Water Filters, Bag Gardens, Grading Papers, Oh My! Part 3

Grading Papers - So I show up and look into one of the classrooms and see Mike and  Bob helping grade the exams the children had just taken the day before.   So, being a teacher, I sat down and started grading.  This is how they grade papers, they have 4 - 5 people each take one exam, then someone else calls out the answers.  This is a very slow process as there are 500 students per classroom.  Now imagine grading one paper at a time and going over and over.  Then they take all those grades and list them by highest to lowest score.  There were fifty questions and the highest grade was a 39.  They are tested on math, English, social studies, science, and ki-swallii.  The paper over here is so precious to them, and we have so much, it amazes me.   I was just going to help for a while and then go and play with the children, however, every time I tried to get up, the teacher said please stay.  The misinformation the people here is truly frightful.  For example, they think Americans have a cure for AIDS!  AIDS is so prevalent here, and most of us have worked with people who have AIDS.  We have no idea how truly blessed we are in the States!  Tomorrow we go home....yes I know this post is a little late.....See everyone soon and thanks for all your  prayers, they have been felt.

Water Filters, Bag Gardens, Grading Papers, Oh My! Part 2

Bag Gardens

Mike, Glen, and I were glad to help to plant 11 mango, 3 orange, and 3 guava trees at the Tanzanite Primary school.  We were also able to start 3 bag gardens that will produce kale, chines cabage, onions, and night shade.  Joseph (the principal/ headmaster) and a handful of students really pitched in.  They were so eager to plant.  You may notice some of their banana trees and garden in some of the pictures.

After we finished the trees, we had many seedlings left over.  Glen donated the seedlings to the community.  Seventeen women left with a bag (like the one in the picture above) filled with vegetable seedlings.  

As we left, we stopped by the Mbuguni Church and planted 3 fruit trees at the church and left about 5 fruit trees to Nyari (the Mbuguni preacher). 

It was great to be able to help connect the church with the school and vice-versa. 

Water Filters, Bag Gardens, Grading Papers, Oh My! Part 1

Water Filters

Thursday took us to a small town called Mbuguni to distribute two water filters. This is the same town where we visited a school on Tuesday and played soccer with the school children. God directed us to this school and though it was not our original plan, we decided to donate a water filter to the school.  We made plans to return on Thursday at ten in the morning and meet with the parents of the school children to teach them about the water filter. We arrived at noon, in line with "Africa time," and gathered the families in the classroom. They were skeptical at first as we described how this plastic cylinder could remove the "bad things" from their water and make their water clean so that they would not become ill. Many of them were afraid to drink water because it typically made them ill. They get most of the water by drinking Chai which they know to be safe as it is boiled. They did understand that boiling water removes the bad things but they explain that boiling the water is expensive. We had them get water from their source which is essentially a drainage ditch fed by diverting water from a local river. The water is dirty appearing which is evident in the above picture. We passed the dirty water through the filter and it came out crystal clear. This amazed them but was even more dramatic when we drank water from the bottle that they had collected from their sources. Visitors never drink their water. Soon, many of them were drinking from the bottle. They were asking for more, however, there were some holdouts. One man, who had refused to drink the water because he said that the water made his stomach sick, said that the water was not dirty enough. We asked him to get dirt from outside to make it dirtier. He did and the filter made it clear, after this he took the bottle and drank. From there the questions began. The questions seemed to be planted by God as they were excellent and covered every possible angle, many we did not even consider. They asked if the filter was only for one religious group. We explained that though we are Christians and do not hide that fact, the filter is for everyone no matter what they believe. Also, the local "mayor" was there who asked very good questions and gave his full support of our effort. We continued answering questions and truly felt as though we had developed a true relationship with the community, a relationship that will continue to be developed and will no doubt bring more people to Jesus.

Journey to the Masaai

The Masaii journey was an eye opening experience.  To see how the Masaii live, and experience a snippet of their culture was truly a life changing experience for the entire team.  While everywhere is true Africa, the Masii people are what reminded me most of what I expected to see in Africa.

 

The day started with us heading to the Mgbuna village to pick up Nyari who was to be our tour guide into the bush to visit with the Masaai.  Our first village stop the Patriarch was not there but was tending to the livestock in the field and could not return until much later in the day.  So we stayed for a while and got to know them and share the love the Jesus.  Our intention was to return later in the day.

