Christmas?

Today was Christmas...even here in Hanga! I was telling everyone yesterday that there were two main reaons that it didn't feel like Christmas: 1. because there is no snow on the ground (look at the green!) 2. because i am wearing shorts...and have been wearing shorts for the past 6 months!

The morning of Christmas Eve I woke up to Charlie knocking at my door telling me it was time to go tree hunting. So, we set off...me, Charlie, Anne, Lennart, Gaudence, and one big machete. There arent as many types of evergreen trees here in Tanzania, so we couldn't have the traditional douglas fir...but we did manage to find a good looking branck of some pine tree, cut it off and haul it back to decorate!

Here we are on the hike back to the hostel with our prize.

Anne and Lennart very excited to decorate our branch in its own little corner...the final decorated, nice smelling product! complete with a bucket to keep it watered, and a nice string of popcorn for decoration!

Last night after dinner, we had "recreation" in the main gathering room. We got togethe with all the monks and all of the students who were in Hanga still, and had a kind of talent show! Some monks put on some pretty funny skits (even funny if you dont understand Swahili!), one monk recited a poem, and then there was music! Charlie played piano accompanying Br. Agustine on violin for Silent Night. Charlie also played with me as I played trumpet for The First Noel and Joy to the World. It was a lot of fun to be able to participate.

After the talent show, we had one and a half hours to take a nap, and then prayer and Mass began in the church at 11:45 PM! Prayer lasted about an hour, then there was a break, and Mass was about two hours. So! We left church around 2:30 AM. This was the longest Christmas celebration I had been to, and the first I had ever been to in Swahili!, but it was a great experience.

Christmas day was a day of rest. The only thing on the agenda was getting together in our common room and watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation!

Merry Christmas to all! More painting and work to be done around St. Laurent's this coming week. I will be on the way back to Dar es Salaam before the 1st as well to pick up my dad and show him around the country for a couple weeks!

all for now.

Peramiho Printing Press

On Monday I went back to Peramiho with Br. Kastor, Anne, and Lennart to visit the printing press. This printing press is pretty famous throughout all of Tanzania. They print a lot of Catholic books, the Catholic magazine called Mwenge, and also private projects such as the one that we came for! Our task was to design a wall calendar for 2009. It will be only one sheet about the size of a small poster. It is, in effect, an advertisement for St. Laurents. It was fun to be a part of the design process, particularly because a lot of the pictures we are using for the calendar are ones that i took myself! We did an initial design on Monday, and then returned again yesterday to add captions to the photos and decide on a final layout of the pictures. It was a fun process! The calendars should be printed in about a week. I will bring quite a few of them home with me, so if you would like one to hang on your wall, please let me know!

They were very happy to have visitors at the printing press. So happy, that they decided to give us an impromptu tour! This printing press has been operating for almost 75 years! All of the machines came from Germany. 

Here is Br. Kastor holding up a sheet of postcards that was recently printed, as well as the labels for the bottled water that the monastery owns and runs (Chemi Chemi). 

I was in awe walking around the floor and seeing all of the machines at work. For one thing, all this modern technology seemed pretty out of place here in southern Tanzania! Also, I loved just seeing the process of how a book is printed! I felt like i was in the "picture picture" on an episode of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood...

Perhaps the most interesting machine that we saw still in use was the Linotype machine. I cannot accurately explain how this machine works...but i would recommend googling it if you are interested :)  Basically, you type out one line of the book you will be printing on a keyboard, and the Linotype uses molten aluminum to form that line of words on a block. Maybe the pictures can give a better idea of what I am trying to say...

Here is my name formed by the machine! Pretty neat. They are able to print books faster and more efficiently using computer duplication now days, but they still use this machine, to. A piece of the past...

We also ran into our friend Brigeta who worked in the hostel for the first few months we were in Hanga. It was good to see her again and say hello.

I think there will be a feast tonight. And of course celebration all day tomorrow. It is hard being away from home during this season, but also good to have these new experiences. 

