BEING. Fresh Buns, Young Plants and New Projects

It has been good being in Magozi. We have been “being” and not “doing” which from a very Western way of thinking can sometimes be a bit frustrating. So often we want to get the job done,  to see the result, meet the goal … now! But here in Tanzania we have a good opportunity to remember to “be”, without worrying about our own “agenda” or quest to the finish, but following the Leader and enjoying the journey! Without all the stoves work going on in Magozi at the moment because of the harvesting season, we just were just “being” there. As well as a little threshing (which you read about in the last blog), we were meeting with people, practicing Kihehe, the local language (with no great success!) and making the most of opportunities that come up. There are still ladies coming to me wanting to learn how to make bread, and with time on our hands this week, I made my first jiko bread rolls. They were yummy and there will have to be more lessons next time!

Fresh rolls ready!

We visited the gardens that the Canada team started, and although there are some disappointments, we must be encouraged overall as Mama Juliana’s garden is doing very well, the secondary school carrots are doing very well, and the garden that failed initially, is now starting again very well. We are experimenting with some natural pesticides of chilli peppers, garlic (and will try urine if we get desperate) to keep the unwanted bugs away.  This garden idea is taking root, and that is encouraging!

Carrots at the Secondary School

Mama Juliana's tomatoes

 We visited a very small Pentecostal church in a village called Itunundu about 16km on from Magozi. This village, even hotter and drier than Magozi, is where we would like to plan to do the next stoves project. After Tim had preached, two of the Magozi stove group members, Ezekiel and Mendriad spoke about the project and its benefits. We had stopped on the way to talk about the project with the leaders from a nearby Anglican Church who we would like to work with as well. The Anglicans did have a church which was meeting in Itunundu … until the banda fell down and then their small group joined others in the neighbouring village of Kimande! We are excited, as are those in the two villages, about the potential and hope to start when we come back in January. Please do take a look at the projects page at the top of the blog to see how you (or maybe a group you know) can help with getting this project off the ground. We do need some funding, and we would also love to be able to employ someone locally and need funding for a salary, so please let us or Emmanuel International know if you can help in any way at all! 

The Church in Itunundu



Threshing Lessons

Threshing is thoroughly therapeutic … is what I want to say for purely alliterative purposes, but actually it is just exhausting.  Slow, back-breaking hard labour in one very hot field. We went out to thresh the rice; it is what the whole village is doing now from dawn till dusk and many during the night hours as well. Many are sleeping in their fields, couples leaving children with bibi (grandma) and spending every waking and sleeping hour with the rice. It is an important time as the livelihood of a family for the coming year depends on this harvest. One plot could yield 20 large sacks of rice, one of which might sell for 90 000 shillings (£40). This is the years’ earnings in one fail swoop. 

Rice plants ready to cut

The rice plants are cut with a machete from the field, sometimes waist-deep in water and then laid out on dry ground in piles on large sacks sewn together to make a “floor.” The bundles of the long plants are then beaten on the sacks to shake out all the mpunga (unmilled rice) The unmilled grains are gathered up and carried back to the village and laid out on the ground to dry for 3 days. Then huge sacks are filled, ready to sell or store for the year. Some will be reserved to plant for the next season to yield 30-fold! 

We went to thresh with Ezekiel who is working on his fathers field with his brother-in-law before doing his own plot. I was tired by the time we got to his plot in the rice fields!  It was a long walk in the hot sun through muddy fields and on the slippery raised pathways between the fields. The piles of rice plants ready to thresh look daunting and the amount of rice coming from each mighty thwack is rather disheartening.  We didn’t last very long; feeling rather more in the way than helpful, we left them to it! Meanwhile they stayed at it; and there is such as lesson in that! One grain of rice is such a very, very small thing. But that is where it all starts. Grain by grain, bundle by bundle, the pile of rice grows slowly. A bucketful, a sackful, a harvest.

Threshing!

We also had a lesson from Bibi on how to make a bamboo “slingshot” of sorts with which to shoot the birds that come after the seed. The girls are now keen on practicing their shot (best to stay clear!) Back in the village, Tim and the girls later helped our neighbour fill his sacks – no small task! Barefoot, bare-legged and bare-armed, the girls were happily right in the unhusked rice shovelling bucketfuls. But when all was done, they were not so happy! They were both scratching themselves silly, hopping and crying with the awful itching (rice husks seem to be similar to fibreglass!) I threw them, wailing, into a bucket of water in the outhouse!

Filling the sacks

   

The outer husk is removed at the milling machine

The man we helped, very kindly gave us a bucketful of rice for our help. So we took it to the “mill,” a man nearby who runs a machine to mill the corn and rice. For 200 shillings (9p), in it went and then out it came as good old familiar rice. What a labour-intensive process! It surely does make you appreciate a cup of rice. I realized again how we take so much for granted, so much is just easily available for our personal convenience. And we expect it to be so. What we experienced was not convenient and was certainly not easy. But what we did experience was appreciation, appreciation for the simplest things. Appreciation for friends and family working together, sharing, helping, laughing.  Appreciation for a cup of rice.

