We brought most of Africa with us

Wednesday was a day of recovery. We awoke about 3 AM ready to go (Noon Africa time). First the toilet overflowed because it hasn't been used in 3 months and had all dried up. (Next time remember to have someone flush it occasionally.) Then the car's battery was dead. We can tell when the battery is dead, the remote door locks don't work. Interesting that that is the first thing to go. Anyway I called Triple-A and they arrived 45 minutes after the appointed time. Then when the truck was parked in our garage to service the battery, the lady on the other side of the parking aisle backed into the truck. OK it was a big white truck with a reflective red stripe down the side. I know those are hard to see in a brightly lit underground garage. Anyway they exchanged insurance info (and the car's driver was ticked off!). The battery was replaced and now the car works just fine.

We retrieved our 4th suitcase full of fabric from the Minnesota Church Center (two blocks away from out house). Sue and Greg Triplet had been kind enough to bring it home with them after their short visit in November. We then went to Cub for supplies. Mama Etta would never understand what a grocery store looks like here. We joked that we had to look on the shelf in Africa and if they had table napkins we bought them. Here the shelves of napkins was at least twice the size of the whole African grocery store.

After Cub and a car wash we returned home to try to stay awake until at least 9. I must admit, I took a nap in the afternoon. But, I did stay up late reading.

Home At Last

Just a few pictures and news that we arrived back at the condo at 1 PM Minneapolis time. After the Monday drive from Iringa to Dar Es Salaam

we had dinner at Sea Cliff a popular place right on the Indian Ocean.

The two flights were very nice and we got some sleep, reading and movies in during our 17 hours in the air. We came into Immigration in at the Minneapolis Airport to find Pastor Tom Neilson as today's volunteer guide. He said he wasn't supposed to touch the passengers, but couldn't resist a hug from Sharon. How amazing that we lived with him for a couple of months in Iringa as coordinator of Bega Kwa Bega and there he is at the Minneapolis Airport when we arrive home. I counted 5 passport checks during our 2 flights. Especially since all of the people in the "Citizen" line just got checked in Amsterdam 8 hours ago. How many lost their citizenship since leaving Amsterdam?

A quick cab ride and we walked to find this wonderful welcome home sign. Hope to see you all soon.

Amsterdam and half way home

We are safe and sound in Amsterdan. Sharon and I leave here in two hours. Stiles are on their way to Anne Frank's house and leave here I about 7 hours. The flight was very nice and we got some good sleep. That trip was all at night and we saw lightning, shooting stars and other planes headed to mysterious places. The flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis is all in daylight. Hopefully we will see Greeland's glacier and northern Canada.

In Dar Waiting for Flight 0569

We motored on to Dar Es Salaam and ate dinner at Sea Cliff restaurant. annica decided that is the nicest restaurant she has been to except Snuffies. We checked in and went thru security a few times (I lost count taking my belt off and Dale is walking around with his shorts around his ankles (someone bring him a belt!)) Just kidding.

Our flight leaves at 23:59 and the plane is here. The folks who got on at Kilamanjaro have to sit on the plane now until we get up and get going. We had to walk around a little and see if our legs worked. Anyway we depart in 59 minutes and will be in Amsterdam at about 6 AM (Midnight your time). Then we wait a couple hours and go thru security again and then onto a flight to Minneapolis.

Can't wait to see the snow.

Packing 'em in

As we pack we are running out for quick trips to the market. Caleb and I had to get a transformer for the sewing machine which has now immigrated to Tanzania. It decided that Helena in the Maasi market can use the machine at home (see previous entries for pictures of Helena). It is a 110 VAC machine and the power is 220 VAC here. They do have transformers so we went from shop to shop, asked some foreigners, and looked as lost as we could. Everyone said there would be no such thing here. Wrong! Finally, there in a little shop near the green market he had a bunch of them on the shelf. They knew what we were talking about and even though it cost an arm and a leg it was what we needed. We took it up to Helena's shop and left it with her next door shopkeeper, Adam. I am sure that the machine will be put to great use here and can not wait to see what she makes with this speed thing.

On the quest (note spelling, phone company!) to find the transformer we also stopped by for some last minute things like napkins and eggs. Passing the green market there were the piles of pineapple from today's delivery. Saturday, Duma (our personal pineapple vendor) shook his head and said "not good". He is very happy now with this pile in front of his shop.

Caleb and I took down the ham radio antenna. Such a shame but it is time to move on. I will have to put it back up at Fish Lake and I don't think I will be able to do that in my shorts. Here is the view from the top of our apartment.

Again it will be tough to leave this place.

Robert stopped by and left us with these nice little woven dishes. He is a very ambitious young man and is working with the city of Iringa to get their offices on the Internet and using the services that coordinate city services.

Packing continues unabated (whatever that means?) Duct tape is holding together an old suitcase we got from Bega Kwa Bega and we are bringing one of the Harris suitcases home. All are full of stuff. I am sure the plane will fly with a little list if my suitcase is off to one side.

Saturday at the Maasi Market

Saturday we all headed out to visit our friends at the Maasi Craft Market. Sharon and Annica have made special friends there. You will soon see the results of all the handiwork. Christmas is coming; Santa is coming in an Airbus. A couple of shots of the little shops which are each about 10' x 10' and packed with carvings, paintings, jewelry and other trinkets. This is Adam the painter and his shop.

Dale picked up a painting in the shape of Africa with crosses. Sharon picked up some more material and left a Yo-Yo maker with Helena who has provided material and many other items over the past months. Here Annica and Sharon are showing Helena the basics of Yo-Yo making (actually, Helena figured it out immediately and most of help slowed down the learning process).

Now we try to pack all of these things into what little suitcase space we have left. I don't know if any clothes are coming home. Sunday will be a day of packing and searching every corner of two apartments for all the things we have spread around. I don't expect us to find everything but it should be interesting. Later!

