Great Mwanza Bake Off

Meet little Brian! This miraculous little baby was born to Yusta, one of the girls from the Shelter at the end of March. In a rush to arrive, he ended up being born in a taxi in the middle of the night on the way to a hospital. It was all rather traumatic as the taxi driver was quite angry about this course of events and demanded a lot of money to cover three days of work while he cleaned his car. But we thank God that both Yusta and the baby are fine! And so is Brian's big brother, Boniface. Please pray for them! 

Baby Brian

Just after Brian's arrival, we had the Great Mwanza Bake Off! I had such a good time with these enthusiastic girls! Divided into teams of four, each team chose to bake something they had recently learned how to make - which they had to prepare completely on their own. So we had cakes, muffins, biscuits and breadsticks! Carol and I judged them on the process and their results in presentation, texture and taste! It was so encouraging to see their excitement doing this and also to see and taste some pretty good results! The cake-making team  (Keki) won!

Watch here to see some of the action!

Please pray for these girls. And pray for provision for them at this shelter. It is a huge challenge for Carol and the church to keep these girls housed and cared for. They have faced considerable challenges - and the latest has come with the recent heavy rains. Flooding damaged the home which has required much needed funds for repairs. They are working on setting up a bakery to raise some income. At the moment it is a shell of a building, but we hope and pray that soon it will be a working bakery. It will provide opportunity for the girls to learn a variety of skills, grow in confidence and hopefully generate much-needed income! 

The Girls' House

The "Bakery"

Bakery

Riding a Donkey and Driving a Pig

A hot, dusty road, branches waving, donkeys passing. Palm Sunday. It did cross my mind to wonder at the crowd's reaction to Jesus riding a donkey ... not just because as a King, surely he deserved a white horse, but really, someone trying to sit on one of these stubborn, dirty creatures and travel in a straight line between crowds of people? We see donkeys everywhere in Kimande, pulling carts or herded by small boys running with sticks. They make us jump out of our skin at night when they creep up by a window when we're sleeping or pop around a corner when we're cleaning our teeth by the bush in the dark ... suddenly screeching, "HEE-HAW!" But I have never seen anyone attempt to actually sit on one!

But yesterday in Kimande, we walked a straight line, walking with the Kimande Anglican Church, a small group of about 20, waving branches and singing. Walking in the footsteps of Jesus.


Walking

Waving

"Take up your cross and follow me"

After the service, we went outside under the shade of a large tree and with the help of Ezekiel, Mendriad and Jesca, did a fuel-efficient stove demonstration. We had set up "The Great Tanzanian Bake Off."  The three-stone fire pitted against the Fuel-Efficient Stove. Participant "chefs" were selected from the "audience". Each "mpishi" (chef) was given 400g rice, a litre of water, salt and oil, a cooking pot and a wooden spoon. Wind levels were high but the fires were started ...see the photo below for the trouble the 3-stone fire chef had! And after the countdown, each mpishi placed her water on to boil. The competition began. Could this new, strange-looking clay object really cook rice? Who would use less firewood? Whose rice would taste better? Now, actually it all sounds a lot better here than it really went, because the wood we had so carefully dried in the sun, got soaked in a sudden rainstorm. We had dried it again, but clearly not enough as the contestants soon realised. But despite it not being the most amazing of demonstrations, a good time was had by all and I learnt how to sing and drum Wagogo (local tribe) style in the process! And despite waiting so long for the rice to cook, they all agreed that the fuel-efficient stove cooked good rice faster, used less wood and gave off less smoke. Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood should have been there.

Trying to light the 3-stone fire!

Ezekiel (with Louisa's hat!) supervising the jiko

Singing in Kigogo

With all this exciting activity, it was 3:00pm before we had lunch at Pastor Castory's house. We were all rather hot and hungry by this time and devoured our rice and beans! After lunch we measured up our "new" house for laying a concrete floor and adding windows and doors. We are now really looking forward to moving in!

We then drove back to Magozi and the next adventure was buying two pigs. As you do on your way home after church. They were church pigs, probably given in the offering and our friend Marco (in the Magozi stoves group) was in charge of selling them. So we bought two. Now eight months ago, I said I would never, ever again do this. Travel in a vehicle on the long Pawaga road with a squealing, wriggling pig. This time there were two. So I took the best seat and drove. And our wonderful friend Ezekiel came with us, taking the back with the pooing pigs. It stank! We set off into the thunderclouds and drove through a dramatic rainstorm. Thunder and lightening, rain slashing into the windshield, puddles splashing over us and I felt a bit like Noah without a boat. In this kind of rain, it's impossible to see anything, including those gaping culverts and all the other potholes. But we made it back with all, including pigs, intact. It was then a half-hour job just getting the two pigs down to our pig banda! What a squealing, strenuous struggle! The end of a long day out; it had started with our 7:20am departure and finished almost 12 hours later as darkness descended. And it was then followed with ... more rice and beans.

Pig Number 1

It was great having Ezekiel to stay with us. It's been a long time since we've all played Golf (card game) together. And last night we thought it most appropriate to play Pass-the-Pigs as well. And  this morning, Ezekiel was able to go with Tim to the Iringa District Council to talk to the Officer of Rural Development about the future of the stoves projects in the area.

It was a good day. Remembering Palm Sunday, remembering the humble entry of a King, remembering the road He walked and remembering the way we follow. Walking on. Waving.