Next time: pictures from Christmas in Africa!

Rains make Green

Yesterday I spent the my Saturday back in Songea. I mailed some letters, met and had lunch with the new Peace Corps teacher at Songea Girls, her name is Alena, and bought some other necessities such as icing sugar for Christmas cookies, corn flakes, and pringles.

Here is a picture of me (i decided to go bald this past week) Alena, and George, a student at Songea Boys secondary school who works in the library in Songea. He often seeks me out when I am walking around town and asks for lessons in Physics and Mathematics. He also insists that i practice my Kiswahili because that is the only way that i will get better.


Some new flowers started coming up in the boxes outside of the hostel this past week, too! The first ones already died. The nice part about this growing season is that I dont have to remember to water the flowers in order for them to grow! It has rained at least a little every day for the past two weeks here in Hanga. The weather is beautiful. The cool air, the constant cloud cover, and the omnipresent GREEN reminds me very much of Springtime in Minnesota.

As an example of the power of rain, take a look at these pictures of "Hanga lake"

the first two are from mid-November just as the final drops of water from the lake were evaporating, the grass was dying, and the ground was cracking from the dryness.



The next two pictures were taken three days ago. This first one is from the pier structure looking out onto the marsh that we walked across one month ago, and the second is looking back at the same area as the first "dry" picture. Beautiful green.


I thought I would give another idea of our diet here :) I am very excited when we have beans at meals, because this sauce is usually more flavorful than just the peas. I have definitely grown accustom to rice! This past week there has been this pea dish at every meal. it is pretty good when mixed together with the rice. Last night you can see we had scrambled eggs with peppers and tomatoes mixed in, too. that was good!

Lennart got his hair and beard cut yesterday, so we decided we should have a picture of the three recent haircuts. Notice the progression of facial hair...

We wanted our patron Mtakatifu Benedikto to be in the picture with us too..


Tomorrow I am headed back to Peramiho with Kastor to prepare the St. Laurent 2009 wall calendar. Let me know if you want one to hang in the office or at home!

And Christmas is only 4 short days away. Last night we watched "Christmas With the Kranks" hung a stocking in the hostel common room, put up Charlie's Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, and looked at past years' Christmas pictures while listening to Christmas music. Not quite the same as decorating the tree at home while a light December snow is falling outside, but it will have to do for now. It will be fun to celebrate this holiday with the Monastery on Thursday!

Pictures from that celebration soon to come...

Barack Obama, my friend Carolina, and goats

Though, not necessarily in that order :)

I arrived back in Hanga one week ago today. Charlie, Anne, and Lennart were still up north doing some traveling, so I was alone back in the guest house. It turned out to be a pretty relaxing 4 days alone, though. Since classes at my school ended at the end of November, and all of the students have since returned home, I didn't have much structure built into my day. Instead, I was able to find work to do if I wanted, or to simply relax a bit and enjoy my vacation. It was hard to find work since the headmaster of my school was still out of town, as were some of my other contacts in Hanga. But I was able to get a lot of good work done on my computer (now that it is fixed!) and to watch some good movies :)

I found this picture again and realized I had never posted it. This is in downtown Dar Es Salaam. It is one of the public buses or "daladalas" as they are known here. I would frequently smile as I would pass the buses and read the english phrases painted on them. Some phrases have included "Glory to God" and "I am sorry" though i am not sure what the bus was sorry for...

This Barack Obama - mobile takes the cake! I had already seen his picture painted outside of a few different barber shops, but i still had to take a picture of this bus. Maybe his name will attract more customers?

Anyway, back to the village. I dont know if i have talked about our little friend Carolina, but here she is! Her mom lives and works in the guest house complex, and so she often spends time around the guest house. I know she is around when I am walking outside and I hear a little girl's voice yell, "Uncle Ben!!!" She is too cute.


Here she is playing with her hoop and stick. It is a popular game around the village. They see how long they can keep the hoop rolling while running along side and giving it pushes with the stick. Pretty ingenious.