Goodby Tumaini

Today was the last day of class for Tumaini. I gave a final test to my Discrete Structures class, graded it and submitted grades. My students hung around at the end for a picture. Here are a few of them:

I set a strict time limit and they all finished on time. My thesis students also had until 10 AM to submit their first few references for their papers. I did get a few late but by that time I already submitted my grades. It is finished.

This evening's invite was to Chaplain Yakbeth who presides over the spiritual growth of the students at Tumaini University. Her husband works for the Lutheran Diocese and is travelling. The Chaplain, her daughter, and her mother-in-law hosted a nice party at her home on the other side of town. We have started to really enjoy these little dinners and they are all exactly the same but all exactly as warm and welcoming. We were sorry to see the night end, but there is no doubt she will be coming to the U.S. soon. Her brother-in-law married a woman from Lakeville. The U.S. family will be coming here soon and I am sure the Tanzanian family will be to the U.S. soon.

Well hopefully the party next door ends soon as their stereo is clearer here that at the party. I hope you are all investing in hearing aide companies, these folks will all need them at 40. Nothing is ever done at a reasonable volume, loud == fun, I guess. The churches are just as guilty as the bars. Sounds like a birthday party and we only wish we were up for a party but it has been a long week and we are ready for packing and final arrangements.

And on the last day

We have gotten to the final day of class at Tumaini. I am sitting in Lecture Room 3 in the beautiful sunlight as my Discrete Structures class takes their final exam. I did hand out a review sheet with about 50 topics they should review. They were all here nearly on time and are working diligently. The only challenge is that I printed 31 tests (there are only 26 registered) and I had to run and print more as 33 showed up for the test. This is another mystery of life. I did find a printer and copier that worked and had more tests printed within 5 minutes or so. The other mystery is that I spoke with the instructor that follows me in this room. I told her that I was giving a test from 8 to 10 and we might run over. She looked surprised as she was giving a test to her 10 Psychology students today as well -- at 8 AM in the same room. I just cannot figure these things out and have gotten to the point where my response is "Hmmm!" with my Concerned Division Officer's Look (abbreviated in the Navy as CDOL). What it means in the Navy is that "I have no clue what's going on but don't want to look as stupid as I actually feel". Here it works the same.

I set a deadline for my Thesis students to submit their abstracts and 20 references by 10 AM. The e-mails are pouring in (3 since I started typing) and two have already shown up at this classroom door to check on their submissions. I guess that is what I should have done from the start, set absolute deadlines. Again I have my CDOL.

After a couple of rainy and foggy days we are enjoying beautiful cloud-free sunshine. The puddles dry up immediately and the green stuff just explodes with color. Here is the view from the classroom as I type.

It will be hard to leave this weather. Well, I hear the rustle of papers and folks are nearing completion of their tests. I have to grade them all and submit grades today so I will be buried in paper for a while.

I know this is way out of character but, St. Thomas is playing for the divison 3 football championship today at 6 PM (your time) against arch rival Mount Union. Wish them luck. They have a great team and Augsburg gave them a great run for their money to get the Tommies ready for this game. Boy that really hurt me to wish the Tommies luck but the MIAC will shine, I am sure.

A Farewll Dinner

Thursday night the University invited the Stiles and Petits out to dinner at Sai Villa (in case you think there appears to be only one restaurant for evening events, you may be right). We were joined by the assistant Provost Dr. Labawa, the Dean of Theology and the Acting Dean of the Sciences. We had a lovely time and talked about continuing the pastor-teacher arrangement that has been going on for a number of years. I know I have expressed frustration about the way things are run, but I think these three understand and I know the Provost has scolded the faculty for not showing up in time and not paying attention to the calendar. The problem may just take some time to work itself out as the local culture clashes with the needs of a modern, interconnected society.

We were given the most amazing gifts. I must admit I saw the box and thought "another giraffe". But no, these are the most beautiful carved nativity scenes. The are the perfect memorabilia for us from this experience. We had talked about getting one of these but we have a set that Sharon made and we have treasured each of the figures as take it out each Christmas. This new set will bring more memories.

Thank you Tumaini and all of you here in Tanzania. It has been a most memorable experience.

Now on a more serious note we must reveal something which has been going on here nearly every evening. Certain members of the Petit/Stiles clan have created a ritual that we must endure each night as we say good night. During advent we have moved the wisemen, sheep and shepherds as they are on their travels to Bethlehem. But after that we must have "Grammy Huggy Time". Sharon (Grammy) and Tobie (Mr. Enthusiasm) must join in this traditional dance of the Swedish ancestors and sing "It's Grammy Huggy Time" to the tune of "Ta Rah Rah Boom Di Aye". I know it sounds silly, but Grammy has been having some serious withdrawal from hugging little people (Brooke and Hannah and Brinn may be injured by the hugs they will get soon). And Tobie loves to dance so off they go.

This is not one of these secret rituals carried out by the light of a bonfire. No, they do this right out in the open (admittedly with only sympathetic family watching). We laugh as they make up a new way to do the Huggie Dance. Tonight it was with high pitched and low pitched voices. I am not sure this will continue, but maybe Sharon will have to Skype Tobie every night to dance together. Ginny may have to take over next week (Tobie's real Grammy). Good night all and see you soon.

