Tanzania

Students Sing the National Anthem

2009-04-20T21:08:00.013+03:00

Mungu ibariki Afrika God Bless Africa.

Wabariki Viongozi wake Bless its leaders.

Hekima Umoja na Let Wisdom Unity and

Amani Hizi ni ngao zetu Peace be the shield of

Afrika na watu wake. Africa and its people.

CHORUS

Ibariki Afrika Bless Africa,

Tubariki watoto wa Afrika. Bless the children of Africa.

Mungu ibariki Tanzania God Bless Tanzania.

Dumisha uhuru na Umoja Grant eternal Freedom and Unity

Wake kwa Waume na Watoto To its sons and daughters.

Mungu Ibariki Tanzania na watu wake. God Bless Tanzania and its People

CHORUS

Ibariki Tanzania Bless Tanzania,

Tubariki watoto wa Tanzania. Bless the children of Tanzania.

Goodbye goodbye goodbye

2009-03-23T18:05:00.009+03:00

My time here is coming to a close. This wont be my last post, but it will be my last post from Hanga! I will make a few more posts with a faster Internet connection at home when i can upload some video clips and more pictures from my stay here.

This weekend was full of goodbyes. Anne and I will be leaving Hanga tomorrow morning at 5 AM to begin our journey home.

Friday night was the last movie night with the kids. This week, instead of watching with only the girls, i decided i wanted to include the boys too! This means i spent all day on Friday running around Hanga getting the equipment i needed! I borrowed the projector from the Seminary, the white board from the monastery store room, a stereo and extension cord from another one of the monks, and transported it all to St. L by foot one trip at a time. In the end it was all worth it to see the excitement on the kids faces. We watched Toy Story 2 together. great film :)

Just a quick shot from our photo shoot with our friend Gaudence. The new hostel in the background under construction again...

Good looking shirt Gaudence has on, hmmm?

On Saturday night we had our goodbye bash at St. Laurent's with the kids. What a celebration! Here is the gang walking through the village on the way to school...

Getting ready for the party in Kastor's office...oh! look at the cool new signs for the classrooms! this is for Standard 1 as you can see.

The rest of the crew preparing for the party. Charlie, me, Kastor, Anne, Wilma, Eva. Lennart was riding the bike back to the hostel to get water for us to drink!

Here we are at the head table. It was pretty fun.

Before the official celebrations began, we witnessed a flag lowering ceremony with the new flagpole! It looks great, and the kids are amazing at singing the national song. They sing it twice a day. Once as they raise the flag in the morning at 7:30 and once when they lower the flag before dinner at 7.

My Standard VII girls singing their goodbye song. This was pretty emotional. more so for the girls...but my eyes weren't exactly dry either :) I will post the videos from them singing in a later post.

The evening turned out to be more of an adventure than anticipated. In the middle of the presentations/songs it started to rain. Yes we were under the pavilion, but it was POURING! I think this was the hardest and longest rain that I have experienced here in Hanga. All we could do was laugh as the mist made everyone wet even though we were sitting under a big roof! I had a good time with it.

Finally, after the presentations were finished, the DJ cranked the music and we had a BongoFlavor dance party! Take a look at the pictures. it was a blast!

Lets see how many kids Ben can pick up at once. hehe.

After the music stopped, one of my students came up to me and said, "Ben, you can DANCE!" thank you very much. :)

After the kids left to return to their dorms, the teachers continued the party in the faculty office. I only stayed for a little bit. It was getting a little crazy. But still a lot of fun.

On Sunday afternoon, since i didn't get a chance to set this up due to the downpour the night before, I set up the projector that we used to watch the movie on Friday night to show the kids the 800+ pictures i had taken at St. Laurent's over the past 8 months. It was great hearing all of their reactions as they saw themselves on the big screen!

Perhaps more fun than the slide show was the impromptu game i made up while we were waiting for it to get dark. With all of the school just sitting, waiting for something to happen and at the same time listening to music, i thought to myself, this would be a great time for musical chairs! we played about 10 rounds and the kids never got tired of it. I only wish i would have introduced this game a bit sooner...we could have played a tournament every Sunday afternoon!

Sunday night was farewell party number two. This was a bit less exciting, and there was no disco, but it was good to gather one last time with the whole community of monks.

Here i am saying a few words of thanks for a good stay in Hanga. I will miss this place.

The guests of honor...

From left to right: Charlie, the Abbot of Mvimwa Abbey, me, and Br. Odo the Prior of Hanga Abbey.

Goodbye Hanga! Br. Kastor will travel with us tomorrow to Morogoro where we will stay for a short visit of two nights, then one night in Dar Es Salaam at the guest house there, and Friday Anne and I both have flights home. deep breath.

I might not post for another couple weeks, until I am back home in Winona. Once home, I will make at least a few good summary posts to show the various projects I have been involved in over the past 8 months as well as posting some video clips from my time here.

Thanks once again for reading :)

Happy Birthday, St. Laurent's Style

2009-03-20T22:16:00.008+03:00

This past week there was a birthday at St. Laurent's! When your parent's supply the cake and juice for the school, you can have a party with THE WHOLE SCHOOL! I would like to invite 506 of my school mates to my next birthday party!

Here is Josephat and I think his best friend at the head table. Josephat is the one on the right.

There was even an MC, kids rapping and singing popular gospel songs, and of course plenty of AZAM orange drink and mini cupcakes. mmmm.

Indeed. Thumbs up.

Here is the main man getting ready to cut his cake.

After the cake was cut, Josephat fed certain people cake. This is a Tanzanian tradition i think. I was honored to be one of those chosen to be fed. As you can see, so was Lennart.

They made that sign for me.

A group of my standard VII girls enjoying the party.

After almost two hours of celebration, it did get kind of long, though :)

You can also see from the top picture that this birthday was celebrated on St. Patrick's day! Not much more of a celebration for this feast, but I did take the opportunity to wear all green all day long, and speak a few words of Gaelic instead of Swahili. Happy St. Paddy's day!

Earlier tonight we gathered with all of the students again after dinner and watched Toy Story 2 in the assembly area. I had to do quite a bit of leg work around Hanga today rounding up the necessary equipment (projector, extension cord, speakers, popcorn...) but in the end it was all worth it to hear 400+ laughing together at Buzz and Woody.

Tomorrow we will gather together again for a little going away party for me and Anne. We will both leave Hanga on Tuesday! That means only one or two more posts from this Hanga computer lab. it's been quite a run. Thanks for reading. the next pictures will be from the going away party! maybe i will get to feed people cake...

Happy Halloween...finally

2009-03-12T20:57:00.003+03:00

At the beginning of this week i received a few more packages here in Hanga from home. One was posted from the Winona, MN office on October 27, 2008. One was posted the 4th of November 2008. Better late than never right?

The package from November contained Halloween candy! The week after this holiday last fall i began telling my students that there was a surprise coming for them. My brother Tim was excited to have new friends in Tanzania, and was also feeling overly blessed by his abundance of "loot" from the night of the 31st, so he decided to send some candy over here! I told my students that it was on the way and they would most likely receive it from me after Thanksgiving break.

When it didn't come after Thanksgiving I promised them that it was still on the way, but probably would be here before Christmas. After Christmas came and went I was certain myself that it would be waiting for me in Hanga after I returned from my safari with my Dad in January.

When it still was not here in February I gave up. But then it was here mid March!

Immediately after receiving the package I went to school and asked my students to write thank you notes to my brother Tim. They were very excited to have the candy and be able to write new letters to their penpals in Minnesota.

Thank you Tim! it was well worth the wait.

West Coast Reconnaissance : Kipili

2009-03-04T12:11:00.008+03:00

I decided to save the best for last when talking about this trip...

After struggling through a 9 hour bus ride on mostly mud roads and finally reaching Sumbawanga, then traveling another two hours the next day on to Mvimwa Abbey, Charlie and I decided we still did not have enough of the backcountry rainy season travel. We pushed on to see the beautiful site of Kipili village and the house that the monastery has there on the shore of Lake Tanganyika.

Here is a view of the road...and this is when it is dry. It seems that there were repairs planned, but during the time that we were driving on them there was no one to spread out this new gravel...so that made for about half an hour of straight speed bumps. not fun...

But when we arrived, it all seemed worth it. Here are some shots from the grounds...

Charlie standing in front of the dormitory building...
This is looking back at the property from the water.

The water reminded me of the Carribbean, only it was freshwater! It was great to be able to swim in a lake again. We even got to take a boat ride. It made us a little nervous when we rode out into the lake for about twenty minutes and then the motor suddenly cut out...but we were close enough to shore that we could paddle our way in. And it was all for the better. If the motor wouldn't have cut out and forced us to paddle to land while the operator made the repairs, we would not have had the chance to swim at this picture perfect secluded beach. simply beautiful.

Me and Charlie with Br. Joseph

Here is Charlie with the open lake behind...and the mountains of the Democratic Republic of the Congo rising on the other shore...

We stopped at another small village on the lake as well.

The kids were pretty excited to have their picture taken. Though I am not sure what the deal is with the karate poses always...

Our second night there seemed to be a lot more commotion in our little bay area. We found out that there was a large passenger boat called the MV Liemba making its weekly pass through the area. The boat has been on the lake since the Germans used it in WWI! this was pretty neat to see, even though it was too dark to see much... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Liemba

Here we are with Br. Simon of Mvimwa Abbey on the left, Br. Teoton (also from Mvimwa, but now stays on the lake to run the guest house there) and Br. Joseph on the right by me.
Before we left, Charlie and I carried on the tradition that Br. Theodore of Hanga started when he was visiting last Fall of planting a tree. Charlie and I both planted our own papaya tree. Maybe the next time a Benedictine Volunteer from Minnesota visits the lake house there they can eat the fruits of our labor :)

This concludes the pictures and posts of this reconnaissance mission to the west. All said, it was a long, exhausting bit of travel, but well worth it to blaze the way for volunteers in years to come, and just to see more of this beautiful country for ourselves.

There is not much time left for me in Hanga. I will leave to start my journey back to the USA on March 24. There will be a few more posts from Hanga before I leave...

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments if you wish.

West Coast Reconnaissance : Mvimwa

2009-03-03T22:55:00.005+03:00

Next on the adventure was our visit to Mvimwa Abbey. The trek was about two hours by truck. It was of course all dirt roads. I would guess that the trip time is almost cut in half in the dry season, but it is definitely more of an adventure at this time of year. It wasn't so bad.

We stayed in Mvimwa just Tuesday night. Wednesday morning we got up early, watched the sunrise over the valley, and then went to Ash Wednesday Mass. It is pretty neat experiencing these celebrations in another language, in another culture. The Mass was much like Ash Wednesday Mass back home, and of course the readings for the day were the same ones that were being read all around the world. Only ours were in Kiswahili :)

Here is a couple pictures from the dining room and sitting room where the monks hang out.

This brother is originally from Hanga Abbey. He was one of the founders of Mvimwa Abbey.
This is the original monastery building. It was pretty neat to see how they just built right around the rocks, basically IN the hill!

And some shots of the new dormitory still under construction. They expect to move in early next month.

After a short tour of the buildings and farm and other facilities that make up the Abbey, I took a hike with Br. Joseph to get a better view of the whole area. We hiked to the top of this rock that you see in the background of this picture. That is the new abbey dormitory in the foreground.

Breathtaking...

Here is the water reservoir that stores the water before routing it to the turbine that generates electricity for the Abbey. We also visited Mariana, who is from Germany, but has moved to Mvimwa in the past year, built this house, and now runs a small orphanage. She is a pretty inspiring woman. Charlie and I first met her when she was visiting Hanga last August for the Jubilee.
Charlie shaking Kastori's hand...cute.
We also met another American in Mvimwa. This is Kathryn in the middle. She is from Oregon and has been living and working for a medical organization in Sumbawanga for the past nine months. It was fun to share experiences with her. The world is a small place.One more post from this trip will be coming soon...from Lake Tanganyika! Beautiful place. "beautiful"... an adjective i seem to be using a lot in these posts. This is really the best way to describe this country. I am so very happy to be experiencing so much of it.

West Coast Reconnaissance : Sumbawanga

2009-03-03T22:12:00.007+03:00

Mvimwa Abbey has a house in the city of Sumbawanga where a few of the monks who work at the secondary school live. This is where Charlie and I stayed last week on the second night of our trip. This is charlie sitting on the nice lounge chairs on the outside porch getting ready to watch the sun go down.

The house is nice inside. There is a chapel, 6 or 7 bedrooms i think, a dining room, and a nice sitting room to read or watch TV. I think i even saw a couple Jean Claude Van Damme VHS cassettes by the VCR. It is pretty comfortable living!

We toured the school on Monday evening after we arrived, and the rest of the town on Tuesday morning before we headed to Mvimwa to see the Abbey. We saw the post office, a couple internet cafes, some restaurants and large guest hostels, and even a nice kid play place with a friendly gorilla greeter. I think this is the Sumbawanga equivalent of our Chuck E Cheese.

