English Lessons

Don't worry...I'm not getting English lessons...I'm giving them :)

I’ve always had a little problem.  Even when I was in the States, I had a hard time saying no.  That has  never been more apparent than with my English class here in Masasi.  Almost as soon as I got here, several (four at this point) girls mentioned their desire to learn English.  Since I have to happy combination of being an English speaker and a teacher, I said I would start having 2 lessons a week starting in February.  That way I had time to settle in with my lessons with Nathanael and get used to day-to-day life in Masasi.  We started lessons on the first Thursday of February and things were going well.  They made me feel like a very good teacher and even asked if we could increase to 3 lessons a week.  I agreed (remember I have a hard time saying no?) and I aslo made each lesson longer.  Soon word got to a few other people and I gained a few more students.  Now I have the potential of having 9 students.  Thankfully, so far they haven’t all come at the same time.  I don’t have enough chairs for all of them for one thing. 

We now meet every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday and I try to do a little bit of vocabulary and some verb constuction with them during each lesson.  They say I’m a great teacher, but I often feel like I’m not knowledgeable enough about the best way to teach them what they need to know in order to start speaking and understanding my natural language.  I’ve been using my Swahili lessons to help figure out an order for my teaching but I still do not have confidence.  I’ve never taught English as a foreign language and I still don’t know that I’m doing a good enough job at it.  If anyone has resources or a suggested scope and sequence, it would be appreciated!

On another note, as a result of the English lessons, my ability to speak Swahili is increasing.  Because I can’t explain the English language in English, I’m forced to try to find ways of explaining it in Swahili.  Also, because we are all learning a new language, I find myself with more courage to try to speak the language even if I get it wrong.  They’re in the same boat, so they won’t laugh or make fun of me if I get things wrong.  That helps me feel open to trying my best and accepting their help when I fail.  Also, I’ve always found that when I teach something to someone, I have a better understanding of the content as well.  By teaching English, I’m having to look at the Swahili lessons I’ve already completed again and use them to teach the English.  This refreshes my memory of the Swahili so I can use it more and more in my every day conversations.

All in all, even though I struggle to say no when people ask me to do things, or ask to be included in English lessons, the experience has been a good one for all involved…I hope. 

My first present! And some other thoughts about the African culture

I promised all of you a post about culture differences, and now a month later, I’m back to try to explain some of the differences I’ve noticed.  The first thing is that most of the women, especially in the villages and more remote areas, wear skirts or dresses rather than pants.  Another thing is that no one knocks when they are visitng a house.  They yell out, “Hodi!”  and to welcome them, you say, “Karibu.”  I’m sure when I get back to the states, I will have to remind myself to ring the doorbell instead of just shouting out.  Another thing I’ve noticed as I’ve gone and visited different families and had meals at their houses, is that they’ve asked to share a meal with you, but they usually leave you to eat it without them.  I have not actually eaten with a family I’m visiting.  They serve us the food and then they either watch us eat or spend the time in the kitchen cleaning up.  Also, when you shake someone’s hand or give them something, you always do it with the right hand and grab your elbow with your left hand.

Another thing that would be unusual in the States is that cars are not normal transportation.  Most people either walk or ride their bicycles.  This makes sense because most of them can’t afford a car.  But the unusual thing is that they are willing to walk long distances to get where they want to go. If we couldn’t afford cars in the states, we would stay very close to home.  The people here are willing to walk a few hours to reach their destination.

As far as the food goes, there’s less variety than in the states.  I usually eat rice for at least one meal sometimes with beans and a vegetable similar to collard greens.  Most of the time we have meat (chicken is the most often meat served) when we’re at home and sometimes when we’re out visitng people.  Meat is not a normal part of most villagers’ meals. 

