Sable Square Shopping Center

During the coronavirus, I've been doing almost all of my grocery shopping at Sable Square, a shopping center just between the town of Kisongo and the Arusha airport.  Usually, we always went all the way into Arusha and did most of our shopping at Shoppers, which is a bit bigger and often cheaper, but these days I prefer not to go all the way into the city.  Sable Square is a bit closer (still about a forty-minute drive) and is right off the highway, so I can avoid city traffic.  I'm trying not to go any more than necessary both because of the virus and because I don't want to risk a car that's not mine.  

It was a beautiful evening, with nice views of Mt Meru in the distance, so I took some pictures before going in to get my groceries.  Also, I have learned in my years living in different places to take photos of the ordinary, everyday spaces and activities.  When moving away, it's nice to have memories of the grocery store and the bank and the street you live on. So, here's the Sable Square shopping center, which is easily the nicest one I visit on a regular basis.  It's built in a South African architectural style.  Unfortunately, quite a few of the shops are empty these days as a lot of the expat community in the area that shopped there have moved away with the more difficult immigration issues these days.  

 

Bell Tower Lights

The lights have finally been installed on the new bell tower!  It's so close to being finished! 

Sunny Afternoon in My Neighborhood

After a few months of rainy season, clear blue skies are good to see!  This is the view from the gate of my house.  It was such a beautiful afternoon, sunny and in the 70s.  One of my students, Paulo, stopped by to chat, so I came outside and hung around outside for quite a while talking and enjoying the weather. (Several students have gotten in the habit of visiting me now and then while they're out of school, but I've told them that if it's just one boy, I'll talk to them outside but I'm not inviting them inside.  This is a conservative society and neighbors notice things, so it seems prudent not to spend time with a single student behind closed doors.  If they want to come inside, they have to come in pairs!)

A Day in the Life

Another day in the library... I know my blog posts during this time probably get a bit boring, but with school being closed and travel not advised, I'm usually just at home or working in the library, which doesn't change too much day to day without students around.  I'm making a lot of progress emptying boxes that have been waiting for time to be organized and preparing lessons for students to study at home. 

I do see a few of my students who live locally, and a few come up to the school now and then to pick up work or study in the library a bit if I'm there to have it open.  Paulo walked out to the school today and studied for a while. He's one who is working hard not to fall behind during this time, but he doesn't have a computer or smart phone to be able to receive a lot of the stuff we're sending out, so I've been printing as much as I can for him. 

I ended the day at the Allisons' house (on campus); they invited Ralph and Twyla and me over for dinner.  It was nice to spend some time together and have a nice meal! We sang together for a bit after we ate, too; we all enjoy fellowship in our own language and singing songs that we like. 

Beautiful Day on Monduli Mountain

It seems the rains have ended; we haven't had any since the first week of May.  It's a bit early; usually the rains last until late May.  It's so beautiful right now, though; pretty blue skies and sunshine, but still with the verdant green and flowers of rainy season.  I had to stop on my way out to the school today to take a picture of the sun shining on the mountain.  

Sunday Morning in Monduli Juu

On this particular Sunday, I decided to go up to visit the church in the village on top of the mountain, the Monduli Juu church.  As we're just ending rainy season, everything is still so green and flowers are blooming everywhere.  A former student, Wilson, wanted to go with me, so we drove up together.  

We arrived just in time for the break between class and the service, so we had time to greet people before heading in.  Several of the students from Wilson's graduating class last year are members there, so he went of to sit with them and catch up.  Ralph and Twyla Williams, some Canadian missionaries we're all good friends with, worship there, and due to coronavirus Twyla has become the Hand-Washing Guard, standing beside the bucket and soap set up by the door and making sure everyone stops to wash their hands properly before going inside. 

I enjoyed being there; the Monduli Juu church is always friendly and I like spending time with the people there.  It was nice to be able to get back up there; I haven't visited in a while due to not wanting to drive the steep mountain road in the heavy rains of rainy season, but now that we've had over a week of sunny weather it was a great time to go up.

After church, Ralph and Twyla invited me (and Wilson, since he was with me) back to their house for lunch.  Sunday is their leftover day so as to have a quick meal after church, but we lucked out--they had leftover fajita meat!  It was nice to share a meal with them and admire their verdant garden before heading back down the mountain.

Look how well their rhubarb plants are growing! 

Car Trouble

My friends and fellow missionaries, the Shorts, left Tanzania in December, but they were not able to sell one of their cars before leaving.  The plan was for Lewis to use it and then hopefully sell it when he came to visit in April, but due to coronavirus he hasn't been able to make another trip to Tanzania.  Since I have a secure gate that I can safely park the car behind, I'm car-sitting in the meantime.  It's been really helpful for me, too, because I can easily drive out to the school to work even when it's raining (which of course has been frequently over the last couple of months, as it's rainy season).  

Unfortunately, today when I was on my way to the school, the car suddenly lost power and coasted to a stop.  Oh dear.  I am not much of a car person; the car had oil, gas, hadn't been making any noises and hadn't been overheating.  But it definitely was dead now; it wouldn't even turn over.  However, I had just passed through town and I had seen Baraka, a student who graduated last year, goofing around trying to fit too many people on a motorcycle with his friends, so I knew he wasn't busy.  He has a driver's license and has driven this car several times, and I knew he would have the phone number of a mechanic, so I called him.  

