Bringing Home The Bacon

After being here a few weeks we slowly began to learn where you can by food and local supplies. One of the first things that we looked for was a store that sold good, clean meat. Tanzanians don’t eat meat very often, some only eat it on a holiday or special occasions. They mostly just receive their protein from beans, and an occasional egg or cows milk. The beef or pork is usually hanging up outside all day in the heat, in an open “duka” store, and usually covered with flies. The chicken is usually running around until it is caught and killed. We did find a store in town that has a refrigerator and freezer for storing meat, and it seems to be clean and of good quality. The down side is it is more expensive. So if you are willing to eat the meat with flies, you can choose that or go with the more expensive option. This is one reason why it can cost more in Tanzania when you don’t want to expose yourself or your family to some of the typical food-borne illnesses.
I saw all this to tell you the idea that Carey came up with to save some money. He could hear, and smell, that many of our neighbors were raising pigs. His idea was to “bring home the bacon.” So off he went to the neighbor house to see if they had a pig to sell. The above picture was of “Muddy”, named by the kids. One day Carey is seen coming down our road, dragging a pig behind him. I couldn’t help but think of the rhyme: To market, to market, to buy a fat pig, home again, home again jiggety-jig. It was a hot day and the pig seemed as if it was about to overheat, so water was quickly poured on her to revive her. She quickly began to root around in the newly fresh mud, hence the name that the kids gave her, Muddy.

The next morning Carey got up early and went out to do the dirty work of turning Muddy into meat. A friend and fellow worker here, named Charles, helped to prepare the pig. It is traditional Tanzanian custom to shave the pig, after it has been killed. The purpose is so that you can leave the skin on it when it is cooked. So that is what is being done here. The pig got a good shave.  Hot water is poured on the skin and it is shaved with a sharp knife. Because of the hot water the hair easily comes off.

Soon after that our garage became a slaughter house. Now I know a lot of women who might be completely disgusted by this. But really I didn't mind. I was glad because I knew that the meat was being handled correctly, and I knew that it was going to be clean and fresh.

Now I know others that may look at the above picture of the ribs and be grossed out, but I bet they are not grossed out by the Chili’s baby back ribs commercial. (Smiles)
We have a large deep freezer that comes in handy for occasions like this. Carey cut up the meat, labeled it, and put it in the freezer.

By late lunch time we had meat! I sauteed up some pork cubes and I made a Tanzanian dish called Pilau. It is made up of mostly rice, with some meat, carrots, potatoes, and onions. It was delicious !

One thing that I love about being here in Tanzania, is that nothing is wasted. Tanzanians eat Everything from the organs, to boiling the bones, to cooking down the pig fat to make cooking oil. With the meat scraps, and extra parts of the pig, we were able to help other families with food. I sometimes feel guilty giving someone the “scraps” but to them it is a nice gift. They were so thankful and so appreciative. Here is a picture of pig kidney, cooked and served up on a leaf. 

In the end we ended up with a lot of meat in the freezer, saved a lot of money, and were able to help out a few people in the process. 
Until Next Time,
Bonnie

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The Church Building

As you know, the church is the people and not the building. So I wanted to take a minute to talk about the Church and the building they meet in. We have been worshiping with the church of Christ in Iringa, Tanzania. It is about 25-30 min. from the house. The congregation, the church, is a small group of men and women. They each have their own story on who taught them the gospel (good news of Christ) and it is going to be encouraging getting to know them better and making new friends. They have expressed excitement in having two missionary families work with them, to encourage them and help build up the congregation. This congregation has been worshiping each Sunday on their own and we also find this encouraging. The plan is not to come in and take over what they have already been doing for themselves (by preaching and teaching every Sunday for them) but to do occasional preaching/teaching, home Bible studies, and seminars. Carey has preached once already and did a great job encouraging them in personal growth.

