Moving across the country...

Friday was a very sad day for me. I had to say goodbye to the kids and to my friends in Mwanza. It was really hard. It was a really great day though. We took some of the kids hiking a bit in the hills, I had lunch with Tini, Hilmar, Lena and Emma at a new little restaurant in town called Binti Maringo which involved chocolate mousse dessert, did some football (for those of you back in Canada who don't know, the rest of the world calls soccer 'football') and one last Bible study with the older boys, gave some parting words, said goodbye to everyone, cried as I walked out of the gate of Starehe, and had a great evening at Tini's house where we had a going away party for me. So very sad, but a good day nonetheless. Saturday very early I flew out of Mwanza to Dar, where the heat was terrible. If anyone wants to come and suffer with me, come visit in Dar. Hopefully I'll get over it. Anyway, now my time in Dar begins- April and maybe 1/2 or 3/4 of May. I'm leading the singing at church on Sundays, and I'm going to a school nearby to see what I can do to help out during the week. Also I plan to do some holiday time relaxing, because I've worked a lot during my time in Mwanza and a break now will be very nice. Yesterday after church I got to hang out with my friend Obed, which was lots of fun- we each ate lunch (rice, beans, spinach, and a bit of meat) for less than a dollar each, i.e. a typical local food stand, and it was great- some of the people there just couldn't believe a mzungu was eating there. It doesn't happen often. So I'm thankful for my time in Mwanza, sad to have left, but excited about the time now in Dar.

Baraka

Baraka means blessing in Kiswahili. As I put my pictures from the last weeks onto my computer, I discovered I've had a fair share lately, so I thought I'd share them...

(sunset at Tunza Lodge outside of town on Lake Victoria, and then with Tini, Lena and Hilmar, baptism for older Starehe kids, some of my little friends hanging out at Nyegezi Corner, and the Farming Game with some Albertan volunteers here for a few weeks)

Decisions...

The decision is made. It is now final. No more back and forth thinking and worrying and stressing. And I didn't even need a whole bunch of hour-long conversations with friends and IV staffworkers to get there! :) (all of you LCF people are beginning to wonder now if someone hasn't killed Steve and begun to write on his blog in his place... ) So, I will be living in Hamilton, Ontario for the next year, probably then next 2 years. I think Queens was looking like a great option too, but in the end somehow I still felt like I should choose McMaster. So I will be studying history there. I'm very excited about this, I think it will be great.

Dar es Salaam

My time in Mwanza is slowly coming to a close. :( I will be heading to Dar es Salaam (the big city on the coast, the biggest city in Tanzania) at the end of March and staying there until I leave Tanzania. I will be staying at the home of my friends, Pastor Len and Marilyn Mittelstaedt, in Dar, while they are in Canada for their son's wedding. I'll be leading worship at the church they pastor at, which is an English-language church, working with the worship team and helping make sure everything is transported and set up. During the week I'll be volunteering at the HOPAC school, a Christian private school that Len is connected with, helping out there however they need me. So I'll be sad to leave Mwanza, especially all my friends at Starehe (I'm not sure if I will find any little munchkins in Dar who come running up to me and grab my leg and try to get me to sing Il m'a sauve with them whenever they see me) but am excited about this opportunity to help out in Dar and get to know the big city. In my free time I'll be able to relax, explore downtown, head to the beaches, and maybe visit some places outside of town reachable by dalla dalla. My departure date from Tanzania is still not set, (although it will be SOON!!!) but I'm planning on heading to Turkey sometime in mid/late-May, and taking a one-month June language course there. (that is, if my plans all work out) I'll be in Turkey then until early July and will be home latest mid-July. It will be nice to be home again, but that isn't yet- BADO- not yet... So, 3 weeks in Mwanza, maybe 6 or 7 weeks in Dar, and maybe 6 or 7 weeks in Turkey, and probably 4 months total, until I'm home.

My interesting Sunday...

Sunday I had a fabulous day. It really all began over a week ago when my friend Ruben invited me to join him and some others for a game of Kuhhandel, a great German game (he had the Dutch version) involving trading cows, figuring how much a given animal is worth to you to risk $ on it, and then trying to swindle the others in trades of animals so that you get good animals and lots of money in the process and they get nothing. 2 German women were playing with Ruben and I, who were friends of his, and none of the 3 of us had experience in the game, so cocky Ruben was in the end very obviously going to win. Obviously, that is, unless the community came together for the common good of the community as a whole, and put aside selfish ambition and gain (which was clearly going to fail anyway because Ruben had practically won already) in favour of a last-minute attempt to prevent Ruben from winning. To rally the rest of the community to the communal cause, (i.e. the 2 Germans) I offered freshly baked cookies, nice coffee, french toast and fruit for brunch, and a walk in the hills. They accepted and the community triumphed, and poor Ruben who doesn't like to lose lost. It was really great. Then on Thursday we had our communal morning, where the 2 young German ladies came over to Nyegezi, we had a beautiful walk followed by brunch and cookies and it was really great. There they invited me to join them Sunday for another brunch actually at their place, so I accepted and thus found myself having a wonderful Sunday. After church, (which was great too, but church at Starehe is usually pretty great) I went to town and found their house and had a great time there. Ruben ended up coming too, and there were a few others, and we were served German cheese, real multigrain German bread, and German chocolate from Anika's dad who is visiting her this week. So great! And then it began to rain. Sitting inside sipping tea we suddenly looked outside to discover that it was HAILING in Mwanza!!! There were chunks of ice falling from the sky! Nobody here knows what hail is! Crazypants! Then when it stopped we went to a Gospel music concert in town organized by one of the churches, which was a lot of fun! Pizza with Ruben and then dalla dalla ride home just as it got dark finished a really great day! Sadly I have no picture to show you of the hail.