Funny Litle Tidbits

So, I thought I would share some funny little tidbits with y'all that I hope will make you laugh.

So, aside from being asked if I was Celin Dion, or someone else famous, I receive a lot of attention because I am white. When I am walking by myself, (usually because I'm going to the International School), the people will call out "mzungu, mzungu" which means "white person". Hahaha!! Can you imagine being in America and every time you see someone of a different background, calling it out to them? "Black person!", "Hispanic person!", "Arab!", "Asian!". Haha. Also, it's particularly interesting to pass a particular place (I'm assuming they make bricks there because there are so many bricks laid out on the ground and piled up), but the will call out "I LOVE YOU!" I'm not really sure how to respond to that....LOL. I just smile and wave to be polite and then keep walking.

The next thing that makes me smile (and I wrote about this on facebook), but it's so funny at school how all of the children call me "madam". They are so well trained that as I enter the classroom and student will call "stand up" and then all of the students will stand up and say "We are standing up. Good morning Madam." And to that, my response is "Good morning class, how are you?" Then they say "We are fine, thank you. And, how are you?" to which I respond "I am fine. Thanks
you. You may sit down". And, anytime they want my attention they call "Madam!", "Madam!", "Madam!" On Friday, the students get to play sports, so I was playing frisbee with some of the students and any time they wanted to throw the frisbee to me or wanted me to throw it to them they would call "Madam! Over here!" It makes me smile! :D

Well, just a little update on my life here. This morning the family went to a funeral or ceremony for someone in the church who had a brother who had passed away. Although I was invited to join them, I felt funny about doing so seeing as I did not know the family or the man who passed away. I just hope that didn't communicate the wrong message that I don't care or something. I don't know...I think I would've felt funny either way, going or not going.
So, I read a bunch this morning and cleaned my room. You wouldn't believe how much dirt has accumulated on the floor (and then, maybe you can). After cleaning, I read for a while. I'm SOOO glad that I brought my Kindle with me. It really makes things so much easier because it doesn't take up very much space and I can download books whenever I want to!! This afternoon, Nathan and I watched Howl's Moving Castle after lunch and then I read some more. At quarter to 4, the pastor and I went to town where we made a few purchases. I have really wanted to buy a dress that is similar to what the locals wear. I didn't bring very much clothing (not even enough for one week really because I sweat so much that I don't like to wear my skirts more than once before washing them), so it's nice to have something else to add to the wardrobe. Funny enough, the majority of the clothes that I brought are blue or orange and the dress that I bought is blue. So, I guess it fits right in, but I'm feeling like I need some more color in my wardrobe. many of the women seem to just purchase stretches of fabric and wrap it around themselves, so I might see into buying something like that. They have such BEAUTIFUL fabrics here and I would like to have a couple things that are so colorful to wear. Pastor and I also went to visit the house of a child who has not shown up to school for the first two weeks and he wanted to see if everything was OK. She lives in old Morogoro which is a much more run-down looking area because it is older. The houses are much smaller and it kind of made me sad to think about children who grow up there as opposed to nicer areas, or really compared to kids in America. Idk, it just got me thinking a lot.
On the way back, I had to stop and pick up some more internet vouchers because I used up the package that I had bought already (I think it's because I had to download some things, such as the Rosetta Stone Program, and I bought some books off Kindle, and I think that used up a lot of the internet usage I had purchased). However, now that Matt has told me how to work the internet, I feel much better because now it only costs me about 10,000 Tsh for about 1 week's worth of internet. So, somewhere around $6. I guess that's not too bad?

Well, I guess I'm going to wrap this post up now!! Church tomorrow!! :D

"Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life." Psalm 23:6

May the LORD bless you and keep you,
Christine

Random Musings of a Tanzania Missionary

Ok, so I just have to start by saying that it is SOOOO crazy to me that I post these blogs and then everyone reads them. I know that I shouldn't be surprised (because I know you all love me and are interested in what I'm doing), but it's still hard to wrap my head around it. In my mind, I am just an average person following the call that God has placed before me. I was thinking about this the other day because one of the teachers asked me if I was Celin Dion. HAHAHAHA!! She pretty much pulled out a book and pointed to the picture and asked if that was me. I tried to tell her no, that I was just an average person, but she flipped to another page and pointed to a picture and asked if that was me. Once again, I tried to explain that I was just an average person from America and finally she understood that I was a missionary.

