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October 2009
Steve and Linda Petra are working for two months at Canon Andrea Mwaka primary and secondary schools in Dodoma, Tanzania teaching English, Maths and Religious Education. The school has a distinctly Christian focus and has developed a reputation for providing students of diverse religious and cultural backgrounds with quality and affordable education.
Following their first month they write:
Working here has been a fantastic opportunity to see a bit of East Africa in a different way than we could have just as tourists. We've had the opportunity of learning just a little Kiswahili as English is used far less commonly here than in Kenya.
Dodoma is supposed to be the legislative capital of Tanzania, chosen by the first president (Nyere) for its central location. Unfortunately, it is not really on the route to anywhere, has very little history to recommend it to anybody, has a semi-arid climate and almost no water sources, so its development is happening very slowly and it retains something of the atmosphere of a frontier town - or biggish village.
Here are some “snapshots” of Dodoma:
- There are two or three "sealed" (tarmac) roads in and out of the centre. Otherwise, all streets and roads are dirt tracks.
- There are some cars, long distance buses, 4x4s and trucks on the roads, but, in general, the pavementless roads are more well-used by pedestrians, bicycles (often with one, two or even three passengers), mopeds (sometimes with a lady passenger sitting side-saddle on the back) and carts pulled by delivery men.
- Around the roundabout in the centre of town, there is an Anglican cathedral that looks like a mosque, a mosque that looks like a Roman Catholic cathedral and a Roman Catholic cathedral that looks like a C of E cathedral.
- We shop - and barter - once a week at the market, for fruit and veg, rice, eggs and a little meat.
- There are two "supermarkets" in town, run by Asian families, about the same size and ambience as a UK cornershop, or night shop in Belgium, but with rather less stock.
- We have been able to buy long life milk for most of the time we've been here, but there hasn't been any for the last week or two. We could buy milk from the farm next door (boiled for 10 minutes to reduce the risk of getting TB from it), but we've gone on to powdered milk now.
- When we arrived at a colleague's house one day this week, there were six cows in her back garden eating her tomatoes, potatoes and herbs!
Thank you for praying for our time here. Here are some specific things:
- We're thankful to God for the good health we've enjoyed so far and would love that to continue!
- Please ask Him that work we've done at the school would have some lasting benefit.
- The best opportunities to share our faith, so far, have been with two women, one in her 20s, the other in her 50s, who are here working at this "Christian" school as volunteers, yet have no faith of their own - as yet. Their names are Linda (from the UK) and Robynne (from NZ) and we'd really appreciate your prayers that they'd be born again. We took a trip to Mikumi game park with them last weekend.
- Also, we'd appreciate your prayers for a new job/location in 2010, of course.
Yesterday we had the opportunity to go and help with a Carpenter's Kids (CK) distribution in a village.
In this country, you have to have a uniform and shoes before you can attend school. CK is an NGO that links churches in New York with villages here, to provide uniforms, shoes, some school supplies (exercise books, pens, pencils, socks, soap) and one basic meal (ungali) a day for the 50 most vulnerable children in the village. These children usually have a guardian, as they have lost either one or both parents (perhaps to AIDS). We live next to a young couple from NZ; the husband, Scott, works for CK. The organisation takes the supplies out to one, two or three villages most Saturdays; each village is visited once a year.
We were very impressed by the way the distribution was organised. The children's sizes had already been sent to Billie, the Tanzanian guy who buys the supplies. Named bundles had already been made up, with a white shirt (child's name in biro under the collar) and a pair of beige shorts for the boys, a blue skirt for the girls. The school supplies were in little PE bags and each pair of new canvas shoes or trainers had a little slip with a child's name on it.
We left our compound at 08.45 - Scott and Nicky, Scott's mum, who's out here visiting and Steve and I, and four Tanzanians who work for Carpenter's Kids - in a CK 4x4. We were lucky - the village, Chilunwa, is quite near a residence of the president, so only the last 20 minutes or so of the journey were on sandy tracks through the bush.
We stopped at the edge of the village and walked the rest of the way with the women who'd come out to greet us with singing, drums, whistles etc. The ceremonial part of the day was long - songs by at least six choirs of women and speeches, by men from the village committee, the pastor, CK officials and us.
The hospitality was amazing. After about an hour, we left the church building where the ceremony was being held and went into someone's house nearby (I was so delighted to be able to do that) and were served tea (milky or black) from Thermos flasks, chapati/pancakes, little pieces of fried liver and other offal and mandozis (deep-fried lumps of dough). We were also given a small bottle of water each, before going back into the church building for more ceremony.
We were also very impressed with the transparency and accountability that CK has established in its distributions. We were told that we had to give the bundles into the hand of each child (not their guardian). After they received their new uniforms, the children went out and put them on. They then went and "signed" for their receipt with a thumb-print - the children, not the guardians.
After that, they came back inside, for more singing and speeches. When we addressed the assembly, we had to preface our speeches with "Bwana safiwe" (Praise the Lord!) I gave the students three words of advice - read, read, read - and Steve inspired them by telling them to take the opportunities education would give them and ask questions, so that one day, there could be engineers, judges and politicians who come from Chilunwe!
The CK also gave a small amount of money to provide lunch for the children who'd received uniforms and us visitors. We could see that the children really enjoyed their bowls of rice with a little sauce and meat, eaten with fingers. We had a similar menu, plus spoons.
We got home again about 15.45, after a very memorable day and lots to think about!
We send each one of you lots of love and look forward to your news!