We have thoroughly enjoyed our time at Irente Point Lodge. We haven't been able to get blogspot to pull up so this is being sent to you via, email, copy/paste, from my mom :) thanks Robin!
Yesterday, before heading to lunch, we just so happened to meet a wonderful young man who was traveling by himself from Germany. He has been volunteering in Dar es Salaam, but the secondary school he works with was on holiday so he decided to take a weekend trip to Lushoto. We decided to invite him to lunch with us. He was very grateful and was a nice addition to our group. Also, joining us for lunch was our dear friends Susan & Tom McPherson from Philadelphia. They have been living and volunteering at the Irente Children's home for 2 years now. It was great to get to catch up with them over an amazing lunch at the Biodiversity farm. It is one of our favorite stops during our time in Lushoto. We will definitely be going back once the rest of our team arrives. The guacamole, thilset cheese, and fresh jams, juices, vegetables, and bread cannot be found anywhere else! It was nice to get the inside "scoop" on what has been happening in Lushoto from Tom and Susan. It's nice not to have to deal with a language barrier when talking about the ins and outs of the town :) They gave us some really great suggestions on where to go in town for different things. We are looking forward to visiting the Lushoto Bakery for pound cake, and the "holiday store" for authentic candies to take home to students! Tom and Susan looooved the books that we had published we got a much better reaction from them, then we did from our SEKOMU students when we handed them out in class on Friday. I am thinking/hoping that our University students were in shock that we were giving them such wonderful materials, and therefore did not show the enthusiasm we were hoping for :) Next week, we will begin working on developing materials to go along with other literacy activities we have designed for the books in a bag project.
After lunch, we headed back to the lodge for some rest, internet time, and some preparations of materials for teaching this coming week.
It was an early wake up call this morning! 6:30 came quick, but we were up and ready for a authentic Tanzanian Lutheran Church Service with Susan and Tom! From what little we could understand, we managed to stand when asked and introduced our selves in Swahili. We are becoming much better and putting words together in order to create whole phrases. Wahoo! Go us..... Jina langu Nicole (my name is Nicole) Mimi ni Mericani' (I am American) Mimi ni mwalimu (I am a teacher) Na penda sana Irente Lutheran Church (I like the Irente Lutheran Church very much!) Of course we had a hard time understanding what was being said at church, but thankfully we had Susan there to direct us and also show us which passages were being read in her English/Kiswahili bible :) Thankfully we knew the word for "Salt" (Chumvi) which came in handy since the passage was about "Salt is not longer salt if it losses its saltiness" From there we could understand the fact that the preachers was praising that we should all become the salt of the earth :) Pretty neat. The "cathedral choir" was in attendance, which made for some lovely music. We were even able to follow along and join in thanks to Susan's help with the hymnal book!
After the 2 hour church service we got to witness the "auctioning" of offering. After the service is over, everyone goes outside. Some members of the church that do not have money to offer, bring objects to auction off. Whatever money is made from the auction then goes in as there offering. Today, there was a pole of sugar cane, a bag of beans, and a sack of eggs. Really interesting! People that bid and win the items then usually donate them in someones name, or gives them to the pasture. Very different, but really neat concept. Giving what you can and what you have!
Post auction, we headed to Tom and Susan's house for tea and cake :) We visited with them for a long while and got to hear some stories of their "rainy" season in Tanzania. They are such a lovely couple and being together ALL the time after retirement and really strained and strengthened their relationship! It was neat to see how Americans and settled in to the Tanzanian ways. We managed to get some good insight into our books in a bag project from Susan and then headed out to walk back to Irente lodge. Tom and Susan walked with us most of the way. It was so cool to see all of the children in the village come out of their homes to greet "bibi Suzi and babu Thomas" (grandma Susan and grandpa Thomas) they have truly immersed themselves in the culture and it is awesome to see the people of Irente accept them and cherish each interaction they have with them. We were thrilled the children and parents along the way wanted to get to know us too :)
We made it back to the lodge with humbled hearts, grabbed some chips mayai for lunch and then headed back to our room for some rest. Marilyn did some grading while I napped. After waking I got to see my baby girl Zuri for the first time in a while! We have good internet connection up here in the afternoon so I managed to talk with my mom for quite some time and enjoy hearing about things going on at home :)
Tomorrow we are headed back to SEKOMU. Teaching will start again on Tuesday through Friday. Our team arrives on Friday at 2:10 am!!!! We are so excited for them to get here and are looking forward to our work with the Irente Rainbow school outreach team!
This evening Marilyn and I have plans to meet with Kirsie who is new to Tanzania from Finland. She is "taking over" the outreach team but has only been here for a few weeks. We are unclear as to what they are wanting from us. We had spoken to her about the dates that the college had planned for us to join them when we saw her at church and she informed us that they would be gone during that time. We weren't really sure what to think of that and are confused, now as to what the dean of the college had in mind. We are hoping to get some things cleared up this evening and hope that we can put our "books in a bag" to good use. If nothing else we can train the outreach team to use the materials if we aren't able to physically go with them into the villages! We are simply hoping for the best and know the scheduling in Tanzania does not always go as planned!
Tomorrow we are headed back to SEKOMU. Teaching will start again on Tuesday through Friday. Our team arrives on Friday at 2:10 am!!!! We are so excited for them to get here and are looking forward to our work with the Irente Rainbow school outreach team!
This evening Marilyn and I have plans to meet with Kirsie who is new to Tanzania from Finland. She is "taking over" the outreach team but has only been here for a few weeks. We are unclear as to what they are wanting from us. We had spoken to her about the dates that the college had planned for us to join them when we saw her at church and she informed us that they would be gone during that time. We weren't really sure what to think of that and are confused, now as to what the dean of the college had in mind. We are hoping to get some things cleared up this evening and hope that we can put our "books in a bag" to good use. If nothing else we can train the outreach team to use the materials if we aren't able to physically go with them into the villages! We are simply hoping for the best and know the scheduling in Tanzania does not always go as planned!
Be thinking and praying of our efforts. It seems that we are in need of some guidance and some questions being answered :)
I appreciate those that have been reading our blog! We love love love sharing our experiences and can't wait to continue doing so as we wrap up teaching and head for Safari with our families!
I appreciate those that have been reading our blog! We love love love sharing our experiences and can't wait to continue doing so as we wrap up teaching and head for Safari with our families!
Take care!
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