I’ve gotten a few gifts from families that I have visited.  The first gift was several eggs.  The next was a live chicken.  As you can tell, the gifts are more practical but also more valuable.  The chicken that I took home might have fed the family a special meal or provided numerous eggs for breakfasts.  Instead, I will enjoy eating the chicken with the missionary family here for one meal.  Of course, I didn’t kill or prepare the chicken.  We had the guard of the compound take care of that for me.  I carried the chicken home and that was as far as I was willing to go with handling my present :)

The final thing I’ll mention about culture involves the culture of the churches I’ve visited here.  The first thing you notice is that women sit on one side and men on the other.  They also don’t usually have a worship leader standing up front  as we sing worship songs.  They are standing in the audience with the other church members.  More than just the person who chose songs for the week can start songs too.  They just start singing and sing the chorus and then everybody repeats the chorus.   Then the person who started the song sings a verse or the chorus again depending on the song and we repeat the chorus.  There’s not very many instruments unless the church has raised money to buy a generator and keyboard (which only 3 churches have done).  They have a drum and perhaps some homemade percussion instruments.  Also, during worship songs, almost everybody is moving an dancing at least a little bit.  Some churches have more people dancing and are more energetic in their dancing.   

All in all, I’ve had a very good learning experience of  some typical African culture.  I don’t think I’ve offended anyone and I pray I continue that trend.

A little bit of culture shock!

So I had been planning to write a blog post about all the cultural differences I’ve noticed between the States and Tanzania, but something happened this week that was much more interesting, terrifying, exciting, and all kinds of other words that I can’t even begin to form.

Before I got to Tanzania, Mavuto pushed me to get my International Drivers’ License and bring it with me.  Of course, since I wanted to fulfill all requests he made to me, I went ahead and got it, not really thinking about how I would feel about driving in another country.

The first thing I noticed when I got here is that they drive on the wrong side of the road…and by that I of course mean the left side.  I also noticed that the traffic in the city of Dar es Salaam is extremely crazy!  Bumper to bumper traffic; motorcycles weaving in and out of cars, and bicyclists that don’t pay attention to most normal traffic laws. 

It didn’t really hit me while we were in the city that I would be expected to drive in this country.  But, on our trip in late December from Mtwara to Masasi (my final destination for the next 7 months) that Mavuto brought up the fact that it would be nice to have somebody else able to drive places other than just him.  That’s when I sat up  and started to really pay attention to the roads. 

Thankfully, the roads in Masasi are not nearly as crowded as those in the city.  They are, however, mostly unpaved and VERY uneven.  They also have the addition of motorcyclists and bicyclists who do not think much about common driving courtesies like getting out of the way of a big truck that has the right of way, looking before crossing an intersection, stopping before pulling out from a shop into the road.  Most drivers of two-wheeled vehicles follow none of these.

In the last week, I have driven the streets of Masasi twice.  The first thing I had to quickly learn was how to use my left hand to shift gears.  I also had to remember to use the turn signals on the right side of the steering wheel instead of on the left.  This is on top of trying to remind myself of the basics of a manual transmission vehicle.  Thankfully, the one new thing I did pretty good at following was the idea of driving on the left side instead of the right.  I give credit to Mavuto for this because he’s been doing most of the driving and I’ve been giving careful study of his driving and have actually gotten slowly used to this idea of driving on the wrong side of the road.  The trouble will be when I have to go back to driving on the right side of the street.  When I have to do that, there won’t be anyone driving me around for 2 weeks before letting me try for myself.  I will almost right away be expected to readjust and successfully drive as I was originally taught.  That will be reverse culture shock I’m sure.

I also managed to drive to one of the local villages for a bible study meeting.  This is an adventure simply because the roads are not paved and, with the rainy season just starting, very uneven and bumpy (these are understatements for sure).  Most of the drive was spent apologizing to my passenger, Joyce for all the bumps I managed to hit.  She did a very good job of trying to point out the biggest potholes, but there’s no way of avoiding all of them and it was a very interesting adventure.  At several different places, I was afraid we would get stuck in very slippery and wet soil.  At other points I was sure our truck was about to bounce right off the wheels, so jarring was the bump I had just hit (even though I’m pretty sure that’s physically impossible.  By the time we made it home, I shakily handed the keys back to Mavuto.  But I had a new confidence.  I had successfully driven on the roads of another country and brought the car back in one piece, just a little muddier than when I had started the journey!  How many of my friends and family can say that?  Plus, I know that being able to drive the missionary wives to different functions in the different villages will help the missionaries a lot because they won’t have to take the time out of their day to drive us, wait for us to finish, and drive us home.  They can work on other things back at the main compound.  This helps me feel that I’m accomplishing one of my goals in coming here: to make life a little easier for the people who are doing God’s work here full time.