We then ventured to the second village where the Patriarch was once again out in the field.  At this villiage we also toured the grounds and spent some time in their church praising God and enjoying heir fellowship.  We also were able to install a water filtration system for which they were truly thankful. The Masaai are truly a remarkable people.

Now this is where the real fun begins.  Wanting to head back to the first villiage and being short on time the words of every great adventure were spoken "I know a shortcut."  Everything seemed to be going fine and we were making good time through the deep deep deep dirt and dust 

when we pull up to a small shop and Nyari jumps out to commandeer a ride on a motorcycle to get us back on the "right path"  He takes us back to the correct route and a few miles down the road we once again stop at a shop and yep Nyari gets on the back of motorcycle #2.  At this point the adventure is feeling like many scenes from the movie "The Gods must be crazy"  Continuing down the dusty roads of life with dirt flying as high as the windows on the seemingly indestructible Land Cruisers yep we make a stop #3 to ask for help aaaaaagain. This time however impromptu motorcycle guide #3 could not get his bike started and we were down to 1/4 tank of petrol.  However, the bike eventually started and he was able to get us back to Mgbunu and then continue down one of the smoothest roads in all of Africa :0) and return to Arusha to complete the day.

Mission to Mbuguni

It rained last night. Why is that important? Because it meant the hour long ride to Mbuguni wouldn't be as dusty...or so we thought. But once we arrived we were warmly greeted by Nyari, the Pastor of the church there. After introductions and some "Africa time" discussions about our plans, we headed to the primary (elementary) school to meet some kids. Did we ever meet some kids!

Soccer appears to be a universal language and the entire team was involved in some sort of activity from soccer to painting nails to reading children's books, to other ball type games. Even the school principal played. Today I was reminded of the passage from Proverbs 19:21 that says, "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." We went to Mbugni with the good plan of providing three water filters to various families. What we found was that God had a great plan to give the school a water filter as a gift from the church. So on Thursday, we are meeting with as many of the kids and parents as possible to demonstrate and teach the benefits and use of the water filter. We are finding that the kids will be the first to adopt the new concepts and encourage their parents to accept the new way of doing water purification. So rather than three families, God is providing the bigger part of the community with a blessing. More on this on Thursday's blog.

We did present the water filter to Nyari and his wife in the afternoon. What a blessing to see the look of amazement on their faces when they saw the before and after of their drinking 
They eagerly wanted to drink the pure water and said they can't wait to use it and share it. Another blessing was when Nyari said that Jesus cleans our hearts the same way the filter cleans the water. He concluded, "Once clean, who would ever want to go back to being dirty again?" God is Good!  

The Elephant in the Room!

As we entered the park we were excited to see a heard of elephants and water buffalo. We decided to camp on the rim of the canyon and sleep in tents. We had our own cook who had to share the kitchen with other groups.  We enjoyed talking with a group of 4th year med students from the UK who were working in local hospitals. Larry enjoyed talking about places he had visited in the UK 10 years ago. After we finished eating Mike and Billy were returning to bathroom when they were told there was an elephant in the camp group.  Very quickly the the entire dining hall (which looked the terradactyl cage from Jurassic Park) cleared out.  The elephant was thirsty and was drinking from the water tank. It was an awesome sight. When the elephant left you could not even hear it move. Poor Mary Pat missed out on the experience.  Later while we slept two water buffalo walked within feet of our tents.

Ngorongora Crater National Park

After several days of working hard putting siding on the church, playing soccer, painting finger nails, and installing water filters, we endured a long ride to a beautiful national park. This is a photo of the group in front of a lake filled with hippo. 

The day before we arrived only one lion was seen in the park, but we saw seven. We saw these males on the prowl. We also saw elephants, water buffalo, jackels, wharthogs, various deer like creatures, many wildebeest, hyenas, baboons, monkeys, and many different birds including ostriches. We rode in the park in land rovers right out of Wild Kingdom. The tops opened and we were able to stand up and look at the animals with no fear of being eaten. Lunch was in a box prepared by the safari outfitter which we ate in the Landrover to avoid being swarmed by ravenous birds. We completed our tour and we safely exited the park within our five hour time restriction.

We were all amazed at the enormous beauty of this park. We saw almost all of the "classic" Africa animals.