A Day In The Life...

At 7:15 a.m. I begin my mile walk to school.

By 7:30 a.m. I am at school. Our school day lasts from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

On Monday and Friday we have morning assemble from 7:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. where we read the gospel for the day with a short prayer, sing the national anthem, and hear announcements. After midterms and finals it is also a time where we reward students who have done well on their tests.

Most of my day is spent in the library. We have one of the nicest libraries in the region, with about 8,000 books. Most of the books are textbooks, but we do have a few novels to read for fun. Many of the students love to read, and will read anything they can get their hands on.

The library is open to students from 10:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. and from 2:50 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. The students are also welcome to come if their teacher is absent.

From 10:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. is tea time (Tanzania was a British colony). At school we call it uji break after the thin porridge that is served with the tea. During this time you can buy various fried snacks such as a chapati (like a fried tortilla) or vitumbua (fried rice cakes).

On Thursday and Friday I teach classes after uji break. I teach Bible Knowledge for form one and three. My biggest challenge in teaching is that for the form one students this is the first time they are learning in English (primary school is taught in Swahili while secondary school is taught in English). I have about eighty form one students. In the beginning I was confident that ten of the students understood the majority of what I said in English. To help them understand better I have tried to incorporate artwork with the Bible stories we were reading in class.

From 12:40 p.m. till 1:30 p.m. we have a lunch break. For lunch we get a vegetable, beans or meat, and rice or ugali (flour and water mixed together, that looks like mashed potatoes but has no taste). My favorite combination is cabbage, beans, and rice.

On Thursday and Friday I teach classes after lunch break. My form three class is much better at speaking English, and we are able to have discussions in class. For form three we cover The Gospel of Matthew and Acts of the Apostles.

On Wednesday we have clubs from 2:50 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Many of our students are very artistic, but they do not get many chances to express themselves. There are no art classes and art supplies are very limited. This semester I have started an art club. The last couple of weeks we have had a former student come and teach us how to draw Tingatinga, an African style of abstract animals.

By 4:00 p.m. we are headed home from work. When we get home we have some time to just relax. I enjoy spending a lot of that time reading. The Kindle was one of the best things that I brought to Tanzania. Now I will always have a book to read. In the last ten months I have read seventy-eight books. It is nice to have the free time to read. I have always been busy with my own school work that I have never had much time to enjoy reading things that were required for class.

Around 6:00 p.m. I start making dinner. I have not learned how to cook any Tanzanian foods, so our meals our Western style. Pasta dishes are the most common meal.

After dinner I get on the computer to check my emails and Facebook. We are fortunate to have a USB internet stick that works most of the time. It tends to work best if we raise it on our lantern.

Around 9:00 p.m. I am getting ready to go to bed so that I can start all over again tomorrow.

-Lauren

Peanuts

On our way home from school we pass by some mamas sitting under a tree doing various things. Today they were pulling peanuts off the plant and making big stacks of them. We stopped and were talking to them about our work. They told us about how there are peanuts that you use to make boiled peanuts. Then they asked us if we  would like to buy some. They said a bowl full was 1,000 ts (65  U.S. cents).

So we bought some. Turns out a bowl full is a bowl with a mountain of peanuts on top. Then the oldest mama said to put more in the bag. We ended up telling them to stop because there were so many peanuts. I could not believe how many we were getting. So when we got home we weighed them and it turned out to be 3.5 lbs. It was crazy. So this afternoon we made boiled peanuts, and they were yummy! 

-Lauren

Super Market

A new store opened up this weekend. It is the first shop in town that might be called a supermarket. Granted the new store is the size of a gas station convince store, but it is still quite different from the shopping experience usually found in Mtwara. Besides the open air market, the stores are often constructed out of reused freight containers and are usually more of counter that the shop owners stand behind and that has the wares displayed behind it. 

There are a few stores in town that you can walk into and among the merchandise, and two or three that even have prices listed (usually you ask and then sometimes have to bargain), but this is by far the nicest. This place even has A/C which is quite rare; pretty much the only other places with A/C in town are the banks. Then you walk into the store that has multiple different aisles to walk down, and there is even a smaller back room. Some items even have more than one brand to choose from. The most exciting part of the store is that they have a few different freezers with frozen meat. Such as frozen shrimp, ground beef, and chicken. Then when you are ready to check out you bring everything up to the counter where they have a real cash register. All of the other nicer places just have a calculator and a drawer with money. This store actually scans your items, rings you up, and prints off a receipt for you. I had forgotten that it is the norm to get receipts in the states. 

