Bukoba Getaway

Last week we got to explore more of Tanzania and once again saw how green the rest of the country is compared to Geita. Calvin took us interns on a survey trip to an area north of Geita called Bukoba in the Sengerema region. The purpose of a survey trip is to research a particular area to see the need for future missionaries to move there and to observe its living situations. On the road there, we saw a troop/herd/gaggle? of Vervet monkeys- I don’t know about you, but to me that’s an immediate draw to move to Bukoba (although I did see 20+ baboons while running the other day in Geita, so future missionaries should take that into consideration). Another draw would be the two “western” hotels up on a hill overlooking Lake Victoria which both serve delicious Indian food.  Not to mention the Lake Victoria “beach”, complete with sand, waves, and popcorn salesmen. If nothing else, we’ve found a nice vacation spot.

What we ended up discovering about Bukoba town was that there was already a great church presence there, mostly Catholic and Lutheran. There were also many groups doing development work in the area. We interviewed the regional manager from World Vision to get a sense of their success in reaching the surrounding region and people’s receptivity to their work. What I enjoyed most was actually seeing their work after hearing about it for years.

Since we knew enough about Bukoba town, we planned to drive inland into surrounding villages that were most likely unreached. On our drive up to Minziro, a village near the Ugandan border, our tire decided to go flat. Or Calvin decided to hit enough holes in the road to make it go flat. Either way, we had a flat tire. After breaking off two studs in an attempt to get the tire off, we eventually got our spare on and provided the local Tanzanians with a good fifteen minutes of entertainment. One of Calvin’s workers named Steven lived in Minziro and was our lovely tour guide for the trip. It’s polite in this culture to stop at every family member’s house, even just for a couple minutes. So first we stopped at Steven’s aunt’s house (I think) which was right next door to the primary and secondary schools. When they took us over to see the school, the kids came out and greeted us with a very well-rehearsed Tanzanian national anthem. Calvin thought it’d be funny to put us interns on the spot and told the headmaster we’d “beat the drums” (dance) for them. They took it literally and brought us a nice set of drums, fully expecting us to perform. We couldn’t disappoint, so we gave our best attempt at our national anthem. Most of the kids did a surprisingly good job of holding in their laughter, but some didn’t. I certainly didn’t.

After stopping by Steven’s uncle’s home to greet and interview him about their particular town, we eventually made it to Steven’s mom’s home. We have never been greeted with such enthusiasm nor heard that much joyful laughter in a village. Not to say we aren’t usually extremely welcomed in villages, but this was by far the most exuberant bunch. (We agreed that Brooke with her constant laughter would be right at home in Minziro) Not to mention they served us really good fruit and prayed for our safety before sending us out through the many banana and coffee trees back towards Bukoba. That night while eating dinner at the hotel, a lady from Sweden who was doing dentistry work in Bukoba came to join us at our table. It was neat to hear about her culture and see the Lord working through people from all over the world. As we were leaving the hotel we saw a bunch of fishermen’s lights out on the lake, and it looked like the floating lanterns from “Tangled”. It was kind of magical.

On our way out of town the next day, we stopped at the St. Nicholaus Orphanage to see an example of another NGO near Bukoba. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they had many kids with disabilities at their orphanage. Felt like home! It was obvious that these kids received good care and after talking to their intern from Germany, we found that the woman who opened the orphanage had provided the equipment and trained the workers on how to use it. They even made it possible for some of the kids who were capable to go to school with everyone else. As we were leaving, one of the little boys who was crawling around earlier strolled outside in his gait trainer to wave goodbye. A lot of me wished we could’ve stayed there forever, but it was time to leave the lush land of Sengerema and return to Geita in all its red dirt covered glory.