In the Case of No Toilet Paper

Being a missionary in a third world country presents many interesting and terribly awkward situations that require some serious creativity. Over the past year, I've come across quite a number of these situations (including the case of no toilet paper). Here is my top four list of situations that I've encountered over the past year:

4. When I moved into the house where Kjirstin and I are now living, I found that while it was nice to have the curtains closed during the night time to give privacy. However, during the day, I like to have the curtains opened so that the light can come in. Unfortunately, the curtains are literally cut pieces of cloth which are hanging from nails at the top of the window. Thus, there's not exactly an easy way to pull back the curtains. So I searched through all of my things. After trying some ribbons I found and a few other items, I eventually came across my stock of hair-ties. I realized I didn't need quite as many hair-ties as I had, so I now am using them to pull the curtains to the middle of the window and let some light and air in.

3. While I was living at Pastor's house, I developed quite an ant problem in my bathroom. For some reason the ants really liked my shampoo and conditioner. Every time I opened the bottles, ants would come crawling out. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not too terribly fond of washing my hair with a mixture of dead and living ants, so I decided I needed to do something about it. Unfortunately, there are no "ant houses" for purchase here and simply spraying them with bug killer did not prevent the flow of tiny invaders from entering my room. So, I took stock of everything that I had in my room (including all of the things the previous missionary left behind). Thus, I found a bottle of 98% DEET spray and I decided it was certainly worth a try. I knew that bugs didn't like DEET, but I still wasn't sure what I was going to do with my new weapon choice. I sprayed it on the wall in the middle of the "ant line" and the ants scattered like crazy. I kept spraying different sections of their line and watched the ants go crazy. But, eventually, they made a new line that by-passed my new obstacle. So, I went in search of the place where the ants were penetrating my room. I found the hole quickly enough at the place where the wall met the ceiling in the bathrom, so grabbed a chair and sprayed away. Within a very short period of time, my ant problem was completely solved and I didn't have any new problems arise after that!!

2. I had a rather unfortunate accident while I was playing ultimate frisbee with the other missionaries. I ran into another player and fell on my knee. And although I didn't fall very hard, the way I did fall left my knee very badly scratched up and covered in dirt. I did my very best to clean it up and I kept putting band-aids on it. However, the wound was so big that even the big band-aids that I had were barely covering the whole thing. The other problem I had was that my stock of extra large band-aids at my disposal was very limited and I no where to buy more. Thus, when my scratch was still oozing after a few days, I found that I was going to have to get VERY creative. I completely emptied out the small first aid kit that I had brought with me and took stock of everything that I had. After a while, I finally decided that the best solution available to myself was to use gauze and duct tape. It worked like a charm, even if it wasn't the most comfortable. No worries now. The wound did not become infected (thanks to a friend who took me to a clinic to get it cleaned up really well, as well as the hydrogen peroxide I was able to buy to keep it clean) and has completely healed since. Also, I have a new stock of band-aids thanks to my Aunt Kristen! :D

*WARNING* This may section may be considered having TMI (too much information)
1. One day, not too long after my arrival in Tanzania, I experienced a quite natural call of nature. So, I asked another teacher where the toilet was and made my way over there. Little did I know what was in store for me. Basically toilets here are a hole in the ground with a bucket of water and a pitcher next to it and NO TOILET PAPER. Basically, I was completely at a loss as to what to do. No toilet paper?? At the time I was living at Pastor's house and it's far enough away that I was not comfortable just leaving the school to walk back and use the toilet. So, I made the most of what was available to me. And let me tell you, I learned my lesson. I began carrying a ziplock baggie with toilet paper and a mini bottle of Purell (because there wasn't any soap either, which if you ask me is a bit unsettling). Of course, this has not stopped me from getting caught in town a couple of times and having to use the toilet at the "supermarket" much to the same end as at school (except that there was soap!!). Thus, I now find that my toilet baggie and I are quite frequent companions (especially if I am traveling anywhere).
But, then the question is, what do you do if you run out of toilet paper at your house and aren't able to get to town for a few days to get more? Well, my friends, in that case, you use whatever you can scrounge up around the house: some small purse-sized packets of kleenex given to you by a friend, some napkins left over from a dinner party, or well, you "Tanzania-it" with the bucket of water.

