Just wanted to make one post to say a few things. Firstly, thank you all once again for thinking of and praying for the 6 constantly while we were abroad. Secondly, we want to make sure that you all know the date of our trip summary presentation, August 30th at Shantz Mennonite Church. Everyone is welcome, and we plan to showcase pictures, tell stories, and hopefully a summary video (similar to last year's). We hope you all can attend, but if you can't make it, we will be posting the slideshow and the video on the blog after the presentation.
Hey everyone,
Just wanted to make one post to say a few things. Firstly, thank you all once again for thinking of and praying for the 6 constantly while we were abroad. Secondly, we want to make sure that you all know the date of our trip summary presentation, August 30th at Shantz Mennonite Church. Everyone is welcome, and we plan to showcase pictures, tell stories, and hopefully a summary video (similar to last year's). We hope you all can attend, but if you can't make it, we will be posting the slideshow and the video on the blog after the presentation.
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We've landed safely in Toronto! Thank you for all your prayers for safety on our various flights across the thousands of miles! We are about to queue for customs, then will hopefully get our baggage and catch our ride!
Well everyone, one final post before we are on Canadian soil once again! We spent some time in Amsterdam while we waited for our flight to arrive (picture included) but arrived back at the airport with plenty of time before our flight. We look forward to seeing you all soon!
We've safely arrived in Amsterdam! The plan is to do a bit of sightseeing downtown in the next few hours (as we have an 11 hour layover), then to return around 3:00 to the airport before flying home at 5:00 (local time). See you all soon!
Good morning (people in Canada certainly isn't morning here!) We've been at Kilimanjaro Airport for about 3.5 hours so far, and have another 3.5hours left to wait before our flight to Amsterdam. However, we are all safe and sound here, and looking forward to sleeping on the next flight after an early morning!
We've safely arrived at Mwanza International Airport after a long (but not as bumpy as expected) ride and an early morning. We will post once again upon landing in Kilimanjaro!
Today was our last full day in Shirati, and it was certainly a busy one.
We got up bright and early to attend morning devotions at the diocese, and enjoyed some great insight on the book of Romans from Isaiah (a man we met last year at the school build site). Following this, we received a wonderful thank-you from a pastor on behalf of the diocese, who then informed us that there were 6 trees ready to be planted at the Technical Vocational school in our honour. We were very surprised and humbled, and looked forward to doing so later in the day. After the meeting, we had an incredible breakfast of Mendasi (a treat from David, since it was our last day here) and hard boiled eggs, before heading to the hospital to meet with Challo. While Terry stayed at the hospital to get some drugs to relax his neck muscles (as he had been experiencing some neck pain and spasms over the past day), the rest of us went with Challo to Rorya FM, the radio station that Challo took me to last year. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by the owner of Rorya FM, Peter, and sat down to chat with him. We learned about his history in radio at a National level, and heard of the changes that had occurred to the radio station since the last time I had been there. After a half hour of chatting, we were invited to see his transmitter (smaller than the one he had last year, which was 500W, which sent signal all the way to Mwanza 200km away) and his studio room. We were all very interested to see the set-up he had, with actual soundproofing implemented unlike last time, but soon had to leave due to a commitment with Samwel at the hospital. Meeting back at the hospital with Terry and Samwel, we boarded a brand new Land Cruiser (after waiting for the ambulance for a ride, but eventually giving up) and headed down to Lake Victoria to see the pumping station. After an extremely bumpy ride, we arrived at the Lake, and Samwel gave us a tour of the water pumps which pump water many miles away and above to Oboke Hill and the hospital. We were once again given the opportunity to appreciate the beauty of the Lake and shoreline, and were extremely tempted to wade into the water to cool off (which we of course couldn't do). Samwel then drove us back to the diocese about an hour before lunch, where we spent the time allocating our gifts to share with some of the people we've met and re-met. Following a lunch of potatoes and chickpeas, we gathered our things and got on the diocese truck bound for the home of David, our cook. However, after making an unexpected stop for gas, returning to the diocese to pick-up a forgotten phone and ending up doing our accounting in the process, we ended up leaving 40 minutes later than planned (throwing a bit of a wrench into the mix of our carefully timed day....sort of). However, after about a half