St. Michael & All Angels Church
Celebrating, proclaiming & demonstrating God’s love as shown in Jesus
Chemba Church
June (2) 2010 Newsletter from Bethany Lewis
It may not have been England-Algeria in Cape Town, but The Christians vs. The Pagans in Wekense certainly had more goals! Gathered under the ever-darkening heavy sky surrounded by rocky hills on a thorny field were Wekense’s answers to Rooney and Gerard. The bare-footed number 4, not yet finished primary school showed himself to have the grit and determination to rival the professionals- and a much higher pain threshold! A perfect 1-2 was unfortunately interrupted by a herd of cows returning from the river stubbornly ignoring the pitch markings and crossing the penalty box just as the final cross was volleyed towards goal- the offending bull has of course been re-named John Terry in honour of his beautiful save! The match itself was very clean- no one wanting to fall on those thorns an inch long and having too much compassion to do the same to anyone else (or knowing that they will get paid back later on).
I was in Wekense for a five-day youth conference that started each morning at 5o’Clock with a ringing of the church ‘bell’ (a rusted inner-wheel from a lorry), ten minutes later the sound of pounding feet as the youth set off on a 10km run to the next village and back and then ran to the top of a nearby hill to collect rocks and bring them down (to be used in the continuing building work of the church) and by sunrise they were off to collect water and wood for cooking breakfast! And they would continue singing and dancing until 1am! Also bear in mind that about 70% of the girls were either pregnant or had young babies on their backs!
The highlight of the conference was the Saturday Choir Competition. Every choir sang 3 songs, and were judged. Anyone who knows how tone-deaf I am will wonder how I ever got chosen to be on the judging panel, but hey I’m just special! The surprise winners were an ‘elders’ choir’, a group of mature men and women who started a choir in response to their belief that the young people of today just use the choirs to pick up mates and to show off, and all their songs are about the iniquity of youth! Their acting of a bloke smoking cannabis with a heavily pregnant half-dressed girl on his arm was something else! The teenage daughter of the family I stayed with, who should have given birth by the time you read this, is still waiting for the father of her baby to marry her- apparently he’s waiting till after the birth at which point he will decide whether to marry her- basically, he will base his decision on whether she bears a boy or a girl! The youth of today!!!
Our chosen secular topic for this year’s youth conferences is corruption, and the songs written were rather poignant- especially when one chorus mentioned how children die in hospitals because their parents can’t afford to bribe the staff (treatment for all under-fives is officially free, but you may never get to see a doctor, or may be told the medication has run out, unless you pay a bribe). The situation at the Immigration department is remarkable better, as I found when I went to extend my residence permit for the next six months. All legitimate payments must be made at the bank and so if any money is seen being handed over it is obvious that it is a bribe (as it was, my nice newly sewn outfit and my ‘single’ status on my application form enabled the young man processing my application to have it all signed off within a couple of hours rather than the few days that it should have taken! As it was I agreed to take his phone number, and oops I’ve already lost it...) Another place I was given a phone number was at the Traffic Police post whilst waiting for a bus back to Kondoa having left Wekense. Bribery was much more blatant there- every lorry stopped was asked for the Vehicle Card, which was always handed over folded up with a few thousand shillings in it. I’m not the most observant person, but that was just blatant. At one point I excused myself to use their ‘office’ (toilet) simply to allow their negotiations to get a few more shillings out of a driver of one particularly non-roadworthy truck. It was so appreciated that the head officer gave me his phone number- conveniently forgetting that he had chatted to his wife on the phone whilst I was there!
Next month I’ll let you know how the 4th July went, and give you some ideas for alternative uses of the free mosquito nets, as seen in villages...Bethx
June (1) 2010 Newsletter from Bethany Lewis
4 cold seasons, 4 hot seasons, 4 rainy seasons and 4 harvest seasons! 4 November months when the scorpions and flies come out of hiding, 4 May months when Malaria is at its most rife and 4 Decembers when everyone is praying that the rains will come on time. When I think back I know I am very blessed to have had the privilege to have had the opportunity to become so involved in the Kondoa community and to have learnt so much, and to have become so content and satisfied with life. As it is, I am returning to the UK ‘for good’ in December, when I will have been working here for 4 and a half years. Our Diocese has been given a stand-in bishop who, when I told him I only have 6 months left, informed me that he expects that for the next 6 months I won’t be sleeping due to the amount of work he will give me! So, as well as being the Education Coordinator, Assistant Coordinator for Youth and Children’s work, I am now Head of the Development Department and Advisor for every department in the diocese! Plus he wishes me to continue to travel around the villages and to prepare a report on every church which can be given to a future bishop! He’s right, I won’t be sleeping!!!