Well, I hope this has given you some laughs, and maybe I've managed to disgust you just a bit. The truth is, this is a rather short, and really not overly terrible, list of experiences. You never know what's going to come up here and what's not going to be available when you need/want it. The honest truth of the matter is that most of the time, I just go without whatever it is and accept that it's part of life here. And, although it may not be considered ideal, it's not nearly as terrible as it may sound. There are so many things that we deem "essential" in America, but really life can be quite fine and enjoyable without them. So many people who have said to me "I could never do what you're doing!!" But, after having all these experiences, I'm pretty convinced that they could. The thing is, my life is full of uncertainties here: will the electricity be on, will the water be on, will I wake up tomorrow sick with Malaria, can I really force myself to eat rice and beans AGAIN, etc? But you learn that there are ways for dealing with and preparing for those situations. You fill up the water buckets while the water is on. You make sure everything gets charged up while the electricity is on. You learn to accept the fact that you actually have food. And you get really creative or just go without. I hope that you'll take a few moments to think about what you "can't live without" and ask yourself if those things really are essential to you life, or if you could live without them after all.

May the Lord Bless You and Keep You,
~Christine

Madam! Squeeze!!

Sooo, Kjirstin and I have a problem with our little language learners. It's not a big problem, just a little one syllable, seven letter word: "squeeze". Now, what, might you ask, is the matter with the word squeeze? I mean, so far as I'm aware there's no bad connotations to speak of (yet at least). The problem, dear friends, is how the kids use it. If I'm standing in front of the board, and I'm blocking their view of the board, kids will call out "Madam! Squeeze!" It makes me laugh to think of myself attempting to make my body smaller so that I can appease the children and return their view of the board to them.

Honestly, I’m not sure where this idea of using “squeeze” instead of “move” originated, but it seems to be quite common. So, Kjirstin and I have decided to do something about it. If a student says “Madam! Squeeze!!” instead of “Madam! Please move!”, we will squeeze the kids. And by this, I mean, we give them a big bear hug. It’s led to some pretty comical situations in class. The kids all take it in good fun and no ones seems to be abusing the privilege of getting hugs from the madams! 

The other day, I was in Class V, and I was attempting to teach the students about how to write using complete sentences. I've decided that this is a most important feat to accomplish at the beginning of the year and hopefully my efforts will carry on throughout the year. We had already talked about not starting sentences with because (this is a BIG issue here) and how each sentence has to have a verb and a subject. We were beginning our lesson on to the importance of putting punctuation marks (such as full stops, question marks, or exclamation points) at the end of our sentences. We discussed when to use each kind of punctuation and then I wrote some sentences on the board that were missing ending punctuation. I called out the different types of punctuation and had the students raise their hands for the one they thought was correct. It turned into quite the game and the students stood up and cheered if they got the answer correct. Normally, I wouldn't allow so much noise in the class, but I was excited that the students were so excited (and about punctuation of all things!!). So, I went ahead and let them cheer and clap, but then as soon as I held up my hand to quiet them down, they would get quiet. It was really funny how quickly it all started and then stopped so suddenly. The best was when one of my students who struggles the most was the only one to guess the correct answer (exclamation point) and then stood up and started dancing right there in the middle of class. 