The Extended Family

Wednesday night we had dinner at Anna Ngede's. She is the window of Benjamin Ngede who was instrumental in the growth of Bega Kwa Bega. Benjamin was our guide and interpreter when we visited in 2007 and died in 2010. His son, Dennis is one of the staff of BKB here in Iringa and his company provides the transportation arrangements for visitors. In other words, Benjamin's family has been a big part of BKB. Anna is also the secretary for the Theology Department and provides tea and copies for us. Anna's extended family includes nephews and friends who are here in Iringa for their university education. In addition, Dennis' brother Ruben brought his wife and children to meet us. It was a great celebration. This family arrangement is the norm here in Africa. So many families are affected by disease and separate due to schooling that it is most common to come into a house where many relatives live. Here is the group:

I thought I would show you the typical traffic jam at Kihesa every morning. This is a major intersection for the little buses and is usually jammed with people and cars. The on coming traffic is on our side of the road (remember we drive on the left here). If you put your right blinker on that means you intend to occupy the oncoming traffic's lane. Another interesting part of the highway is that the tarmac is slowly eroding on both sides as there is no underlying support. As the dirt washes away at the edge of the road, the asphalt just breaks off. Hopefully, if the oncoming traffic decides to take your lane, the left hand side hasn't cracked off so far there is no road. It is very nice to have the BKB battlewagon for our transport.

Today dawned with a heavy overhang of low clouds. It has since started to rain and I have no idea how I am going to get from the New Science Building back to Dale's office in the Theology Wing, but I guess I will get wet. I have my final exam all ready to copy but the only functioning copy machine is in Anna Ngede's office (next to Dale's office) so I guess I will gut it out and run down there. Here is what the low clouds look like around the University.

Christmas Carols and Grasshoppers

With an all night rain, we have grasshoppers. That was our first all-night rain and it rained off and on most of the day on Tuesday. Large green grasshoppers have invaded the campus. They come out of nests in the ground and fly without concern for their own (or other's) safety. They invaded Dale's office. He invited a group of kids in to collect them as we found many folks on campus collecting the bugs in jars and bottles. This one wanted to check his e-mail.

Apparently, the locals fry and eat these things and they told us that soon the market would have piles of them for sale. Hmmm!

The evening event was a Carol Service at the Iringa Christian Fellowship. We filled the little Anglican chapel, sang songs, had a little Christmas play about "the Greatest Gift Ever" and ended in candle light. It was fun and probably the last time we will see many of these folks as they head off for the holidays.

Just a few new tunes to old favorite Christmas hymns and a room full of wiggly kids but it was a great Christmas program.

The rain is supposed to clear today, but it is still cloudy and the temperature plummeted all the way down to 64 F (burrr!). We have 3 nights of dinner invitations so our cooking has ground to a halt. Carrie and Sharon are trying to figure how to make it without too many trips to the market. What we don't use we can always give to the neighbors

After two months of waiting, Radio Furaha is on the Internet. They are streaming through a free streaming service. You can find them at furaha.listen2myradio.com. Our hope is that others around the world will be able to listen in and keep in touch with Radio Furaha. We have significant interest from folks in the U.S. and will have to see how things go. Most of the programming is in Swahili, but they broadcast some English interview and church service programs. This radio station is due to the hard work of many, especially Pastor Paul Harris of Easter Lutheran.

Since you are all sleeping away, I decided to add a little more to the blog this morning. The rain has gone and it is partly cloudy. I am banished to my office in the New Science Building. The hammering and crashing continues two floors above. We are supposed to use these offices, but I not sure if it good for my sanity nor my safety. Anyway, on the way to school this morning Dale and I saw this.

Yes, that is a 40 lb bag of rice on his head. Just another interesting site along the road to the University. And no, we didn't hit him with the truck. Dale slowed down so I could get this shot. We have interesting sites all along this daily trip and it is just too bad I haven't a video camera running the whole time. We often have to stop for goats, chickens, cattle or donkeys crossing the road. We rate the trip as a 3 donkey, 2 chicken day. Today no chickens, no goats, no nothing. By the way, the hill off to the left on this picture washes out onto the road during the heavy rains. In the morning after the rain, city workers are out sweeping off the sand and digging out the sand that builds up in the roadside ditch. Erosion of this area is a significant problem and I wonder how long until the houses start to follow the sand down the hill. A once nice view overlooking the city will become a nice view of traffic in a few years. There is no pavement (called tarmac here) in the residential areas and the roads even to the nicest houses are passable only in a 4 wheel drive vehicle. City planning is nonexistent.

The African Pink Slip

Today's class was to be "Senior Thesis Seminar". It has been 10 to Noon every Tuesday and I have lately just gone to the classroom to discuss writing reports with whomever shows up. Last night it rained all night and it is still a moderate rain so I didn't expect too many students. Haji Omar did show up and took a picture of us with his iPhone.

Remember, we are south of the equator so things look very different here.

A few minutes later a gentleman entered who is in charge of the room assignments and asked if I had a key for Office #2 in the Old Science Building. If you remember, we made that key as a copy of Panraj's key at Saalim Keys in Iringa. Anyway, I didn't see any reason to keep the key so I gave it to him. I had a nice dry room in the Thin Client Lab for meeting with my students. OK, then in come my second year students to announce that the Thin Client Lab was to be the classroom now for them and another class? I guess this is the Africa way of giving you the pink slip: take your key and assign some other instructor to your classroom (that you have used for the past 3 months). I smiled and moved over to the other lab.

Anyway, it appears that no one else wants to brave the rain and come for sage advice. I guess we will head home and see what trouble we can stay out of. (I know, dangling preposition).

Maybe this is the rainy season

We watch all of you shovel the snow and don't really want to come back to that. We do want to get out in the snow and make some snowmen and ski and just try something different. Just a couple of short notes for today and then I will go back to reading "The Lunatic Express" -- a book about building the first railroad here in eastern Africa.

I finally asked for a class list at school. I know it is a bit late, but I wanted to verify student names and numbers before I turn in grades on Friday. Since each year of a particular major is a cohort all they have to do is keep track of the 2nd year and 3rd year students who have been admitted for that year. For my Discrete Structures class, 35 took the mid-term exam, 19 of those are admitted. For my Thesis class, there are 49 students who have submitted at least an abstract for their final Thesis, 21 have been admitted. The ones not "admitted" will not get credit for the course but they are desperately trying to get through the degree in spite of the financial challenge to be enrolled. I think this is becoming just as big a challenge here as it is everywhere in the U.S.. The cost of this sort of luxury education is beyond the means of most students. Personally, I believe that something has to change in the model of sending folks to a country club school and taking 4 or 5 years of classes to get through a major. I don't know what to do with the Thesis class. I am afraid I will just have to submit grades and pass the group on to the instructor for the next semester. Interestingly, the next term's instructor is a reference librarian and will focus on literature review -- something they all need.