The field left after the rice plants are harvested

Two Pairs of Glasses

Two more pairs of glasses. It doesn't sound like much, but it certainly meant a lot to Mama Rehema and Mama Juliana! Now able to see clearly and read their Bibles, they are two happy ladies and it was lovely to see!

Thoughts about eyes are running away with me at the moment.
Seeing clearly. Eyes to read and eyes to learn. Eyes to see. 
Blurred vision, damaged eyes, red eyes, smoke and witchcraft.
The blind will see.
... And with a handful of carrots, I think this may be another blog!

As well as bringing the two ladies back from Magozi, Tim also brought another woman, a male teacher and a student, all in the little red pickup with no suspension! And yes, you guessed it, they got a puncture!

New glasses for Mama Juliana (left) and Mama Rehema (right)

While in Magozi, Tim "helped" in the rice fields, threshing the rice, much to the amusement of the locals! Not much was happening in the stoves group, but Tim was able to talk to some members of the group about planning and increased production for a large agricultural fair close by in July.

Threshing the rice

Meanwhile, here in Iringa, the girls and I have been enjoying volcanoes, crystals, magnets and underground railroad stories. We worked hard last week and so will be able to go to Magozi this week for four days. While there we will do a little study of constellations (the night sky in Magozi is absolutely breathtaking)... but will we see the "drinking gourd" (Big Dipper)? And school then aside, we will be able to visit the gardens (experimenting with some natural pesticides to keep the "wadudu" away) and do some cooking and visiting!

Tim and the girls went to buy wood to fix the pigpen
after one little piggy got its head stuck trying to escape!

Seedlings and Stoves in Dodoma

 

Papaya seedlings

The new car passed its first test! We bumped and bounced for six hours on the dirt road to Dodoma and arrived all in one piece! Crews are working on a new road, which will be great for a future trip, but for now, it just meant you had to stay alert to which bit of road was the right bit to drive on as great chasms would suddenly appear where water drainage was being put in! Actually the branches in the road or the red and white tape did a good job most of the time, but at times you felt the need to doublecheck!

We went to Dodoma to check out the work of Sunseed, a UK/TZ trust that works in rural villages in the Dodoma region with energy development programmes. They have a fuel-efficient stoves project similar to ours and also have an agroforestry component which is something we would like to add to what we do. We thoroughly enjoyed spending two days with them as they toured us around the various projects they are involved in and we shared together information and ideas.



Studying a "rocket stove" in a village home

We visited several schools where they have helped to install large institutional stoves enabling the school to cook daily for the children. We also visited villages where they have trained a small number of people to build rocket stoves in local homes. It was interesting to see the different methods and technology they use to address similar problems to those we address here in Iringa.

 

The institutional stove at a village school
(being used to cook porridge for the children)

Uji (porridge) for the school children

We visited the home of a man Sunseed have trained to manage a small nursery business, growing and selling seedlings for reforestation. And we visited several schools in which Sunseed have run agroforestry projects to teach and encourage staff and students to grow and plant tree seedlings. They grow a great variety of trees for shade, fruit, firewood and timber. We were able to learn a lot and think about all that is involved in the practical care of the trees and issues of project sustainability. We are excited about the potential for incorporating tree-planting into the work in the Iringa region and now need to look ahead as to how this can best be implemented! If any of you readers can offer any expert advice, we would love to hear from you; or if you know of any means of funding this type of project, please get in touch!

A local nursery (run by the man on the right)

A school seedling project

Then God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. He put the man he had just made in it. God made all kinds of trees grow from the ground, trees beautiful to look at and good to eat. Genesis 2:8-9

In Dodoma we stayed at the MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) guesthouse.What a great place! We were well looked after, with delicious meals being prepared for us to order! And we met some lovely people there, working with MAF and also SIL (Summer Institue of Linguistics). The girls thoroughly enjoyed being on the compound with new playmates and a playground and ... a swimming pool!!  What a treat! A great place to be for a birthday, and Louisa really enjoyed herself! I think the girls will blog their side of the story this weekend!

Happy 6th Birthday, Louisa!



Get Around

As much as it is nice to be back home, to settle back into our own bedrooms again and get back into family routine, it does also feel rather flat after the fun and activity since the beginning of March! We have so enjoyed all our visitors and the blessing and encouragement they bring themselves and also from many of you. We feel we have so many thank-you's to say, and can't seem to do justice to the appreciation we have for so many people!

Thank you, Langley!

Thank you, Tadley!