But, the fun didn't end there. I was writing some independent work onto the board for the kids when all of a sudden I heard those infamous words "Madam! Squeeze!" Immediately, I turned around and found the perpetrator. I went over to her desk and asked her to stand and much to the joy of my other students, I squeezed her. Not five minutes later another students blurted "Madam! Squeeze!" I knew who it was when I turned around and saw the look of horror on her face. So, I waltzed over to her seat and squeezed her. It was a GREAT day!! :D

In other news of the week, one of Pastor Umba's younger sisters passed away this week. So, if you could please join me in prayer for him and his family, that would be awesome! Also, we received news that Nathan got a bad case of malaria down at his secondary school and missed 3 days of classes. Pastor left yesterday to visit Nathan and Kjirstin and I made a card to send with him. The only way to describe this card is showing you the pictures of it. Seriously, I think we had a little bit too much fun making it. I sure hope it cheers him up a little bit! :D

When Nathan was here, we used to make him do arm curls with the bag of freshly filled water bottles
while we were walking back home after dinner at Pastor's house.

A Kilimanjaro water bottle! :D

Here are some new pictures from school! 

We have a lot of kids this year, and we have had to get a lot of new desks.
Here are some of the class III students moving desks

Kjirstin teaching the students about taking pulses in Science Class

That's all of my exciting news for today! I hope you had a wonderful week and are having a restful weekend!

May the Lord Bless You and Keep You,

~Christine

Hit the Ground Running

Honestly, there is no other way to describe the start of this school year. Since the start of school on Monday, I have been swept up in a whirlwind of activity. The Head Teacher wants Class VII to finish all of their units by June so that they can spend more time "revising" before they take their national exams in September. This puts a lot of pressure on us teachers to keep the kids moving and on the kids to keep up with us. But, we are moving right along in English and I hope that we'll be able to get at least most (like 3/4's) of the way done before I leave in June. That's my goal at least, though I'd say it's pretty lofty when I think about how much we'll have to cram in. I made sure that the kids knew what to expect for this year and that it was going to be a tough year for them. But, so far they seem motivated to keep up (we'll see how long it keeps up though).

My main goal right now is to re-establish myself in the classroom as a teacher who should be taken seriously. I want the kids to know that if they're not following through with their classwork or homework, they will be punished. I'm making a pointed effort to collect homework first thing in the morning and follow up with kids who have not completed classwork. I'm not sure how well this will hold up, but it's always easier (and better) to start the year more strict and then ease up as the year progresses. Thus, I've been very busy "laying down the law" so to speak, but hopefully the returns will be worth all the extra effort now.

One advantage that I have this year is that I've already taught my materials before. Thus, I can spend more time establishing the classroom  so it's just a matter of doing it again except better. I've already begun to implement the changes that I mentioned a few posts ago. So far, I've had a lot of success with the homework and I hope that this will continue throughout the course of the year. Of course, with me really following through now, I expect that we won't have problems. Also, the idea of doing vocabulary lists each week and having a test on Fridays has been an excellent idea. We had our first test yesterday and it was very successful (out of classes VI and VII combined, only about 4-5 got a 0/5  or 1/5 which is a pretty good success rate I'd say!).

This week was mostly review of concepts that were learned last year. Class V really emphasized telling time, so Class VI had a big review of that. They really struggled with time last year, but this year we have a big advantage! Kjirstin brought a whole set of individual paper clocks for the kids to work with! Also, there are 3 large "teacher clocks". We had a BLAST telling time together and by the end of our period, I could tell that there was definite improvement. I never thought that they couldn't do it, but the concepts never clicked until now. (and praise God that they have!)  Here are some pictures of us working with our clocks:

As fun as review is, I'm really looking forward to next week's activities. We're going to be discussing how to write complete sentences in addition to tenses and other common problems. Writing in complete sentences is a particularly MAJOR problem with all of my students as they hate taking the time to write in complete sentences. I mean, I won't lie, I hated when my teachers required that I write in complete sentences. But once I got to college, I really appreciated the fact that they did not give up on me and kept pushing. So, I have vowed to do the same. I will push and push, and then push some more until they learn this skill!! Hopefully, they will look back one day and thank me for making them do things they hated. Even Nathan said that when he got to pre-form I, he was very grateful for all of the things that I taught him at Wesley (especially vocabulary and writing in complete sentences). That really gave me some encouragement!! :D

To conclude, I will leave you with some pictures of me hand washing clothes for your enjoyment!! :D

I hope you all have had a wonderful week and are having a wonderful weekend!!