After school we gathered up for a final trip for ice-cream. As Stiles were about to leave, poof, off goes the electricity. They had to buy some more Kilowatt hours at one of the local stores because the electric company was closed for the evening. Caleb got the code entered and the lights are back on in A-5 for good (we hope). I thought they would have plenty of power to make it through the next week but I was wrong. We sat down for dinner, lit two Advent candles and the power went out for the whole neighborhood. It came back on after about 40 minutes as we sat down for our final milk shakes.

It rained this evening and the forecast is for 50 to 90 % rain for the next few days. We are entering the rainly season but it comes in bunches and then (like the last week or so) is beautiful again. I know none of you are feeling sorry for us. We keep pinching ourselves and cannot believe we are really here. Tomorrow is a Christmas sing-along at the English speaking church and the rest of the evenings are filled by invitations from various faculty and staff. The Deputy Provost invited us to a little "thank you" party on Thursday so we will be busy and the remaining week will fly by.

Sunday and the living is easy

Sharon, Caleb and I attended the Lutheran Cathedral Church this morning. The rest accompanied Dale on his last preaching trip to one of Bega Kwa Bega's partner churches. The rest of the day was reading and relaxing until dinner. I finished a book called "The Zanzibar Chest" by Adrian Hartley. He was born in Africa of English parents and a family that had been part of the British Foreign Service for a couple of generations. When Adrian left school he became a journalist for Reuters because of his intimate knowledge of eastern Africa. He then reported on the revolutions in Uganda, Rwanda, Somalia and the Balkans from the late 80's to the late 90's. It is a very harsh book to read because of the atrocities committed during these times, but it gives you an idea of what this area has gone through as these countries become independent.

Caleb and I did have one more wall switch to replace in our laundry room. These switches just wear out because the pivot pieces are plastic and get turned on and off many times a day to save electricity. We again went to our little hardware fellow, but this time I was wearing pants and a nice dress shirt. He still thinks we are a little weird! The switch went in and we now have things working nicely. I could fix a leak created yesterday from the plumber pulling apart every valve in the place, but there is nothing more dangerous than trying to fix old faucets. They tend to disintegrate on contact and that would require another visit from the plumber.

This evening we dined at the house of Pastor Ilomo, his wife Flora and son Luke (Caleb's age). Pastor Ilomo has studied in Germany and Finland and loves to get folks together to do things. He lead our trip to Lake Nyasa about a month ago. Tonight's activity was making bread. Luke and Caleb made some nice wheat bread from flour milled in Ilomo's home town.

They mixed and kneaded and baked the bread and each family brought a loaf home as our parting gift. Kind of an interesting way to keep the kids busy when you don't have ESPN or an XBOX. The Ilomo's home is oh the hill above our apartment and it is still a work in progress. The most interesting part is that the living room faces up the hill and the bedrooms look out over Iringa. Sitting in most Tanzanian living rooms is like sitting in a cell. There are usually windows that are heavily curtained and one cannot see out. I don't know what they don't want to look at, but as you can see from our photos, the scenery is beautiful.

Here is our parting picture of the Ilomo's and Sharon and I. Dale will put up the picture of his family with the Ilomo's.

We are ready to start our final week of class. I will hand out a review paper for the Discrete Structures class and I am asking the Thesis class to submit a list of at least 20 references relevant to their chosen topic. Those lists are coming in via e-mail so it will be interesting to see what they find.

As if to add to the noise, I think the ambulance service or the police service found the siren switch on their dashboard. It is 10:45 PM and there is not a car on the road. I started hearing the siren go about 5 minutes ago and it will go until the car gets to its destination without warning a single car -- just making lots of noise and disturbing the peace. We haven't heard sirens before and now they are using them at times when it really isn't necessary. And I doubt that during the day anyone will hear them in their cars as no truck has a muffler anymore. I look forward to the peace and quiet of downtown Minneapolis.

By the way, we did see your snow by looking at the Minnesota Department of Transportation traffic cameras. Looks like we will have a white Christmas after all.

The Plumber Never Rings Twice

OK, are you sitting down? Good. The plumber arrived on time to fix our water system! I know; he was to be here at 9 and at 8:50 the door bell rang. "Hello, I am Mr. Maire (Ma-ear-ray) the plumber". A very nice gentleman he went right to work on our problem. He tried all the faucets and looked over the piping on the outside and then called in the reserves. Another fellow arrived on a small motor bike with his toolkit strapped to the back. They realized that something was clogging the pipes and started to remove valve stems in hopes of finding the clog up here in the apartment. An hour later, we heard the clamor of the ladder coming up the stairs as they assistant opened the hatch to the roof. Most of the water systems here have a storage tank up high were the water is kept until needed. That provides a good pressure for use when the municipal system doesn't really work. Here is Mr. Maire looking over the maze of pipes and tanks on the roof.

By 11 AM they had the entire water system torn apart and still no pressure. They finally diagnosed the problem to be in the pipe leading from the water meter to the roof tank and were able to flush that our. I suspect there is a check valve in there that clogged or failed from the crud in the pipe. They are putting new water mains throughout the neighborhood and we have slightly brown water as the new pipes are put in service. By noon everything was back together and we had water. The only interesting part was when the plumber asked "do you have a pliers?". I guess when you come on a little motorbike your tool choices are limited.

Caleb and I worked on more screens at the Stiles. Everyone had some time to read and work on school work and it was an enjoyable day. Sharon asked Caleb to take some pictures from the top of the apartment and here is our view out the kitchen.