Although the whole scenario made me laugh to myself, it made me think about who I am and why am I here. I am just an average person. I laugh, I cry, I complain, I say mean things, I am capable of so many good things and so many bad things all at once. I need food and water to survive and when I am hurt I bleed just like everyone else. The only true thing that makes me special or in any way extraordinary is God's presence in my life. If it wasn't for Him and the calling and desire that He placed in my life all those many years ago, I would not be here doing this right now. If it wasn't for the way that He perfectly lined up the events in my life, I would not be here right now. Every night, as I am falling asleep, I thank God that He provided me with this opportunity to come here and to do the things that I am doing. Thus, I cannot take any credit, but only reflect all of the praise and glory back to Him. So, for now, I am here, and all I can do is listen to Him and trust Him that He has wonderful plans for me here.

I would like to say that if anyone would like to ask me any questions about my experience so far or about Tanzania specifically, or whatever, I'll be more than willing to answer them as best as I can. Just post your question as a comment and I'll answer when I get on next!! :D

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matthew 28:19-20

Peace, Love, and Blessings
~Christine

End of First Week in Morogoro

Well, today marks the end of my first full week in Morogoro. So far I am loving it!! The family is great, the food is good, the housing situation is good, the teaching gets better every day. While I was running today, I was thinking about how I'm going to be here all the way until June. Right now, that seems like such a long time, but it's only a few months. I'm only just now beginning to make my place here. Soon I will be making real friendships with people and I will have a real sense of belonging here, but that's still coming. Right now, I'm still an outsider.
People stare at me as I walk by and I wonder what they think of me, an upbeat smiling white woman. I especially wonder what they think when I'm walking over to the International School to run (I've only been over there to run twice now-yesterday and today), but I really stand out with my pony tail, wearing my running shorts, t-shirt and running shoes. All the women I pass have short hair, and are wearing long skirts (to their knees or longer) and nice shoes. Although, I was told by the pastor's daughter that it would be fine for me to wear my running clothes out and around, I am very self conscious (more so then I've ever been in my life). Although, I guess I've never had so many people outright stare at me at once.

Well, now that I have rambled on, I've decided for the blog just to walk you through a day in my life here in Morogoro.
During the week, I wake up at 6am. I do my yoga routine for about 30 minutes and then get dressed and have breakfast. Breakfast is 2 pieces of plain, un-toasted bread, with jam on them put together like a sandwich and maybe some hotdogs. (maybe they're sausages, but they look and taste like hot dogs, haha). School starts at 7:30am, and it's only about a five minute walk from the house, so we leave sometime around 7:25. Assembly lasts about 10 minutes and then classes begin at 7:40am. The students stay in their classrooms and the teachers cycle through to teach their respective classes. There are 9 40-minute periods throughout the day in addition to a 20-minute break. I teach only English 5, 6, and 7, so I have plenty of time to sit around and lesson plan and grade. I've had SOOO much grading to do (and it's really my fault for not realizing I had to grade daily). For example, today I spent about 3 1/2 hours grading and only an hour and a half teaching. I was so exhausted after grading so much, but I feel rather accomplished now and on top of things!! YAY!! Right now, though, we get out early (at 1:40pm), but in February, we will have to stay longer to help the students who are struggling and need extra assistance. Thus, there is no lunch break and we eat lunch when we get home.
After lunch, (at least this has been so for the last few days) I have been making strong efforts to get my laundry done. It takes a while because you really have to scrub the clothes in the soapy water, then you have to rinse them in the clean water (which you have to trade out occasionally because it gets too soapy), and then you have to wring them out and hang them on the clothes line. Each day I got about 1/3 of the laundry done and it took about 45 minutes - 1 hour each time. You may thinking that I brought too much laundry, but really I did not. I only have about 5 skirts and about 15 tops (including my running shirts and t-shirts) in addition to my towels, bras, and underpants (which yes, they get hung out on the line too for everyone to see...oh well, haha). I haven't even worn everything yet and yet it still feels like it takes me FOREVER!!! I takes a whole day for the laundry to dry, so I bring the laundry in at night in case it rains and then hang it out again in the morning. After laundry, I exercise (either karate in my room or running at the International School). Then, I return to my room where I blog, read, journal, skype, or whatever else I feel like doing. Dinner is around 8:30/9pm-ish and I am always starving by then (I'm soooo glad that I brought some granola bars and Luna bars with me. I wish I had brought more!!!! Someone please send me some!! HAHA!!!!) After dinner, a member of the family reads two chapters from the Bible (someone different every night. Tonight is my night!!) and then discusses what it means to them. Then we pray together and go to bed at about 10:30pm. Of course, I still have to shower and lock down my room (meaning locking all the doors, moving one of the heavy chairs in front of my front door and closing the curtains to the windows. Also, I lock up all of my "important things" in my backpack and sleep with the keys tied around my waist. I'm not too afraid of anyone breaking in and taking anything (although the household helper did run away the other night, so I'm being extra cautious). There are so many safety measures that the family takes: they have multiple doors with multiple locks in addition to the locked gate outside. Also, there is a night guard. I'm not sure that anyone could get it (knock on wood) if they tried. By the time I finally go to sleep under my bug net, I am exhausted and promptly pass out. Just more for your information, not that you probably care too much, but I don't sleep with any sheets because it is so warm here. It's summer and the weather is a lot like summer in Louisiana: VERY hot and VERY humid (although it's not so humid as Dar es Salaam) and there is no air conditioning. It's actually not as bad as it sounds because there's almost always a breeze.

