Tanzania.
What do I think about Tanzania? Well, it’s colorful, the most colorful of all the countries we’ve been to so far. I love that! But it’s also one of the dirtiest, smelliest, and harshest countries.
The people are very hard and are definitely unfriendly. Of course I can’t say that for the whole country, this has just been our experience. They do a lot of hitting each other and we always get the muzungu (white person) price on things. I’ll be excited to shop at home and not have to haggle for every purchase to be reasonably priced after a year of bargaining.
Here’s a bit about our time.
First off, I’m with the most awesome group of people this month; which is fortunate since we have a ton of down time. Originally there were 11 of us (two teams) living in this little house. The past month has been really rough for our squad on illness. One of the guys living with us got extremely ill with Malaria. He and his team leader were flown to the ICU in Nairobi, Kenya to receive better medical care. That left 8 girls and Justin to hold down the fort. I must say, Justin puts up with all us ladies well, and the 9 of us laugh a lot.
As I mentioned, we don’t do much here. This has by far been the month with the least amount of work. I’m a believer in the saying ‘If you’re bored, you’re boring’. So I won’t say that I’ve been bored, but I do feel incredibly unproductive. But some months are just like this, where as other months my bedtime quickly becomes 830pm because we get so worn out.
Our schedule is free all day long until 4pm when we take few hours to do what ever the pastor asks of us. Our first week we went to this crazy crusade for 3 days. There was at least a thousand people there all singing and dancing. This was one of those moments on the Race I couldn’t stop thinking about how unique these experiences are and wishing I had a better way to show them to friends and family. Kids were coming from everywhere to sneak a touch of my elbow or ankle and maybe even pet my white person hair.
(how many kiddies can hold our hands at once??)
The following week we spent preaching and leading adult and youth services in the evening. One positive part of having a lot of down time is always getting in a good work out. On our last run we passed a dead dog and a dead rat the size of house cat, lovely! But we also get to run alongside Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake. And when we get back we have a push-up and sit-up crew waiting to join in.
There is also extra time to spend playing outside with the neighborhood kids. There are kids EVERYWHERE here. The little girl below is my favorite! Sometimes she bites me, but that’s ok because she’s so funny most of the time.
This week we have been making hospital visits. This hospital is not like ours in the States at all. There are about 20 beds in each room. Some people even have to share a twin sized hospital bed. We go and talk with some of the patients through translators and ask to pray for them as well. I even got to hold a 6 day old baby!! He weighed about 3 lbs because he is a premature twin. Sweetest, most precious memory from this month!
And now for John. John will be a man that I always remember, not only when thinking about Tanzania, but also when I think about faith. All the rooms in the hospital smelled a little funky, but this one room was especially bad. Justin and I had paired off and when we were almost done in this room he noticed another patient laying on the floor in the dark, back corner. It was John. As we went over toward him, it was easy to tell that this was definitely the source of the smell in the room. John is around 50 years old and has leprosy. He’s missing half of his foot and many fingers and there is rotting skin literally falling off of his body. But he was all smiles. John talked with us and prayed with us and blessed us. The whole time he had his hands lifted high saying “Bwana Asifiwe” (“Praise God”).
The next day we brought some snacks and went back to say hello. Meals in this hospital are only provided by family, but John’s a beggar and doesn’t have people bringing him food. I’ll never forget this man. He called me his friend even though I had only known him a few minutes. He had the most grateful heart to God despite his terrible circumstances. And he smiled so big that you couldn’t stop looking at his smile long enough to even see his rotting skin.
I told John I’d see him in heaven. And I know that I will, because a man who praises God although hungry, alone, diseased, and laying on the floor in a dark corner is certainly finding his joy somewhere besides in this life. That takes a faith and hope that is out of this world.
So that’s that!
I don’t know what the rest of this week has in store for us. But I do know that a few of us are taking a 3 day trip to Zanzibar at the end of the month! I also know that I’m very ready to head out of Africa. We fly out Sept 30th. I can’t believe Africa months are almost over! It’s been awesome, my favorite continent for sure. But the cultural differences and lack of everyday luxuries are exhausting.