This will be hard to leave.

In the afternoon we headed to the farm for volleyball and soccer. Annica took me over to the milking house to watch the cows come in for their evening milking. They milkd by hand in a barn with about 30 stalls and it is a busy place. Along the way we watched the farm hands move cattle and sheep to new grazing areas and saw a herd of goats with many little ones just trying to keep up with their mothers.

The Stiles kids are getting very good at organizing soccer games with a very diverse group of kids (some know how to play soccer and some are really good at it). Soon we had a serious international game going with the only impediment to play 3 dogs sleeping in the middle of the pitch (soccer field). The dogs got bumped by the ball and people, would stand up and stretch and then lay down somewhere else in the field of play. This went on until dusk and we returned home. Many of the people who come to the farm are headed off for the holidays so we wanted one last time to say goodbye to this group.

We did find apartment C-1 open and the tenants sweeping out the water as we arrived back here. They appeared to have very nice stuff and hopefully they could rescue most of the rugs and anything else on the floor. One of the folks at the farm said she always has a wet/dry vacuum cleaner because flooding is not unusual. With storage tanks and pipes in the ceilings and torrential rains it is not uncommon to have to dry out the house. That was our Saturday. Sunday Dale goes north to preach one last time at a village church. I don't think Sharon and I are going as it makes for a very long day with a couple of hours of bumpy road each way. We love Dale's preaching and will get more when we return home.

Dinner with the Preaching Class

Friday was another school day. I made a vain attempt to teach probability. The probability of it making any sense to my class was near zero. Hopefully, they can read over the material and try the homework and it will be clear to them. This is the last module of the course and all that is left is a little review.

Following class we dropped by the Catholic Cooking School and picked up some spaghetti sauce from Sister Delphinia. This is a small building nestled in among the buildings of a large pre-school. There she teaches the women skills needed for institutional cooking. They sell their production to raise some funds but the church is doing an amazing job there.

Oh I forgot the start of the day! The truck was side-swiped (hit and run) on Thursday night but the only damage was a fiber glass bumper was jarred loose. I got up at 7 and went down with my Zebra Duct Tape to tape it back in place. However, I found the bolts and reconnected the bumper and it is as good as old (it had 350,000 kilometers on it). The Zebra Duct Tape would have looked cool. BTW, if you want to turn right and put your blinker on as you slow down, look back. These idiots pass you on the right as you try to turn. Even with your blinker on. (Remember now that we are driving on the left side of the street and the turn that crosses the other lane is a right turn!). Again they drive just trying to see who will die first. So the truck is back in shape. Tobie and I also added air to the truck's tires as they are all old and leak slowly.

This evening's dinner was with Dale's preaching class (I can't spell homiletics, and the Google spell checker doesn't know what that means. I think that homiletics must be the secret wink among pastors so they can identify each other in a crowd.) This is a class of 5 students who are in their 3rd year of seminary. They are all experienced evangelists and preachers, but have entered this 5 year program to become ordained. They are all married and have a family in another city away from Iringa. The church sponsors their schooling and living expenses here, but their family stays back home while the students are here at Tumaini University. Next year, they will spend a year as an Intern Pastor and then come back to the campus for one more year of school before ordination. I know! What an amazing dedication become a pastor! Here they are:

What an enjoyable group and they want Dale to come back in February and teach the second course on Homiletics. Maybe he can Skype it. It has been an honor to meet these folks and get to know them. The Lutheran Church in Tanzania is in good shape with these future pastors.

It is 8 and time to get rolling on Saturday. The plumber is supposed to come and get water pressure restored this morning and I need to put more air in the truck's tires. There are also a few holes in the Stile's screens that need fixin'. We have a few plans but things will depend on when (and if) the plumber shows up. The truck alarm on one of the trucks in the parking lot goes off when other trucks drive by -- that has just gone off for a minute or so. It goes off when we slam the door of the adjacent vehicle so that is a really great deterrent. The Church of Jesus Christ and the Louder Day Saints is not blaring this morning (what don't people sin on Saturday?) and it is actually quiet. The bar across the street turns off their music about 5 so we have a few minutes of quiet.

Have a great weekend.

Not another birthday party!

Yup, another party, this time for Carrie. We started the day at Tumaini. The Stiles family came along to sit in on one of Dale's classes and get a tour of my "new" and "old" office. Tobie was really impressed with the large classrooms and the very nice chairs in the new Science Building. We walked around and checked out everything on campus -- even the convenience store to see if they had dark chocolate Smarties -- no luck. After Dale's class we all returned to the apartment to begin the daily apartment maintenance. The light switch on Stile's kitchen has been slowly failing and finally it just gave out and decided not to go on any more (get it? I thought it was pretty clever). Anyway, Caleb and I headed back to our favorite electrical supply place and got a nice switch. We also got some more yogurt and cashews. The switch took some convincing but it went in just fine and hopefully will survive the 11 days left.

After that adventure, we all took the afternoon off for school and preparation. At 4 we headed to the Huruma Orphanage on the other side of town. There we played soccer, made pipecleaner bracelets and drew our favorite animals. These kids are just a bundle of energy and it is most fun to just get their names, find out how old they are and do a little project with them.

Following that we had Carrie's Birthday dinner at Sai Villa up the hill. The surprise of the evening was that the dinners were ordered at 6:10 and arrived at the table between 7:05 and 7:15. Previously, dinners showed up over a half hour span for just the 7 of us. We are used to that now. It was fun to just enjoy the stories of the day and the great presents and cards everyone had. Even Carrie's folks left a card hidden in the apartment for her to find today.

