Cake and Roses

Wednesday & Thursday, February 13 - 14, 2019

Once again on Wedbesday, John got up early to be on time for the first session of the sustainable faming conference he has been attending this week. The presentations start early and go late, so essentially John has been absent from our days here at Kundayo. Mary Lou was also gone almost all day. She teaches the albino women on Wednesday and Friday, but that is to be a half day; today she didn’t return until after 3:00 p.m. An unexpected tour group dropped by the workshop, and neither of the two English-speaking staff were there, so the women bravely did their best to explain their lives as albinos in Tanzania and the reason for their sewing project. Mary Lou was impressed how well the women did in spite of their limited English.

I had a wonderful solitary morning out on the garden terrace, reading, working on email, and enjoying the plants, birds and butterflies. There are some large butterflies, but they never sit still long enough for me to get their photos. Maybe I can succeed before we leave in March. There are also some fast moving lizards that I would like to capture on film.

In the early afternoon, before Mary Lou returned, Immanuel came with a tray of food from Mama. She had cooked a lovely stewed chicken and cubed and seasoned potatoes to share  with us. I wasn’t certain what I should do, as I was making spaghetti sauce for our dinner. However, the sauce didn’t taste as good as I thought it should. I had Mary Lou taste it when she got back. She made horrible faces. Still I couldn’t resign myself to dumping the sauce, so I had John taste it when he got home. He, too, made bad faces and said, “No. No. No.” So, I dumped the sauce, heated up Mama’s food, and we had an excellent meal.

Mama, looking regal as always

An unexpected gift from Mama.

Delicious chicken stew and potatoes.

Then as planned, I gave Mary Lou a signal and she went to the big refrigerator in Kundayo’s kitchen and brought out the large chocolate cake I had bought for John’s birthday yesterday. Naturally, John was very surprised. We sang “Happy Birthday” again, with the staff joining in and the cook dancing in the kitchen. The cake was delicious, and there was more than enough to share with everyone in the compound and still have a lot left.

The 2nd birthday cake was all chocolate and cream.

Mary Lou and John enjoying the cake. (I should have moved my teacup.)

Just after all of the birthday commotion, Mama drove back into the compound. She has been going out to her building site in Njiro every day to supervise some of the interior finishing work and pay the workers at the end of each day. She immediately came over to our terrace to find out what we had been doing. John told her about his conference, and I told her about the cake and the big piece I had put in her dishes when I returned them via Immanuel.  After a cup of tea, she excused herself and went home for the night.

When I awoke on Thursday, Valentine’s Day didn’t seem very romantic. It was the final day of John’s conference, so he was up and out the door before I made myself get up. My women’s bible study group was meeting at 9:30, so Ray said he would be here at 9:00 to make sure we got their on time. I had ordered 16 kitumbura to take as our—Mary Lou’s and mine—contribution to the light lunch following the discussion. However, none were ready by 9:00 as stipulated because the task of making them had been contracted out to a local maker. Immanuel called the person baking the kitumbura and was told they were on their way. So we waited, but when they had not arrived by 9:15, I started to think we would have to go to Plan B: cut up the leftover cake and take that. Just as I was beginning to slice, Immanuel got a call telling him the delivery person had turned into our street, so Mary Lou and I jumped in Ray’s car and met the man as we drove out to the highway.

Usually, I do okay with African time because truly one never knows what might happen to delay arrivals, etc. However, this morning, I was to be the discussion leader, so I was more mzungu in my concern about promptness than I would have been otherwise. So, imagine how surprised Mary Lou and I were to be the first of our group to arrive. All that initial stress about being on time now seemed very silly. Mary Lou and I set up for our meeting, and soon all the others in the group appeared.

The part of Acts we were looking at today was the story of the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8 - 40). It was fun to explain to the women what a eunuch was and why one would be such a valuable servant or government official. (Such a person would have no spouse or children to work for or try to enrich.) The fact that this person had gone clear to Jerusalem from somewhere far to the south (Kush) and then was required to stay outside of the worship in the temple (Deut. 23:1), was something the women hadn’t known. They also had never thought about that the eunuch may have chosen the scroll for Isaiah because of what is written in Isaiah 56: 3 - 8) In the end, what most impressed them was that the very first non-Jewish convert to Christianity was a socially marginal person from Africa.  Then, we looked a bit at the account of Saul’s Damascus Road conversion, which I wasn’t as enthused about as the eunuch’s story. From my perspective that story has too much magical realism in it, but the women here definitely take such scripture very literally.

After our shared lunch of bagia with a spicy yogurt sauce, chapatis, kitumburas, and bananas, we dispersed for another 2 weeks. I needed to go to FiFi’s to pick up a skirt I was having altered, and Mary Lou joined me in the taxi so she could get her skirt, too. Then, we had cold drinks before I went to Aly’s for a haircut and Mary Lou took the bajaji back to Kundayo. Aly was even more chaotic and disreputable than ever. His mother from Vancouver, B.C. had been here to visit him until this past weekend, so he had many tales about taking her to his favorite bars, etc. He’s Muslim and not supposed to drink, but he flaunts his waywardness. While he was cutting my hair, another very well-dressed woman came in, and Aly told me she was the “Princess” of his mosque. The woman who looked as if she was in her 50s told me that she was Canadian, from Toronto, but has been here for 7 years now with her husband trying to get the new Aga Khan university up and running. She made a very disparaging remark about the Tanzanian president, who seems to make all progress almost impossible. Aly had also told me that his business has been very badly affected by the exit of wazungu who have been forced to leave because they couldn’t renew resident or work visas. As he noted, each mzungu who is forced out means that more Tanzanians are unemployed. These are not good days for many.

After leaving Aly’s, I hailed a bajaji and enjoyed a different kind of ride back to Kundayo. Bajajis cost about a third as much as taxis do, but they aren’t as safe, and I feel guilty for not using Ray. John had taken a break from his conference and was here to greet me with a beautiful bouquet of red roses and a Lovely Valentine’s Day card. The cards here seem very garish compared to most we would see in the States, and the inscriptions are often amusing. The sentiment in my card began with “ Love came by gushingly and mesmerized us with its sheen.”Further on it referred to “pervasive emotion.”  It’s a treasure.

Valentine's Day roses grown right here in Arusha.

Later, John returned to his conference for its final banquet, which we hope is better than the one he attended 2 years ago, when the music was so loud it almost blew off heads. Tomorrow, there is a field trip to the World Vegetable Program, which I plan to join even though we need to board the bus by 8:15.