Here is Carolina in the make-shift "hat" that she made out of a plastic bucket she found on the ground. Like I said, too cute.

Yesterday i was trying to talk with her (which was a bit difficult both because she is only about 4 years old, and she only speaks Swahili!) but i did manage to teach her a few English phrases. She asked me "yes please" then she said "thank you" and finally "i love you baby." I taught her please, and thank you. but i have no idea where she learned the third phrase! When she recognized that i was teaching her English, this final phrase just came out! it made me laugh...and then of course she kept saying it.

Finally, today as i was cleaning my room listening to my ipod, i turned around and there was Carolina standing in the middle of my room causing mischief. She then proceeded to take all of the cushions off of the chairs in our sitting room and make a "fort" out of them where she hid from me and called my name "uncle ben!" to come and look for her. Does this game sound familiar? too cute
Finally, here are some goats. not really any reason other than they were grazing outside of my bedroom window and the little baby sounded really annoying calling its mother. dont worry, they found each other.

Charlie, Anne, and Lennart arrived back in Hanga on Monday night. I went to Songea yesterday with Br. Kastor to buy all of the interior paint we will need for the school (with the money from home that so many have been so gracious to give! thank you for your continued support!). Today we began work at the school by doing another walk around and surveying what needed to be done. The important thing is, the ball is rolling!

oh, i was also got to watch some of the Monday night football game rerun of the Eagles vs. the Browns on ESPN at one of the hotels that we ate dinner at in Songea last night. It was great to see at least one football game this season!

so, all for now. I will continue work cleaning and painting the rooms at St. Laurent's the rest of this week. I have also been working with Brother Kastor on putting together a 2009 calendar with pictures of the school. If anyone would like one, just let me know!

Geek Squad: Tanzania

Well, I guess that first picture spoils the ending...the repair worked! Part of the reason that I remained in Dar Es Salaam for so long these past couple weeks was to wait for Br. Francis Ndaga to return and help me attempt to repair my laptop. It has been having trouble charging and so I have been unable to use it for over two months now. 

About a month ago, I decided that I wanted to attempt to repair it myself (rather than wait until I got back home next spring to find a professional to do it) It is an old laptop, and it already did not work, so whats the worst that could happen?

Due to our limited power in Hanga the past two months (about 3 hours a day during the week and less on the weekends) I was unable to find a time that I could do the work because I would need power to use the soldering iron...and i didn't want to get half way done and have the lights go out!

Since I was going to be in Dar Es Salaam (where there is constant 24 hours of power!) I decided to bring my laptop along and see if Br. Francis could help repair it. He was very excited to help when I asked. So after about a week of waiting for his return and then both of us being convinced that the problem truly was internal, we decided to operate!

On Monday morning I woke up and found the work already begun! First the laptop needed to be completely disassembled, and then we could work on resoldering the loose connection on the AC power input on the Motherboard. With the help of Br. Ndaga's friend George (above) and the soldering gun and solder that i purchased in a shop in the market at Kariakoo, the repairs were completed mid-afternoon!

Of course, the work was only half done :) All of the pieces of my laptop (modem, screen, RAM, hard drive, DVD ROM, et. c.) had to find their place back in the case! It was fun watching the experts work and put the puzzle back together.

Testing to see if the repair worked...before putting the keyboard back on!

Replacing the hard drive, before the screen is secured back in place...

This was the final result. All three lights on and green! Power coming in, and battery fully charged. A welcome site.

Here is my bedroom desk at the guest house in Dar Es Salaam. It is great to have a computer again!

Thank you Br. Francis for your help. Now lets hope this repair lasts at least until the spring when i return home...

I am back in Hanga now. Everything is green! and thanks to the rain, there is enough water so our hydro-electric power station provides 24 hours of electricity! for the time being anyway...lets just hope the rain keeps up. What a luxury!

all for now. 

Sharing Culture Part 2...Thanksgiving!