A couple of people stopped to ask if I needed any help or at least to commiserate; people are generally friendly and helpful in situations like this in Monduli, but I told them I already had a mechanic on the way. 

Baraka came out with the fundi (mechanic) to check it out.  They poked for a bit, and then Baraka's older brother drove by on his motorcycle and stopped to see what we were up to.  Baraka asked him to take me out to the school (it's only a few hundred feet around the corner past the road up to where they live, so it wasn't too out of the way), since it might be a while to fix the car and I wasn't actually any use there.  

By evening, Baraka brought the car out to the school.  It turned out a couple of wires that shouldn't be touching and fallen against each other, and had been rubbing against each other with the motion of the car for some time, and had finally worn through the rubber coating of the wires and metal touched metal and blew a fuse.  Fortunately, replacing a couple of wire and a fuse is pretty quick and easy to fix, so the car was back in order within only a few hours. 

Library Work Day

Even with school closed because of the corona virus, I still go up to the school to work in the library two or three days a week.  There's plenty of organizing, cleaning and maintenance to do, and now we are beginning to receive work that students have done at home that we need to check and return to them.  We won't be able to really count this work for much as far as grades go, because some students have no way of accessing it.  They live in remote places, don't have internet service, don't own any devices to receive things on, or don't have parents that supervise them (some teenagers are self-motivated enough to work on their own, but some just aren't at that age.)  However, for those that we can reach and those that are studying at home during this time will have a leg up once school does start again.  

There are plenty of students hanging around Monduli with nothing much to do, especially those who graduated last year but don't start Form 5 until July (assuming schools are opened again by then).  Wilson, who graduated last year and has been trying to find work, has come to help me out several days.  Today, Clement wandered by with nothing better to do when I was picking Wilson up, so we put him to work, too.  I had them move some boxes, take the trash down to the burn pile, and sort and arrange all the literature books so I could easily inventory them.  We still had plenty of time, so I set them to work cutting out new book covers out of construction paper and poster board to tape onto textbooks whose covers have fallen off.  (The textbooks here are paperback and not super well made to start with, and then the students abuse them, so they look rough fast).   

Late-Afternoon Walk

It should still be pouring rain for most of the day until much later in May, but the rainy season has either ended early or given us a respite, but it's been achingly beautiful this week.  Highs in the upper seventies, blue skies, green and lush vegetation, the mud drying up... I was doing things around the house today, but went out to the gate to talk to the Allisons, who stopped by while they were out on their afternoon bike ride, and it was so beautiful out that I had to go out.

I went for a walk in the beautiful late-afternoon light.  At the end of my road, I turned right, going away from town, since I don't go that way often at all, as there's only houses that way.  The road goes downhill, away from the mountain and out towards the open savannah of the valley.  Well, I say valley, but even the valley here is at nearly 5000 feet of elevation.  

With all the rain we've had, everything is growing and green, and flowers are blooming.  It may seem odd coming from US weather, but here we tend to have more flowers in our 'winter' than our (dry, dusty) 'summer'.  

There's a big hill that stands alone out on the plain, and it's framed perfectly by the trees as my road goes toward it.  Unfortunately, the road turns before it gets too close to it.  

For a few minutes I was walking in the shade as the road is lined with trees for a ways past the turn off the my house, and at first I thought I'd just walk as far as the end of the trees, but once I got there, I had to keep going a bit further down the gentle slope towards the flatter savannah.

As it got close to sunset, I reached this area of small ravines carved into the land by water coming off of the mountain during particularly heavy rainy seasons.  I cut off the road a bit, following the footpath down towards one of the larger ravines to see what the view was like from a slightly different angle. 

Above, here's a picture looking back towards Monduli Mountain.  It's so clear tonight without the wispy clouds that come over it on rainy days.

Down by the ravine, I was greeted by a passing Maasai woman carrying a huge load of firewood.  After she passed me, she called over to a younger woman in the yard of a house across the ravine from us.  The girls called over to me to greet me and to make sure I wasn't lost (a white person wandering around a neighborhood where foreigners live is rather noticeable).  We chatted for a few minutes, and then I turned around to head back as the sun was setting and I wanted to get home before it got completely dark. I would be walking uphill on the way back, so I thought it might take longer, but then, I also wasn't taking many photos, so I made it without any problems.  I stopped by the duka (shop) across the road to by bread on my way by, and then headed home.

Today was one of those days that remind me of how beautiful this place is, and I'm grateful I get to live here.

The Library is Getting Full

One thing I've been doing during while school is closed for COVID19 is processing a bag full of books that Lewis Short donated from his personal library before moving.  I've mentioned before my process: scanning the books into our LibraryThing account (online book catalog), stamping them with the school stamp, adding stickers for genre, category and points in our reading system, and then covering them with packing tape to make them last longer.  I had these at my house, so I could sit around and listen to podcasts or watch some TV shows I downloaded (first time I've watched TV in...maybe three years?) while I worked.  

The shelves in the library are getting pretty full!  I may need to raise money to build another shelf soon, if anyone is interested in helping to grow the Alpha Omega school library!