Just one suggestion, don't try the "ice cream."

Tuesday afternoon we left for Mvimwa, but we stayed in Sumbawanga for one more night on our travel back home. On Friday night when we were in town, we stayed in the rectory of Christ the King parish with Fr. Pambo. He is a monk of Mvimwa abbey, but lives at and runs the parish in town. It is a beautiful church. It would be great to be a part of the parish community here. Fr. Pambo was very welcoming and simply loves being a priest. A great spirit to have leading a church like this.

All of the artwork is from inside the church.

Here is Fr. Pambo playing the organ for us. He is pretty talented at this too.

All in all, Sumbwanga seems like a pretty nice town.

Come back again tomorrow for part 3 of 4 from our recon. tomorrow: the abbey.

West Coast Reconnaissance : The Schools

2009-03-03T09:57:00.008+03:00

Last Sunday Charlie and I set out on a mission.

Next year, the Benedictine Volunteer Corps, the program that sponsored us to be here in Hanga this year, would like to send two more volunteers to the western part of Tanzania to Mvimwa Abbey. Our mission last week was to visit the abbey and the surrounding schools run by the Abbey. It could technically be called work, but it was a fun trip, and quite a different travel experience than we are used to.

We were gone for a total of seven nights:

Sunday in Mbeya

Monday in Sumbawanga

Tuesday in Mvimwa

Wednesday and Thursday at Kipili on the shores of Lake Tanganyika

Friday night back in Sumbawanga

Saturday night back in Mbeya

and we were back home in Hanga on Sunday.

We had stayed at St. Benedict house in Mbeya last October, and it was good to visit the town again and greet Fr. Novatus who runs the guest house. It was also a great opportunity to get eat some good Indian food at the Mbeya hotel and Pizza on our way back!

The "road" to Sumbawanga from Mbeya was perhaps the most treacherous that we have been on the past 8 months. We had heard news from the monks that the road was bad in the dry season, and we are now in the middle of the rainy season. It was that bad...

here is a scene from one of the times we had to get off the bus as it slid through the mud in the backed up traffic.

Here is Charlie in a crowd getting back on the bus after a bathroom break...no there are no gas stations along the way that can accommodate a bus load of people.

After only about 9 hours of traveling (2 on paved road, and the other 7 on the mud/dirt where the bus continually feels like it will tip on its side, though somehow never does...) we reached Sumbawanga and were greeted by Brother Joseph who lives at the house in Sumbawanga and works at St. Maurus Chemchemi Secondary school that is run by the Abbey.

After a short break for some chai and bread, we took a tour of the school.

It is a beautiful school! The volunteers who come next year will most likely spend most of their time in Sumbawanga and will be teachers at this school. It is a very large school, and also looks much cleaner and much newer than any other secondary school I have seen in country. I almost wanted to stay on for another year and work here...almost...

Charlie in deep discussion with Br. Joseph in his office at the school.

Another purpose of our visit was to ready the schools for the arrival of donated books! After nearly 4 months of sorting through the container that arrived back November, the schools in Hanga are about as full of books as we can get. So many of the rest of the books will soon travel to the west to enable these schools to start libraries of their own.

St. Maurus already had a good start, but we assured them, there are MANY more books coming. Fill the room with shelves...

A view from the entrance of the school with the main assembly ground directly behind us.

The next day we traveled to Mvimwa Abbey in the afternoon. Again, not the greatest roads to say the least :) but we made it in just about 2 hours of up and down bumpy riding. Br. Joseph is a pretty talented driver.

The primary school in Mvimwa is run by the Abbey, but is Kiswahili medium. This would make teaching here a little more of a challenge for strict English speakers.

It was another good looking school. I really enjoyed the red sweater uniforms. Here we are visiting some Standard VII students. their English was pretty good. I think Charlie is trying to answer the question posed by one of the students: "If your lakes freeze in the winter, why don't the fish all die?" Good question...

A view of the boys dormitory. A good number of the students board here.

The school even had a nice computer lab. Charlie was confused by the juxtaposition of modern technology and the ancient. I think that other machine is called a "typewriter"

And finally, the site of the future library at St. Placidus primary school in Mvimwa. Again, we stressed how many books were really coming. fill the room with shelves! This will be a great project for someone next year.

Benedictines and education. go together like a horse and carriage.

All for this installment of the review from our recon. I will post again tomorrow with some pictures from Mvimwa. The Abbey is in a truly beautiful location on the edge of the rift valley.

thanks for reading!

Goodbye Francesca, HELLOOOO books

2009-02-16T21:44:00.007+03:00

Last night we said goodbye again. it seems like i do that a lot around here... This time it was for Francesca. she rode to Hanga in the same car as me and my dad when he came to visit! She has been working with the farm and just hanging out with us around Hanga ever since! She lived right across the hall from me, so now i am lonely at the end of the hall. the first picture here is from the end of last night. We also took a more serious pose, but this second one turned out better i think...though i am unsure of the umbrella...

This past weekend on Friday and Saturday night the Italians, Germans, and Austrians were absent from Hanga. they were on a trip to Iringa and Ruaha national park. So that left me and Charlie in Hanga :)

Friday night we ate dinner with the girls at St. Laurent's again. This time, there was a special treat. after dinner, we tested the new TV in their cafeteria. the movie was Sleeping Beauty. I have never heard a room full of grade school girls get so quiet as when the movie first started and their attentions were all fixed on the TV. it was a fun night. oh...and charlie even got to try out the new Little Tykes play set!

Most of our Saturday and Sunday was spent working in the library at St. Benedict. This is one of the shelves that the wood shop of the monastery made for the school library. there are ten of these new sturdy shelves and now they are almost all full of books!

These books were donated through a project from Minnesota called "Books for Africa." these boxes of donated books had been sitting in a storage room at St. Benedict since sometime in 2007 I think. There were other shelves built, but they collapsed under the weight of the textbooks.

Now after a full week of just taking the books out of boxes and sorting them again, the room looks like a library! It was one of the most fun jobs I have had around Hanga. it was a bit like Christmas every time we got to open a box up and sort through the books. Sometimes it was just more textbooks...

but sometimes it was a book all about how to use your pocket calculator!

or how to gain UNLIMITED POWER!

or perhaps a great work of literature to add to my "suggested readings" bookshelf...

It was a lot of sorting, and we still aren't done yet...actually, I think the real librarian work has just begun...but at least all the boxes are empty.

Here is the computer lab at St. B that Charlie has been setting up too. funny how so many projects come at you at once...and to think, when we first arrived back in July, we were both struggling with the boredom, trying to find things to do, projects to get involved in. everything in time...

finally, here is a picture of the installation of Fr. Angelo as the new headmaster of St. Benedict. He will be very good for the school.

We are currently planning a trip to the central western part of the country for next week, but before we can go on that, we have to sort through the donated books that arrived last November, and decide which ones are best for St. B.

thanks for reading!

The Mountain, goodbye, and Nole

2009-02-13T11:54:00.005+03:00

Actually, this post will have nothing to do with this little chicks at the Hanga chicken farm...but they are pretty cute aren't they?

Almost one week ago we made an expedition to the mountain with a cross on it a little way outside of Hanga (about 13 km) on the way to Songea. Anne, Lennart, Eva, Wilma, Francesca, Maria, and Clare all went on foot, and I came a couple hours later and met them at near the base of the hill with my motorcycle :)

I unfortunately left Hanga with only a few drops of gas left in the tank, so I had to find the "petrol station" along the way. I bought 3 liters...i think they poured it into the tank from old cooking oil bottles...but it smelled like gasoline.

Here is the crew at the church at the base of the hill.

15-2, 15-4, and a double run equals 12. Ahh cribbage in the afternoon.

As Clare was scheduled for departure early this week, there was a goodbye party for her! above is the beautiful cake...best one in Tanzania so far...with chocolate, peanuts, and mango icing. DELICIOUS. Below is the party back in the hostel. Goat meat included. mmmm. I also discovered that melted blue band vegetable spread is pretty good on popcorn! the low fat option to butter...

Br. Odo saying thanks...

The young women volunteers of Hanga

left to right: Anne, Patricia, Eva, Clare, Maria and Francesca.

On Tuesday morning we traveled by car with Br. Theodore to Njombe and then took another ride later in the day with Fr. Michael to Nole to see Hanga's "outstation" there. It is a larger complex than i thought. One of the projects there is the water bottling. the water is called Chemchemi ("fountain" or "source" in kiswahili).

This is inside the bottling room.

and some more pictures from around Nole.

Although it took an hour to drive to Nole, which was only a little over 30 km from Njombe, and although the road was in the worst condition of any i have been on, mainly because it is the rainy season, the trip was well worth it. Just the view from the road along the way would have been worth it. It was fun to see the shocked look on so many kids faces as we passed and they saw two wazungu in the car driving past their house (i dont think they get many foreigners passing down their road!) This site of the hydro-electric generator in Nole was one of the most beautiful places I have seen here in Tanzania as well. The landscape and climate (cool enough that i wanted to wear long sleeves and long pants the whole time i was there) reminded me of the Rocky mountains in CO...somehow it didn't feel like eastern Africa.

On our way back to Njombe to spend the night we stopped by Fr. Michael's home village of Uwembe. We visited his parents and siblings who still live at home. Though we only stayed for about 20 minutes, his mother gifted us with a beautiful chicken as we left! So, there was no debate on what we were having for dinner. It was probably the freshest meat I have ever eaten :)

On Wednesday morning Clare left on the bus to Dar Es Salaam, and later in the morning i caught a bus back to Songea, and then another back to Hanga.

The last two days I have been helping sort books (still a lot of them!) in the library at St. Benedict. Charlie ordered 10 sturdy shelves from the monastery carpentry shop and they were completed this week. It is fun sorting through the endless boxes of books. My favorite is the "suggested reading Great Books" collection that i am setting aside.

Tonight I will eat dinner in the girls cafeteria at St. Laurents and after dinner we will watch Sleeping Beauty together on the newly installed TV on the wall. Me, Charlie, and about two hundred 1st-7th grade girls. should be pretty exciting, and loud.

thanks for reading!

Late Christmas, Rain Showers, and Ugali Pizza?

2009-02-08T17:48:00.008+03:00

Short clips from life in Tanzania...

the first picture here is of course the Late Christmas...Carolina loved her little horses from McDonalds! thank you Ceili!

almost one month ago it was the feast of St. Placid. Since the guest house in Dar Es Salaam is named after this saint, there was a party that night! here are some shots from the festivities. i have a good video of the Cake song if you ever want to see it, too. As Clare was at the guest house for a visit that afternoon, she was of course invited to the party as well. It was a good first chance to meet the monks!

We traveled back to Hanga on January 18 and there was a bonfire that night to celebrate our return! We got to burn the old Christmas wreaths too. that was fun. Oh, and here we are roasting bread on sticks...STICKBREAD!

these are from out trip to Songea the next weekend. Here we are sitting at the Songea bakery (PCV Mateo from Peramiho joined us unexpectedly as he was just passing through)

Clare and I went with one of the monks to visit a place in Songea where this woman makes her own wine. We got a couple bottles of banana wine, some rosella, some rose, and of course some grape. It was pretty neat to see the process.

Sometime in the following week we decided that we wanted to have another bonfire with STICKBREAD! so we went to the kitchen to see what we could make from scratch...

Everyone watches as Charlie measures out the curiously grainy flour...

"this is kind of coarse isn't it?"
"i think it will be okay...just not as fine as we are used to..."
"wait, isn't this corn flour?"
"does that really matter? i think we might have made it with this same stuff last time..."

And then the collective reaction of embarrassed laughter as we realize we are not making bread dough...but a large batch of cold UGALI. hmmmm i guess that gluten stuff in wheat flour does something to hold it all together...kind of hard to stick ugali on a stick to roast it...

But of course, we didn't give up there. when life gives you cold ugali dough, you make...UGALI PIZZA!

it was pretty dense, okay it was really dense, but it was at least edible :) and we took some of the rest of the dough, added cocoa and mashed bananas and sugar and spice, and made a pretty good looking/tasting chocolate banana corn cake! i wont say delicious...but it wasn't bad....

Not the kind of pizza Francesca is used to at home, but definitely a good story to tell :) ("those crazy Americans..."

The past month we have been working to hand out the scholarship money raised by the volunteers from Saint John's that were here last year from their Phoenix Rising bike trip across Tanzania. Here is charlie presenting one of the students at the Seminary with his certificate.