May the Lord Bless You and Keep You,
~Christine

One Year in Tanzania

Wow!! This has been on my mind a LOT lately: the fact that I've been coming up to my one year anniversary in Morogoro, Tanzania. So, maybe it's not seven years in Tibet (if you've never seen that movie, it's really good), but honestly, it hardly feels like it could possibly be true. I mean, I just got here, right?? I'm still figuring so much of it all out (though, I have come a long way since my arrival). But, I don't think my calendar is lying and officially, one year ago yesterday I landed in DAR, and one year ago today, I arrived in Morogoro full of anticipation and excitement!

I often think back to when I first arrived in Tanzania. I was so excited because I had been dreaming of doing something like this since God placed this vision in my heart at a Jars of Clay concert when I was only about 12 or 13 years old. Before I left, I compared my experience to Rapunzel from the movie Tangled. She had dreamed of seeing the floating lights for years and years. But, when she finally got to the moment, she was so afraid that it wasn't going to be everything that she had dreamed that it would be. And, if it was everything she had dreamed it would be, she had no idea what to do next because that had been her goal for so many years. I could easily say that before coming here, I had those same worries. However, having lived here for a year now, I can safely say that my experience has far exceeded my wildest dreams and I have little fear of the next step in life (graduate school).

When I left the states, I thought that I was prepared, but really there's nothing that can fully prepare you for an experience like this. When I arrived, I had no friends here, I knew I was going to be the only mzungu (foreigner) at my site, I didn't know a word in Swahili (except Maji), I had never been to a third world country before much less lived in one. I knew that I had to meet Pastor Umba, whom I had not formally met before, and I was so afraid that he wouldn't be at the airport when I arrived. But, praise God he was there!! When I explained my arrival to a fellow missionary about how I came here, she told me that I was very brave. My response to that was: "Maybe. I was either very brave or very stupid!" Of course, bravery or stupidity placed aside, when presented with a challenge of this magnitude, the only choices are to sink or swim. So, I called out to God and trusted Him that by His amazing grace He would hold me up above the crashing waves. And, has He ever done so!

When I arrived, I was so unsure of so many things (even the most simplistic things). For example, how was I supposed to greet others? And, was it considered OK for me to sit out in the living room area to read, or did I have to do that in my own room? Was I expected to help with cooking at Pastor's house? How in the world do you wash clothes well by hand? Where do I buy groceries? How much does a daladala ride cost? And so much more. I have had some wonderful guides through the culture including the Pastor and his family, teachers at the school, other members of the church and surrounding community, and other missionaries. I'm so thankful for the people that God has placed in my life here to help me through my struggles as I come to understand this culture that I have been presented with. It's been a very rough road, and I've struggled with everything from loneliness, to language ineptitude (which I'm still working on ;) ), to cultural frustrations, and even being robbed. But, it's never got to the point where I regretted coming here. In the midst of all of the struggles, I can see that God is making a beautiful thing out of Tanzania and out of me. I've had so many incredible experiences with my students at school, members of our church and community, and other missionaries to count. It's overwhelming, and I often wonder how a person can experience so many new things and change so much in one year alone. I guess in a way, I've been like a baby. I came knowing so little and I've grown so much into the Tanzanian life. Maybe you could call now call me a "child of Tanzania", but I wouldn't be able to accept anymore than that. There's still so much that I don't understand, and I have so much still to learn. So, for now, I take my God's hand and I say "bring it on"! :D

In honor of my one-year celebration, here, in no particular order, are some highlights from photos that I've posted to my blog during my time in Tanzania. Honestly, the photos are but a small reflection of the big picture of what has happened here in Morogoro over the past year. A photo cannot capture the emotions a person feels or the growth that takes place in a person over time. But, they do serve as a reminder of those things and I hope that it gives you, my readers, an appreciation of what God is doing here.

