Journeys in Mud

Some may recall a previous blog entry named Journeys in Dust. We are now experiencing what happens when a great deal of rain falls on a great deal of dust…a great deal of mud, of course! The rainy season has well and truly started now and it makes some roads rather tricky to negotiate. Our trip to Ukinga last week was a perfect example of this.

We set off in a fully-loaded Landrover, with much equipment and 4 people, from Mbeya on Thursday morning and were prepared for a difficult journey. We had been warned by others that the roads to Makete, our destination, were getting worse by the day however we were determined (or foolish!) so off we went! The journey of 135kms took us 5 hours (not including the time to stop off on the way to pick up a Baptist pastor who is involved with our work and to have the obligatory chai and chapattis), managing an average of 27 kms/hr. It was an incredible experience. I was praying most of the way but our trusty Landrover (and God too!) got us through despite some very sticky patches (literally!). Thankfully the project vehicle, though cumbersome, falling apart in places and not designed for nipping around town or driving long distances on tarmac, WAS designed for dirt roads! Apparently, as my husband tells me, we didn’t even have to use the differential lock – just the low ratio gears! There were two spots where it looked like we might be stuck fast but thanks to some planks of wood, a shovel, a skilled driver and many pairs of hands to push we weren’t stuck for long. My job, being someone who doesn’t like to get her hands dirty (especially in mud that smells of cow manure!) was to document on film so you could take part in this unique experience through video and pictures. Fortunately for you we couldn’t capture the smell!

We were going to Makete for a purpose, not just for the fun of Tanzania’s roads. Matt was intending to spend time with our Kinga Literacy workers to help them with computer problems, discuss strategy for the future and encourage them in their work. We had brought along Frank, one of our Tanzanian colleagues from the office, to help with these tasks. Me (Liz) and Katherine, from the Scripture Use Department, were engaged in another task – holding a two-day workshop for teachers of Sunday Schools (for children) in the Makete area. We were sharing the speaking as well as giving the teachers ideas for games, memory verse learning, interactive story telling and teaching that applies to the children’s lives. As always there were many joys to our trip… a beautiful green, mountainous area, a nice guesthouse, progress in Swahili, many good discussions and laughs with our colleagues, good simple Tanzanian food, meeting passionate and talented teachers and seeing Kikinga being used. There are always frustrations too however… virtually continual rain, Matt getting ill and losing almost a full day to work with the team, not understanding everything that happens in Swahili and not being able to express yourself fully, everything being constrained by poverty and lack of resources and an education system that does not seek to engage children.

As always we got the feeling that we wanted to stay and concentrate our work in this area, to oversee Literacy work, find a system that works for getting teachers and books to remote areas, and see Sunday school teachers trained up and training others in what they’ve learnt. But, of course, there are 8 other areas that we work in! We just hope the time we spent in Ukinga will be fruitful. Please join us in continuing to remember that area, the people and the work they are seeking to do out there.

We returned on Sunday the long way round (almost 3 times as far in fact!), by way of Njombe instead of the way we came. These roads were a whole lot better, though still not great, and we didn’t get stuck once! Another highlight, as well as not getting stuck, was stopping off at another pastor’s house and eating peaches and strawberries from his garden! We brought back two pastors to Mbeya and the work continues in the office now. Our Kinga, Bena and Nyakyusa colleagues are working on their storybooks that were written at the workshop in August – back-translating them into Swahili and checking the spelling with our resident linguists. One of these linguists will be me! Argh! Watch this space to see how I get on later in the week!

For photos from our trip just click here. To see some videos (they really are worth seeing!), click here for us negotiating a typical bad spot, here for Matt eventually getting free (with some help from many hands!), and here for some Kinga ladies singing in a typical rural scene.