And the rain shower...it was pouring one afternoon and i decided to run around and splash in the puddles. The slick tile in front of our hostel becomes a slip'n'slide when it is wet, too! And since the gutter leaks, there is better water pressure standing there under it than in my bathroom shower! Please excuse the 1/2 nudity.
Finally, one week ago the our Bennie volunteer friends came from Imiliwaha to visit Hanga for a few days. On Sunday we learned that some of the new nuns that are helping in the kitchen are learned in the art of roasting coffee! so, Charlie pulled our 15 kilograms of raw beans out of storage and we got to work! first you have to pound them to get the shells off the beans, then there is an art to separating the raw beans from the shell casings (sara was the best at it) and then they just go into the oven! So, for the past week there has been delicious fresh coffee almost every day from my coffee maker. DELICIOUS!

Clare and I will travel to Njombe/Nole tomorrow to visit the chemchemi water bottling plant that is run by the monastery. And from there Clare will head back to Dar and I will be back in Hanga on Thursday. I think there will be another group of German tourists here when i get back too...life is never boring here in Hanga.

check back next time for pictures from the bottling plant!

Life continues in Hanga

2009-02-05T11:21:00.006+03:00

I have been back in Hanga now since January 18 and upon my return I realized how much more this place is feeling like home. I traveled back to Hanga with my new friend Clare. She is from Canada and we met on the ferry on the way back from Zanzibar! I hung out with her and her brother for a couple days in Dar Es Salaam and then told her she should come visit Hanga and see another side of Tanzania before returning home. So she came with!

I decided not to continue with the same teaching schedule at St. Laurent's this semester since I will be leaving before the first break at Easter. Instead, I have been focusing my efforts on completing a lot of the projects that I began last fall. The school is still being painted, we have installed the television in the girl's cafeteria (it had previously been sitting on the floor in the box in Kastor's office for the past 8 or 9 months), I painted the new ball box that is now being used every day at the school, I had some help testing computers and setting up the lab again to begin teaching some computer classes next week, and of course there is always more cleaning and organizing to do. Our Bennie friends that are staying in Imiliwaha also came for a visit last weekend, and Cara came to help me clean one of the storage closets on Tuesday morning. We happened across big pieces of molded plastic from a "little tykes" play set, and I assumed that it must be broken somehow, otherwise it would be put together and out in the open for kids to play with, right? It turns out, it was sitting in storage simply because no one knew how to put it together! So with Cara and Anne's help I muscled the thing together (pretty tight fit!) and now the kids have a new toy. I think they like it...
Here is me on the way to a meal sometime this week. I call the kid on the left the "tano kid" every time he sees any of us volunteers walking around Hanga he runs after us and yells, "mzungu! TANO!" so i smile and give him a five.

And the dishes after dinner. I like the drying the best. Here we have Lennart on the left, the three Italian vets in the middle (Patricia and Maria arrived just about a week ago to help Francesca), Eva in the back, and Clare to the right. Our total international count right now is:
1 Canadian
2 USAians
2 Germans
3 Austrians
3 Italians
Thank you WINCRAFT! Though I no longer teach the same students every day (who are now in Standard VII) I still like to stop in and say hi every day. Two days ago I stopped in the classroom in the afternoon and gave out Minnesota Twins lanyards that WinCraft sent from Winona! The kids were sooo happy. Now they are all Twins fans, too!

The Vikings pennants and Timberwolves signs are also from WinCraft. I think they will become dormitory and classroom decorations!

I also rode the motorcycle to Nakagugu pre-secondary school today where I will be doing some English tutoring a couple days a week.

So, a different schedule this semester, but I am still keeping busy! And somehow there is always time in the afternoon for a few games of cribbage and an episode or two of "The Wire" with Charlie. Life is good.

More pictures of projects to come soon. all for now.

Father/Son Safari Part 6: Stonetown

2009-01-29T21:27:00.007+03:00

After our day in the son, we came back for a nice relaxing drink ocean side to watch the sunset. Here is the menu from the place...not the best food, but is named after the one and only lead singer of one of the greatest rock bands of all time. Who knew that Freddie was born on Zanzibar?!

After Mercury's it was time for some dinner. We ate out on the street...literally! Here are some pictures of the outside street seafood market that they have set up every night down near the water. We had some Zanzibar "pizza" coconut bread, and of course, a couple cold cokes.

Here is our chef cooking the "pizzas."

And a spread of one of the seafood tables...i wanted to try the octopus, but they were pretty expensive.

There was one last day of fun in Zanzibar before we had to think about dad heading back home to the good ol USA. We didn't plan any official tour for our final day since we had to catch our ferry at 2:30 PM. So we had a delicious breakfast of fruit, toast, and tea, and then just walked around Stonetown.

It was incredible to see all of the beautiful doors around the city. The main area of Stonetown is not too big of an area, but you cant drive a car around most of it! Most of the city feels like you are walking down a back alley because the buildings are built so close together.

We also visited the House of Wonder. This is a large cultural museum that has exhibits on everything from the explorations of Dr. Livingston to the spice trade to a room of many different khangas! There was also this cool boat that was made without any nails. The wood is actually sewn together.

The balcony of the museum gave a great view of the city. Some of the buildings weren't built with strong enough stone i guess...

Here we are looking out on the city and the beautiful Indian Ocean.

After a busy day in the museum and touring Stonetown, there was time for a quick sandwich at Mercury's and then we had to get on the ferry! We even met some new friends on the ferry ride...

This concludes the Father/Son Safari! After arriving back in Dar I helped dad pack up, we had some dinner, and then we brought him to the airport. It was a great visit. Though we couldn't see the WHOLE country in only 2 short weeks, we sure came close.

check back again soon for notes on the happenings in Hanga the past couple weeks since my dad left. there is still plenty to do around here!

Father/Son Safari Part 5: Zanzibar

2009-01-29T20:20:00.004+03:00

After a long trip back to Dar Es Salaam from Hanga, we had one night at the guest house, and then it was on to Zanzibar! We got up and went to Mass at the guest house, and then caught the ferry before lunch. The ride wasn't too rough, but the power did go out just as we pulled away from the dock so it was a pretty hot trip.

We found a hotel, and just settled in the first night. The next day, we planned a trip to rent a boat and do some snorkeling! We left the hotel at 7AM and drove to the southern part of the island where our boat was waiting for us. Here is dad walking out to our boat...

A Zanzibar sailing dow we saw along the way...

The first leg of out boat trip was spent dolphin watching. I didnt get any good pictures because they were too fast...but we did see quite a few! After seeing the dolphins, we went to an area of the coral reef and went snorkeling for about an hour! I had to test out my waterproof camera...

After we were done snorkeling and had eaten some lunch, we drove up the coast to a beach on the eastern shore of the island. It was low tide...REALLY low tide...so it was tough to swim, but we could walk out into the shallow warm water for over 100 yards! It was neat to see the women out harvesting seaweed...

After a hot walk in the intense sun we just came back and relaxed for a while on the beach and watched the tide come back in. It was amazing to see how fast the water rose! We even bought a fresh coconut from a local guy who came up and asked us if we wanted any fresh fruit! And when i say fresh, i mean: after i asked him how much and agreed to pay 1000 shillings (about 95 cents) for one coconut he literally climbed a nearby tree, husked the fresh green coconut with a stick, cracked it open on my beach chair, waited for me to drink the coconut milk, and then cut little pieces of the coconut inside and served it to us as we lounged under the shade of our grass roof umbrella. simply delicious!

Another day in paradise...

Check back again tomorrow for Father/Son Safari Part 6 of 6.

Father/Son Safari Part 4: Two Short Days in Hanga

2009-01-25T12:09:00.012+03:00

After traveling up north, and then spending a whole day in Dar, it was finally time to come to Hanga with my dad! We traveled with two cars. Br. George drove one, and Br. Justin drove the other. There was also another Italian Veterinarian volunteer named Francesca who rode with us. It was a long journey, as always, but we made it to Hanga in just enough time to catch the end of dinner and meet everyone in the dining room.

After we ate, Charlie, Anne, and Lennart had a surprise for us! We celebrated our arrival in Hanga by having a bonfire in the courtyard of our hostel and roasting hot dogs and "stick bread." It was a blast. and a great way to relax after a long journey.

The next day we took a tour of Hanga. We saw just about everything. The workshops, the schools, the banana trees, Hanga lake, and of course the village and the monastery.

We even had a pretty in depth tour of the dispensary from Br. Lucius.

Here is my dad in the doorway of a hut that one of the monks built out of nothing but mud! This is used as a chapel to pray the rosary.

We went down to the hydro power station, too. This is the damn in the background, and the channel for the water running to the turbine. Unfortunately, it wasn't running at this time because there hadn't been rain in a few days, so there wasn't enough water for 24 hours of power.
Here is both of us on my motorcycle! I have been helping fix this up so I can learn to ride it, and use it to teach at another nearby pre-secondary school that the monastery runs. You be the judge, who looks cooler on the bike?

After a full day of touring Hanga, we decided that we should get some work done! One of my recent ideas was to have a ball box to store all of the balls for the kids to use at St. Laurents. Right now they are just sitting in cardboard boxes in the teachers office. So, I asked my dad to help me come up with a plan, then we took it to the wood shop, and Br. Guido and his workers were kind enough to help us prepare the lumber, cut it, and start putting it together!

Here is Br. Guido with one of the workers who helped us all day in the construction of the box.

The clamps really helped when we were nailing the pieces together! Nice to have the right equipment.

Finally, after a full morning, and most of the afternoon of work, the main structure of the box was complete! Unfortunately, there was no electricity in the afternoon, so we couldn't run the machines, so we could not complete the top and bottom parts of the box while my dad was there. But it was a great start! And since he left, it has been completed! Check back in future posts for pictures of the final product. It is already being put to good use!

Here is a picture of the box at the end of our work day. The other monk in the picture is Br. Cassian (standing between my dad and me).

So, after two short days in Hanga, it was already time to return to Dar Es Salaam. We could have stayed one extra day, but then we would have been traveling on Sunday, and we would have had to ride the crowded loud bus instead of riding in a car with the monks! (There were some monks who had appointments in Dar so we just hitched a ride with them).

Since it was my dad's last night, we of course had to have a party for him in the hostel! The festivities were organized by Br. Odo (pictured here giving cheers to my dad).

Here is the rest of the crew celebrating a good stay.

And finally, the two of us with my headmaster Br. Kastor. It was great to be able to show my dad my new home here in Hanga, and especially great to be able to introduce him to everyone I know in Hanga! I am also happy that we were able to get at least a little work done :)

Though our travels in Hanga were done, there were still three more nights left before my dad would return to America. check back again tomorrow for pictures from Zanzibar!

Father/Son Safari Part 3: A Day in Dar

2009-01-25T11:39:00.008+03:00

Hello again. This post will mostly be pictures...

After arriving back in Dar Es Salaam after our trek to Arusha and the north, the plan was to head to Hanga ASAP to start work there! However, the convoy of cars (two of them anyway) going back to Hanga wasn't leaving for another day, so that gave us a free day around the city. At first this was a bummer, but we made lemonade!

So, we woke up on our free day, had breakfast with the other guests staying in Kurasini, and then had one the monks help us hire a taxi for the day!

Our first stop in the morning was to the Village Museum where there are reconstructions of different houses built by the many different tribes around Tanzania. It was pretty neat to see. Here are some pictures of us with the houses.

Dad tried to figure out how to pound grain...I think he needs a few more lessons.

The sign on this room reads "chumba cha mke mkubwa" (Senior wife's room). They were usually a big bigger and nicer than the junior wife's room. And they had more shelves.

After visiting the museum, we went further north in the city to a different type of Tanzanian secondary school than I am used to! We visited a school called Haven of Peace Academy (HOPAC). It is a christian school run by missionaries. It is a very nice school! I just had to snap some pictures of the classrooms and the beautiful library! something to aspire to with our library here in Hanga :)

We had heard about this school through another mid-west connection! There is a church in La Crosse, WI that sponsors the school and just sent a group of volunteers to work there on a mission trip in the past year. This is a picture of my dad with Bill. He and his wife both grew up in the midwest and now have been missionaries in Africa for many years. It was great to have a tour of the school from him, and be able to chat about home!

After the school, we ate lunch at a hotel on the beach (the first picture up top) and then did some souvenir shopping. We made it back to St. Placid guest house in time for dinner and packing to get ready for our trip to Hanga the next day! Though it was another unexpected "hitch" in the plans, our day around Dar turned out to be very enjoyable. Sometimes it is best not to plan i guess!

Next up: Hanga Monastery!

Father/Son Safari Part 2: Entering the Crater

2009-01-22T20:49:00.002+03:00

After a good night sleep in the most comfortable bed I have experienced in nearly six months, a hot shower with good pressure, and a delicious breakfast that included bacon and fresh passion fruit juice, we loaded into our safari vehicle and were on the road descending into the crater by a little after 8 AM. This garden of eden was the closest picture of paradise that i think i have witnessed in my life. It was incredible to see sooo many animals peacefully living along side one another in such a pristine, green, beautiful place. Let the pictures speak for themselves.

This is the steep road that we took to go down into the crater. The Ngorongoro Crater is a sunken extinct volcano. It is just over 600 meters deep and has an area of 260 square meters. That is a lot of area for the wildlife to roam! It makes the perfect natural zoo.