hour of driving over a very bumpy road (what else is new?) we arrived at David's, and met his family. We enjoyed a half glass of a special porridge he had prepared (almost like a sweetened Ugali, very creamy), and he introduced us to his wife, his daughters in law, one of his 3 sons and all of his grandchildren. They all live together in a clan approximately 10 km away, though the poor road quality made this journey much longer than it otherwise would have bee. David bikes to work most days except for when visitors like us come for long periods of time, at which point he sleeps in the back of the kitchen to save travel time. After about a half hour of visiting and seeing the beautiful property he has, we got back into the truck, bound for what we thought was the diocese. However, we had one more stop to make at Kennedy's (our driver) house, where we dropped off his wife and gave Terry and Jane a tour of their home. Soon after this, we were on our way once again back to the diocese. After arriving there, we quickly dropped off our things before hopping back onto the truck again for a tree planting ceremony (or so we thought). We drove to the school with Simeon and Kennedy, assuming that there would be others from the diocese there to meet us. However, we learned upon our arrival that we were the only ones in attendance. Soon after, our tree planting ceremony became a corn maize as the holes that had been dug for each of our trees were hidden amidst the corn stalks, and Simeon was not informed where they were. So, as a result, we would search through the corn until we found a hole, and then take turns dropping our small tree into each one (in the end, we still couldn't find two of them, so a few of the holes have two trees now). It ended up being a very unique experience, and I think we are all happy with the way it turned out. We then took the truck back to the diocese, which led us into an hour of free time before our trip to Oboke hill. Justin, Nathan, Dylan and I spent the hour playing a game of soccer with the medical students from Cincinatti (which mom went to Mamma Miaisha with last week) and the medical students from Switzerland staying at the diocese. It was a great finale to our two weeks of getting to know the neighbourhood kids and International visitors in the area. At 6:00, Steven arrived on his Piki Piki with 5 friends, and we all got on board to go to ObokeHill one final time. As we approached the hill, Steven decided that the road we had taken the previous time was in bad shape, so he thought we'd take a "shortcut". This supposed "shortcut" ended up taking us through the yards of some locals, and eventually within a foot of one family's backdoor and maize pile (picture attached)! As it turned out, this shortcut ended before reaching the steepest part of the journey, resulting in us disembarking from the piki pikis and hiking the rest of the way up with our drivers to reach the peak. The view of the sunset was incredible, and we enjoyed getting to know our drivers a bit better, as well as taking in God's beautiful creation. As the sun disappeared over the horizon, we got to sit for a moment and read our daily devotion, before spending a minute of silence listening to all the hustle and bustle of the villages below (no horn honking, and no street lights!). Upon return to the diocese, we thanked our drivers profusely and said a final goodbye to Steven, our amazing guide and co-worker at the diocese, and thanked him for his excellent leadership and friendship. We entered the dining room to find Fred, Leisha, Wesley and Gretchen waiting to share our last supper...here in Shirati. David lifted the pan from above our main course, revealing an incredible meat pie-like pastry with a message of "Karibu Tena", which means "You are welcome again". We shared this delicious meal with the Otienos, as well as David and Simeon, and exchanged gifts. Around this time, as Terry and Fred went over financials, Nathan and I returned to Rorya FM (worth mentioning that this is the only FM radio station in the area) once again, where I was given the opportunity to do a 30 minute DJ mix on-air for the people of Shirati. The style of music I played was certainly much different from what they traditionally play here, but it seems to have been well received (some people phoned into the station saying they liked it). The day was incredibly full, but also very fulfilling in the way that we could celebrate the relationships we had built with people here, and say our farewells in meaningful ways. Tomorrow morning, we leave at 6:00am sharp to drive 4 hours to Mwanza airport. We will attempt to post once more in Mwanza before take-off at noon, then once again at Kilimanjaro, and of course at the rest of our stops. Quick note to those picking us up at the airport Sunday night: A stop at Harvey's or Wendy's will be required en-route home. Seriously. We need to. Please. This is not a joke. Justin needs bacon. Dylan needs burgers. Nathan needs ice cream. Terry needs cold, Canadian coke, Jane needs a salad and I need some good old fashioned Canadian fast food. As said in yesterday's blog, today was not what was originally planned, but it turned out very well anyways.