Well, this is almost a full week overdue, but better late than never. Last Wednesday Charlie and I traveled to Dar Es Salaam to prepare for the arrival of his father and uncle. After a 13 hour bus ride we made it on Wednesday night and Fr. Jerome was waiting to pick us up from the bus stand and take us to our air conditioned room at the guest house! That was very welcome after the hot ride.

Thursday marked Thanksgiving! Of course no one around knew anything about this holiday and it was hard to exaplain. We had a busy day just walking around town, but unfortunatley we were unable to find any turkey. But since we couldn't find any turkey we decided to make the day as American as we could. So Charlie and I had pizza for lunch, a hamburger and fries for dinner, and went to the movie theater to see the new James Bond. All in all it was a good day. We also met all of the other Americans that we know who are living in Tanzania! (that is 3 total :) ) Fellow Johnnie '04 grad Dave Sexton met us for some ice cream in the late afternoon (he has just finished his training with Peace Corps and was on the way to his site) and we met Sara and Cara as well.

Above is the picture of us at our thanksgiving dinner at Steers fast food restaurant after the movie. Below are my traditional "before" and "after" pictures of my Thanksgiving meal plate. not as exciting this year as in years past, i must admit.





Here are some pictures from earlier in the day on Thanksgiving when Charlie and I went to the Tanzania National museum. Charlie is pictured with the lion that belonged to the first president of Tanzania (Nyerere) and i am pictured with a gun from WWI. There was a pretty neat timeline of history of the country.


Friday night Charlie's uncle and father arrived and on Saturday we all took a trip to the beach!

We ate lunch on the beach and we all took a little dip in the warm Indian Ocean. It was much warmer this time than it was when we went in mid-July. And though it was raining most of the morning, and off and on again as we were driving to the beach, it cleared up enough after lunch so we could have a good couple hours to swim.

Here is our hut that we ate in on the beach. Great food. Great service. And beautiful weather with a nice breeze from the ocean. It was a good day.

On the way back home, we decided that it would take too long to wait for the ferry, so we would drive around the tip of the peninsula to get back. After the hard rains in the morning the roads were pretty wet! It Since there was a lot of construction happening on these roads, they didn't quite have their drainage problems figured out. The compact clay soil doesn't absorb much of the water either. We were happy that our car had 4 wheel drive! Some busses weren't so lucky. It made for good entertainment for some people, though. All along the drive there were people just sitting along the side of the road watching the cars drive through these newly formed lakes. It was neat to be able to see another side of the city, too.

The McCarrons left on Sunday morning to spend a few days in Hanga, but will be passing back through Dar Es Salaam on their way north to visit Kilimanjaro Region tomorrow. Since classes finished last week at my primary school, I decided to stick around the city and just relax. It has been fun eating good food, traveling around by public bus, and doing a lot of walking and seeing many parts of the city. I think I know Dar Es Salaam better than i know Minneapolis now! I have definately spent more time traveling around here than I ever have in the metro area in MN.

I will return to Hanga probably by the end of the week. My next update will probably be from there! There are plenty of projects that I have in mind for the school when the kids have left for home. I think I will begin with painting my classroom. I have heard that the rains have begun in Hanga, too. This means everything will be turning green, and our hydro-electric dam will be more opperational too.

Thanks for reading. Look for the next update soon from Hanga!

Back to Dar...halfway through the second trimester

Last Wednesday Charlie and I took the bus back to the big city of Dar Es Salaam. It is strange to think that this is already my third trip to the city, and I am finished with the first half of my time here in this country.

We came to the city last Wednesday because Charlie's dad and uncle were coming for a visit! They flew in on Friday evening late at night. We also met our bennie friends that are staying in Imiliwaha on Thursday afternoon, and our Johnnie friend Dave Sexton who just finished training with Peace Corps and traveled to his site on Friday, where he will be living and teaching for the next two years.

