Village Life

We can all agree that there's no better way to understand a culture than to be immersed in it. I thought simply living in Geita accomplished this until I realized just how much deeper we could immerse ourselves (for some of us, that literally meant getting drenched with pond water, but for others it's simply a metaphor). Last weekend the girl interns spent three days and two nights in M'gwakiwasha, a small village about 30 minutes drive from Geita. Here we got to experience what they call "bonding". We each stayed at different homes and kind of became part of the family for a few days. At least that's what I hoped it would be like, but mostly we were their honored guests. So much that they would offer, nay, insist we take multiple baths a day. Nothing's as refreshing as a good ol' village basin bath. Thankfully mine was in privacy. Not all the girls can say that.

I stayed with Yohana, one of the evangelists in the church at M'gwakiwasha. He, his wife Salome, and about 6 of their 11 kids welcomed me in immediately by doing what they do best- serve food. Lots and lots of food. Tanzanians may not have as much variety as we do in the states, but what they do make, they make a whole lot of it. They fed me usually 3 times a day with so much chapattis, rice, beef and cooked cassava that I couldn't even come close to finishing. This is coming from the girl who easily finishes my meal along with everyone else's scraps back home. I was very thankful they did so much for me, but slightly disappointed at my stomach capacity. (Although it did improve over those 3 days)

Reading with Yohana and others in the village was one of things I enjoyed doing most. My limited knowledge of Swahili allows for some communication, but printed words helped to make things clearer and be able to learn together. Yohana and I went through a kids storybook bible describing every picture from Adam and Eve to Paul writing the letters (it broke the ice and honestly was a good refresher for me). His niece and her husband both liked reading the Swahili bible alongside the English translation with me. I loved discovering new words with them, especially when reading about creation. It's something we can all be in awe of.

When the people in the village have guests, they want them to simply rest and enjoy themselves, so sometimes they'd sit me in a chair to just watch. Soon they realized I liked to play with the kids and learn how they do things, so they let me play mpira (soccer) with little Deborah and Gideon and showed me different daily routines- mashing pigeon peas, washing clothes (or rather cloth- they only let me do one) cooking chapattis, milking a cow, and even moving a brick (again just one). The biggest job he let me help with was making a jiko. It's a small type of stove that Brett had showed him how to make earlier. Basically we used mud to form an "oven" that would contain heat from a small fire to better cook food in small pots called sufurias. The leftover mud became a twiga (giraffe) and timbo (elephant) for the kiddos to play with. If anything, this internship has refined my sculpting skills.

At one point, Yohana was showing me a verse that was written on his curtain that said "Siri ya Bwana". After trying to guess its meaning from Yohana's hand motions that suggested something was being hidden, we looked up Zaburi (Psalms) 25:14 and it read  "The Lord confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them". We always think the other way around, how we can confide in Him. Yet when we truly fear and trust Him alone, He "hides" his truths in our hearts and minds. He opens himself to us. He entrusts us with his gifts. It was so good to share this with Yohana even though we couldn't say it.

On Saturday Yohana, Deborah and I walked to another compound nearby where I met a girl named Esther who was 18 and who spoke really good English. This wasn't very common in this village. She said she attended a secondary school and was very curious about life in America. We talked for a while about what traveling was like, about why people don't typically have 10+ children like they do (which inevitably led to talking about of birth control...) about the president, about the classes I'm taking to be a physical therapist, about Christianity and even about capitalism. She seemed really motivated and eager to learn. Although I don't think it's best for her to leave her family and culture, I wouldn't be surprised if one day she made her way out America like she wants.

Later that evening Brooke, Katie and I got to reunite for a bit at their choir practice. They asked me to teach a lesson, and since I clearly can't communicate in much depth in Swahili, I simply struggled to read to them the passage about being the light of the world. Dancing with their choir was only slightly more successful. They asked Katie, Brooke and I to sing a song too, but when we didn't do a dance to "Revelation Song" they were kinda disappointed. They would've been more disappointed though if we had tried. At night when Yohana was teaching me the words for sun, moon, and stars, I explained to him that Earth was bigger than the mwezi (moon) and the jua (sun) was bigger than Earth, and some of the nyota (stars) were bigger than the jua. Trying to explain how the moon revolves around the earth which revolves around the sun was a little more complicated, but soon I realized  he understood as he explained it to his wife. It was cool that we could learn so much from each other, he a little about our solar system and me the basic knowledge of how to work to live. Like milking a cow and walking down the road to get water.

Sunday morning a little scuffling rat woke me up. Which is better than the seven rats that woke up Brooke. Brett and Christie and the kids came that morning for church, which was like most other Sundays in the village. Brett asked that the church split into four groups to study the passage on their own. It was cool because younger leaders had to step up to help their group read and study the passage for themselves. After taking many pictures, watching the choir perform, and eating our last village meal for the weekend, we packed up our new chickens in the car and waved goodbye to our African family.