Now the interesting part. Remember the running water in apartment C-1 below us? Well it appeared to be stopped this morning and we thought someone with a key had been contacted. Wrong! By afternoon it was obvious that the water still flowed from the front door. I had assumed that someone with the tenant's phone number would have been called. Silly me! Well since it was still flowing, Caleb and I walked around the back side and could clearly hear the water running and see the sink full of water and the water on the floor. From Caleb's best estimate it covered the kitchen and living room floor and down the hallway about 1/2 way into the office. The bedrooms appeared spared. We found the water cutoffs but there were no markings so it would have been difficult to figure out which one was which without trying each one. Then we looked behind the C-1 kitchen and there was a nice brass shutoff valve. I shut it and the water stopped. I also tightened a stem leak on another valve. But apparently no one is able to maintain these apartments and the guards don't even know who to call. The water has slowed from the front door but the wet carpet and furniture is safely locked behind high security pad locks. No one is going to get in to steal that mold! I will leave a note on the door to explain what happened and hopefully next time they will leave a key with a neighbor or maybe a phone number to contact in case this happens again.

Farewell Focolore

You may not have enough patience to read all of the events of Wednesday. I will attempt to summarize the important points.

The Stiles have a microwave. It has been out for 6 weeks and on its way from Dar all that time (a 10 hour drive).

The Stiles have no light in their kitchen; the wall switch fell off. We will get a new switch Thursday. What do folks do without a complete hardware store and tool kit?

The Tumiani faculty had an all day meeting on teaching. Students were not told about the meeting and most of the faculty didn't show up for their classes -- effectively cancelling all classes. The presenter showed up at the designated start time of 9:00 and most of the faculty trickled in by 9:30. The presenter exhibited an excellent example of "death by Power Point" by putting up slides of so many words they were unreadable and then read the slides to the audience. Need I go on?!? (The emphasis is mine.) My students asked to have a help session at 2 PM, but by then they had figured out that none of the other faculty were holding class -- the students went home. I could have had an all-day help session, but I waited in the classroom until 2:30 and when it was obvious that no one was coming, I left too.

I was able to restart the computer on my desk at Augsburg from here. It had crashed some time in early November and I needed some documents from it. It had been very stubborn and wouldn't let me log in. If I couldn't log in, I couldn't find out what was wrong and fix it. I just guessed some passwords and one worked. I suspect my students had put that password in recently and I just stumbled across it but I was in. Looking at the log files it was obvious that one of the services (called Open Directory -- which it clearly wasn't doing) was not a service. I trolled the Internet and found a one line solution and voila! a server is reborn. This was an amazing amount of luck from 7,000 miles away, so I carefully put my computer away and thanked the computer gods for letting me live one more day.

I stopped at Radio Furaha to check if Internet had been installed -- still waiting on a money transfer from the bank.

I stopped by city hall to find Robert working diligently on their network. I showed them a little about creating a firewall; he understood and took over. Robert is the shining star among all of these. He knows more about networking than anyone here and just needs a little kick start to get him to try another feature of their network management system.

We went back to Focolore school for a little presentation. The students were excited to sing us songs and say "thanks for coming and come back soon to Tanzania". You know, some things have made this trip worth it. Focolore was one.

On our way out the door to Focolore, Sharon noticed water running out from under the door of C-1, the apartment on the first floor of our building. Most likely, someone turned on a tap during the water outrage (misspelled deliberately) and left it on. When the water returned, whatever it was flooded and now is flowing out from under the front door. Now, in most apartments, the manager would use his key, open the door and turn off the water. Here, manager? Is there one? We have no clue. The guards looked at it and argued about something, but clearly they didn't know who to call. (In spite of the fact they are calling someone all day and night from their phones.) Anyway, manager's key? Another interesting problem. All of the apartments have iron gates locked by owner provided high security pad locks. No one else can get in. So we left the water run. Later that evening, after the other apartment dwellers had arrived home we found a woman who knew the phone number of the mother of the woman who lived in C-1. A few minutes later, someone showed up with a key and we saw folks scurrying around starting to clean up the mess. The unintended consequence of this security system is that a fire cannot be fought and a flood goes on until someone who knows someone who knows their mother's second cousin's phone number happens along the scene. No one really considers these problems in the big picture.

We have water and electricity and it is beautiful and the Focolore school was very rewarding. We are blessed with each other, your prayers and the opportunity to do all of this.

Gift of the Maji

Well it is not what you think. First "maji" is water in Swahili and that is what we didn't have. The water department is putting in new pipes along the street and when it came down to our apartment complex, they were working on it so they turned off the water. Now, this isn't as bad as it sounds since most houses, apartments and offices have a small water tower on them. The city water slowly fills this tower and when the municipal supply is interrupted, the tower provides water for a while. Unfortunately, on our apartment there are three 2000 liter (500 gallon) tanks for 6 apartments and by Monday afternoon we had drained them dry. If we had been warned, we could have conserved but with about 20 people in these apartments the water usage was significant.

Anyway, off goes the water -- actually sort of gradually on Monday. Grace did fill two 5 gallon buckets and her mop pail so we had enough for dish washing, cooking and a few flushes. On Tuesday morning things started to get critical as we needed some extra flushes and our supply was running low. I headed off to the Stiles compound (much like the Linder compound only tropical) with my bucket. The nice guard lady shook her head (I am sure she does that just when she sees me in my shorts and bright yellow "Fish Lake Walk/Run for Jesus" shirt) and pointed down the block. I shrugged my shoulders and she took me by the bucket to Mama's -- the little bar and convenience shop across the street. Soon we had a full (and leaking) bucket and back we came. She hoisted the 40 pounds of water on her head and up we went to bring much needed Maji to apartment C-6.

We were actually solving two crises at a time. The ceiling light in the kitchen died on Saturday and we were washing dishes by dork light. Dale and I took the bulb out and Caleb and I stopped by a hardware store on the way home from the market on Tuesday as well. We have tried many different little stores for light bulbs, wall sockets, wire and such. Each one looks disheveled on the outside but most are neat and well organized on the inside. We found a very nice gentleman (who also shook his head at my shorts and shirt) who tested our old bulb (it glowed like a snake through the tube) and a new bulb and wrapped up the new bulb (we call it Caleb proofing) and sent us on our way for a couple of bucks. Caleb installed the new bulb and we can see to wash dishes; now if we only had water to wash.

