Tanzania Tidbits: Day 2

Never has getting to church in a foreign country seemed so easy in theory, only to be so difficult in practice.  I’d carefully written down the information from the Church’s website while in the US, only to discover the addresses were either incomplete, or the phone numbers were wrong or missing a digit.  After engaging the hostel’s staff in the challenge, we managed to find a correct number in the local phone book.  They gave an address, and I was on my way with the taxi driver.  As we turned the corner I could see the steeple and got so excited—the Church’s name was in Swahili, but I recognized the design.  We turned the corner and…the door was locked, the parking lot empty.  The guard came to the door explaining that they were meeting at another building that day—district conference.  What happened during the next half hour I didn’t fully understand until afterwards, but basically the guard’s brother is also LDS so he came and the two of us, along with another member who showed up during the wait, took my taxi all the way to the other chapel across town.  I’m always interested in seeing new sights, but really just wanted to get to church and wasn’t sure I’d brought enough money for the extended trip.  Along the way we passed through a woodcarving district and saw beautiful dressers, bed frames, and even coffins.  A little hard to fit it in the luggage, though.  We also passed many non-LDS churches and it seemed like everyone else was also on their way to church.  Hard to tell sometimes, though, because Tanzanians always seem dressed up, but even more so on Sundays.  The women wear such beautiful dresses and matching skirt-blouse sets.  I tried to find one at the western marketplace on Saturday, but no luck.  As we kept driving I had to ask myself “Why not just attend one of these churches instead?”  The answer came down to the simple fact that I belong to the only church that has the priesthood—the authority to act in God’s name.  These other churches are good and have many truths, but the LDS church has more truth.  We finally arrived at the other chapel and it was so worth it!  Everyone there was so friendly and kindly greeted me.  Just being in a place where they weren’t trying to sell you anything or take advantage of you because you were a foreigner was nice, but worshiping with those who hold your same beliefs was the best.  Everyone in their district is a black Tanzanian, including local leadership, so the only other white folks there were the mission president and his wife, one of his counselors and his wife, and a senior CES missionary couple.  Needless to say, I stood out a bit.  I was grateful the meeting was in English because the talks were excellent and just what I needed before these next few weeks.  Afterwards I met all the leadership and explained my plight.  The senior couple actually lived near my hostel, and drove me home after a brief leadership meeting.  During that interval I meet a few of the youth up near the organ.  Turns out they have a player organ—you enter the hymn number and if you want it to be on the piano or organ, and it plays it for you.  So handy!  The drive back was a great chance to chat with them, and makes me excited to be a senior missionary with my husband someday.

In some ways, this reminds me of parts of India—tiles floors everywhere, the auto rickshaws (“tuk tuks” here), the overcrowded minibuses (“Dala dala”) with slogans on the window, the smell of charcoal and burning trash, roadside stands selling anything imaginable, etc.  Things I haven’t seen as much before—goats and chickens wandering around (no cows spotted until we were outside Dar), open sewers/gutter trenches for the monsoon rains (how did I miss those in India?), and the occasional Masai walking along in their traditional dress.  I’ve learned that in this part of Tanzania (central and southern) they wear purple fabric, and that their dress has nothing to do with income.  Many wear it to remind them of their heritage and are actually well educated.  Tanzanian women’s clothes are gorgeous everywhere, and everyone dressed up so much for whatever church they attended on Sunday in Dar.  They may not have running water in their homes, but they still manage to look immaculate and spotless.  The biggest difference from India is that we don’t have a local family to look after us.  At least I’m not alone.  Julie and I flew in together, and the next night Conrad arrived.  He lived in TZ and taught at Sokoine for a few years, so it’s nice to have him show us around.  The kids we’ve seen are cute and come up to ask, “How are you?” in English before running away.  I tried to learn some Swahili phrases on the last leg of our flight, but being tired didn’t help it sink in.  I can give a polite greeting, say thank you (“Asante”), tell them I’ve come from America, and I think I can ask where’s the bathroom (hopefully something like “Wapi Msalisi”).

After church, I returned to the hostel for a quick lunch with Julie and Conrad before a driver from SUA picked us up to drive us to Morogoro.  Exponentially more expensive than taking the bus, but it seemed necessary before I knew Conrad was coming along and it was still worth it.  As usual, I found it interesting to “read the landscape”—at least when it wasn’t raining so you could actually see it.  They sell everything by the side of the road.  If you can buy it in Tanzania, you can buy it on the street—the biggest surprise, literally, was seeing couches out in the open for sale.  Of course we saw poverty everywhere, but it was interesting to see that it was worse on the outskirts of Dar than in the rural areas, where they seem a little more self-sufficient.  I saw all the typical fruits of the tropics growing:  mostly bananas, but also mangos and papayas.  I saw pineapples for sale hanging by their stem, but not where they were grown.  We also saw where all the charcoal comes from.  The road between Dar and Morogoro was paved within the last 20 years in partnership with the Danish, which opened up the area to more settlement and degradation.  It was sad to see areas decimated in a system you knew couldn’t continue long-term.  Even in the current conditions, it means women spend a significant part of their day collecting firewood, only to waste most of the energy in the wood by burning it down to charcoal.  There has to be a better way.  Even with charcoal, there are efficient ways to produce it and fuel-efficient stoves that can be used, but getting people to accept that may be difficult.  Most of the homes were all built the same way:  stick framework walls filled in with mud, additional mud added and sometimes plastered, with roofs of thatched palm branches or corrugated metal held down with rocks.  Electrical lines ran parallel to the road and over their homes, but none were connected to the grid.  We finally saw cattle with the neck hump like I saw in India and roadside stands selling beautiful stacks of mangos and tomatoes.  Upon our arrival in Morogoro Boniface, our main partner at SUA, greeted us.  He saw us settled into our rooms and arranged for Ned Horning to take us to dinner.  Ned, an American who is there for a year with his Malagasy wife and their two sons took us in their minivan to a popular hangout serving wood-fired pizza called Dragonaires.   Conrad raved about the pizza for weeks before we went, but had to miss it to catch up with an old faculty member he worked with.  The pizza was wood-fired and very good, though I wasn’t up to trying “The Four Seasons”, whose toppings included eggs and olives.  Through Ned, we met several expats there—a Swede who’s opening a horse riding school and training camels to take tourists into the mountains, a Norwegian researcher studying birds, and a few other Norwegians.  Upon returning, we met our neighbors in the guest dorms—Norwegian masters students studying water filtration methods for rural homes.  Everyone here has such random backgrounds and they all seem to be here for a least a month.  Oh, and Michael Bolton’s music is alive and well in Morogoro.

(note:  the district president I met in Dar was mentioned in an article on the back page of February’s Ensign)