After our morning breakfast, we met up with Steven and Alfred (the contractor fundi we've been working with quite often the past few weeks) and hopped in the back of the truck, bound for a remote home near the Kenyan border. However, we first needed to g to Obwere (where the Shirati market is) for materials, so we headed there first. We were making very punctual time, a surprise to many of us, but this did not last long. We ended up spending about an hour waiting in the truck at the market, as Terry, Justin and Steven went to try to barter for the materials we needed. Near the end of this hour, as the 3 were returning, a huge Pepsi truck (a rarity here, with most stores only selling coke) drove alongside us and parked just a few feet ahead of us. Terry, upon seeing this when he returned to the truck with the materials, suggested that we buy a case of 24 directly from the back of the truck, with the idea of sharing with the family we were to help. After some negotiating through Steven, the truck drivers agreed to a very reasonable price and we were on our way with the case of Pepsi bottles. About an hour later, we arrived at the small village, and began walking towards the home of the man we were planning to help (The truck could not fit through the tight walkway). Upon our arrival there, we met Ramadan, a man who has been paralyzed from the waist down since about grade 4. He spends his days laying in a blanket on the ground of his compound, with his elderly mother carrying him out of his small brick "house" each morning for the day. Her biggest worry is the sun beating down on him as well as the rain, if she happens to be away from the village for food or water and cannot bring him back inside. So, our plan to reduce these worries was to build a sort of awning over his house, so that he would be protected from the direct sunlight in the hottest portion of the day, as well as offering him protection from the rain. After having a quick lunch of take-out pizza (on pita bread, with very minimal tomato sauce) from Musoma, purchased by Fred (our first time having cheese here, or so we assume...) and Pepsi (which we then shared with Ramadan and his family, as well as the local children who had shown up), we began to work on the awning. As most of our worksites have become, the presence of "mzungus" (us, direct translation: white people) turned the property into a sort of community gathering for the duration of our stay. As Terry, Justin and Dylan helped Steven and Alfred position the support poles for the awning, Terry had an idea. When he saw the 24 empty Pepsi bottles and the caps of said bottles laying about in the sand, he realized that the caps could be used as pieces for a game of checkers. So, upon telling the team this, Nathan, Jane and I asked permission to use one of the family's tables to make a checker board. Through Steven's translation, they agreed, and we began outlining the board and different squares using our green marker and black pens. Within 30 minutes, the board was just about done, just as Terry, Justin and Dylan were finishing the support beams of the awning. With the board complete, it naturally needed to be tested, so Nathan and our driver, Kennedy (who speaks very little English) proceeded to engage in a hearty of game of checkers.The game ended up being quite one sided, as it became clear that Kennedy knew exactly what he was doing when it comes to "Draft" (their name for checkers). However, the test worked beautifully, and soon, all the children who had gathered to watch began playing the game as well. Nathan and I then rejoined the others to help with implementing the beams, while the 5 of us also started a side project. Ramadan's doorframe from his hut was very loose and close to breaking, literally hanging by two sets of rope attached to the roof beams. So, while Alfred and Steven continued to work on the roof, the 5 of us cut some small pieces from the extra remains of the beams and did our best to nail them into place between the doorframe and the opening above the door (similar to a window, which happened to have a piece of wood above it for us to hammer nails through). By the time we had completed this, the final piece of roof was just being hammered into place by Alfred. Around this time, Steven came up to Jane with news that Ramadan's relative-like neighbour (from his clan) had prepared a very simple meal to thank us for our work. It would have been impolite to say no of course, though we didn't feel very comfortable accepting it, as we knew how little the family had. However, we were very gracious, and had a small portion of the dried fish "Dagga" and ugali. This meal was followed by a short walk down to the waters of Lake Victoria (as their home