Wesley Primary School

Pastor's House

The house Kjirstin and I are living at currently

My hand-washed clothes

Making chapati

Cooking preparations for the Class VII graduation

Cooking set-up from when I was living at the pastor's house.

Cooking eggs with our new kerosene jiko

Recorders with Class VII

Playing frisbee with fellow missionaries

Visit to Agape Children's Village

Making balloon dogs at school with the visiting missionary team

Visit to a Masai village

Mikumi National Park

Visiting missionary team member and church members

Language School 

Class V singing at the Class VII graduation 

English Choir

Teaching Music and English

Field trip to Bagamoyo

Church Youth Service

Visit to Day Spring Orphanage

Mountain hike to Bondwa with my Swahili tutor

I leave you all with my deepest appreciation for reading my blogs over the past year. It means so much to see how many views I've received at the end of each month, and now the total views have far exceeded 3,000!! Your support of my mission is valuable and reminds me that people do care about what God's doing in other places in the world. Also, any financial support you would be willing to offer is greatly appreciated as I still have a ways to go in funding my last six months of work here. If you want to know more about how to donate, please click the icon at the top that is labeled "How to Donate".

May the Lord Bless You and Keep You,
~Christine

Teaching Resolutions

It's now the beginning of our last week of break before the new school year begins. Beginning today the teachers are returning to school to make preparations for the new school year. We have begun making our "teaching schemes" for each of our classes. This is basically an outline of the material that we must cover for the year and the order in which we are going to teach it. I'm not sure how useful it will be for me since I know that we're going to get off schedule no matter what I write down now. At least I've taught the material once before, so I know what subjects the students are bound to struggle with and which ones we will probably fly through. Overall, I anticipate a successful year (or, well, half year since I will leave in June so I can begin my graduate studies).

As I am making this teaching schemes, I'm trying to think over what I did last year and how I can improve my quality of teaching for this year. Last year, I stuck very close to the book, mostly because I had almost NO idea what I was doing. By that, I mean that I have no formal training in teaching English (my undergraduate is in music education), much less how to teach English as a second language. But, never fear, last year was quite successful, and as I posted before, all of our class VII students were placed into public secondary schools. By the end of the year, I had branched out a bit and had added words of the day, journal activities, and reading activities. But, I want to be able to make those more effective for this year.

Soooo, I've decided that I'm going to re-vamp my ideas. Here are some teacher's resolutions that I've made to based on my experiences this past year so that I can be a more effective teacher!

My first resolution is to change my approach to vocabulary. Last year, I really enjoyed starting with the word of the day because it got the class quieted down. But, then I started adding in journals and reading out-loud to the students. Altogether, those activities can take up a significant amount of time. So, instead of doing a word each day, we're going to do a short list of words each week. The students already know what I expect from their sentences for their words of the day, so I'll have them write those for homework instead of in-class. I think this will save class time for other activities. Also, if I give out the word list on Mondays, that will give the students multiple days to study and prepare for a short vocabulary quiz each week. Previously, I always felt bad giving the kids a quiz on the words of the day because I felt like they didn't have enough time to study some of the words and too much time to study others.

Another thing I want to change about this year: I want to incorporate more outside materials. I did get better at this as the past year went on, but I didn't wander too far away from the book. We've now got quite a few new resources that Kjirstin brought with all kinds of activities for English class. Also, I have some stuff that people donated to me to use in the classroom (though, not as much since I asked more for chapter books). I'm really excited about being able to incorporate these resources and activities so that I can "energize" my teaching!

My final resolution is to incorporate homework into my teaching. I tried to assign English homework last year, but not very successfully. I would frequently forget to give the students the homework assignment. And, because the homework assignments were so sporadic and randomly given, I had trouble getting the students to actually do it. But, this year, I've decided that I'm going to give homework Mon-Thus. (I decided that it would be nice to give them a break over the weekend). Although I may choose to give homework specific to the material we are covering in class, I mostly want the homework to be about tenses. This is something that the students really struggle with and I want them to have as much practice with it as possible. I think that a having daily tense assignments will help them overcome problems that they face with this specific part of English.