Well, I feel I must thank you for reading this very long post.  I hope you enjoyed reading it … would say as much as I enjoyed the experience…but I’m not sure enjoyment of driving in Tanzania will ever truly be attained in the next 7 months.  Look for another post about the cultural differences that I had in mind previously.  It will be written, but I felt this story needed to be shared while the experience was still fresh in my mind.

I would love to hear your reactions to the story, or perhaps even your own crazy driving story – whether in another country or the United States.  Tell me about it in the comments section below!  I’d love to hear from anyone who reads these posts!

Christmas

I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas!  It was very strange for me to be here in Tanzania for Christmas instead of at home.  First of all, it didn’t really feel like Christmas.  The lowest temperature for the week leading up Christmas was in the mid 60s.  So it physically didn’t feel like Christmas.  Also, I don’t watch a lot of television here, so I didn’t have to sit through all the commercials talking about Christmas and Santa that I would normally get at home.  This means the commercialism that surrounds Christmas in the States was missing in my life this year.  For that, I am definitely not complaining.  But the thing that was missing the most was, of course, my family and friends and all the traditions that go along with the season.  I think one of the traditions I missed the most was Christmas Eve service at my home church with the playing of Silent Night while we light candles at the end of the service.  That is probably my favorite part of Christmas because it is probably the most peaceful part of the entire Christmas season in my life.  Here in Masasi, I actually had a Christmas tree in my house.  The student I will be working with put it up to help me feel more at home.  It reminds me of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. :) I love it.  Christmas is celebrated here a little differently though.  There’s not really an exchange of gifts or anything.  The children all get new clothes for Christmas if the family can afford them.  Then we go to church.  I kind of like having church on Christmas day.  I realize this year, more churches back home (mine included) had service on Christmas day.  But that’s because Christmas happened to fall on a Sunday.  Normally, they only have services on Christmas Eve.  Well, the practice here in Tanzania is to have service on the actual day, no matter which day of the week it is.  I like that because it is a good reminder of why we celebrate.  It’s not about the gifts.  It’s about the birth of Christ and joining in celebrating His birth with our fellow believers.  So the day wasn’t spent in putting together new toys or installing new computer games, but in fellowshipping with fellow believers and sharing a meal together. 

But now I want to hear from you.  What Christmas tradition is your favorite?  Is there something that your family does and most don’t that you think would make the Christmas season more meaningful?  Since I didn’t participate in any of my normal traditions, I want to hear about all of the ones that you celebrate.  Tell me all about your Christmas in the comments section.  I just want to hear from you.  It brightens my day to hear from people back home.  So leave me some joy! :)

End of Language School and Moses

Hello out there in blog land!  I hope you are doing well.  I have quickly settled into the routine of a normal day at language school.  The only thing that disrupts that routine is the weekend where all I’ve done is read, study, do my language homework, and rest.  I’m definitely not complaining because my brain needs to rest after a week stuffed full of Swahili learning.   I’m done with language school this week.  I will head back to Dar es Salaam on Friday and be in Masasi by Monday.  I am excited to get settled into a routine down there and ready to get working on the real reason I came to Tanzania:  helping Joyce and Mavuto with their work here.

I’ve been reading Exodus in my devotions lately and the one that has stood out to me is the way Moses and the then the Isrealites questioned God about almost everything.  When I first read it, I couldn’t believe they had the guts to question God when He was audibly speaking.  Then I thought back on all the times I doubted God about whether I was supposed to come here or not.  I also think of all the ways He tried to show me that it was truly what He was calling me to do.  I still would like to think that if I had heard God’s voice like Moses did, I would believe Him no matter what, no questions or doubts. But who knows?  It does bring me comfort that I’m not alone in my constant doubting of God’s call on my life.  The important thing in Moses’ case and mine is that we finally listened.  We may have voiced some doubts, but we still went through with it and completed the call God put on our lives.  Obviously I haven’t completed God’s call, but  I’m hoping I will.

Have you ever had a time in your life when you felt God calling you to do something and you doubted and questioned Him?  Tell me about it in the comment section if you feel comfortable doing so.  

Life at Language School

I’ve decided that my blog posts need to be about more than just spiritual.  They will still include the spiritual things I’m learning, but I also want to include some details of my day to day. 

