Sunday always means going to church, so we were up, dressed, and ready to go by 10:00. But instead of Ray, some man named Dennis showed up to drive us. He said Ray was in the 9:30 service, which I took to mean that little Anitha had won the battle over whether to go to the 6:30 service or a later one. Anitha complains when she has to get up early because Ray wants to attend church before driving us. I don’t blame her at all!
Anyway, Dennis wanted to discuss African politics with John all the way to ACC, and he knew an impressive amount of who was in power where during the past 30 or so years. He even prompted John a couple of times. It’s too easy to assume that people of humble means will not know very much outside their daily lives or national politics, but many people here put the average American to shame with the scope of their knowledge of not only Africa but also Europe and America. Mama Kundayo loves to talk about the current events she sees on MSNBC, Al Jazeera, and BBC.
There were lots of wazungu visitors at church: there was a group of 20 or so aged Lutherans from the Pacific Northwest and another smaller group of American engineers who are planning some sort of sustainable agriculture project somewhere. A couple Norwegians and others introduced themselves as well at the appropriate time. A large man who serves as a paster in Lacey, Washington gave the sermon, which, while good, probably went over the heads of many of the congregants because of his heavy use of American English cliches and cultural references. I was most disturbed that there were NO flowers this Sunday. How could that have happened?
After the service, during the tea, coffee and mingling time, I went over and re-introduced myself to Jana Hardy Kinsey, who also comes from Spokane and is now married to Irwin Kinsey’s son. They have two very cute little girls, Lydia and Leila, and live somewhere outside of Arusha. Jana was part of a legal team which worked for Masai women’s rights when we first were here in 2012 and two of the Whitworth students did internships with her and her partner. She someone I have admired since I first met her.
Eventually, John, Mary Lou and I got a taxi and went to George’s for lunch. We had barely gotten settled, when Margaret (I forget her last name), an 80+ year-old female veterinarian way off in Karatu arrived and asked if she could join us. I was very happy because I find Margaret to be a fascinating person. However, we had barely begun to add another chair to our table, when Irwin Kinsey showed up with a young couple and asked if they could join us, too. Of course, we agreed and then were astonished when Irwin and the waiters set up a long line of tables for an additional 15 people. He was bringing the group of engineers who had been at church plus a couple of young people who work on his agricultural projects (https://www.echonet.org/staff/global/east-africa/). The dynamics of our nice, quiet lunch were changed, but because the leader of the engineers, Rex Barber, came to sit near us, we had an interesting conversation about aquaponics, etc. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to speak much at all with Margaret, who had to leave early in order to getting some shopping done before she headed back out to her station.
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| Irwin Kinsey and his group. |
John ordered George’s Sunday Special, grilled pork, while I got a pizza and Mary Lou a salad. We had barely finished our meal, when suddenly, Ray showed up with Priskilla and Anita. Priskilla had come into town to get her new glasses and wanted to tell me thank you before she returned to school. So, we had to leave the others in the lunch group to spend a bit of time with Ray and the girls and take photos. For some reason Ray insisted on holding our take-take-away cartons from lunch, and so he looks like a pizza delivery man in most of the pictures. Eventually, we all piled into Ray’s taxi and came back to Kundayo.
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| Grilling at George's |
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| John's pork plate with 3 hunks of grilled pork and 2 baked potatoes, plus a large salad. |
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| John and I with Anita, Priskilla, and Ray |
We read and rested until 7:00 p.m. here when we tried to call Peri at 8:00 a.m. her time. The internet was not functioning well, so we were frustrated by connecting and then disconnecting after a few seconds. After about six times like this, I suggested we wait to try in another half hour. Then, when we connected everything went just fine, and we learned about Peri’s visit to the dentist and her new toothbrush.
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