As we are starting the dinner preparations, the power goes off. Since all we wanted to do was make bacon for BLT's, I got the kerosene stove out and set it up on porch. I am sure the same guy that sees us park the truck at the market can see that we have outsmarted the power gods once again and shakes his head and turns on the power. Those foreigners might be dumb but eventually they figure out a way around just about anything that Africa throws at them -- he thinks. The power returned: Annica could finish her sewing, Carrie could cook the bacon and I could run the ham radio for a few more minutes.

As we sat down for dinner, voices in the parking lot below told us something was up. There was the manager of the water system (you can tell he is important, he has a walkie talkie) flushing the pipes to the complex before restoring service. A few minutes later, gurgle, gurgle, poof, poof and water started to flow. Let me tell you about the poof, poof part. Since the tanks and pipes empty on a regular basis, (we usually have no water just after everyone has left for work) air gets in the pipes. This air is repressurized when the pipes fill again and big bubbles of air become little bubbles of compressed air. When Dale turns on the faucet, he gets a nice shower from the poof of air and water that emerges. We have learned to turn on the faucet slowly and stand back. Anyway, the water pressure slowly increased as the tanks above us refilled. With this new piping system, we have nice water pressure and we have lots of water. It was worth the wait, but just a little warning would have been nice. There are about 6 5-gallon buckets here in the apartment and we could have filled all of those in preparation for the water loss. Oh well T.I.A.

The boys went to the International School on Tuesday afternoon for soccer and basketball. We all did a run to the market for pop and ice cream. Tuesday is milkshake night so we indulged with chocolate shakes and called it a day. Water, light in the kitchen and milk shakes -- life can't get much better.

Focolore Adventure

Monday was Focolore School day again and we all went there to help teach in the after-school program. Students are divided by age group and each of us sort of takes on some teaching task. Carrie and Caleb took on the middle group (about 5th grade) and worked on sentence structure and pronouns. Carrie would write a sentence and when one of the students got the words correct, the took a block from the Janga game. Eventually the pile would collapse with a roar of approval from the kids.

Swahili doesn't have separate pronouns for you and me and we and them and so on. The pronoun becomes the prefix of the verb so hello (jumbo) becomes hello all of you (hamjumbo) and so on. So Swahili speakers are very confused by "hello to you" and that often becomes "hello to me". Listening to Grace (the housekeeper) and Sharon (the wife) communicate goes like this:
"Grace, you don't have to make the beans today. I will make the beans"
"OK, Mama, you will make the beans"
Here is what Grace heard: "I won't make the beans, you make the beans" and Grace makes the beans anyway.

Sharon, Annica, Tobie and Dale worked with the little kids on vocabulary. "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" is a big hit with that crowd. "Hip Hip Hipopatamus waw also a top song on their billboard.

By the way the one in the red in the front is 7 and speaks nearly perfect English. She is going to be President of Tanzania some day.

I had the "Form One" students who are in about 7th grade. You can tell by the picture that they are enthused to be listening to a lecture on "slope of a graph". Some knew the material well and some were not so sure. We graphed rainfall, water in the cistern tanks (more on this later) and sunlight.

The school invited us back on Wednesday for a "send off" of sorts so that should be interesting.

The "you cannot make this stuff up" story for today is that the neighborhood has been under a siege by ditch diggers as they bury new water pipes. There are piles of dirt dug up by teams of 8 to 10 (mostly women). Then new pipes are installed and reburied. Of course they jack hammer (by hand) the concrete driveway aprons and blast thru any sort of asphalt or concrete sidewalks that might be in their way. The sidewalks are left as half gravel, half pavement and the ditches are piles of eroding dirt. Most likely that has stopped the municipal water from flowing and our water ran out Monday morning. On top of each apartment are 3 or 4 large 2000 liter tanks that are filled by the municipal system. When the water stops flowing from the city, these tanks provide the supply. Ours are empty and we will just have to wait and see when the water returns. Last word we had was that the tanks on Block A (where the Stiles reside) were not yet empty as there are fewer people living in that block. So I guess that water (along with electricity) is an option for city living. We filled some 5 gallon buckets and can cook and wash dishes with that water. Time to go back to bed and rest up for another interesting day.

Meli Kalikimaka

The first Sunday in Advent doesn't really seem like the lead up to Christmas. We worshiped at the Iringa Christian Fellowship. This is a small congregation that meets in the original 1920's Anglican Church. Carrie provided the sermon and we sang songs out of a hymnal that has the words to 2,200 songs. But we didn't sing any Christmas songs! Oh well, maybe next time. The few decorations that are up at Neema Craft Center next door are the only indications of Christmas.

Later in the afternoon we joined the same group of immigrants and had an Advent Craft afternoon. Dale and Tobie made a mobile.

Sharon, Annica and Carrie made little stars woven out of paper strips. This turned out to be a very challenging undertaking: the instructions were in Danish and the instructor sort of knew how to do it. We had great fun and some wonderful Christmas cookies and tea. Singing "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" just didn't seem appropriate to 80 degrees and bright sunshine.

In the evening we joined in another Stiles tradition. Caleb, Annica and Tobie created a little manger scene with duct tape and toilet paper rolls. We have sheep, wise men, shepherds, Mary, Joseph and a real duct tape manger. Each night we move all of the little participants around the apartment since they are all on their way to Bethlehem. Eventually, they will all make it to the stable in the living room, but for now we have to remember where we put our animal/person and move them daily. My sheep is on top of the bulletin board in the hall. I put him in an obvious place so that I won't forget.