Below is a picture of one of the delicious breakfasts I enjoyed with my dad on our trip through Arusha. Delicious!
Again, let the pictures speak for themselves. But let me remind you, all of these pictures were taken by either my dad or me! These are not stock photos from brochures for the National Conservation Area!
Yes, these predators were sitting right on the side of the road, just relaxing as the cars passed. Pretty beautiful.

We heard different estimates of how many black rhinos there are left in the crater, but what was certain was that this is the only place that they are still living in Tanzania. We were lucky enough to watch this one move across the road we were driving on! like a tank. I wouldn't want to mess with this animal.

Here is the line of safari vehicles that grouped up to catch a glimpse of the rhino as it was up and moving.

Just before it was time for lunch, the clouds opened and it began to rain so we had to close the roof and just watch the animals through our closed windows. It was neat to watch all the zebras and wildebeests standing still like statues in the rain. I guess it is too hard to graze when the grass is so wet? anyway, this cape buffalo didn't seem to mind. He did look up with a pretty confused look on his face when we stopped to watch him, though.

What an amazing safari adventure! We exited the crater in the middle of the afternoon and made our way back to Arusha. We stayed in a nice bed and breakfast place that even had a small pool that i swam in after dinner. Oh, the luxury of a swimming pool.

We also had the chance to realize once again what a small world we live in! Before my dad left home we found out that some friends or ours in Winona had family living in Arusha! So, when we got back to town after the safari, we called John and he came and met us at our hotel for a drink. It was great to find another connection with home all the way across the world here in Tanzania.
Thank you Serengeti Select Safaris for making our safari so enjoyable. Truly an experience of a lifetime.

All for now. Check back again soon for pictures from our day in Dar as well as our travels to Hanga as Father/Son Safari continues!

Father/Son Safari Part 1

2009-01-21T22:31:00.011+03:00

I am back in Hanga now after nearly 3 weeks away. It has been a busy January so far! Busy, full, but very fun and rewarding. And so wonderful to be able to spend most of the travels with my dad.

After a short few days to relax after the festivities of Christmas here in Hanga, it was time to trek back to Dar Es Salaam to meet my father who was coming for a visit! I traveled back to Dar with Br. Kastor on December 30, spent New Years Eve with him and the family of one of my students from St. Laurents, and then prepared for my father to arrive on January 1 at 11:00 PM!

There was a lot to do in a short amount of time. We certainly didn't do everything or see the whole country, but we came close. There wasn't much pre-planning involved for much of the two week visit, but that turned out for the best in most cases (though it did make for some added frustration). What a great experience it was for both of us. We will be telling these stories for the rest of our lives!

I think this Father/Son Safari will span at least 3 posts...maybe 4. So check back again soon!

After picking my dad up from the airport, we went back with Br. Kastor and Br. Kulwa to the guest house in Kurasini to spend the night. Our bus left the next morning at 9am for Arusha! We still took time to have some chai (tea) meet some monks, eat good chocolate from the Amsterdam airport, and unpack my Christmas gifts. Then we both went to bed for a few hours of sleep before the long bus ride.

Here is my dad at the Ubungo bus station in Dar waiting to get on our bus to Arusha. It was a hot trip...

Of course, on the way through Moshi traveling to Arusha you pass the highest mountain in Africa. Here is the view of Mt. Kilimanjaro from our bus window.

We spent one night in Arusha, got up early the next day, and planned a Safari! Our safari was only one overnight, but we were able to see both Lake Manyara National Park and Ngorogoro Conservation Area. Simply stunning. This is me with my backpack hiking through Arusha with Mt. Meru in the background.

Here is dad with our safari vehicle. There is a large section in the middle of the roof that comes off so you can stand up to watch the animals as you drive. It was a pretty smooth ride!

Dad standing with our safari guide Alex in Lake Manyara National Park.

Sometimes the animals get confused where the National Parks are...this elephant was outside of the park just on the road between Lake Manyara and Ngorogoro Conservation Area. It took its time and crossed the road in front of us. We could have reached out and touched it. Literally.

We stayed at a lodge right on the Ngorogoro crater ridge. The crater is an extinct volcano that has become somewhat of a garden of eden paradise. It is stunningly beautiful. Here is a view from the dining room where we had dinner and breakfast.

We rose early the next morning to see the sunrise over the crater. After breakfast we were in our vehicle just before 8 AM and on the road to decend into the crater.

check back again tomorrow for part 2 with many animals from inside the crater. We only missed seeing one of the big five...

Christmas?

2008-12-26T00:18:00.009+03:00

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

2008-12-24T10:30:00.008+03:00

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

2008-12-21T15:08:00.013+03:00

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

2008-12-17T21:50:00.008+03:00

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

2008-12-11T11:35:00.009+03:00

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!

2008-12-02T17:44:00.016+03:00

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

2008-11-30T20:48:00.004+03:00

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

2008-11-18T22:41:00.017+03:00

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.

Rain, Hail, Sleet, or Snow...

2008-11-14T22:20:00.004+03:00

Thank God for the United States Postal Service :) Service we should not take for granted...

I guess this motto does not exist across the globe, especially if the parcel is being sent anywhere internationally.

This morning started out pretty normal for a Friday. By lunch time I was hungry and already a little tired from teaching and ready for a nap. However, when I walked into our dining room I was overcome with joy. The package from home that I had been waiting for for over a month now finally arrived (sent from Winona, MN on September 25)! Of course the contents were important (gum, crystal lite, and the essential news magazines to keep up with all the happenings in the US: Newsweek, the Abbey Banner, and People) but I was more relieved that all of these things were not lost somewhere never to be found again. I think only a few packets of drink mix slipped out through the worn lower right corner...

Thank you Mom for the package. Thank you Ceili for the beautiful pot holder that will now be a part of every meal here in the Hanga guest dining room. If there is one lesson that I have learned from this, it is: never lose faith in your absent mail...it is on its way, and will arrive...sometime :)

Here we see one possible explanation for the delay. The package was "missent to TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO; WEST INDIES" what?! I am not sure how this routing took place...perhaps "East Africa" looks like "West Indies" to some computer scanners...

All for now. Look back again Monday afternoon for an in depth pictoral analysis of the unpacking and distribution of the container from Wisconsin!

Rocks from Space & Rides in Pickup Beds: MBEYA

2008-11-12T12:42:00.016+03:00

This past weekend we decided to get out and see another city. Early Friday morning we (me, Charlie, Anne, Lennart, and Br. Emmanuel) left Hanga and caught the Super Feo bus to Mbeya on the main road at the turnoff at Milayoyo. The seating was a little cramped with five seats across instead of the normal four for a coach bus, but we made it. We picked up Sara and Cara along the way in Njombe. It was nice they were able to catch the same bus! They only had to stand for about 45 minutes of their 3 hour ride i think.

We arrived in Mbeya at around 2pm, had some lunch, and they spent the rest of our afternoon walking around town. We did a lot of walking all weekend. It was great to see another city center...most of the roads here were even paved! The size of the city itself is a little deceiving, though. We walked around all of the streets of downtown multiple times in the afternoon on Friday, and again on Saturday...even though the city has a population of nearly 300,000. It is a pretty sprawled place.We stayed at the guest house / conference center that Hanga has in Mbeya. The rooms were great, the food was great, and we were even allowed to use the conference room to watch TV and the new DVDs that we bought. (Toy Story on Friday night, Blood Diamond on Saturday night, and Michael Clayton on Sunday) Our hosts were so good to us all weekend: driving us around in the pickup to find a pizza place on Friday night, to the Cathedral for Mass on Sunday morning, and even all the way out to the outskirts of town where we got to see this giant rock that fell from space...literally. supposedly it is the eighth largest meteorite discovered on our planet. We had to take at least a few pictures with it :)

You can see Anne was very excited to finally arrive at the meteorite site after riding in the back of the pickup for the 94 minutes that it took us to get there (at least 20 of those minutes on very bumpy gravel roads)

On Sunday Anne and Lennart came back to Hanga with Br. Emmanuel, but the rest of us stayed in Mbeya for another day. We wanted to get to the top (or at least near the top) of one of the mountains surrounding the town, but were told it would not be safe to try to climb ourselves. So we did some more walking around the town during the day, had some great Indian food for lunch at the Mbeya Hotel, and then were driven up one of the mountains later in the day...most of us riding in the back of the pickup. You can see a little bit of the sprawl of the city below.

Before we headed back to the Guest House on Sunday afternoon we stopped by a place near by to use the internet. I didn't need to check my mail, so instead I found these kids outside shooting some pool. They were very excited that I came over and was talking with them and one of them even offered to play me in a game. Of course I couldn't deny this offer...I am older and have played a good amount of pool before so I should at least have a chance, right? Well, long story short, these kids were hustling me. They killed me and then I had to cough up the Tsh 500 (about 50 cents) for the game token. It was fun to play with them. Though I think they were trying to teach me to say some words i shouldn't be saying in Swahili. Kids will be kids.

Travel back on Monday went smooth, I taught one day of class on Tuesday, but today and tomorrow there is no school because Standard IV is taking the national tests. That means only six more days of teaching this school year! The whole school will have terminal examinations (yes that is right, FINAL EXAMS for first through sixth graders!) the 24th and 25th of this month, and then they are done.

I have heard there is a full container with many many books coming by the end of this week, though ;) That will keep me busy for the month of December when I wont be teaching. Look for pictures from the books arriving in Hanga on the next update sometime this weekend.

Thanks for reading!

Letters to Winona...

2008-11-06T22:04:00.009+03:00

Last week I finally received letters back from Winona that some students in my brothers' classes there had written to Tanzania to have pen pals in Africa! The letters take about two weeks to send both ways, so it is pretty slow communication, but it is also a lot of fun to receive a letter from halfway across the world. I wanted to send a class picture back with our second set of letters, so at the end of last week I took the whole class outside and we took the picture you see above. I never realized what a tough job photographers have. Can you imagine organizing 49 sixth graders for a pictures like this?

Here are some of the students with letters from Winona, MN! Thank you Cotter Jr. High and St. Stans! (and you cousins of course :)

I took this shot one day last week in class where I had the students measure the surface area of the walls of our room with some string and rulers. They had a lot of fun doing it, but my did that classroom get loud!
I don't think that I have mentioned on here how much of a blessing Anne and Lennart have been with their help putting together our new "library" at St. Laurent's. The past four Monday afternoons I let the kids come into the small room where we have the books and check out one book for the week by writing their name and the name of the book in a notebook we have. That was the only record that I had of the books, until Anne and Lennart started cataloguing them all! They have written down the names of all the books we have, organized them into categories, and have just begun labeling the individual books this week. Like I said, such a blessing to have them working as our librarians!

Here are some pictures from last week when Charlie came to play some songs on his guitar with the kids. We decided to take a picture with our new map of Tanzania that the Abbey woodshop helped us fix up, too.

Finally, I thought I would give you a taste of nightlife here in Hanga :) Almost every night after supper, we head over to the trade school to do work/check email/et. c. on the computer there.

I will describe my slightly funny look here:

The headlamp has become my best friend the last month or so because the power goes out around 10PM. I use it every night on my walk back to the hostel and while I get ready for bed (brushing my teeth, taking out contacts, and pulling the mosquito net down over my bed.

The MN Legion Boys State shirt reminds me of home :)

It must have been a Monday after a Vikings win, thus the shorts. I have been able to keep pretty close tabs on them this season via the internet and my podcasts.

The bag over my shoulder holds any school papers that I will work on in the computer lab...and perhaps a candy bar to satisfy my sweet tooth (no dessert at dinner usually).

The fanny pack holds my ipod.

The socks...it was laundry day, so give me a break.

and finally the RED crocs. I wear them everywhere here. Though I am in the market for a new pair now because I have worn all of the grip off the bottoms.

All for tonight. Thanks for reading!

Again, please let me know if there are specific things you would like to see pictures of...hear about...I am happy to share what you want to read.

We are off to Mbeya this weekend for a visit to the Monastic house there. Should be a fun trip. And we might even find some pizza! Look for pictures from Mbeya next time.

For Fr. Daniel

2008-11-05T16:54:00.002+03:00

Look for this picture in the upcoming Abbey Banner Fall Issue:

Ben and Charlie help some students find books in the new library at St. Laurent's Pre and Primary school in Hanga Tanzania

Sharing Culture Part 1 : HALLOWEEN!

2008-11-03T12:10:00.009+03:00

Did you know that Halloween is a very American holiday? I dont know if I had ever thought of it until last weekend, but the good 'ol USA is one of the few (if not the only) country that truly celebrates Halloween with the Trick or Treating...the pumpkin carving...and the free candy! Well, in an effort to spread awareness of American culture Charlie and I decided we needed to celebrate Halloween here in Hanga.