It was great to be in Magozi with the Liriano family from Tadley for Easter. We saw the kitchen gardens, ranging from not so good to very good in their progress! But we are really encouraged by the response from the individuals involved and their push to continue with this idea! We made bread and a failed cornbread on the jiko in Magozi, but didn't attempt hot cross buns!


Easter in Magozi

We had Easter Monday back in Iringa, and then had a more traditional celebration with some homemade hot cross buns and a special gift of some lamb! We enjoyed lots of fun with the Liranos ... and lots of treats! Hasty Tasty samosas, a meal out at Sai Villa, lots of sweeties, horse riding, chocolate chip cookies (thank you, Janice!), days out and ... a lovely time at Tandala complete with a swimming pool and a gamedrive in Ruaha National Park! It has been a really fun and special time!

Swimming at Tandala

We took the Lirianos back to Dar on Saturday and while there had the great excitement of picking up our NEW CAR! It has been an amazing process getting this car and we are so thankful for God's provsion and blessing through so many of you! It proved to take much longer than we had thought to find a good vehicle, and I know many of you were wondering what we were doing! But with the help of Mr Harold, a friend in Dar es Salaam who owns a number of serivce stations and knows cars like the back of his hand, the wait was over just two weeks ago! We arrived at Victory Service Station after dropping off the Canadians where we and Mr Harold met with the owner of this Toyota Land Cruiser. We watched and listened in awed amazement to the negotiatons between Harold (on our behalf) and the owner. He started negotiations a full 9 million below the asking price, and then wouldn't budge! He is a master of negotiation! In the end, despite the attempts of the owner to push the price up, Harold told him in quite clear terms to park the vehicle in the station, drop the keys at his office and return in the morning to complete the deal!! We were stunned! We returned to Iringa with the Lirianos and while they literally pushed us around in the old car, Harold saw to all the fixing up of the new vehicle like AC repairs, new seat covers, new tires ...  We are very excited to be getting around without needing to push to start, without losing the clutch and stalling when you come to a halt, without having to stop suddenly on the road and start again in first gear and without rolling backwards on a hill without a handbrake! Today, while the girls and I try to remember what school is all about here, Tim is in Magozi along with the Development Officer of the Diocese. It will be a good opportunity to look at all that is happening there and consider the future of the project. We are looking forward to this next season of work in Magozi, establishing and consolidating the work for it to be self-sustaining and also meanwhile looking ahead to how we grow the project elsewhere and also strengthen, encourage and equip individuals for leadership.

Bye, Hi and a New Car!

I wish I had much more time to write as there seems so much to blog! But we had to pass on some good news! During all the goodbyes to the Canadian team and welcoming the Liriano family, we have now found and bought a car!!! More about all this later, but we wanted you all to know, especially those of you who so generously made this possible! We will pick the car up when we take the Lirainos back to Dar next week! Very exciting! Thank you so much for your help and prayers!

The new car ... any name suggestions?

We are all having such a lovely time with Karl, Sarah, James and Dan. The girls are so thrilled to have the boys to play with! It has been fun doing "holiday" things with them, exploring rocks and riding horses ...

Tomorrow we are all heading off to Magozi for the Easter weekend. We are looking forward to seeing how the gardens are doing as well as celebrating this important holiday with the church there! No hot cross buns there though!

So as we head off, we want to say Happy Easter to you all!



Farewell to Patti, Tia and Dean at the beach with samosas!

Fun with the Lirianos

Rock climbing!

Lion Tales, Specs and a Weeks' Worth of Wood

With lions close enough to give them all a fright, the team arrived back happy and full of tales from a great game drive yesterday! They all enjoyed a taste of luxury after the rigours of village life last week! They are now busy preparing for the church meetings tomorrow and classes at St. Michael's School in Kilolo on Monday. On Tuesday we are back on the bus to Dar-es-Salaam where we have a bit of time at the beach before they fly out on Friday. We will all miss them ... goodbyes are the worst part of life over here! But to cheer us quickly up, we have the Liriano family arriving on Sunday! So there is much excitement about that!

Some good news from Magozi .... When we came back from the village the other day, we brought with us the stoves group secretary, a great young man called Ezekiel. When he was in secondary school he became very seriously ill which forced him to give up school. He had a bad problem with his eyes and still struggles. We were able to take him to the optician and sort him out with glasses and eye medication. Thank you for your support here!

Ezekiel with his new glasses

With the team we also visited the Secondary School (teaching and gardening) and while there saw there the huge piles of firewood collected by the students. They all have to go out to get loads of wood each week for a week's worth of cooking. We would love to help this school with an institutional fuel-efficient stove. Please see our new page above or the Scribd document on "How you can help Village Schools" to see if you or someone you know can help!

Wood for the week



The three-stone fire currently used for cooking at the school