Another Weekend

January 21, 2018

Yesterday, John wanted to go to the big Central Market, a place that is a maze of vendors and full of colors and smells. Since it is difficult for me to maneuver in the market crush, I was dropped off at AfriCafe, another notorious expat watering hole. For less than $2, I could get a 12 oz. café au lait, which entitled me to a seat and over an hour of reading and people watching. Outside, there was a constant parade of vendors of all things, from belts to bananas. Occasionally, a mzungu would walk by or even a small group led by an African, but most of the passers by were Tanzanians trying to sell something. Inside, the clientele was a complete mix: several large African women; four neatly dressed Indian merchants; two very bored looking American girls; a group of hippie travelers, one with bright blue hair; six Tanzanian men in very modest attire sitting with an older white American woman whom they addressed as “Mama”; an older, tall American man dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt and tight blue jeans—from Montana?; and me.  I’m sure there was an interesting story in each group. John returned from the market with a pineapple, avocados, and eggplants. After he had a glass of fresh mango juice, we came back to Kundayo for lunch and the rest of Saturday.

As always, we awoke this morning eager to discover what we would find at church and how the rest of the day would play out. John insists on having toast with mango jam at every breakfast. When the electricity is out, he toasts his bread over a gas burner on our cooker, and so far he has never burnt a single piece. Fortunately, making the main part of our breakfast, WheetaBix with banana slices, doesn’t rely on electricity. I checked the price for WheetaBix from Amazon and discovered it’s over twice as expensive as here, where it is imported for expats. Someone’s price gouging.

Making our daily toast

We were very surprised to get a call from Ray, who had been out of reach all week. He wanted to come and drive us to church as usual.  That gave us a very short time to catch up on some of the news from the funerals of the past week. First there was the funeral for his 22-year-old nephew who had been a medical student in Dar.  Then later in the week, there were several days of events for his uncle who had been hit on the highway near where we are. There was a family gathering here on Wednesday. That was followed on Thursday by a service at the nearby Lutheran church. Then the most important ceremonies took place from Friday through Saturday at the uncle’s original village near Moshi. Ray said that many, many people came, from Dar es Salaam, Arusha, and other places. Apparently, this uncle was well-known and was properly honored at his burial. I want to ask more questions later if I can.

Services at Arusha Community Church are scheduled to begin at 10:30, but we knew when we arrived at 10:25, we were very early. The music team was still practicing and the worship leader was doing mic tests. I’m not sure when exactly the service began, but the place looked awfully empty until nearly 20 minutes later, when it was finally jam packed. (I still can’t set my inner clock to African time.) Linda Jacobson was the piano accompanist; Rogers was the head usher; and a Mennonite, Paul Mosley, gave the message. Both John and I remarked how “Mennonite” the sermon was, as it was an exegesis of the text, Luke 6. No jokes, no extraneous stories, no general citing of nice Christian values, but rather a study of the text and it’s implications for us today. It was so very different from the 3-point Presbyterian sermons which last only 15 minutes and may or may not use a biblical text, but always have some opening story or worse yet, a joke. I remain Mennonite at heart.

Linda at the piano

Rogers and Terry engaged in conversation

It was communion Sunday, and once again, I was almost overwhelmed with the wonder of the diversity of the people sharing in this sacrament. For me, this is central to what I envision as heaven whether on earth or elsewhere. These ties of friendship and caring are also visible after the service, when we all linger outside over coffee or chai. I’ve never ever found a faith community like this in the States, but I hope they exist somewhere.

Margaret pouring some chai for me.

My homies and I: Mary (Tanzanian), Grace (Kenyan), Ruth and Margaret (Ugandan). Ruth is Margaret's severely autistic daughter and the reason Margaret began her remarkable school for special needs children, Step-by-Step Learning Center.

Two of the many children at ACC.

Lutheran friends, Joe and Deborah Troester, asked if we’d like to go somewhere with them for lunch. Of course, we agreed, as we had planned to eat out  anyway and don’t have a car.  They really wanted to eat at George’s, which was fine with us. We love the salads there. Joe and Deborah have spent most of their lives living abroad, in Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic, and now Tanzania. Like most expats here, they have many interesting stories to tell, and it was after 3:00 p.m. until they drove us back to Kundayo.

The remainder of the day was uneventful except for a call to Rebecca in Florida. We ate leftovers from our lunch, and I watched an episode of “Endeavour” on YouTube. It was amazing that I got through the entire video without any of the usual 5-minute buffering breaks. Miracles can happen.