As I said, I’m in language school until December 16.  The language school is located right outside of a town called Morogoro.  A normal day for me here starts when I wake u pat 6am and get ready for breakfast at 7.  This sounds really early, but it so far hasn’t felt that early since my internal clock is messed up from being on Ohio time.  Just so you know, Ohio is 8 hours behind Tanzania.  So 7am here is 11pm the previous day in Ohio.  Breakfast is at 7am.  We usually have bread and something called uji that is a lot like gruel only I think soupier.  Add honey to it and it’s very good.  School starts at 7:45 with devotions.  We sing 2 hymns and read a passage from the Bible.  Then we split into our “classes.”  I put quotations around it because there are only a few students and a few teachers.  So each class consists of one student and one teacher.  So from 8-10 I work with my teacher and read through the language book I was given.  There are times when I have to put the book away and the teacher drills me on the language and the parts I should already know.  At 10 we have morning tea.  Usually there is some kind of sweet bread for snack. From 10:30-12 we’re back at school working hard.  From 12-2:30 are lunch and a break for napping or extra study time or just relaxing.  I usually spend it reading or sleeping.  From 2:30-4 we are learning at school.  At 4 is afternoon tea and it marks the end of class.  I usually skip afternoon tea in favor of doing any homework from the day’s lessons and extra studying.  At 6 is dinner.  By 7 it’s dark out and lately my internal clock has said go to bed.  Sometimes I stay up a little longer and read or play a game on my computer or watch a movie on my computer. 

It still has not gotten as hot as I thought it would be.  We had one or two pretty hot days, but the rest have been pretty mellow.  One night I even put on a comforter because I was rather cold.  I have taken pictures of the room and bathroom and will try to post those when my Internet is better.  The windows don’t really close but do have moving glass sections with cages on the outside to keep as many bugs out as possible.  I also have a mosquito net that I put over my bed at night. 

I have to work rather hard not to get too bored with day-to-day things because there isn’t really anyone to hang out with and keep me company. So to pass the time, I’ve done a lot of reading and watching the same movies over and over again on my computer.  Thankfully I brought my Kindle with me and have plenty of books to keep me occupied.  I don’t think I will be as bored once I get to Masasi because I will have Joyce and Mavuto and Nathaniel and the Sancala's to spend time with there.  Plus, Internet will be more regular so I’m hoping to be able to check my email daily. 

My father has done his best to email me everyday, which is extremely enjoyable.  My mother writes every couple days as well with her daily news.  My uncle has even emailed me a few times.  These emails have become the highlight of the time I spend online.  So, as such, I’m informing you that I would love to hear your news too.  It can be just whenever you’re on the computer and thinking of me.  Anything would be a welcome distraction.  The email is alleycat129@yahoo.com.

I hope to hear from you either through email or let me know you’re keeping up to date with the blog by leaving me an encouraging comment!  I’m hoping the rest of my blog posts will be both spiritual in nature and give detail of what I’m doing over here.

I Made It

I posted to the wrong blog, so sorry it's so late.... It was supposed to post last Friday...

Well, I'm in Tanzania safely.  It is warm, but I'm told not as warm as it could be and usually is, so God has blessed me with that.  I'm at language school right now, trying to shove as much Swahili into my head as possible in 2 weeks.  I'm not going to lie, it's been a rough week.  I didn't realize how hard it would be to be in a different country with nobody familiar.  Living at the language school right now, I feel like an outsider since I can't speak Swahili very well... There are a few gentlemen that live here who are originally from the US, but they are fluent in Swahili, which makes me feel a little lonely.  The good thing is this has strengthened my relationship with God.  I've had to lean on him 100% (which is what we are normally supposed to do...) I get up every morning and spend a lot of time in the Psalms reading verses that comfort me in my loneliness and homesickness.  I've held onto Isaiah 41:10 like a life raft: "Do not be afraid for I am with you, Do not be discouraged, for I am Your God.  I will strengthen you and help you, I will lift you up with my victorious right hand."

I will try to post in 2 weeks or so - once I'm out of language school and down with Mavuto and Joyce where internet is not an hourly charge.  I hope you are doing well!  Feel free to leave uplifting and encouraging comments!  They will bring a smile to my face...but also probably a tear to my eye.  Love and miss you all!

Allison