The day began by wishing my kids at school Happy Halloween and then explaining some of our traditions. One of the main quests for the day was finding somthing to carve. There are no pumpkins around this region of Tanzania at this time of year, so we had to carve what we could find...a not quite ripe but perfectly round and green PAPAYA! I spotted it in the tree and got permission to go and get it. so i climbed the tree! ever seen a carved papaya before? now you have. I bet you didn't know that first picture was a carved papaya.

These were the costumes from the first part of the night. Charlie came to dinner dressed as Anne and she came dressed as Charlie. It was pretty scary if you ask me! Lennart and I just decided to be ourselves.

After dinner, Charlie and I decided this would be a perfect opportunity/excuse to shave our heads. It is hot...we dont like having to shampoo every day...and most Tanzanians are bald (yes even the women) so we would fit right in.

But of course, it wouldn't be much of a "costume" if the haircut was normal. So i decided to keep the mo-hawk and charlie kept a mean looking gotee. Dont we look like we mean business?

A summary of the events of the day: the africans thought we were crazy for cutting up and putting a burning candle in a pre-ripe fruit and I got laughed at by all of my students at school on Monday as well as every villager I passed on my way to school on my bike. I deserved it, though. I did look pretty funny.

I think we have successfully spread this bit of American holiday culture. I am a little worried for the volunteers here next year, though. I can just hear their students, "On Halloween all americans shave their heads, right?!"

Imiliwaha (Part 2): Orphans, Tea, and "the tree"

2008-10-27T22:00:00.011+03:00

Well, here you go, finally. After one week back in Hanga I already miss the cool weather from the highlands of Imiliwaha. Okay, i miss the Bennies, and the sisters, and the other things we did there too :) Last Sunday, almost 10 days ago now, we spent the morning at the Orphanage in Imiliwaha that the sisters run. It is a beautiful complex that has had a lot of outside help with donations. The kids were priceless. Although the morning got a little long near the end, especially when I was sitting on the floor spilling soup and ugali all over myself trying to feed a small child, it was great to be able to play with the kids and see them smile.

Even though Charlie looks like a giant here, the kids still schooled him. How do they get so good so young? Natural talent I guess.

I guess you could call this room the "refectory." They had a pretty good system set up laying the mats out on the floor (no high chairs) and putting bibs on the little ones. And the older kids led each other in prayer to begin and end the meal. pretty impressive.

The afternoon on Sunday was spent hiking to "the tree." Remeber the one I said would be important that you could see in some of the pictures from the Imiliwaha lake? It took us a while to get there hiking through dusty harvested corn fields and hectares and hectars of tea plantation, but we finally made it and put our hands on the tree in the middle of no where. It was a good goal for a hike. Not to mention it made pretty beautiful scenery. And I have never seen so much tea. wow. who knew it grew like this? i didn't.

Doesn't it look like this tree should be in a Dr. Seuss book or something?

I found a harvesting basket, so i decided to try my hand at picking some leaves...after about two handfulls i got bored and stopped. I like the coffee preparation better :)

Oh, and in case you are wondering what transportation looks like around TZ, here is a picture from my seat on the 4 hour bus ride back to Hanga. It was nice on this bus that the seat in front of me was far enough away that my knees actually fit without having to crunch them to the side. I have learned the trick of sitting by the window when possible so I can control the thermostat :)

all for now. I handed out letters from penpals today in my english class. look for pictures from that sometime soon. thanks for reading! as always, comments are very welcome.

A sign from God?

2008-10-23T18:15:00.009+03:00

I interrupt the ongoing report from the fun weekend at Imiliwaha to bring the readers some important disaster weather-related news...

Last week the headmaster at St. Benedict's secondary school asked me if I could teach Physics to the third year students. I have some time free in my afternoons, and so I told him we could work something out. On Tuesday I went over to St. B's at around 3pm to meet with the Form 3 students to discuss various physics topics and decide when we would meet. Just as i began talking about physics and expressing my interest in being their teacher, the wind started blowing rather loudly outside. No matter, I thought. It is sunny out, and the walls will protect us from the dust. As I continued talking, the wind got louder. I could hear a lot of dust being blown around and when I looked out the window of the classroom I saw a small dust cyclone forming and moving across the school yard. No matter, I thought again, what better place to be in the event of heavy winds than inside a building made of brick? I continued talking about the goals of our month long physics class and suddenly the building seemed to start to shake, then the roof made a very loud noise, and finally the tin started peeling back like the can of a sardine can! Finally, I was a bit frightened! The other students in the classroom got up out of their desks and ran out of the room. I ran for the corner with one other student and took shelter behind the door. As quickly as it began, the wind storm was over.

After I realized the wind was done, I looked around the room and asked the students outside if they were okay, and everyone told me they were fine. This would have been most dangerous for anyone walking outside, as half of the roof of our classroom building tore off and was thrown to the ground. Thank God that it landed on bare ground and no one was around to get hit by it.

This got me thinking, is God trying to send me a message? Maybe I am not supposed to be a Physics teacher? This was the only classroom that was effected. This was not a normal class period time, so most of the other classrooms were empty. The roof just happened to blow off of the one classroom where I was trying to teach my first Physics class.

All is well now. Yesterday we did some review and I begain teaching about electric force and Coulomb's law today and the other classroom we were in stayed in tact despite the few light breezes blowing the pages of my book. I will continue teaching...but will never forget my first day as a physics teacher...when the roof literally blew off from over our heads!

More pictures from Imiliwaha to come tomorrow...

Imiliwaha (Part 1): Bennie friends!

2008-10-21T11:23:00.013+03:00

This past weekend we made the trip to Imiliwaha for their Jubilee celebration. They were celebrating the 25th anniversary of some of the nuns taking their vows as well as new nuns taking vows. I must confess I did not make it through the entire 3 1/2 hour Mass (I took a walk outside during part of the vows ceremony, but made it back for the Liturgy of the Eucharist) Charlie and Lennart made it through the whole thing standing in back as you see here.

After the Mass, it was time for a feast. I really do enjoy that part of the frequent celebrations here :) It was great food, and there was even cake for dessert! (sing the cake song here)
Part of the reason that we wanted to visit Imiliwaha was to see our fellow graduates from Saint Ben's who are volunteering there for the year. It was great to meet them and spend the weekend with them.
After the feast there was dancing...you can see Charlie was excited about this. (I think he needs a haircut...other opinions?)

Much of the celebration took place at the new secondary school that is in Imiliwaha. It is a very new school. Cara is teaching English here a couple days during the week.

After the feast and the dancing, we decided to take a walk to one of the lakes in Imiliwaha. The landscape is beautiful. The water is not quite clean enough to swim in, but it was nice to see a lake! I miss MN and all 10000 that we have there...

There is a plan to make a dam on this side of the lake. The project has begun, but it is currently halted due to a lack of funding. It will be finished some day...

Notice the lone tall tree in the background of this picture. This will be important for the next post :)
It was a fun weekend. The celebration took place on Saturday. I stayed the night in Imiliwaha on Saturday and Sunday and returned to Hanga yesterday evening. It was a long day of traveling: I woke up at 5:15 AM, waited until 7:00 AM for a ride to Njombe, stopped the bus from Njombe to Songea along the way, rode on that bus for a little over 4 hours, spent a few hours in Songea, left Songea on a bus to Hanga at 5:45 PM and arrived back in Hanga at 7:35 PM ... but it was worth it. Just not a trip i would want to make every day.

More pictures of our adventures on Sunday to come tomorrow.

thanks for reading!

My Flowers... and Baba wa Taifa

2008-10-15T18:29:00.009+03:00

Some of you may remember when I talked a couple months ago about spending my Sunday afternoon pulling weeds, spreading manure, and planting new flower seeds in the boxes in front of our hostel. Well, after months of watering and patient care, there is something to show for all the effort! Just this past week the flowers that did come up (the ones i am smelling here) were in full bloom. overall, I think I had about a 15 or 20% success rate with flowers coming up and looking pretty, but that is why i am going to try another planting next week! just need to find some more manure...

(i also want to make note of the shirt i am wearing in this picture. it reads:
31st annual Grandma's Marathon Finisher; Duluth , Minn. June 16, 2007.
ok, it is a lie, but i was just excited to find a shirt from Minnesota at the market in Songea!)

here is a picture of my small herb garden, too. These worked great. the best yield was the dill, parsley, and cilantro. i haven't cooked with them yet, but it is fun to walk by them every day and feel like i have accomplished something :)

Yesterday was yet another Tanzanian National Holiday, so there was no class :) it was the anniversary of the death of the first president of the country, Teacher Julius Nyerere. He is very beloved by everyone here. This picture can be seen in almost every little shop around Songea, in our dining room in Hanga, and also many offices. At first it was a little strange to see the former president everywhere, but in time I have come to like the picture. i think i will try and find one to bring back with me and hang in my room...

Baba Wa Taifa (The Father of the Nation)

Anne and Lennart took the opportunity of another free day to play cards and play practical jokes on me while i spent most of the day reading letters, books (All The Pretty Horses), and watching movies on my iPod. it was a relaxing day.

Today it was back to teaching, and this weekend we are off to Imiliwaha to visit the Bennies who are living there and celebrate some of the nuns taking vows. should be good time. look for pictures from Imiliwaha next time. once again, thanks for reading.

Roasting...coffee. Real, Tanzanian coffee.

2008-10-11T22:37:00.007+03:00

Did you know that you have to peal raw coffee beans after you dry them...before you can roast them? I didn't! until i had to peel a whole kilo of beans by hand. dont worry, i had help! Last Tuesday i went over to St. Laurents in the afternoon and asked if anyone knew how to roast coffee...the raw stuff that i got from Mbinga region. one of the cooks knew how, and helped me through the process. my students also helped a lot, especially with the peeling and

grinding! if you have never ground coffee with a mortar and pestle before, i highly recommend it.

i have made this coffee once since we roasted and ground it, and it was delicious! if we had power every morning when i wake up, i would make it every day.

today i made my weekly trip to Songea. i did some shopping in the market. i bought some raw peanuts, pumpkin seeds, and popcorn. this afternoon i made candied peanuts. i would say sugar-roasted, but there was way too much sugar to call them anything other than candy. they are very good, and very sweet!

while i was gone today, Charlie, Anne, Lennart, and Christa made jam out of some local strawberries and mulberries. i have already tried some. it is delicious.

Mass tomorrow morning at 7am. Last week i slept in and went to the student Mass (with the St. Benedict secondary students) at 9am with Charlie. since the audience is all students, the sermon was longer...about 40 minutes long to be exact. if you think 40 minute homilies are difficult to follow and too long for a Sunday during English Mass, imagine them in a language you only partly understand, like Kiswahili :) so, tomorrow we will go again with the monks at 7am. i like the music better at that Mass, too. after Mass tomorrow maybe i will bake a chocolate cake...look for that update in the next post.

all for now. almost time for bed.

below is a new picture i found of me and our previous German volunteers eating dinner at the St. Laurent's girl's dormitory.

Biking from Songea...Roasting Karanga

2008-10-07T20:07:00.010+03:00

A lot to write about, but i dont want to take up too much of your time so i will be brief :)

The first picture above is from St. Laurent's this past Monday. It is me and some of my form VI students. i came to school in the afternoon to take some pictures of the classroom and school grounds to give myself some ideas of what future improvements i can do to help the school (like new paint for the walls, replacing door handles and broken windows...et. c. ) and of course when the kids see a camera, they all want their picture taken. So i decided i would hop in one of the pictures, too.

On Thursday, since i had the day off from classes, i went to a "feast" with Castor. a relative of one of his former teachers in the area is getting married soon so this was a "sendoff" party. I was of course the only mzungu present, and the best way i can describe it would be to call it another cultural experience. I am glad i was able to experience it. if you want to know more i have more to say just not here...

On saturday i went in to Songea on the early bus (7:30 from Hanga) went to the Songea bakery, did some clothes shopping, got lunch and some ice cream at SuperCafe and then set off for Hanga at about 1pm on my bike. It was a hot day! i drank about 2 liters of water on the ride back. the ride took me just over three hours, but that included some rest stops, like the one stop here with some kids from the surrounding village that were excited to see me with my bike riding through their home :) they were pretty happy to wear my sunglasses and helmet, too.

Here is a shot of Hanga monastery in the distance on the road coming back home...

I wanted to be somehow involved in the current MLB playoffs, even though the Twins are done, so i figured i would cheer for the next biggest long shot, the Cubbies. as you can see, the shirt is a bit too small...it was the best i could find! i guess my support from afar had no effect on the teams success, either. another disappointing post season...

I am pictured here with the new German volunteers Anne and Lennart. they will be staying in Hanga for the next 9 months...new friends!

At the end of last week I decided that I wanted to learn to roast my own peanuts :) Castor had a bunch of raw ground nuts in his office at St. Laurent's and some of the women who cook there said they would help me. Charlie and I went over in the afternoon on Friday...and the end product...delicious! very simple process, too. a little water, salt, oil. i think next time we will try honey roasted.

who looks more natural stirring the roasting nuts? please comment...

