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.
No comments:
Post a Comment