overlooked the beautiful lake, and the shores of Kenya a few miles away) where we enjoyed the beautiful view of the water and the splashing of the waves against the shore for a short period of time. Finally, we returned to the house, took a picture with the family and received a huge thank you from Ramadan's mother individually, consisting of holding both your hands, raising them in the air and waving them, while saying "Asante, asante, asante!" (Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you). We then got back in the truck, and as we began to drive away, children from the clan who had followed us began running behind it, saying "Bye! Bye! Bye!" and "Ariti, ariti, ariti" (which we can only assume means bye in Luo) repeatedly as we slowly drove away through the rocky path. However, they too stopped after a few minutes, and we were on our way. We took a brief detour before heading home to visit the Tanzanian/Kenyan border, which was basically a rope and slightly farther on, a wall with barbed wire. We enjoyed the view of lake and the distant Kenyan mountains on the horizon, before turning back around and heading home to the diocese. Soon after getting back, Fred arrived at the diocese, wanting to hear what we had done that day (as he could not join us today, due to other commitments). Soon Leisha and Wesley joined him just before supper, and on behalf of the bishop (who is presently at Mennonite World Conference) and the diocese presented all of us with thank-you gifts for the work we've done here, and to remind us to think of them and keep them in our prayers upon our return home. They gift also wished to express an open-ended welcome here for others and ourselves. We graciously accepted, and thanked them just the same for all the organisational work they've done to keep us busy here (which they certainly did well!). Following the blog tonight, we plan to watch "Transcend", a documentary on the life story of a Kenyan marathon runner with connections to Waterloo Region (thanks Jen Ostic-Baer for the suggestions) before hopefully heading to bed early-ish. Today was our last official "work day", but tomorrow will be spent touring the water pumps at Lake Victoria with Samwel, visiting Rorya FM (the local radio station I went to last year) and travelling to and meeting David (our cook)'s family at his request. Yesterday, just after we completed our blog, Fred Otieno came running to us in the dining room and called us over to the board room. We had given him the remaining donated backpacks we had earlier that day, and he had just given them to the youth we had worked with earlier that day (giving them a choice of which backpack to take), and they wished to thank us. This thank-you consisted of a song which ended in rapid clapping, apparently a unique way that the youth thankothers. We were very glad to see the backpacks in the hands of these people, and were happy to be able to take a picture with them afterwards.
Our day began with our standard breakfast of chipati, coffee and received our daily 1.5L supply of water. About a half hour later, while the team got ready to return to the school build site to work on the new washrooms, Nathan and I went into the diocese meeting room to begin preparing for our camera course. With access to a projector, a surprise to both of us, we spent the hour before the course creating a slideshow of camera basics and general rules of photography. Finally, around 10:00, youth began pouring into the room, and we prepared to begin. We were very lucky to have Boaz as our translator (The student we met yesterday who is studying bio-molecular engineering), who luckily understood our course content and could therefore re-explain the concepts properly in Swahili. The course seemed to go quite well, and after a final assignment of trying to use the "Rule of Thirds" to take a picture of the rest of the group, Nathan and I received a 4 minute long thank-you song from Steven and the rest of the youth. We both felt very humbled and thanked them profusely, saying that they are welcome in Canada anytime. Meanwhile at the washrooms, Jane, Terry, Dylan and Justin started out going to the washrooms to see what needed to be done. The brick layer responded with a request to move more bricks to the build site. So, they obliged, and began moving the total of 80 bricks (again, 60-80lbs each) from one side of the school to the other, near the washrooms. Unlike yesterday, it was only the team doing the brick moving with no-one else to assist (for the beginning at least), so due to that and the immense heat, several water breaks were taken. To increase efficiency, Terry used the wheelbarrow (with an extremely small wheel, making it less practical than it could have been) to carry 