Since the peanut roasting went so well, today i was back at the school in the afternoon for some help with roasting the raw dried coffee beans i got from PCV James! It was a long process...i will write more about it and have plenty of pictures next post.

all for now. thanks for reading!

Did somebody say, COFFEE?!

2008-10-04T22:33:00.006+03:00

Tommy K, this one's for you...

note: this post is out of order, so the pictures are old, but they are still worth it!

also, I have more pictures to load soon, so i will make this writing short, sweet, and to the point.

I finally made my first pot of REAL coffee here in Hanga! i was inspired by the raw coffee beans that Charlie and i bought from PCV James. The beans were delivered to us at Simba's going away party. These are coffee beans from near Mbinga town, but the catch is that they are just dried, raw beans. I need to roast them myself. so that will be a project for next week :) for now, i just used some ground coffee i bought in Dar when i got the coffee maker. it was delicious! i cant make coffee in the morning, though, because there is not power when we get up. but the important thing is, it is available now. mmmmm.

Here is me with the raw coffee beans. they are white before you roast them...and dont smell like anything...and taste kind of like dirt. who knew?

Charlie is excited about his new toaster from Dar, too.

These are the other atendees of the party. they are PCVs from the southern region of Tanzania. James is sitting second from the right. he is the one who got us the coffee. Asante sana!

Sifting through the books in Simba's library. there are quite a few, and they will be unaccessable until late November when the next PCV arrives in Songea to take his place.

The TREK in this picture is also of importance. it is the bike that i bought from Simba this past week as he was moving out. I just went back to Songea today and rode it back to Hanga! the 40 km ride (aprox.) took me just over 3 hours with a couple lengthy stops. Even though i drank 2 liters of water along the way, i still felt dehydrated at the end! it was a good ride, but i dont think i will be doing it too often. the bike will be mainly for use around Hanga!

more pictures from the ride and the last few days (including roasting peanuts!) to come soon.

al for now.

Goodbye Simba

2008-10-01T22:39:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I spent the day in Songea helping Simba move out of his apartment. After three years of service in Songea, there was a lot of people to say goodbye to, and a lot of stuff in the apartment! I went with him to visit Songea Boys secondary school. It was fun to see another side of Songea...not so much the city, but more of a village. These pictures are of one of the families near the school that Simba was close with and some of the students at the school.

I spent time around town running some errands for St. Laurent's too. I had some boxes made for the donated art supplies so the kids can use them in their respective classrooms. I also bought a bike from Simba! I will head into town maybe tomorrow or this weekend on the bus and then ride it back to Hanga. It will be about a 40 km ride I think. Not too bad for an afternoon workout!

Today I got to class ready to begin teaching again, but was told "no school. Holiday!" It is the end of the Muslim month of Ramadan, and since there is a number of students who are Muslim, there was no class today, and there will be no class tomorrow. The celebration is called Eid and it wasn't announced until late last night. Has something to do with the moon cycle...

So tomorrow I will do some more work on the computers in the trade school lab, and perhaps head into Songea to ride my bike back to Hanga. I think school will begin again on Friday...

Below are some more pictures I found of the Germans and the Italians with me and Charlie. Our friend Gaudence is with us in the pictures, too. Strange that these friends have already been gone from Hanga for almost a month now. Life in Hanga is lonely without them, but we are getting by :)

more updates to come soon, with more pictures from the past week. They will be a little out of order, but I am currently having power issues with my laptop. Hopefully I will figure that out soon so I can at least get the necessary files from my hard drive...

all for now. Happy Eid

Back to Songea...and Hanga

2008-09-24T20:50:00.000+03:00

As I was sitting at breakfast on Sunday in Dar es Salaam planning my day starting with Mass at the Cathedral at 11:45, i was informed that the car to Hanga was leaving in the early afternoon! I had to cancel lunch with Ariel, and quickly start my laundry so it could dry before i had to pack it, but I was happy to be headed back to Hanga...finally.

I couldn't leave Dar without saying hello to my friend Aiden, who I met when I was there in July. this first photo is of us. (notice his Tanzanian soccer jersey next to my American football vikings jersey!)

I was very glad to ride with Br. Kizito all the way back to Hanga. we couldn't do the trip all in one day, so we stayed the night at a very nice hostel in Makumbuko (sp?) I had my own bathroom, a nice bed, and even a TV in my room where i could watch the BBC news. all for only 6000 Tsh a night. cant beat it. This picture is of Kizito buying potatoes the next morning on the road along the way home. This was after we stopped in Njombe for breakfast.

It was good to arrive back in Songea during the day. I had a chance to walk around again, check the mail at the post office, and even write and send a letter to Honduras :) here are some nice scenic pictures of the city from the second floor of the Amani shop...the building that Hanga monastery owns in Songea.

I was worried that I would be fired from teaching because i missed the first day back on Monday! (we didnt' arrive in Hanga until Monday evening) At school on Tuesday morning, though, the students told me that they didn't have any class at all on Monday. I was relieved. In the afternoon yesterday I went back to Songea with Br. Kastor (the headmaster of the primary school i teach at) we needed to get some pencil boxes made and buy a door handle. of course we had to stop and chat with everyone in the town that Kastor knows too. it was fun, though because i got introduced to a lot of new faces! maybe they will recognize me next time i am in Songea... OH! and we also got some ice cream at SuperCafe after eating Chips Mayai at the Mtini pub. It was a good afternoon.

more projects to keep busy today! and there will be more to do tomorrow. it is good to be busy again...

all for now.

Two weeks in Dar

2008-09-20T22:02:00.000+03:00

Strange to think it has already been two full weeks in the big city. I have been keeping busy seeing the city. Here are some pictures of the Catholic Cathedral that I went to for Mass in english last Sunday! it was nice to be able to fully participate. it has been almost 3 months since i have been able to do that.

Below is a picture of Ariel and me with the family of one of his students. They invited us over to visit at the beginning of last week. Though most of the conversation for the 4 hours we were there was in Kiswahili, it was good practice for me to listen and try and follow!

It looks like I will be headed back to Hanga on Monday of this week. That is when a car is going back. It will be nice to ride with someone and keep him company, and also not have to ride on the bus alone!

Once back in Hanga the thing i will miss the most will be the variety of food i have been enjoying around Dar. It has been a lot of fun eating this week :) I have had:

american hamburgers
steak
ethiopian
indian
italian (well, pizza)
milkshakes
ice cream cones
real coffee

It is nice to know these foods still exist and I will be able to enjoy them next time i am in Dar. And back home! i am also thankful for the food at the monastery, though. they do a great job, but sometimes i just crave some pizza!

all for now. look for pictures soon of the new coffee maker i bought yesterday to bring back to hanga with me. mmmmm Kilimanjaro coffee...freshly brewed...

Safari ... then Dar Es Salaam!

2008-09-16T10:17:00.000+03:00

I have a confession to make. This trek through Ruaha national park constantly reminded me of my visit to Animal Kingdom at Disneyworld! I suppose that is just a compliment to how realistic they make that safari seem. but of course nothing beats the real thing! let the pictures tell the story...

These Baobab trees were all over the place in Ruaha National Park. very interesting trees...

This was the Land Cruiser that Br. Justin drove us in around the park.

Br. Justin and Br. Theodore looking out over the Ruaha river valley. This is all full of water in the rainy season.

A Croc in the river...

We found another safari vehicle on the roads. The guides in that car were very helpful and even told us where to find good places to see the rare animals.

Dont know where Timon was, but we found Pumba and company...

I did take all of these pictures with my small point and shoot 6 megapixel digital camera with 3x optical zoom. so...when you see a giraffe that close...it was literally that close out of our window!

Claudia leaning out.

(you are not allowed to get out of your vehicle while driving through the park)

This guy met us on the road on our way out. I guess he didn't want us to leave...

After the animal viewing in the park, it was back to Iringa for the night. As with most African towns that I have seen, there doesn't seem to be much "city planning" in the layout of the houses. It was great to eat at Neema's Cafe in Inringa. They even had ice cream! and delicious paninis. I felt good eating here and supporting the place, too, because it is a project run by the Diocese of Iringa. There is also a workshop attached to the restaurant that provides work opportunity for the handicapped. They make beautiful crafts. If trekking through the middle of Tanzania, Neema's Cafe in Iringa town is a must stop.

This is Iringa...

I mentioned meeting our friends from England in Iringa. They rode with us back to Dar Es Salaam. This is me and Leila in Morogoro.

Since arriving in Dar I have said goodbye to my Italian friends who flew back home last Monday, and the crew from England who went back home in the middle of last week. On Wednesday my friend Ariel (PC in Songea) came to town and it has been fun to hang out with him for the past week. So much to see in the big city! Dar has a population of over 3 million.

There is so much to share, but i cant write it all right now.

some highlights from the week in Dar:

-have been feeling competant getting around on the public transportation, though sometimes the Daladalas (small buses) are literally so packed that it is hard to breath. makes you appreciate traffic laws that limit the number of passengers to the number of seats!

-Saw "The Mummy 3" in a new movie theater in a big mall complex on the other side of the city. The movie was so/so but the theater felt just like back home! i might go see another one tomorrow...

- went to the market in Kariakoo by myself. a lot of activity. so much stuff. words cant describe the smells.

-Have been eating great food all around town. There are pizza places, very good Tanzanian style food, and a lot of good Indian restaurants.

-I visited the home of one of Ariel's students from Songea. Her family lives in Dar Es Salaam. This was one of those experiences that not everyone gets the chance to experience. It was an entirely different side of the big city. The neighborhoos was quiet and didn't smell. Their house was surrounded by fruit trees (oranges, mangoes, passion fruit, pinapple) and life is so simple. I mostly sat and listened as Ariel had conversation in Swahili with the father of his student, but i was able to follow most of the conversation, just not participate. And after sundown we were served a type of porridge and yam and potato stew to break the fast (it is Ramadan and the students mother is Muslim)

so, like i said, too much to say in one blog post! it has been a great week in Dar so far. I think I will be headed back to Hanga by the end of the week. class begins again on Monday!

thank you for reading. sorry for such the long delay. hope to get back on my regular schedule once back in Hanga!

Standard VII graduation - Departure

2008-09-16T09:46:00.000+03:00

It has been a full, and different, last couple weeks here in Tanzania. On the 6th of September (10 days ago now) the Standard VII class from the primary school graduated! that means they will not be back in school until January when they will start secondary school. The rest of the school (kindergarten through Standard VI, my students, will still have two more months of class.

below are pictures from the graduation

here we are in the yard of the guest house before departing on our journey.

(check out the sweet suit that the tailor shop in Hanga made for me for the graduation!)

i am pictured with Mereike on the left and Serena on the right.

i hope you recognize my counterpart, Charlie!

BUT, this graduation meant that it is mid-term and so the students have no class for 2 whole weeks. I took advantage of this time off to travel with some of the other volunteers that have been around, namely Serena and Claudia from Italy and Mereike and Gisa from Germany and Charlie from MN and Catherine from Uganda and Br. Justin and Theodore from Hanga and we ran into our friends from England along the way, too!

See next posting for the rest of the journey. it is easiest to split this up!

thanks for reading. sorry to throw all of this at you at once. internet is a little less reliable here in Dar Es Salaam.

Teacher Ben

2008-09-03T21:31:00.000+03:00

This week has seemed very busy and fast. My time between classes, and also in the afternoon, at my school has been spent organizing and cleaning the head master's office. I am putting my organization skills to work! Serena has also been helping me the past couple days. I think after finally getting all the books on shelves and dusted off, my next project there will be cataloging the books! Any librarians out there that can offer some advice?

The graduation at the school has been postponed until Friday, so tomorrow I will have time to continue cleaning and organizing. Though i love my students already, it will be nice to have a day where i dont have to teach.

Friday after graduation we are off to Iringa, and then Ruaha National Park to see some wildlife! should be fun...no school for the next two weeks, so I will have to find more projects to keep myself busy :)

this week i was teaching volume in math class...can you recognize the picture of the cube on the board? V= L x W x H
or more simply stated, (Area of Base) x (Height) as we learned today.

i also found some more nice pictures from our trip to Mbamba Bay a couple weeks ago. These pictures, and the ones from my classroom, were taken by Claudia.
the top picture shows the kids impressed by my fast texting skills...and the bottom is of me, Charlie, and Serena.