Well, that is a day in my life here in Morogoro! Hope you are having a wonderful week and have many exciting things planned for your weekend!!

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the filed grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?...Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:28-31 & 34

Love, peace, and blessings,
~Christine

Teaching In Morogoro

Well, today I have finished my second day of teaching at the Wesley Primary School here in Morogoro. Here is a picture of the school. (of course I will have more pictures and ones with kids in them before long!)

Teaching English has not been too bad of an experience so far. I have my lesson plans made up through Friday and I am set to go. The students are very shy and it's hard to get them to speak up in class, but I think that with time, they will become more comfortable with me. The most successful activities that I've done have been speaking in pairs and completing written activities. However, I did not realize that I would need to grade their work EVERY day, so I'm a little bit behind in that. By the end of today, I will have finished grading Class 6's work. Hopefully by tomorrow I will have caught up with Class 7 (which only has 10 students), so that shouldn't be too bad. However, Wednesdays are my heaviest days. Instead of only teaching 1 period of English for classes 5, 6, and 7, I have to teach 2 periods each (so 6 classes total). But, I have high hopes for being able to get everything I need to done. Before I know it, I'll have my definite routine down and things will run more smoothly.
Yesterday, Nadina and Nathan brought me to the International School where I will be able to run in the afternoons. Today will be my first day running in over a week and I am SOOOOOOOO excited!!! We also went into town and hiked up to the Rock Garden. However, we got to the rock garden too late, so we decided to save our money and pay to visit it sometime over the weekend.

It looks gorgeous from what I could see, and I'm very excited to go. We hiked a little further up the mountain after the rock garden before heading back. Here's a picture of where Nathan and I raced up to the white fence before turning back.

Last night was rather uneventful, until it was time to take a shower. Oh my gosh, I've never seen so many tiny flying bugs in the same space at one time. Not sure where they came from, but were probably a product of all the rain we has yesterday morning. Anyways, They were all over the walls, the ceiling, the sink, the toilet, my room, the floor. I took the fastest shower I could manage because they kept landing on me and it was terrible!!! I couldn't wait to get into bed and under my bug net after all of that. This morning, I woke up and most of them were dead. I should've taken a picture because it was the craziest sight you've ever seen. The bathroom floor was littered with their little dead bodies. I swept it up as best as I could this morning, but had to sweep again this afternoon because some had still been alive in the morning and were dead by afternoon. I'm just glad they didn't last too long.

Today teaching was better, but of course it will continue to get better as I settle into a routine and learn all of the requirements for the school. This afternoon, it's raining and I'm guess I'm glad I haven't left to go run yet because it would not be fun to get caught in a storm. However, I hope that I don't have a bug problem again. *sigh* I do have to say that was quite a traumatic experience.

Well, I'm going to leave things here for now. Here are some pictures of the pastor's house and my bedroom/bathroom(sans thousands of dead bugs)/closet.

Pastor's house. My room is just inside the door on the left side of the building.

 View from outside my door.

 View from the front porch.

 My sitting area (right inside the door). I've been known to open the door (because there's no air conditioning) and sit reading here.

 My bed with the roses some ladies from the church gave me.

 The roses from the ladies of the church.

 My desk and bed covered up by the bug net (aka, the best invention EVER). :D

 My desk.

 My closet is a series of shelves that is 3 high. The bottom level is shoes and my yoga mat, the middle shelf contains the small number of clothes that I brought, and the top shelf is my toiletries/bugspray/first aid kit.

Well, I hope that gives everyone a small peek into my life so far here at Morogoro. In spite of the no air conditioning, the crazy bugs that attack me in the shower, and the rain that wakes me up at 4am, I am very happy and excited to be here. The good things that I have far outweigh the bad and I am looking forward to having a very nice time here. I pray that you are well and that you know that God's walking with you wherever you are.

"The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." Isaiah 58:11

Blessings, love, and peace,
Christine

First Few Days in Morogoro!!!

Well, here I am in Tanzania!!! I’m going to go ahead and pre-write this post so that I will not have to use so many precious minutes online. I just bought some today, but had no idea how quickly those vouchers would be used up! Already I need to go back to the store and purchase more. But, learning takes time and soon I will get the hang of things.