3 bricks per trip along with Jane, whereas Dylan and Justin found some rope, put it around their shoulders, and attached it to a skid which they then used to carry 3 bricks at a time as well(they figure with the weight of these bricks, the skid was around 200lbs). These strategies, while both physically taxing, worked very well, and they managed to finish all the bricks in about 2 hours. Sidenote: Some important details about the washrooms! The amount raised by the KCI music department and the Kitchener Waterloo teacher's choir is actually more than enough to cover the full cost of the washrooms. The student's facility will include 4 stalls for each gender, and 1 handicap stall for each gender (revolutionary for any institution in the area). Many people are very excited and thankful for the generosity of the donation, and the money is being put to good use! The additional money raised will not be put into paint as originally thought, but being put into worksheds for the vocational school, which will soon house donated machinery coming from Holland. During one water break, Jane met a very well dressed man who had been looking around the build site. Upon introducing herself, she discovered that he was a youth pastor from the Shiratiarea, and was very appreciative of us coming from Canada to help. When asked if there were any prayer requests that we could keep in our prayers, he listed 5 distinct ones. His biggest concern was that youth were leaving the church, and he does not want this to happen. Because not many youth have money for school, nor do they have jobs, so they may get into trouble. After this discussion, the pastor came to assist with the brick moving, helping to speed things along nicely. Just after they finished with the brick moving, they made their way to the brick making part of the property, at which point Nathan and I met up with them. The engineer we met yesterday, Abel (not Cain), was preparing a mixture of termite dirt and concrete on the ground, making the perfect combination before adding water. We were fascinated to see the machine that they used to make the bricks, inserting oil and sand into it before adding the dirt/concrete mixture, then compressing the mixture using a large lever on the top. After this lever has been pushed down all the way, the brick makers bring it back the opposite way again, remove the cover, and out pops (literally) a fresh brick. Just before leaving, the 3 men gave us the opportunity to try to compress the bricks ourselves, which Terry and Nathan gladly took. After Nathan finished his brick, Abel gave him the opportunity to sign the brick before it was placed in the bathroom, which Nathan signed on behalf of the church (picture included). We then walked back for lunch, which was followed by a 2 hour long nap for all of us, exhausted from the heat and enjoying our new, high quality fans (as the heat seems to be starting to be catching up with us)! We then got up again at 4:00 to play ping pong at the hospital (as usual, the people who said they would come did not, but we enjoyed the company of about a dozen kids from the hospital who came to both watch and play). After about an hour, Dylan, Nathan and Justin went back to the diocese to receive their new shirts (which, naturally, came an hour later than expected), where Terry, Jane and I joined them about a half hour later. When the shirts finally arrived, the guys quickly tried them on with glee. Just after this, Challo texted me to say that our planned dinner at his house was ready (which we hired him and his wife to make for us), so we began walking to meet him at the dukas (stores) on "main street". Upon meeting him there, we walked with him to his home, and enjoyed an incredible meal of chicken, fish, rice, beans, chipati, a mixture of tomatoes, onions and peppers, beef, rice pilau (with a bit of curry in it) and the sweetest watermelon and pineapple we have had yet! We enjoyed some great food and fellowship with him and his family. The plan for tomorrow is to do a 1 hour drive to a village to build an awning for a paraplegic man's duka. We had planned to do another hut build, but due to a death in the family of the person we hoped to build the hut for, this was no longer possible. For Justin, Nathan and Dylan, the day began at 7:00am, with an early wake-up for the postponed fitting of shirts with a tailor, who showed up around 7:20. However, the fitting went well, and very quickly. Breakfast was at our regular time of 8:30, where we had chipati (a pancake like item, wish we had brought syrup!) for the first time in a few days, which was a pleasant surprise. Following this, we got together with Fred Otieno and Steven, and began the 10 minute walk to the technical vocation school.