Songea for the weekend

2008-09-01T23:51:00.000+03:00

this past weekend we made a trip to Songea! we met up with some other volunteers who were in the area. Friday night we ate dinner with a group of students from a university in England who were in the country distributing books, saturday we helped them unload the truck of books (my shoulders are still sore from carrying those boxes of textbooks)

and then show them Peramiho (where we got 7 kilos of fresh picked strawberries!) we also had dinner together (fresh salad and spaghetti) and watched a movie.

sunday morning we got up and went to Mass at the Cathedral in Songea. still frustrating to not be able to understand any of the readings or the homily, but at least a little comforting to be able to follow where we are at in the Mass (liturgy of the word, Eucharist, et. c.)

it was a good weekend!
this week: back to teachin Mon-Wed (and continuing to clean/organize the headmaster's office) Thursday is Standard VII graduation, which should be a big feast, and then off for a trip to Iringa and Ruaha national park on Friday to see the wildlife, and on to Dar Es Salaam to say goodbye to our Italian and German friends, and hello to the Bennies just entering for their time in TZ. all for now...

Day after Jubilee...

2008-08-31T23:45:00.003+03:00

As promised last week, here are some pictures from the day after the jubilee. It was sad to see the stage being completely disassembled the day after the celebration after it took some 2 weeks to construct!The MN visitors came to visit my school. (Br. Castor the headmaster of the Pre and Primary school is in the background facing the camera.)

We (Charlie, Fr. Bob, two monks from Hanga, and I) even got to preform the original Charlie McCarron piece, "Hanga Jubliee" after our dinner together in the large dining room on the 21st of August. It was fun to play trumpet again!

One of the monks dressed up and very extravagantly conducted the choir, too. it was the hardest i have laughed in a long time. soo fun to have everyone together for a feast and be entertained by live local music! (notice the head table with our MN guests) glad i wasn't up there with every in the whole room watching me eat :)

tomorrow i will have more with pictures from our adventures this past weekend in Songea meeting some new friends, and helping unload a container of textbooks from Egland!

Celebrating 50

2008-08-27T22:04:00.000+03:00

As promised, though one week late now, here is a short recap of the Jubilee celebration from last Wednesday:

Fr. Bob arrived two days before the celebration and stayed for four nights in Hanga. Very short visit, but it was great to see another SJU face around for the celebration.

My whole school sat together for the celebration of the Eucharist which began at 10:00 AM. I did not sit right by them, but when i walked by, they all said, "hello teacher ben!"

Recognize any faces in the crowd from the opening procession? The procession started a little after 10AM, but the opening prayer didn't happen until about 10:20 after the long procession!

during the presentation of the gifts, there was a long line of gift bearers...with offerings ranging from simple bags of beans to hamsters. Yes i said HAMSTERS! (see the right picture close-up)

There were quite a few important people up on the altar con celebrating! Including, the head of all Benedictines, from Rome, the Cardinal, and some other important Benedictines :) also notice the Papal blessings (framed) that all of the monks celebrating their 50th anniversary of taking their first vows, as well as the Abbey itself received.

After Mass, came the feast! one of the best meals we have had here yet. and of course there was beer and coke and fanta...and chemi chemi water bottled by Hanga abbey... all sitting and ready for us on the table. and wine brought from italy. (Charlie is enjoying the feast)

...and afterwards, CAKE! (there was even a traditional "cake" song that all the Tanzanians sang as they were presenting the cake to the head table. I will have to sing it for you sometime.

The other table of guests (Ben and Jean in the back...Fr. Kevin to the right, and Serena (rt) and Claudia (lft) )

After the meal, there was an afternoon full of more celebrations outside in many different parts of the village. right outside of the hostel where i live there was a village rock band playing ALL afternoon with people crowded around and watching. There was a little trade show area set up where different foods and woodcarvings, and jubilee tee shirts were being sold... but the "main stage" was back where Mass was. The kids from my school were walking around all day selling CDs and Abbey history books.

Notice any important familiar face at the head table watching the dances and singers on the "main stage" ? (hint: the white guy in the middle with the smile on his face) it was a full afternoon of programming, but it was a blast!

later that night, there was more of a party inside our dining room with music by the brass band! All in all, it was a full and fun crazy day. celebrations like that only come around every 50 years! more pictures from the day after will come tomorrow. and i might try and see if a video will work to post...

thanks for reading. i do appreciate all your comments, too!

Mbamba Bay

2008-08-25T23:59:00.000+03:00

First let me apologize for this post being out of order...the pictures (and hopefully videos) of the jubilee and MN visitors will come tomorrow.

This weekend we (Charlie, Claudia, Serena, Me) took a trip to Mbamba Bay on Lake Nyassa. We stayed at a beautiful guest house on the lake, I did a lot of reading, and the sunsets over the clear freshwater were the most beautiful I have seen in my life. It was also neat to see the fishing culture on the coast! (note the dugout canoes in the picture)

Tommy K, i hope you are reading, because this last picture is for you: passing through Mbinga region along the way the countryside was overpopulated with coffee bushes! beautiful country...very green...but as you can see, the roads were a little slower. 200 km in just about 3 1/2 hours. but we made it!

jubilee pics to come tomorrow. a lot of them.

Lunar Eclipse

2008-08-19T15:16:00.000+03:00

A few highlights from the past week:

Saturday night I began my walk back to the hostel expecting to have a naturally lit path under the full moon. When there was little light, I looked up at the moon to find it almost 70% covered in the midst of a lunar eclipse! pretty neat. I spent the next two hours back at the hostel watching the penumbra slowly recede through binoculars with the Italians who have been with us for 2 weeks now.

We have been eating all of our meals in the large meeting room this past week because so many guests have been arriving. It is fun to not be the newest guests here anymore.

Here are some more pictures of the massive projects underway for the jubilee. The most recent pictures are from a day or two ago. I will post more after the jubilee to show the completion of the work!

This stump was removed yesterday after 2 full days of workers hacking at it with axes and hoes. Eventually a backhoe was used to lift it out...

My kids at St. Laurent's Primary school are becoming more familiar with me. Now when they see me around the village, like here on their walk back from getting milk at the trade school. It is fun to be recognized by the kids. They say..."Hello teacher!" or "Hello mr. ben"

The Minnesota guests arrived yesterday, too! I was pretty excited to just happen upon Fr. Bob on my walk by the hostel yesterday. There was a big meal last night to begin the celebration, and more today when we received the Cardinal. It will be a fun full day of celebration tomorrow.

Sunset Soccer

2008-08-13T22:19:00.000+03:00

or football as the rest of the world calls it :)

today i went up to the seminary in the afternoon to practice with the brass band there again to prepare for the jubilee.

After i was done playing my part on the trumpet, i decided to stick around the grounds until the sunset to get some pictures of the beautiful sunset (per Cara's request). yes, it is this beautiful and colorful every night. wow. there were of course many kids around that wanted to plan football with the mzungu, so i played goalie for a little and let them laugh at me. it was fun interacting with the kids. they love having their picture taken! i had one of the 10 year olds take this picture of me and the kids (top)

it was fun to hear some of the little 4th graders try to speak english with me. they speak about as much english as i do Swahili (these are kids from the other primary school in Hanga (DDC)...it is not english medium like my primary school is. )

still having fun with the new visitors here. i am beginning to feel like my whole time here will feel somewhat like a vacation. i am not sure if that is because of the climate feeling like summer, the fact that i dont have any real "homework" to worry about anymore, or because i still have so much free time. anyway, i am getting better at finding ways to fill my time :)

all for today. goodnight

Month Number 2

2008-08-11T22:41:00.000+03:00

Hard to believe that I have already been here for one month. Charlie and I have both agreed, that this place is starting to feel more comfortable. It is nice to have new visitors arrive, and feel like we are the ones who know what is going on here (and be able to explain things such as the hours of the day when we can have hot water, that meals and other things on the schedule wont exactly be "on time," and to show where you can buy some chocolate :)

some more pictures of the school i am still teaching at (the purple uniforms!)
the dining room (now the bigger room because there are too many guests to eat in the normal dining room) with Serena (Italy), Catherine (Uganda), and Br. Theodore (Hanga!)
and some village kids who greeted me as i came to dinner last night. they were pretty happy to have their picture taken.

the 50th jubilee celebration will take place here in Hanga on August 20. There will be Benedictines from all across Tanzania, and the world, present for the celebration. Yesterday Charlie and I had music practice with the seminary students. I was in charge of the brass band, and Charlie accompanied on the organ. we will practice again tomorrow, and more in the week to come to be ready to play/sing for the jubilee.

all for now.

Peramiho

2008-08-08T23:18:00.001+03:00

As predicted yesterday, there was no class, or even work today! Nane nane (eight eight) is the national holiday that I was not informed of. So i hopped in the car that was going to Peramiho with Fr. Angelo driving, and my new friends Serina and Claudia from Italy, and Catherine from Uganda.

I got to go through the monastery in Peramiho under the guise of a Benedictine Apostolate...and that was a great experience! It felt like i was in Europe...because the monastery was built there by German Benedictine missionaries! it felt...clean compared to the rest of dusty Africa :) and one of the best parts of the day was when i got to have real coffee in the monastery reefectory! still working on a way to get the real thing brewed here in Hanga...

When we stopped in Songea for lunch on our way back the Olympics opening ceremony was on tv in the bar! I was excited...

the pictures are of the monastery church in Peramiho and their fish ponds! (Catherine on the left, Claudia on the right)

tomorrow i am headed back to Songea to hang out with some Peace Corps people. should be fun.

No School Tomorrow?

2008-08-07T21:32:00.000+03:00

I was again reminded of the African way of planning at dinner tonight when I was informed that I wouldn't have school tomorrow! I guess August 8 is something like Labor Dar here in Tanzania. What surprised me was that as I left the school today and said, "see you tomorrow!" no one let me know that there wouldn't be class. I suppose i will just show up a little early in the morning, and if there isn't any class, maybe i can join the Italians and Fr. Angelo on their trip to Songea :)

Here is a picture of my class of 50 6th graders. This week has been better than last teaching them. I think they are getting to like me. and i can recognize familiar faces when i walk into class every morning. The first couple days i didn't really recognize anyone...and had to double check to make sure i was in the right room.

Other than class, I have been spending my afternoons doing a lot of reading...and watching movies :) I am staying busy, though. I am looking forward to seeing if there will be much Olympic coverage here, as the games begin tomorrow. Beijing is just 5 hours ahead of us here. I found out today that Tanzania has 10 athletes competing in the games: 8 runners and 2 swimmers. So cheer for them!

Also pictured below is the progress on the new "stage" that will be complete for the Jubilee celebration. Cant wait for that day of fun! and when i say day...i mean it will last ALL DAY!

all for now.

Computers, and Food

2008-08-05T22:10:00.000+03:00

After another morning of teaching, I spent my afternoon setting up 10 computers in the new lab at St. Laurent's. It was fun organizing the computers and making sure the desks were fit into place, and even getting some help from some students. below you can see the before and after pictures. there are still 8 more that we will be able to fit in the room, too.

Other than that, it was a pretty normal day today. Two Italian volunteers arrived yesterday and will be staying for about 3 weeks. They are helping with the farm, working with the cattle mainly i believe.

Very much looking forward to the Jubilee and all of the guests who will be coming for that, including Fr. Bob from SJU! And then they will stop having singing practice for 3 hours every afternoon in the lawn outside of my room. That gets pretty repetitive, even if the kids voices are cute.

Here is one of Charlie and another guest that is here helping prepare for the Jubilee. Charlie spent some time this morning transcribing a song that she sang to him.

per Laura's request, below is a picture of the food. By "the" food i mean this is what i had for lunch today, and it is pretty much the same that we eat at every meal. I am getting used to it, though :) Another day tomorrow...

Flowers in the Future...

2008-08-04T22:55:00.000+03:00

Spent the late morning and early afternoon today finishing planing the flower beds near the entrance to the guest house! They were quite overgrown with weeds. Many different kinds of flowers, so we will see which ones work the best in this African climate.

Also helped move 20 computers up to St. Laurent's primary school today. This is the school where I have started teaching. I helped move the teachers office to a new room and then supervised as the students deep cleaned the room! Hadn't been even swept in about 6 years i think :) but now it is about as clean of a room as i have seen here, and there are 20 donated computers in boxes (used old dells) ready to be set up tomorrow. I have been labeled the computer "expert" because I am the only one who has actually used one before! I will show pictures of the new "lab" when they are all set up.

And there will be pictures of the flowers once they start coming up!

It just occurred to me that I have not been posting much about the normal day-to-day. If there are any requests out there for pictures of certain things, or a short description of _______ just let me know and i will try and answer. Thanks for reading!

Friday night in Songea

2008-08-02T23:56:00.000+03:00

Spent the night in Songea last night. We made it to town around 4pm...just in time to see the Songea Girls A level school take on another secondary school (of boys) in basketball, netball, and volleyball. It was quite the event for the school, with most of the rest of the girls standing on the sidelines around the court watching!