We were able to have an Americanized day on Thursday in celebration of Thanksgiving...more to come on that in a future post (Sharing Culture Part 2...) but all in all, the last few days it has been exciting to see some familiar faces and be able to show them around the city a little bit. Yesterday, Saturday, we took a trip to the beach here in Dar. Br. Barnabus drove us in one of the monastery cars. We took the ferry across to the peninsula and then drove to Sunrise Beach resort where we had a delicious lunch and then swam in the warm Indian Ocean. (There will be pictures in a future post of the McCarrons in the sea!)

This morning Charlie and his dad and uncle took the bus back to Hanga, but I decided to remain in the city for a little while longer. Though it is hot, so hot that i am literally dripping with sweat just walking around, or even just sitting on the steps of the Cathedral waiting for Mass to begin this morning, my air conditioned room and cool shower is quite a luxury every night. It has been fun eating a variety of food (lebonese, indian, pizza, hamburgers) and seeing more of the market. And I cant leave the city until I have some help from one of the brothers to fix my laptop. It doesn't seem to want to charge lately.

Sorry for the absence of pictures in this post. Due to my laptop's power issues, and the reformatting of the laptop I have been using in Hanga (which had ALL of my pictures on it from the last two months) I dont have any available to post right now. But there are plenty more from sorting through the donations of books and other things last week...from the beach...from Thanksgiving dinner in Dar...so stay tuned!

When I arrive back in Hanga sometime this week I hope to begin work painting and doing other improvement projects around my Primary School. It should be a welcome break from teaching, and a chance for a little more hands-on improvement of the school grounds! Pictures to come from that too :)

Thanks for reading. Happy Advent!

A Library arrives in Hanga

Last Friday the container of books and other donations finally arrived in Hanga after months of journey from Wisconsin, USA! I just happened to pass by the entrance to the Abbey when I saw this semi that had just arrived from a long two day travel from Dar Es Salaam.


After the container was cracked open, the novices were called to help unload all of the donations. I called Charlie and he and Lennart came to help, too. In the container there were blankets, clothes, a bike, a computer, a printer, and most importantly, BOOKS. There were just over 600 boxes of books. Our nearest estimate for the actual number of books is right around 18,000 to 20,000! What a great project. These will be distributed to all of the schools in Hanga.


We used the outdoor walkways of the new monastic residence for temporary storage of the books.Some worked to stack the boxes while others continued bringing them out of the actual container. For a while, the container didn't seem to have a back to it. There were so many boxes!



Finally, we reached the back of the container, and all was unloaded.


Here Br. Cassian checks the master list to make sure nothing big is missing...he will be in charge of all of these donations in Hanga and their distribution to their final destinations.


On Monday afternoon we began sorting through the books to get them ready to distribute to the many different schools in the area. We had piles for: Primary library books, Primary text books, Secondary library books, Secondary text books, seminary/religious books, and teachers resources.

To sort the books we opened every box, took out the school supplies and/or clothes that were packed around the books (supplies such as notebooks, loose leaf paper, pens, pencils, and art supplies) and then put the box of books in the most appropriate pile.

Here Charlie is gathering the many volumes of encyclopedias to attempt to piece together full sets.


Thank you St. Scholastica Academy in Chicago! your donations, along with those of so many other schools in your area, are very much appreciated here in Tanzania. They will be put to good use.

And thank you Colleen, Tory, and Julia! I am not sure what school you are from, but it is true, you guys truly R Ahmazing :) Thank you for your help with these donations, and thank you for your note on this box.


We continued with the work Tuesday morning and afternoon with the help of a wheel barrel to transport the heavy boxes from under the outside awning to a large room inside the new monastic residence where we were sorting.



And we are not done yet! We will continue with the initial sorting tomorrow, and then the real work begins. Luckily, the school year is just ending here in Tanzania, so us teachers will have plenty of time in the month of December to oversee the building of shelving for the different schools, and beginning to organize the books in each school's library. Look for more progress there in the upcoming months of posts.

thanks for reading. be sure to check back soon to see pictures from the completion of the sorting stage.