Unlike the bus ride to Ilula, we had a thankfully uneventful journey. When we arrived in Dodma, it was early afternoon. The pastor of the Dodoma church was not there, so we waited outside for a short time until he arrived. When he did arrive, we hopped into the taxi and made our way to his house.
Before arriving at the site, I knew that it was a less developed site than the one I'm at in Morogoro and certainly less than the one in Ilula. But, I was not expecting what we arrived at. There is one building which serves as the pastor's home, the church, and a pre-school. The pastor has seven kids, the oldest being in her second year of secondary school, and his wife which are living at their house. There's no running water and no electricity at their site. The living-room where we sat to eat our second lunch (I say this because Kjirstin and I had packed lunches which we ate on the bus) was no bigger than my current bedroom in Morogoro. After lunch, the pastor brought us around to the other side of the building to see the church/pre-school before making our way to the guest house where we would be staying.
On Saturday afternoon, Kjirstin and I had a lot of time for resting at the Guest House near the church. In the evening, the pastor returned and we all enjoyed cokes and talked together. The pastor does not have very good English, so I was pulling out my own Swahili left and right. I must say that I rather impressed myself and was able to carry on a pretty decent conversation. Afterwards, we went back to his house for dinner and to meet friends and church members. Again, I had the chance to whip out as much Swahili as I could. It was really exhausting, however, because I had to concentrate so much on what was being said and what the correct response should be.
On Sunday morning, we had breakfast at the pastor's house and then we all went to Sunday School and church together. No one translated the Sunday School lesson for us, so I just kind of sat there and did my best to listen and see if I could understand anything; I couldn't. After Sunday School, the service started. I was rather amazed at the church service. There was so much dancing and singing. It was far more upbeat than any service I've ever been to. The guy who was leading the singing was doing all kinds of crazy dances. He was shaking his knees, kicking his legs up the in air. At some points, he was even down on the ground, scooting himself around. There were some girls who had a coordinated dance going in the middle, and the kids had their own dance line going. It was seriously quite amazing!! All the choirs sang and they even asked me to sing a solo. I was so embarassed. I am classically trained and I don't feel like people here appreciate that very much. I would sing a Swahili song, but I just don't know the Swahili songs well enough to sing them on my own. I still have to listen pretty hard to get all of the words in when we're singing at church. After a long period of praise and having my ears blasted out by their sound system, we had the sermon, which thankfully someone translated.
After the main service ended, they had a special time to welcome Kjirstin and I to their church. They read a letter to us asking for financial support to get the water and electricity and then the ladies presented us with new Khangas (wrap skirts) as a gift from Dodoma. (I'm actually wearing my new khanga now as I type this blog!!) To get both water and electricity for the church would total somewhere around $500 USD, but that's a hard thing for people who have almost nothing to come up with on their own. If anyone is interested in helping, please email me (you can find my email by clicking on the "contact me" button at the top of the page).
Here are some pictures from church:
In the afternoon, I went to Dodoma University with my friend Mary from the United Methodist Church here. When I first arrived in Morogoro, she was the one who invited me to play netball with some other girls a couple afternoons a week and I went a few times. Over the past year, I've talked to her a lot at church, but recently, she is left for Dodoma to get her bachelor's degree. She wants to be a translator and the Lord has opened up an opportunity to study at the Dodoma Univeristy. However, this is still very challenging for her because she must live far away from her husband and her daughter who is very young. So far, I am the first person who has visited her, and I think that it made her very happy that I was able to come. She showed me the dorm room which she is sharing with 3 other girls. The dorms are very nice (even nicer than some of the dorms I toured at schools in the US) and I enjoyed meeting everyone and laughing and joking with them.
In the evening I returned to the church and the pastor's house for dinner. After dinner, we visited the home of some church members and talked with them. I was pretty exhausted from using so much Swahili, but luckily their oldest son is in Form 6 at Secondary School and was able to translate for us. They wanted to know all kinds of things about the US, even some things that I would consider strange. Such as: is professional wrestling real or not? And: is CocaCola a big company in the US? All in all, it was a good visit, but I was glad when we got to return to the guest house and have some time to just speak English!!
We weren't able to leave on Sunday afternoon because of the bus situation. So, we spent the night Sunday night and visited the pre-school on Monday morning before returning to Morogoro. It was a good weekend, but a bit stressful because I was forced to use so much Swahili. I am thankful for it, though, because I can see I'm getting better and my vocabulary is expanding. I know I only have a few months left, but I know I will leave with a sense of accomplishment in this area of my life here!!
I hope that you're having a great weekend!!
May the Lord Bless You and Keep You,
~Christine
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