After the game, Charlie and I joined Ariel and some of the other teachers for a pick-up game against each other, and then also against the girls. This morning we went back to the Songea Bakery to hang out for a bit, and then to a great little place to eat called supercaf where you can order "hamburgers" it has been a good weekend so far. The only minor mishap of the trip came when we were coaxed onto a smaller bus for the ride home and the trip from Songea to Hanga ( about 40km0 took just over an hour (!!) and there were 25+ people in one small little dala dala...and 1/2 way through the trip my window fell out, literally, so i had a nice breeze in my face for the rest of the trip. but we made it back to Hanga, which is the important part. :)

Tomorrow will be a nice day of relaxing after Mass...maybe doing some reading...and perhaps planting some flowers in the flowerbeds outside of the hostel.
good night for now.

Teaching Begins

2008-07-30T16:32:00.000+03:00

Short and sweet.
Began teaching this week. 6th grade English and Math. I wish i knew how to make better lesson plans. I have been just kind of winging it so far...more planning will happen this weekend.

Pictures of:
- the new guest house under construction (right outside my during the day...but they need to finish 30 rooms before Augustwindow and kind of loud at times 20 for the Jubilee!)
-Inside the guest house under construction

- Praying Mantis and Charlie being scared of it at the door to the computer room!

-Students in the Computer class (open lab time where Charlie, and sometimes I, answer questions if the students have them)
-The building at the trade school where the computer lab is (with internet via Satellite!)

No class tomorrow (or today) because half of my students were on a field trip to a National Park to see animals. so the rest just get to hang back and have fun free days...didn't find this out until i got to the school this morning and one of the other teachers told me i shouldn't teach because half of the students were gone until Friday :) So i will head to Songea tomorrow to shadow the Peace Corps volunteer there, Simba, teaching high school Physics.

all for now. thanks for the comments on the other posts!

Saturday Set Up

2008-07-26T21:46:00.001+03:00

Spent the morning today sleeping in through breakfast because lately life has been a little too structured :) though, the rooster right outside my window and the construction on the new guest house tried to wake me at 6:30am.

Then I finished setting up my room and making it home. Not quite as many decorations and "stuff" around as in my dorm rooms the last few years, but still quite a bit of flare to make it homey.

We also said goodbye to our Austrian friend who had been staying here on vacation the last few nights. She was very helpful getting us settled in Hanga, as she had been here multiple times before.

Also found a trumpet to play today! I have been named the new "brass band teacher" at the seminary. Our first rehearsal is on Monday at 4pm so i figured i better get my chops back in shape before then. Then i have to learn how to teach the trombone and tuba...

Cant believe it has already been two weeks since leaving Minneapolis.

1st Trip to Songea

2008-07-25T21:42:00.000+03:00

Yesterday we took our first trip to see Songea. Pretty nice place. Lots of shopping to do on the streets with a market atmosphere to the entire downtown area. This is where all of those clothes that you donate to goodwill end up!

We came to town to meet with a peace corps volunteer, Ariel AKA Simba, who has been there teaching Physics for the past 3 years almost. It was great to meet him and have him show us the town…he knows it pretty well after almost three years. We went to a small restaurant and had lunch for under $3 and even bought some doughnuts at a bakery! He also showed us where he lives, which is very nice, and a small vegetable garden he has planted and kept up over the years. Very cool. It was great to meet him.

Also pictured are the bus that we rode all 15 hours to Songea from Dar in, our first picture at our new home in the guest house, and a street in Songea.

Today we continued trying to find teaching positions. It looks like there are openings in 6^th grade math and high school physics J perfect. Charlie and I will most likely begin teaching this coming week.

It is all still quite an adventure here. Thanks for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers.

Home, Sweet Home

2008-07-22T23:11:00.000+03:00

Sorry to my readers out there who have been anticipating the first Hanga post for almost 24 hours now. You will have to wait another 24 hours or more for photos, but here is the journey so far:

the bus ride was more full of motion than i had anticipated. i didn't expect a fully smooth ride, but i didn't think that i would feel more motion than i did when i was on a boat on the ocean for one week, either! it was really bumpy, fast (the driver still goes 100 + km/hr when the roads are windy and narrow, but not too crowded. i think there were only two more people than there were seats :) but i had a seat the whole time. we stopped along the way for food breaks at little towns, and for bathroom breaks where you just get out and everyone takes a leak on the side of the road (!!) girls to the left, guys to the right. i am glad that i am a guy. the in-ride entertainment was either a REALLY bad Tanzanian movie, Celine Dion v. Jennifer Lopez music video dvd, or some pretty catchy Tanzanian music videos. all in all, not terrible

our last day in Dar we spent with Adan- the young guy that we went to Mass with. When i asked him why he didn't come with his family, he said that his dad is muslim, but his mom is christian. and he could choose so he has chosen to be Catholic right now...and so makes this journey to Mass every week by himself. after Mass we hung out with him a bit in the afternoon. we went to parts of the city that i wouldn't feel comfortable going to by myself...but it was fine since he was there.

Hanga is a completely different place. the first thing i would say is, clean. but i guess that is just because Dar was so DIRTY. and it is cooler here. meaning temperature. i am actually wishing that i had brought more clothes that are warm (amy, i blame you). i will have to get another longsleeve shirt made at the tailor shop here and then maybe get a jacket or sweatshirt in Songea.

it was tough walking around here today without anything to do...i just want to start and know where i am needed/wanted. it is also hard not being with the monks. i guess i was expecting more contact, but already i can tell this is going to be more of a task to get to know the monks. we eat separate from them, sleep in a completely different building, and only see many of them if/when we go to Mass and prayer. which we are welcome at, but also sit separate from the monks. makes me extra thankful for the acceptance into the community we received in Collegeville at SJU!

the internet is pretty fast here actually! i am surprised. and the computers are all connected wirelessly. i am in a lab right now (alone because it is after hours) with 8 laptops that are all relatively new. and i can even bring my laptop in here and get wireless internet. i will have to figure out a schedule of when i can come in here, though. i think this time of night would work best for me, but i dont know if somone will have to let me in every time and then stay after and lock it up...that would get to be too much of a hassle. we will just have to figure that out...

thanks for reading this extra long special post in honor of it being the first from Hanga. pictures coming soon.

see ya later, DAR

2008-07-20T22:33:00.001+03:00

not much time to write tonight, but i will give just the basics :)

last day in Dar today. Mass was great. Charlie and I were able to go with a kid from the area who is just a few years younger than us. We went to the parish around the corner and there was even a visiting priest from Georgia!

Another soccer game this afternoon, Simba v _______. I was cheering for Simba because they are red

Before the game we took a walk with the friend who we went to Mass with around the neighborhood here and saw parts of the city where i dont think many white people go, but we never felt endangered so that was good.

pictures are of the walk, the stadium where the last two games were, and the laundry room where i washed my clothes today.

bus leaves at 6am to Songea tomorrow. next post will be from Hanga. Maybe with a picture of an elephant
goodnight.

gooooo Yanga!

2008-07-20T00:18:00.000+03:00

I was able to sit still a little longer today and read for about 3 hours this morning! Not a very interesting morning, but good to be able to forget about the big city for a while.

This afternoon we went downtown and walked around a bit and then went to the Yanga soccer game in the Tanzanian National Stadium. It was so interesting to see how much of the rest of the world experiences...sports! we just have so many of them in the US (baseball stadiums, football stadiums, arenas, convention centers). This National stadium is the second largest in all of Africa! very new, but clearly built for only one thing, SOCCER! no conversion to a baseball field or anything else. the inside walls of the stadium looked a little too bare...because there were hardly any advertisements. I think the Tanzanian government paid to have the stadium constructed.

best part of the whole day, it only cost 5000 Tsh to see the whole game (less than $5)

I will go to Mass tomorrow morning at a parish here by the guest house in Dar es Salaam. That will be a good chance to meet some more local people :)

We leave for Songea Monday morning at 6am on a bus.
maybe another soccer game tomorrow, who knows.

day...4 in

2008-07-18T23:22:00.000+03:00

Dar is still hot.
picture below is of the public transportation in Dar that we have been taking around the city for a mere 300 or 250 Tsh a ride. very good price.

also went to the beach today! a little hot, but we wore sunscreen.

with a population of 2.5 million Dar es Salaam is much to big to enjoy all of the time, but i have been having a good time just walking around and being an extrovert.

more to come tomorrow. we will be in the city at least one more day.

Day 3 in Dar

2008-07-17T22:43:00.000+03:00

Today, Charlie walked 20k with Abbot Alcuin and I stayed back in Dar :) I went around with Br. Nolasco. it is great to be able to talk with him, and he understands my feelings of culture shock and stress because he of course experienced much of the same when he came to America! he has been there for 3 or 4 years now. we went to US embassy again, and it was good that i was there, because it was past appointment hours, so he would not have been able to go in and pick up his passport and Visa, but I could go in and get it for him because of my status as a US Citizen! it was like i was a VIP. we also walked around many different parts of town, went into a bakery, chatted about Tanzanian history, had a pepsi from glass bottles at a little stand, and even went to a Tanzania v. Somalia soccer game in a big new stadium! about$4.80 US for each of us. I was the only white person in the stadium of probably around 5-6 thousand. this is a very homogeneous city...and everywhere i walk in the city i get called "white person" (though that is not a derogatory term in Swahili, just more of an acknowledgment. So when in passing i hear "whats up white person?!" (mambo mzungo) i simply look back and say, "its cool!" (poa!) then we laugh and go on our way.

it is so great to be able to be in contact over the internet.
thanks for continuing to read of my experiences.

Found: American's Luggage!

2008-07-16T22:29:00.000+03:00

Good news! ...thought i haven't said the bad news yet.

We had a good day today in Dar traveling around...to the US Embassy because one of the monks needed to get his visa renewed for next year, and we took the opportunity to chat with the consulate and let them know that we had lost our luggage. (didn't want to worry you by telling you that it was lost before we found it) They called the airline and this afternoon we got a call letting us know that the luggage had arrived!

I just got back from the airport about 1 hour ago with everything that we brought. It is good news. We were making the best out of the last two days, but it added a little stress as one could imagine.

We found out today that we will be staying in Dar es Salaam until Sunday or Monday of next week. I guess Hanga has a full house...but they will have our rooms ready by Sunday or Monday. We will just have to see some more of Dar tomorrow. we are making the best of it.

missing home, but knowing that this is continuing to be a good experience.

more to come tomorrow.

US Embassy

2008-07-16T11:40:00.000+03:00

We are still in Dar es Salaam and today we went to visit the US Embassy! One of the monks here that is studying in Washington state needed to renew his visa and so we decided to come along and see what the embassy was like. Charlie and I, of course, didn't need to wait in any of the long lines. We simply showed the guards our US passports and it was like we were VIPs. I took the opportunity to register with them to say I will be here for the next 9 months or so.

When we were around the city this morning we also chatted with a few americans. One man at the embassy who has been living in Tanzania running an NGO for the past 7 years and another man who went to Concordia in MN and played the Johnnies in football! He said he grew up in Detroit lakes. He is just visiting the country for a bit with a friend from Botswana. It was nice to speak in fast english for a bit, as we are hearing mainly Swahili everywhere around the guest house, even. I suppose this is the fastest way to learn, though.

Time for lunch pretty soon. I also got a cell phone yesterday so I may be giving some of you a call from Africa sometime soon.

Peace
-ben

i have arrived

2008-07-14T21:03:00.000+03:00

i write this from a small computer lab that is part of the guest house in Dar es Salaam. it was quite a long weekend of traveling. the longest part of the trip was the 8 hours from 2 am - 10 am in the DC airport. once we got on the plane to Africa, though, it was better. it was still long, and not too comfy to sleep, but we survived. i was sitting next to Charlie for the whole trip. we even had one extra land and take off in ROME! they had to change the flight crew after the 8 hour flight from DC to rome and then it was another 5 hours to Addis ababa. when we arrived there this morning we were just in time to go load the plane for DAR and that was another 2 1/2 hour flight. so i am done with planes for a while. and i am glad of it.

we will spend a day or so here in DAR and then take the bus (12-13 hours) to Songea and then to Hanga. the good part is we will most likely be traveling with another monk who we met at the airport today. he has been studying in the states (in Washington) and is just coming home for the summer. and he speaks english very well. i think i am already picking up some Swahili too. this language thing is going to be a challenge, but a good one. I heard more Italian than Swahili at the dinner table tonight, as there is a group of 8 or 9 Italians who will be traveling to Hanga to do some work there :) i can understand more Italian right now than Swahili.

it is nice to be in Dar es Salaam, but i am also very anxious to get to Hanga and start to get settled in. i am happy that we didn't have a 12 hour bus ride after our flights today, though.

i havent slept much the past two nights...actually i havent really had a second night yet because it is really still 1pm for me, but it is 9pm here and has been dark since 6:30. the sun sank so fast. i will have to get used to writing letters by flashlight.

the pictures are from the grounds of the guest house. more to come soon.
out for now.

2008-07-07T06:11:00.000+03:00

Minneapolis to Chicago
Chicago to Washington DC
Washington DC to Adis Ababa
Adis Ababa to Dar Es Salaam

let you know when i get there...