Of My Life in Tanzania and I Am Reminded What a Horrible Singer I Am

September 1st-3rd: Tuesday- Thursday

My days here have taken on a certain pattern. I generally wake up between 6:00 and 6:30. I do my devotions in the morning and try to keep up on my blog and listen to music. I have breakfast generally with Unity and Amen and Gloria. Breakfast is peanut butter, jam, and blue band (butter) sandwiches and African tea. Also sausages, fruit, fried bananas or g-nuts depending on the day. Then I go to the school which is in the same building as the church. I help Gladness or Ella two of the teachers there. I can count to ten so I can help the kids with math and then at break time (recess) I become the jungle gym for all the little guys. The kids seem to be between ages 4 and 6. After that I have lunch at the house (left overs from, dinner) and then in the afternoon I am free to walk around hang out with whoever is around or go to town to get on the internet. In the late afternoons 4 or 5 there is generally singing at the church or bible study or prayer or something. Dinner is generally rice or noodles with a meat sauce. There are chapattis (sort of like tortillas fried in oil), g-nuts, salad (more like steamed vegetables), chips (French fries), or fruit depending on the meal. In the evening we pray and then watch a really cheesy Spanish soap opera called Terrible in Paradisio (Trouble in Paradise) and you need a degree just to follow what’s going on. I generally go to bed early because I can’t keep a straight face very long. My favorite line so far is “I won’t let those women mess with me in the bathroom!”

Unity’s family consists of his wife Grace, his daughter Winnie who is my age I think, Amen and Gloria. Amen and Gloria are going back to school (boarding school) on Saturday. Then there are several others staying with them. Gladness is a teacher at school and I think she’s around 20. Lightly just graduated from secondary school (middle school and high school combined basically) and is also 20ish and is waiting to go to university. Then there is Mbeni (sp?) who is 18 and in secondary school and Patrick who is a bit older but also in secondary school. Then there are a bunch of other kids and young adults who hang around during the day.

All the Africans here are really good singers. I mean they all can just belt it out. I just sing very softly and hope I don’t mess anyone up. Most of the songs are in Swahili but luckily they are pretty much all repeating one line with one lead singer changing and everyone else staying the same. When we pray in a group everyone prays out loud. It still takes me a minute to start just because it’s so strange to me but I really like it. Maybe I wouldn’t like it as much if everyone was speaking English and I could understand what they were saying.

Mostly I love being here. Living with an African family is opening me to a whole different view of Africa then staying on the mission compound. I do hope though that God will provide me with more ways to help. Unity I think is really making sure I take it slow and get comfortable and settled before I do too much but I hope there is more for me to do than just “help” at the school which isn’t really helping at all.