The building, as you can see from the picture above, it is very simple. I was at the back with Ryan (my youngest) when I snapped a shot of this picture, without the flash, as not to cause a distraction during worship. It is actually a pretty decent building, for Tanzanian standards. It has no electricity, no running water in the (outhouse style) bathroom,  and no padded pews. Just picture all five us on on one tiny wooden bench. The kids are now 5,4,and almost 2. Believe it or not, it can be done. We just have to be careful that the weight isn’t just at one end of the pew in case someone on the other end has to get up. It works like a see-saw and someone goes flying.

 Until Next Time,
Bonnie

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The First Few Days

The first few days we spent staying with the Jensen family (they are the other missionary family that we have been working with), they had moved a few weeks ahead of us. I am glad that it worked out this way, so that they could take care of us for a few days.
We went to the house to assess the work that needed to be done before moving in. The Jensens had already taken care of several things before we arrived. They oversaw the building of the wooden fence around the house, before it just had barbed wire. This fence is important for security and to help keep our dogs, and kids, in the yard. They had a water tower built and a water tank added. This was to make sure that we could have water storage and have running water at times other than the few times a week that the city turns on the water. They also added a hot water heater so that we could have hot water. Yeah.
The land lord had some painters come and paint the inside of the house, but it was a mess of a job. I was told that it looked as if children had painted it. There was oil paint all over the floor, the baseboards, and paint dripping and oozing down the walls. The land lord came in and saw what her house looked like and was very unhappy.... so some of the Jensens, Luke and Lindsey, came to the rescue. They repainted a few bedrooms and helped sand down the drooping drips on the other parts of the walls. The paint in the rooms that they didn’t paint will have to wait until another day.

First Things First
To get rid of the fleas, the cockroaches, and the snakes !
 The yard had been housing a few cows, so it was full of fleas.                                                                             

The kids and I went to the house and the kids were played in the yard  for a few hours. Afterwards, I was picking fleas off of the kids. I am not talking about one or two bur dozens. The landlord offered to have the yard sprayed with pesticide by someone in town, so we were glad about that. In the house there were still some remaining residents that didn’t want to leave so easily. The cockroaches. Carey went through the house and sprayed everything with a pesticide. We had to wait a few days for this to take place and everything to clear out.

I was having high hopes with this pesticide being really potent stuff. I was told that they had found some baby snakes in the yard recently. I don’t do well with snakes. My brother would keep them as pets in the house when I was a kid, and I often played with different kids without fear. But now, living in Africa, I see them as nothing but a danger to my family, and I hate any snake in the yard. I kinda gave myself an unreasonable expectation with this pesticide in the yard and pictured it working like a magic spray warding off any and all danger, especially snakes. I think I just pictured this in my head to make myself feel better. (Smiles)

In conclusion, we are adjusting and trying to get settled in a new place with new challenges. We have learned that adjustments to any new situation can be accomplished with time, a little work, a lot of prayer.