So, in case you didn’t know, I am staying with the pastor and his family. (Although, of his 6 children, only his daughter Nadine and his son Nathan are at home now. The others are either away at school or married and back in the Congo). So far, they have been absolutely wonderful and generous towards me. My room is built off of their home and has a very nice sized bedroom that has a desk and a shelf covered with sheets that serves as a closet. The room has plenty of space for yoga stretching and also practicing karate!!! (YAY!!) A few hanging curtains serve to separate my room for a sitting area where I have spent quite a bit of time reading. The view from the house is absolutely STUNNING!! It looks out at the Uluguru Mountains and they are tall and majestic. Pictures do not do them justice in any way.

Friday was my first day at the school and the pastor introduced me to the head teacher. The head teacher gave me the materials that I would need in order to make my lesson plans so that I could begin teaching on Monday (tomorrow)! The school is very nice, the teachers were very warm in greeting me, and the students are very well behaved. I’m very excited to begin teaching them so soon!! On Fridays, the students get out of school early and have a chance to play sports. As I was sitting outside at the desk where I was making my plans, I was soon surrounded by a bunch of first class girls. They were so shy at first but soon they warmed up to me. We went out onto the playground and joined some other girls playing net ball, which is a popular sport here. However, I had so many children holding my hands that I could barely move, so I was content to just watch the others play.

Yesterday morning, Nadine and I went into town and I was able to exchange my American dollars for Tanzania shillings and also purchase vouchers for the internet (however, obviously I need to buy more). I purchased a 5,000 Tsh card, but that only lasted me about 20 min. Thus, my attempt to skype my family failed miserably, but I will make sure that next time I have enough credits to stay on longer. At least I got to see them and they got to see that I am here and also I showed them a virtual tour of my room.

This morning I went to church with the pastor and his family. It was WONDERFUL!!! The singing was great and upbeat! I hope that once I have been here for a while and become more familiar with the language and songs I will be able to join the choir. This afternoon I read for a while in my little sitting area with the door open. It was wonderful to have the breeze coming in through the doorway and to be able to look out at Tanzania! This afternoon, I went on a walk with Nadine and Nathan around Morogoro. It was such a wonderful afternoon (not nearly as hot as yesterday) and it was nice to be out, walking around. I can’t wait until Nadine shows me how to get to the international school tomorrow. They have a track and I will be able to run finally after a week off!! It feels more like a year!! For now, I must get back to lesson planning because I teach first thing in the morning! School starts at 7:40 am, so I will get up at 6:15am so that I will have enough time to do my morning yoga routine and get dressed and eat before I have to be there.

So far, I am very content to be here, finally! Everyone that I have met has been very kind towards me and I can’t wait to get to know them further during my time here. Words cannot express how grateful I am to be here and how much I know that God is going to bless this time.

"This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalms 118:24

Blessings, love, and peace,

~Christine

First Day in Morogoro

I do not have much time to write now because I will soon run out of pre-paid internet credits that were given to me by the previous missionary teacher. But, I am here in Morogoro and it is AMAZING!! I can't wait to upload pictures because it is absolutely stunning here. The pastor and his family have been so wonderful thus far in helping me get situated. I honestly couldn't have asked for a more fitting assignment.
The school is just a few minutes walk from the pastor's house and it is very nice. Today the pastor introduced me to the head teacher who gave me the materials that I would need to make my lesson plans. I will be teaching classes 5, 6, and 7 and helping them prepare for the exams that they will have to pass in order to enter secondary school. I have already finished the lesson plans for class 6 (equal to grade 6) and have made a nice sized dent in the lesson plans for class 7 (equal to grade 7). The students are enthralled with me and my hair. During the afternoons on Fridays they have a time to play sports. I went out to the play area to try and meet the students and before long I had a huge group of them surrounding me; three of them holding onto each hand. It was amazing!!

I pray that all is well with you and that God blesses your life. Don't be afraid to answer His calls because He will bring you amazing places and show you many wonderful things!

"He has shown you, oh man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before your God." Micah 6:8

Blessings,
~Christine

Goodbye For Now, But Not Forever

Throughout the course of the last week or so, I've been saying good-bye to so many people. I guess in many ways, I've acted as if this trip is goodbye forever. But, it's not really. As my time of departure comes closer and closer, I realize that I'll only be gone for 6 months! Before I know it, I'll be back in the states. So, I guess this means that this is just goodbye for now, not forever. I love you all and pray for God's presence in your lives to show you the path that you are to follow. I also pray for you for the strength to chase after that path, no matter where it may lead or how scary it may seem. God is always with you and He is holding your hand through it all.

Well, I guess the next time I post I will be in Tanzania! Get excited!! Until then, I leave you with this Irish blessing:

"May the roads rise to meet you,
May the winds always be at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of his hand."

With much love,
Christine