Well, there you have it! Like all people who make new year's resolutions, we shall see if these resolutions will actually carry through throughout the year. I hope that they will since I think they're rather reasonable and easy to incorporate into my classes!

Well, that's about all I've got for now. I'm coming up to the anniversary for my first year in Tanzania, so stay tuned for a blog about that later this week.

I hope you are having a great week!
May the Lord Bless You and Keep You,
~Christine

Happy Holidays!

Well, I'm back from my trip with my sister now. Overall, it was a good trip and it was nice to be with at least part of my family for Christmas. But, it was also a very exhausting trip and I'm glad to be back at my home in Morogoro now and have some time to rest up and prepare for the start of the new school year on January 14.

Here's a picture of my sister and I from our trip:

Before I get into my recent adventures, I have the most exciting news of the year 2012 to share with you. The results of the Class VII examination have come back and 100% of my students were placed into public secondary schools!!!! I am ecstatic!! This is the result of the amazing work that God is doing in this place through myself and other missionaries. It's so exciting to see that our efforts are producing results that are changing the lives of children here in Tanzania. I know that not all of my students are going to go to the public schools that they were accepted into because their parents would rather them go to private schools. But, this opens the opportunity for all of them to go!! Bwana asifiwe!! (Praise God)

Now, I will update you on the goings on here in Morogoro:

So before I left for my trip with my sister, I did a few things here in Morogoro. At my students' request, I visited Day Spring Orphanage again. This time I brought a craft activity for them to do. We made paper candy canes by drawing stripes on square pieces of paper and then rolling the paper around pencils and pens and taping off the ends. The kids had a really fun time making them and I got to explain the significance of the candy cane at Christmas. The kids were not very familiar with candy canes as some had only seem them previously in western movies or other media, so it was cool to be able to teach them something new. I told them that they should use the candy canes that they made to decorate their orphanage or that they could even hang them on the Christmas tree at their church. Afterwards, I had brought some movies, so we watched those together.

Here are some pictures of the kids making their candy canes!! :D

After visiting the orphanage, I walked to a friend's house so I could go through her closet so I could borrow some warmer clothes for my trip. Unfortunately, Tanzania's weather is not very conducive for wearing jeans and long sleeves, so I didn't have anything very appropriate to take with me. Luckily, I was able to borrow some things that fit me decently enough!

Also, before I left, I was able to visit Baba Sesi and his family. His wife just had a baby and I wanted to go to congratulate them on the new addition to their family. At the time he was less than a week old, but you would never have guessed that from his size. I have to say that it was really cool getting to hold that newborn baby. But, I will admit that when it comes to babies, I'm rather lost as to what to do. With kids you can play with them, joke with them, chase them around; all kinds of stuff. And they LOVE it!! For me, kids are so easy to handle. But, it seems like babies just don't really do much of anything. LOL!!



After I returned from my trip (and Kjirstin returned from hers), it seems that life has rocketed forward. We arrived back in Morogoro together on Sunday evening. Kjirstin had some issues with her initial flight being canceled and getting a new flight. In the course of it all, her baggage got left in Kenya, and we had to arrange to have it shipped to Morogoro the next day. Let me tell you, from the moment I found out this was what was going to happen, I was praying with everything in me that it would arrive without problem. Much to our relief, it came in rather good shape and we were able to get it without problem. It was very lucky for us because the luggage contained a number of resources for us to use at the school. Mostly, they're good for math, English, and religion. We got to go through all of the stuff on Monday and I'm really excited about everything that we've now got to work with! I hope that we will be able to teach the other teachers how to use the materials and they'll be able to incorporate them into the curriculum to help the students (especially in math).