I started off May in Bereko where I visited one of the Peace Corps volunteers who works at the Health Clinic. I found her ripe maize rotting because she hadn’t harvested and the rains kept falling, so I forced her out of her chair and into the field. Laziness is not the friend of farming! Fortunately some of the patients waiting to be treated saw us and came to help so we harvested the whole field in just an hour (and we made sure those who helped went to the front of the queue)! She gave me carrots and onions from her vegetable garden as payment (she’s fast becoming a Tanzanian!) On the Sunday I awoke early, had a quick breakfast and was out in the rain to walk to a village called Kikilo. I had been told that it would be ‘about 90 mins’- yeah, right! 3 hours of walking through the rain- sometimes showers, sometimes pouring- later we got there! It was rather dispiriting as I knew the village was on the side of a hill next to a deep valley, so every time we were on a hill looking over a valley I thought we were nearly there, but no! We arrived covered in grit and soaked through and went straight to the unroofed church where we sang and danced and prayed whilst being rained on! We started the service with 2 adults and 10 children, and finished it with 5 adults and 15 children, all totally soaked through! We had lunch and waited for the rain to stop- finally set off at 4! Unfortunately the toilet of the house we were waiting in had fallen down in January- and no house nearby had such conveniences, so we had to wait until we were walking back and in the farms to finally breathe! The walk back was at least dry, though very muddy and my flip flops were carried away whilst crossing a knee-deep (normally dry) stream! We sprinted after them and did, thankfully, manage to just get them before they joined the faster-moving river! PS a long skirt hinders sprinting in knee-deep water! We finally arrived back at Bereko as the 7o’clock Islamic Prayers were starting, covered in thick mud and aching all over and just washed and went straight to bed! As compensation, and out of sympathy, for my difficult walk a bike turned up the next morning with a sack of maize, 2 sacks of sweet potatoes and guava fruits! They’re so sweet!
In between village visits I had a meeting in Dodoma to prepare for the Youth Concert of this year which will be held in a district called Mpwapwa (about 7 hours on the bus, South East of Kondoa). We’ve been given permission to bring five choirs, and the main topic is ‘Preventing Bribery and Corruption’! Very apt as it will be the General Election just two weeks after our concert (the candidates have been very apt at paying for votes!) Having come back from Dodoma I went to a village called Itolwa (from where you can see Mt. Kilimanjaro across the plains of the Tarangire- amazing view). I always receive a fantastic reception there- people come out to the bus stand with drums and process me to the vicar’s house whilst singing and dancing! The following day I went with the girls from the choir on the half hour walk to the sand river to collect water. We dug a shallow well in the river bed, and whilst waiting for it to fill with water we played games! There were about 25 of us and we split into 2 teams and played a game a bit like piggy in the middle, but where the piggy is trying not to be hit and at the same time is filling a bucket with sand. Once hit, another member of the team takes over until all members are ‘out’, at which point the number of buckets completely full are counted. We played this 3 times, and my team won by a whole innings! We then pulled a long vine off the cliff and played skipping games, and I then taught them a bit of Irish dancing (they wanted to know how we danced in the UK and they weren’t impressed with my bobbing on the spot!) at which point the wells were filled with water and we could then fill our buckets up, the youngest carrying 2 litre bottles! On the way back it poured down with rain (getting quite fed up of this!) and then, whilst walking through a puddle, my shoe thong snapped and I fell over rather comically, and my bucket (which had been balancing nicely on my head without any hands to support it) fell off and flipped onto its lid which then split! I was impressively calm and returned the bucket to my head (only a litre had been spilt) and placed my shoes on top of the bucket and walked the last 15mins back pretending I didn’t feel the all the thorns stuck in my feet! My street cred rocketed at that point, and went even higher when I spent the evening sitting by the wood cooking fire (they were amazed that my eyes didn’t water- I omitted to tell them I wear contact lenses that mean my eyes aren’t affected by smoke!) The bus left at 4:30am and by 4:45am it had broken down! One of the conductors sent off on a bike to go to Kondoa to get the spare part needed, so we set ourselves up for a long wait! So I chatted with the men about polygamy (the village we stopped in was completely Islamic)- they used the same argument that I’ve heard many times before- a man needs one fat, one thin, one black, one pale, wife to be fully satisfied! A young Muslim girl told me I shouldn’t question God’s law (she’s been taught that God commanded that a man should have more than one wife) and so I asked her if she had ever read the Qur’an. She hadn’t as she had never been to school and so never learnt to read as it’s ‘God’s law that a girl should not be educated’! Perhaps I should start teaching from the Qur’an to groups of Muslim women and bring about a little women’s lib!