The whole experience of going into a store like this was really exciting. I just wanted to keep putting things in my little shopping basket. Justin had to remind me of what we already had at home. I was getting excited and a little carried away. He had to remind me that we already have three cans of tomato paste at home and we can buy one here when we run out of those. I cannot believe how excited I could get over something so simple.

It really makes me realize how much I took going to super markets, like Wal-Mart, for granted. I can no longer hop in the car and drive five minutes to a store that has everything I want. Now I get on my bike and ride twenty minutes into town. Where I have to go to several different small stores to get what I want for the week. We usually think of our shopping list as more of a wish list because there is no guarantee that the shops will have all we are looking for on that particular day. There will be things you got one week that are now gone, and then there are the things that you might never find. 

-Lauren     

O Come, O Come Emanuel...

Christmas kinda snuck up on us. It is too warm here to be Christmas time. Plus there is no holiday craziness in the shops to remind you how many days are left till Christmas. It did not really hit until Christmas Eve day. It stunk to realize that it was finally Christmas, and that it was going to be the first one that I spent away from my family.

There are many challenging parts about doing mission work, but the hardest by far is being away from our families. It seemed that everything that made it Christmas was back in Texas/Oklahoma. Who was I going to make yummy goodies with, get dressed up with, wake up ridiculously early with, or share the magic of Christmas with? It was just me and Justin like every other day, and the whole day I could not stop thinking about what our families would be doing at that time.

By the time we went to Mass I was not feeling very Christmassy. Then Mass started.  I can follow along easily, but everything is in Swahili. During Mass there was a skit to go along with the readings, and when Jesus was born the church bells and the alter bells were vigorously rung and a special song was sung. That is when I realized what I was doing there sweating in the middle of Mass in Mtwara at nine o'clock at night. I still missed my family, but the most important part of Christmas was all around me. O come, o come Emanuel...

Lord,

Help my heart to overflow with your love, my body to have your strength, and my spirit to be full of your grace.

Amen

-Lauren

Thanksgiving

Justin and I woke up on Thanksgiving Day like it was any other day. We went to mass and then headed to work. The only thing that made the day any different was seeing on Facebook how no one could move because of the amount of food that they had eaten.

Luckily for Justin and I there are some other American missionaries in Mtwara, and earlier in the week they invited us over for a Thanksgiving dinner, but on Friday instead of Thursday because we all had work on those days. Friday afternoon after work we went over to these fellow missionaries’ house to have Thanksgiving dinner. There was no turkey, but they were able to get a couple fat chickens. Most chickens in Mtwara are all skin and bones. We also had sweet yam casserole. As far as I know they don't have the orange sweet potatoes here, but these yams might have been even better. We had rolls, ham, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, mixed vegetables, and canned cranberries. The cranberries were sent from the states. We were able to wash it all down with sweet tea, or Fanta for me since I am probably the only Southerner who does not like sweet tea.

Then when we were done with dinner we went around the table and said what we were thankful for. It made me feel like I was back home going around the table in a circle with my family. We were able to finish off the evening with pumpkin pie, apple pie, and homemade vanilla ice cream while we watched a “fall” movie. I was most excited about the ice cream. Ice cream is not very big in Mtwara, because there are very few freezers. The person who made the ice cream had to freeze ice for a week to have enough. There is no such thing as going out and grabbing a bag of ice from Walmart. It is nice that even though Justin and I are far away from home we can still celebrate with the traditions that we grew up with.

Happy Thanksgiving! God has given me a truly blessed life. God is good. Here are a few things I am thankful for:

1.      For the Lord, and how he leads me with a gentle but firm hand.

2.      For my family, and how supportive they are of me.

3.      For Justin who puts up with my craziness.

4.      For my friends, and how they are always there for me.

5.      For my electric fan. Without it I do not know how I would be able to fall asleep in such a hot place.

6.      For everyone who sends me letters or packages. They really make my day.

7.      For my Kindle. That I can always have a library with me no matter where I am.

8.      For the new friends that I am making.

9.      For all the opportunities that my life has been blessed with.

10.  For mine and Justin's families who got us out of college without debt.

11.  For LMH who gave us the opportunity to be in Tanzania, so that we may grow in our faith.

12.  For the water when it is running. There is nothing better than a real shower.

13.  For technology that enables me to talk to my family who is almost half way around the world.

14.  For my doodle prayer book. So that I may relax in prayer with God.

15.  For the Baobab trees. For their beauty and wonder. 

-Lauren

Card & Letter Wall

Doodle Prayer Book