Team Journal ~ Heading Back to Dar via Iringa!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Quote for the Day: “You can’t have everything and you’ll get over it.”

It started out like any other school day, a good breakfast, Edward joining us and making sure we would be ready to leave by 1:00 p.m. It seems impossible that we’re on our way home.

This morning at the secondary school Don I taught Prosper and Headmaster Shadracki how to use the new calculators. Katie and Don III each had a good morning being in classes that they enjoyed. I stopped by my room and it was junked up again and I had to push benches and desks around to make it useable. I then went to the classroom next door and asked for 10 students to come with me for Conversational English. We practiced writing friendly letters and notes and ended the class by singing:

“Make new friends,
But keep the old,
One is silver,
And the other gold.”

It was then time for Staff Tea, which is a delightful tradition, and I think we will all miss the camaraderie, chai, and sweet fried dough. I taught them “Make New Friends” and we sang it through several times and then with Don III’s help as a round.

Mickey sewed on the Mission House veranda with Tumaini. Four bags were finished and three were sold, maybe the fourth as well.

Connie went to the Catholic Nursery Scool. The teacher sat in the courtyard leaving Connie with 43 tiny tots that were tired of counting from 1 to 10, Connie’s only Swahili. The children spent the hour and a half running around, mimicking her sometimes.

Nesia, (Mama Toni), prepared a very fine last luncheon for us with chapaties, rice, beans, greens, pork and fresh mango.

The trip to Iringa took 2 hours. The weather was warm and sunny. We are staying at the Mlandege Lutheran Guest House. We were told there was no running water. I wanted to cry. I was so looking forward to a warm shower before I got into my clean sheets. (The generator just went off, Connie brought me a powerful little light so I could finish typing but the bugs were drawn by the light and are swarming all over me.)

Continued: We shopped, rested and waited for Edward to appear with Bud Philbrook, President of Global Volunteers, and the Bishop of Iringa, Bishop Dr. Owdenburg Moses Mdegella. They finally arrived about 7:30. Bud spoke about Global Volunteers' mission and that the UN has 12 interventions. Global Volunteers helps with all 12 services, but not at one site. He said the essential services covered Hunger, Health and IQ. He told us that it was 23 years ago that the Bishop had the dream of a secondary school in Pomerini. He was on the first team to help the Bishop begin planning to make his dream come true. It was a pleasure to meet both of them. We finally had dinner.

The water came on so I had a cool shower. Then the generator went off, only to come on sometime in the middle of the night.

The manager of this Lutheran guest house is a very capable and nice man. He brought lights when the generator went off and walked me to my bedroom with the computer.

I am still impressed by the kindness of the people I have met on this trip.
My cup runs over.