Until Next Time,
Bonnie

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Getting To Iringa

I guess I will start off this new adventure with telling you how our getting here went. It was an adventure in itself. We had a large truck come to move our things and several friends/men of the church, came to help us load it up. It was a 28 ft truck. This means that everything we own had to fit in this truck, all furniture, appliances, everything. We didn’t have a lot of room in our Prado, (SUV type vehicle) with the 5 of us already in it, so we had to make a plan on how we were going to get our 2 very large English Mastiffs, and our miniature Schnauzer, with us. We were fortunate enough to have some friends help us out. We borrowed a friends vehicle, and two other friends volunteered to drive the dogs down with us. The vehicle needed a new car battery, so we had to get that car up and running before we could leave. Long story short, we got the truck loaded, very, very tightly, got the dogs loaded up and were on the road before dark. The moving truck was going to drive straight to Iringa so we were trying not to be to far behind it, so it didn’t have to wait too long for us to get there. We knew it was unsafe for us to drive all night and into the next day so we decided to only drive a short ways to Moshi and get a good start on it in the morning. The trouble that we ran into was finding a hotel in Moshi that would allow us to bring in our dogs. We started out going to the nicer places and they all said no. So when it was starting to get late we decided to try the, not so nicer places, but still no luck. At One o’clock in the morning we found ourselves wondering around a bad part of town, and then of course, flat tire. So we are sitting in a bad part of town, way too late at night, after a very long day, with a flat tire. After the flat tire incident we went back to the nicer hotel, someone slept outside in the car with the dogs, while the rest of us got to go sleep in a bed. The hotel didn’t have air conditioning and the weather right now in Moshi (where we stayed) is very hot and humid. We have been in Tanzania long enough to know what to prepare for a little bit, so we brought along our own electrical fan. We were able to sleep with a little bit of a breeze, thanks to the fan.
The dogs had gotten water throughout the night and got to get out and walk around a bit. Thanks to Isreal, the guy who got to sleep in the car with the dogs. (Smiles)
After a fair amount of sleep we had breakfast at the hotel and hit the road. I was feeling a lot better after a good breakfast and a good nights sleep. We had to get the tire patched up before we got on the road. We pulled up to the gas station to get the tire hole plugged when an old man came to fix the tire. Now the day before I would have had a bad attitude and thought, “Oh Great, we get the old guy ! “ But today I was feeling pretty good and just sat in the other car and watched him change the tire. Now this old guy knew what he was doing. He quickly moved from one step to the other and before long he was done repairing the tire. I could tell that he had been repairing tires for years, by the way he worked. I wondered how bad his hands and back hurt at the end of each day. This guy was pretty old, and here he was hammering the rim to get the tire out, bending straight over to do work, and doing a lot of manual labor, tire after tire. After Carey paid the guy and got back in the car, I asked him if he had tipped him a little extra. (Knowing that he usually always gives everyone here a tip) Carey said that he gave the guy a few extra shillings and the guy was so grateful and kept saying, God bless you so much. Carey must have also noticed that he had been repairing tires for a while and asked him how long he had done this kind of work. The guy told Carey that he had been changing and repairing tires since 1964. Wow, that is a long time. I was thankful that this man was put in our path on this journey to help us along the way.
The day was long and tough. We would stop about every 3 hrs. or so for a restroom break, get the dogs some water and let them run around. They were in the other car without air conditioning, but seemed to be doing pretty good. I was watching them close for signs of dehydration, or any complications. Earl the big male Mastiff was panting but drinking lots of water, they were both running around, not acting slugging at all, drinking lots of water, jumping in and out of the back of the vehicle at stops, etc. We drove through Mkumi National Park, and the dogs really woke up and were lively barking at the elephants on the side of the road. We drove about anther 30 min. and stopped at a restaurant for dinner, Carey opened up the back of the car where the dogs were and stated. “Earl is dead.” We were all in shock. We couldn’t believe it. He was doing so good. He didn’t appear to be in distress at all. Did he overheat? Did he have a heart attack? Did he get into some poison when he was walked around on the leash at a rest stop? We couldn’t figure it out. Again we were in disbelief. At his point I just told myself to be calm and take care of the kids. So the kids and I went and sat down to eat some french fries and ice cream at the restaurant while the guys went and put Earl to rest. You have to understand this was our beloved family pet, he was also very important to our security. Aubrie was in tears and very upset, we talked a little about death, and we cried together and then we were on our journey again. We arrived to the house late at night and thankfully the Jensen family had already unloaded the moving truck for us. This was one hurdled that seemed to ease the work that needed to be done. We didn’t have our beds set up yet, so we had made plans to stay the night with them. Carey wanted me to go in the house and at least look at it. I had only seen our new home in pictures and he was excited for me to see it. I knew the house was going to need work and I knew that my positive perspective on things had now turned into a negative one, and I didn’t want to say anything negative about the house, so I almost opted out on seeing it that night. But I told myself to be strong, “buck up” and go in and see it. I was glad that I went in and saw it, just standing in the living room helped me fulfill the sense that... We had finally made it !

Until Next Time,
Bonnie

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