So, over the next month I’ll be travelling to more villages at weekends and spending the weekdays in the office, and not sleeping until I return to the UK n the 3rd December and then sleep non-stop until Christmas Day!
Take care, Bethx
May 2010 Newsletter from Bethany Lewis
The final rains are here- light showers at night, giving a bit of hope to those who had previously been looking hopelessly at maize that is tall but has no grain. We are slowly moving into the cold season- though still have 30 degree average temperatures!
I've started my annual round-the-villages trip. I started in a village called Paranga, where the vicar should have retired years ago- he's way past retirement age, has had over 14 children, and really should just be looked after by his sons and settle to a life of checking on the family goats. He still walks for over 3 hours to visit villages that have no vicar! And his wife accompanies him- if I am that fit at their age having borne over 14 kids I'll be in shock! Depressingly I found the honey season is going to be 2 months late- usually they start collecting honey in April but they've informed me this year they aren't expecting to start until June- I did of course promise to return as soon as honey is available!
I did get rather annoyed whilst I was in Paranga. An Aid Agency wishes to dig a bore hole- very good idea. It wants every adult to contribute Tsh3,000 (£1.50)- very good idea. It expected these contributions to be in by the end of April when people haven't even started harvesting, people are going to bed hungry as food has run out and they can't even afford Tsh200 (10p) for soap- very bad idea!!! They put the village council in charge of collecting the contributions, and anyone who didn't pay was locked inside the village hall until a relative brought the money. Of course, people had to sell goats though as the market was suddenly flooded as so many people were selling to get the water contribution that they were selling at less than a third of the market price! Some Aid Agencies just don't think!
As a response to this I've encouraged the cathedral congregation to set up a loan scheme for village vicars so they can take out a small (Tsh20,000- £10) emergency loan during the period of December through April (repaid after the harvest in June), a time when there's a shortage of food and harvest is still far off- the poor Paranga vicar certainly did not have the Tsh6,000 needed for his wife and he, and the church collection the previous week was just 700 shillings (35p)! How shameful it would have been for the Diocese if one of their vicars was locked up in the village hall for failure to pay the contribution! So the final loan conditions are being ironed out and fund raising is taking place so the scheme will be working by this November.
The following week I went to Kambi Ya Nyasa, a village I've never been to before. It's where the Cairo-Cape Town cyclists camped out as they were travelling the Arusha-Kondoa road (very apt as Kambi is Swahili for Camp). I heard many stories about the cyclists from the villagers, who even a month later were still talking about it- women who had 'no hips' (thin), men who had long hair (why do they want to look like women?) and attempting to buy supplies in a tiny village where the only things sold are sugar, salt and soap and most of the population don't even speak Swahili! When I then pointed out that these cyclists weren't even paid- the shock at these 'weird white people' was complete!
I did get to go to Dodoma however the 3 days I put aside to go there coincided exactly with the 3 days that the Internet was down throughout Tanzania and Kenya! The announcement hadn't reached Kondoa! However it does mean that hopefully the Internet Service across East Africa will improve- they were laying a new cable which comes from 'under the sea'- somewhere across the Indian Ocean, meant to make Broadband available. We'll see!
