, we left the German Barracks and headed to Matema Beach -- a recreational area created by and still occupied by Germans over 100 years ago. We took a short cut thru the swamp and the rains came down. Even crossed the bridge over the River Kwai.

The beach was beautiful and the little village there very authentic and untouched. The area is famous for pottery, but with the rain and wind, we couldn't get to the actual pottery factory, but did lots of shopping in the market. This is a fishing town and about 30 boats go out every night to net fish. With the rough seas, they caught little except for sardine sized fish they dry and deep fry.

Saturday we shopped and rested and the kids splashed in the water. It was relaxing after two days in the car. We went into town and sat down for a traditional beach lunch: rice, ugali, dried fish and greens. Even Caleb and Tobie tried the fish (once I took the head off the little fish so he wouldn't look at us). We shopped for pottery and fabric. I was disappointed that we didn't find a refrigerator magnet from Matema Beach!

Sunday we headed back to Iringa. It took about 10 hours of driving. The first 3 hours were thru flooded fields and across new streams we didn't see two days before. We finally had to take a detour as the construction area we forded on Friday was flooded. We bounced along thru little villages and farms. The farms in the valley grow rice, bananas, cocoa, mangos, and papayas. As we headed up the surrounding hills we came into vast fields of tea (chai to the rest of the world). Tea is planted on any hill no matter how steep. We found prices here very cheap so we sent Dale out to negotiate for some bananas. Note the lady on the left. They have discovered that picture taking is a very profitable business (more than selling bananas in this cutthroat competition). So everyone wants money for their picture. I played the stupid American and just smiled.

By 7 PM Sunday we were back. Dr. Ilomo had only one flat tire along the way and a kind bus driver stopped to help pry out the spare. (Actually, we went on ahead once things were under control and don't really know if the other vehicle made it). The interesting part of the flat tire stop was the constant stream of monkeys crossing the road. But, anyway we are back and there are many more stories and pictures that Dale will upload. But we made it. Sunday night's dinner was followed by a little service where we talked about the Saints we have lost in the past year. Fish Lake celebrated 8 Saints and we talked about Tim Hall, Donna Bernhagen, Jill Gustafson, and the others. It is hard to be away from all of you.