Upon our arrival, we were greeted by about 25 youth, who were already moving concrete/dirt/termite hill dirt bricks (termite saliva helps to make the substance stick together to make an effective brick). So, after laying down our bags, we joined in. The biggest challenges we found were the extreme heat in the sun, and the immense weight of each brick (being about 60+lbs each), not to mention the distance in which we had to take each brick in order to reach the washroom's foundation (these washrooms were sponsored by the KCI music department). Jane joined in with some of the women who were also carrying bricks, and one of them suggested using her head covering (a scarf curled into a donut-like shape, for easier carrying of items on top of their heads) to carry bricks, though Jane declined after learning through a translator that doing so could be quite painful. Finally, after an hour of hard labor, the bricks had all been moved, and since Fred had gone off to get materials, we did not have any planned work. So, while the 5 guys sat on the edge of the classroom foundation, Jane went to sit down with some of the women at the build site (technically youth, but married and with children from the age of 16 on). Through some translation, she was surprised to learn that all were mothers already, with one already on her 5th child. The new mother in the group with a 1-month old baby had taken a piki piki 40km with her husband, a driver and of course her baby the day before. At one point, upon discovering that I was the son of Jane, the youngest girl of the group asked to be introduced to me because she is very interested in moving to Canada for a better life. After about 40 minutes of waiting, Fred returned with Kennedy and barbed wire to give us our next assignment. On the school's land, there is a reasonably sized field of a unique type of casava root. This casava root is endangered due to the lack of rain (given it is the dry season), so the government gave seeds for the root to the school, as the school has the ability to irrigate the crop to keep it alive, and propagate the seeds to keep the strand alive. However, cows are very much free-range around here, so due to the lack of fencing around the garden, it had been very easy for livestock to get in and eat/damage the crop. So, Fred gave us supplies to complete a barbed wire fence around the crop (as almost all of the posts were already placed, less a few that had been stolen). As we started to put up the barbed wire fence, some fundis came over to see what we were working on, and as they started to help us, they slowly pushed us farther and farther from the project, due to the language barrier yet again. In the mean time, we met two local men, one of whom was an engineer who had been working on making bricks earlier in the morning, and the other was a University Student at the University of Dar es Salam studying biomolecular mechanics. Both spoke English very well, so we had a long conversation, comparing weather, culture, food and many other differences and similarities between our two countries. They had many questions about snow, wondering how our roofs stay up and how we don't die if it snows during the night (this is not an exaggeration). Eventually, the time came to leave for lunch, so we thanked the men for the great chat and left for the diocese after the 45 minutes of talking. We were certainly reminded of the importance of not only doing physical work for others while here, but also taking the time to build relationships with the people. Later on, after our lunch and short break, we headed back to the build site with the expectation of continuing to work at the school. However, upon our arrival, we could not find any English speakers, as most had left, so we found ourselves once again waiting at the school. We waited about 40 minutes before we were able to assist the workers with the moving of some bricks though this was very brief. In the meantime, Dylan and Nathan helped one of the departing workers with his bike chain. This allowed us to make our return to the diocese with enough time to shower prior to our scheduled game of ping pong at the hospital at 4:45. Though we had scheduled a game with Challo and George from the hospital, only Peter and Faustein ended up showing up besides our team (as well as some local kids who came to watch). However, we had some great rallies nonetheless, and returned to the diocese with lots of time to spare before our supper of rice and chicken. While we ate, David took the time to tell us of the significance of serving chicken (or "kookoo") as only high ranked guests or company get served it, which made us feel very honoured and humbled. Tomorrows plans are for Nathan and I to teach a photography course (with the problem being that the students will not have their own cameras) while the rest of the team are off working at the school again, with hopes to finish the new bathrooms (which we will say more details about tomorrow). Some sidenotes: First off, we want to take the time to thank Janice and Jeff Beam 1000x for their work of re-posting the blog's content on our behalves back home in Canada. Without them, you wouldn't have read almost all of our blog, so thanks so very much! And, of course, thank you all for reading this blog :) Back to here, we received the set of fans we ordered prior to coming here and have installed each of them in our rooms, making some very comfortably cool nights of sleep plentiful! |
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