The American Missionaries had a May 5th party (a Mexican holiday I believe- anyway we ate lots of Mexican food- made a change from beans and rice!). It was good to see all the American Peace Corps workers who came last year. And only one has gone home (out of 9) so not a bad drop-out rate! The next time we'll be having a get-together (when another would have left- though he's going to get married and will be moving to another part of Tanzania) is of course July 4th, and I've offered to host them! Ideas for American food anyone?
This weekend I'll be going to Bereko and then by foot to Kikilo (see how fit I really am). On the 26th of this month I'll have been here for 4 years! How time flies!
American recipes to my usual e-mail address! Bethx
April 2010 Newsletter from Bethany Lewis
After a brief respite from the heat I'm now back, 30 degrees and heavy rains (hopefully we may get some harvest this year) takes a bit of getting used to after snow! On the plane over I had the benefit of sitting with a Tanzanian who had spent 6 years in the US and wanted someone to practice his Swahili with before he landed, so I obliged and got a free taxi ride to the bus stand as payment! Our discussion centered around the factors preventing Tanzania from development. I should have recorded the conversation and typed it up as a PhD dissertation! The main factor we decided was fatalism- something that was never touched on throughout the three years of my degree, probably because a mindset is almost impossible to change- whereas better use of natural resources and tackling corruption is pretty easy to implement.
When I returned to Kondoa I found things pretty much the same- though the roads have become even worse after the recent heavy rains, and political campaigning has jumped up a gear. My next-door neighbour's husband has been moved to another district by the government so soon my neighbour will move- who's baby will I carry on my back now? As soon as her child saw me she immediately went to grab a cloth for me to carry her with! I have been spending every evening tailoring- and even have my own customers now, willing to pay!
After a week in Kondoa I had a phone call at 3 in the morning- my friend's mum had died. I got up, got to the bus stand at half four and then explained the situation to a bus conductor and so was given the best seat on the bus (there were two busses going to Arusha- fortunately they put me on the one that actually arrived there- the other one failed to start!) and by six in the morning I was on my way. We got stuck in the mud whilst climbing a steep hill, so spend an hour wiuth spades digging out the bus and chucking in rocks and branches to help it grip- well, the men did the work and the women sat at the side and chatted. Every man then pushed the bus and finally got it up the hill! 8 hours later we arrived in Arusha. I had left my funeral outfit in the UK so got myself another in town (2 strips of matching cloth and a headscarf) and went to the mourning. I found the girls wearing trousers, short skirts and high heels- boy did I feel out of place! No one had told me that town funerals were different! Also because Arusha has a morgue they don't do funerals the same day, plus there was a committee to organise the arrangements! I was put on the committee as food and drink organiser- for 600 people! So, for 4 days it was my job to make sure everyone was fed and watered, plus doing a bit of translation on the side (lots of people came from abroad so knew no Swahili). Most of the Tanzanians found me rather amusing- they were more Western in their clothing and behaviour than I was, and I got many proposals from men who were 'fed up with the way Tanzanian women have left their culture'.
A 12 hour bus journey back (broke down 3 times, and got stopped by the police, and had my bag searched for 'mirungi'- known in UK as khat or chat) and I was just in time for Easter which I spent with my neighbours- Easter without chocolate should be banned! Just like at Christmas, it rained so hard the service just kept on going until the rain stopped- only 5 hours!
Tomorrow I'm going to Paranga because a lady I knew well died on Easter day (she lives in Dodoma though is from Paranga and got in a car so she could spend Easter with her family and died in a car crash) so I will go to 'give sympathy' to her relatives. Some areas will be harvesting this month- so I will start my tour of the villages in a week's time, starting with those that have already harvested (don't want to be a burden!).
Hope all had a peaceful Easter.
Bethx
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Here are the latest photos of Chemba church received from Bethany Lewis in January 2010.
They were taken at the thanksgiving service on 6th December. She tells us that the windows and doors have now also been installed but they are now waiting for funds to render the walls, inside and out. (about £1000).
Pastor Tito has now started his English course in Dodoma.
Office Address:
2 High Rd,
Wilmington,
Kent
DA2 7EG..........Registered Charity Number:1127656