Monday evening, some of our missionary friends threw a New Year's Eve party, so Kjirstin and I joined them. It was a really fun and relaxing time. Although I do go to frisbee and the prayer service every week, I realized that I don't really get much time to just be with the other missionaries and talk about stuff. So, I really enjoyed having that time to just chill out and be together. Here are some pictures from the party:

Stephanie holding our New Year's Eve Ball!! :D
(since we didn't get to see the one in Times Square drop) 

That night, Kjirstin and I stayed in town at a friend's apartment so that we wouldn't have to go home so late. We ended up staying up a bit late talking even though we knew we were going to have an early morning. We had arranged to do a hike up the mountain to a place called Morning Site (or maybe it's Morning Side. Honestly, I hear people saying both, so I never know). Morning Site (Side) is basically the site of an old Lutheran Church and offers a very nice view of Morogoro town. We have some friends whose guard lives on the mountain and he agreed to be our guide for a nominal fee. It was honestly a beautiful day for hiking and I really enjoyed myself. I love hiking in mountains a whole lot. Being on a mountain makes me feel like I'm so grounded to the earth, but like I'm flying all at the same time. If it was possible, I would probably climb the mountain every week!
For me, I've been on the mountain multiple times, but this was the first time for both Kjirstin and Shantelle. I think that they both really enjoyed the climb, but the path was quite steep and challenging in some places. Our guide was very kind and took whatever speed was necessary for all of us to keep up. He doesn't speak much English, so we were able to get a lot of practice with our Swahili. I really surprised myself with my ability to communicate and understand. I did have to refer to Shantelle a few times for help, but for the most part, I was able to understand the majority of what he said and get my own points across. I even found that by the end of the hike my Swahili was flowing a bit more naturally instead of having so many breaks in it.
We saw all kinds of things on our hike. We passed many farms which were growing bananas (ndizi), beans (maharagwe), cabbage (kebege), and other things. We also saw people out tending their farms and people carrying their goods down the mountain to town to sell their goods. We bought some bananas from an older woman and some strawberries from a couple of guys. It continues to amaze me what people have to do in order to make a living here! Can you imagine climbing up and down a mountain multiple days a week just to sell your goods or go to town to buy supplies??
Once we reached our destination, we sat for a while and rested, just enjoying the view. I wandered about the old church and took pictures of it. I'm not sure if they're still using it (I should have asked), but it's a pretty old building and seems like it's seen better days. But, I wouldn't be surprised if it was still in use. While we were up there, we were give a book where we were to sign our names, where we lived, and our profession. It was really fun to go back through the list and find the names of friends who climbed to that site before us.
We took a different route on the way back down (thus we made a big loop). It was a much steeper route which turned out to be a bit dangerous for the return trip. At one point, the path was wet because of irrigation to a farm and Kjirstin ended up slipping and rolling down the mountain a bit. Luckily, she stopped quickly enough, but still got quite a few scratches on her legs and arms. Fortunately, I had my little first aid baggie that I always bring with me on hikes and trips here in Tanzania (just in case). It includes Neosporin and a number of bandaids. I also had my bathroom baggie which includes toilet paper and anit-bacterial. Thus, we had enough stuff to get her cleaned up enough to return.
Overall, the trip was successful and we all made it there and back without major difficulties. Honestly, it was a great way for me to start off the New Year!! :D

I took SOO many pictures of the hike, but I'll just share a few of them here for you to see:

A look back at Morogoro Town

Costa, our guide, Kjirstin, and me

Buying strawberries from some guys!

The Lutheran Church at our final destination

In the end, I was fine, but the other girls were pretty tired. LOL!! :D

Cabbage

Bananas!

Well, that's all I've got for now! School doesn't start until January 14th, but it seems that there's plenty of things to keep Kjirstin and I busy until it does. Nathan is back from his pre-form one and Pastor Umba's oldest daughter is also in town with her daughter who is just a few months old. This is in addition to Lauren and Danny (also two of Pastor's children) and their cousin. Thus, we've got one full house and it's been a lot of fun!!

I hope that you all have also had a wonderful holiday season and that you are excited for what this New Year will bring! :D

May the Lord Bless You and Keep You,
~Christine