Our challenge for this week is the light in the kitchen. It went out during dishes and now we have to get the bulb out and buy a new 4' florescent bulb and get it back to the apartment without breaking. Wish us luck.

To the Market

Caleb and I headed to the market on Saturday morning for wall plugs (to replace the ones broken by normal use) and some grub. We started with a list of a few things and ended getting sugar, flour, bacon, frankfurters, green peppers and cucumbers. Caleb is a market guru and wastes no steps moving from stall to stall for all of this. For our pineapple purchase, we found the pineapple truck unloading in the middle of the street. There were piles of pineapple everywhere and folks sorting and negotiating prices. We have a stall that gives us the best pineapples and his stall was almost unreachable except by parachute. The pile was the size of a small car and he was still sorting as we arrived. Sorry we didn't get a picture, but Dale got many good market pictures. Friend him on Facebook and you can see what we see.

The power just went out but I have my coffee and as long as the batteries last in this laptop I can still blog. Yesterday the second headmaster from Image school stopped by again to show the training program they will use to train their weather observers. Since it is already the Christmas holiday (more like their summer break), they will be training some of the students from the local town and then train more students in weather when they return from break on the 2nd of January. My part of all of this will be to send some meteorology books here and perhaps gather enough support to send some more instruments for the weather station at the Image school. .

A big part of their secondary school training is practical training in engineering and science. They learn such things as surveying and chemical analysis. Meteorology is a good topic to use to teach students things such as taking measurements, recording data, analyzing data, and caring for technical instruments. When Dan McIntyre was here in August and September, he helped the chemistry teachers learn chemical analysis techniques such as titration and weighing. Hopefully, we can get enough teachers and students interested in weather to keep this station up and running year around. Image is one of about 30 schools in the region that will have a weather station. I encouraged the headmaster to put my name on the daily e-mail of weather observations here. It will be a nice contrast with January in Minnesota:

Iringa Temperature = 80, Partly cloudy/Mostly sunny
Minneapolis Temperature = -20, Not sure if sun came up today

Another task for Saturday was household maintenance. Most of the plumbing was installed without the necessary gaskets so nearly everything leaks. I have nearly all the leaks fixed -- some with handmade gaskets. I feel like Apollo 13 sometimes, sealing things up with duct tape. Many of the cute little lamps around the apartments have very light gauge wire. Those wires come loose in the switches, sockets or plugs and I have worked on about 8 of the lamps to get them running. Dale tried his hand at changing a light bulb in one of the lamps, but the wire leading into the lamp socket was frayed and that lead to a fairly spectacular flash of light and puff of smoke. There were no injuries, but it really scared all of us. I rewired the lamp and it works now, but we are now very careful with any lamp that acts up. I was tempted to make a joke out of "how many Lutheran Pastors does it take to change a lightbulb?" However, it would have to somehow involve a fire department and the electric company and some laundry detergent so I let it alone.

The power is still out but the hot water runs so the shower works (it leaks from missing gaskets but that makes it just like the new showers with many sprays caressing your body). Before my little laptop becomes a doorstop, I will end this and say have a good Sunday and see you all soon.

Another week comes to a close

Friday's class covered probability. If you have studied probability you might remember that in a class of 30 students the odds are nearly 90% that two will have the same birthday. I tried to convince the class of this and then asked for birthdays. Turns out, no two have the same birthday in this class. I am sure they were really impressed with my math on that one. Maybe probability doesn't work south of the equator. Anyway we are winding down the class and I plan to finish probability next week and do a couple of review sessions before a final in two weeks.

Dale and I have a new technique of going to the market -- guerrilla shopping. He drives up to the front of the store, stops in the middle of the street (because most of the cars are triple parked), I jump out, grab the case of empty bottles and run up to the front of the store. A nice young man grabs the bottles and heads into the warehouse (just about the size of your pantry) and brings out a case of full bottles, grabs my money and sticks it into a little cage where the cashier hands back the change. I hop out to the car (with the young man in pursuit), open the back door and the bottles are loaded carefully -- 45 seconds max. One thing that slows us down is that the little parking monitor always catches Dale trying to park (even though there is no where to park) and sells him a Tsh 1,000 permit. We never see anyone else charged for parking but they must have an mwsungu scanner up on some building who watches for us and vectors a parking monitor to us. The first question we always ask when going to market is "do you have the Tsh 1,000 for parking?". For those who don't have the money exchange app running on your phone, that is about 75 cents.

Dr Richard Lubawa and his wife Dorothy had dinner with the Stiles and Petits on Friday night. He is one of the founders of Tumaini University and still assistant Dean (Provost). Dorothy teaches counseling and always has a friendly "hibari asuburi" for us in the morning. We talked about how rapidly the school has grown in its 19 years of existence. When they laid out the grounds, many people criticized them for making such big parking lots. At that time the other founding couple, the Bloomquists, had the only Land Cruiser vehicle which parked at the school. Now Dr. Lubawa is amazed to see cars coming and going and filling the limited parking space. In fact, the road Dale and I use to get to the university wasn't there when we visited in 2007 and most of the "Dinky Town" around the main student entrance weren't there either. I wouldn't be surprised if we found a parking ramp there next time.

For the weekend, we have a few household repairs to complete. Many of the wall plugs break when even dropped on the floor. We have replaced so many that I have used up our apartment's stock. Caleb and I will have to venture to the hardware store to get more. And of course, our little trip now includes a major detour to the food market to acquire flour, butter, hot dogs, and all the rest of the things needed to feed this army.

I am still trying to talk to 100 countries on the ham radio. I am now up to 93 with the latest one Lesotho. This is a little land-locked country in the middle of South Africa. The only reason there are amateur radio operators there now is that a group from South Africa packed up their stuff and headed there for a week of vacation. It was total luck and they were a little surprised that I called them from Tanzania. Well it is time to go back to bed, but the birds are already singing and I suspect the roosters will be next.