Training in Tanzania

In April we enjoyed a short (2 week) trip back to Tanzania.

We drove from Rwanda with a colleague (well, our colleague drove and we supplied conversation and snacks and an extra set of eyes especially for overtaking when driving a left-hand drive car or the left side of the road…)

It was a long drive over two days, meaning we had plenty of time to enjoy the view.

The wide open plains in the Mara region of Tanzania are quite a contrast to the constant hills in Rwanda.

It was our first time on a car ferry on Lake Victoria (not crossing the whole lake, but just one of the inlets, which saved some time compared to driving further inland to a bridge).

We visited the gate to the Serengeti (a convenient toilet stop!), saw some wildebeest and plenty of birds.

Testing a new coffee shop at the Serengeti gate.

Where we stayed also had some great views. Near the guest house we could climb a hill and some rocks which gave some incredible views of Lake Victoria. We do miss living right by the lake.

The cows were far more nimble than us, clambering up the rocks

The main objective of the trip was for Rebekah and our colleague to provide training for some new translators.

It was really fun to meet them and get to know them. They were all fairly young, in their 20s and early 30s, and fresh and enthusiastic for the work. We were pleased to establish a good working rapport, with them asking questions if they didn’t understand and some good group discussions. These relationships will set us up well for working remotely from Rwanda.

Rebekah with the two Isenye translators and their supervisor.

Rebekah was teaching about some basic linguistic topics, building up to some more complicated questions related to spelling issues.

A simple exercise of sorting words with short and long vowels.

Cutting up verbs to learn to discuss linguistically what the different parts do.

A much more complicated task, adding various endings onto verbs. If you look closely you can see that some are very similar or even identical, but each form here has a different meaning.

Both languages have tone (a high-low note melody over the words), which can be very important for meaning. Particularly in verbs, it can be tone alone that distinguishes between certain tenses.

For example, in Ngoreme with verb roots ending in r, some different forms can be written very similarly or even identically (as shown in the photo above). For example:
1. a + hor + er + e → ahorre ‘he should recover (for the sake of someone else)’
2. a + hor + ire → :ahorre ‘he has recovered’
The second is written with : at the beginning to symbolise the tone pattern of that tense form, to distinguish it from the first form which is identical apart from a different tone pattern.

We wrote out a massive table on the board looking at many different combinations, checking for ambiguity. It was great to see the translators really getting into this and understanding it, and understanding the importance of being careful with spelling in order to avoid confusion.

Isaya helping to complete the table for Isenye.

While Rebekah was busy teaching linguistics, Roman was working through a mound of IT issues, from minor issues of helping people access their email, to replacing drives in laptops, as well as trying to solve internet connectivity issues. He also did some rationalisation of the equipment stored in the IT office, removing metres of redundant cable left over from an old server. He was unable to solve the internet issues, which remains a challenge for the Tanzania staff especially when they need to have meetings with remote advisors.

When not working, we enjoyed visiting some friends and favourite places in Musoma:

Roman met up with his friend Makaranga.

We enjoyed catching up with old friends who have now returned to Australia but were back for a short visit.

We visited our former home and caught up with some of our former neighbours: one of the nuns and the cat 🙂

Roman made some new furry friends too.

We attended the church of our colleague Mussa.
(We were glad to be seated at the back. Mussa had kindly turned down the sound for us … it was still rather loud, even with earplugs!)

Overall, it was a very full-on and busy but encouraging time. Musoma holds a very special place in our hearts, not only because of the natural beauty and nature and our memories of living there, but also the fond friendships that we still have with colleagues there. It was fun to be able to chat and joke easily in Swahili – a relief and joy after our struggling though the basic greetings in Kinyarwanda. It was such a joy to renew friendships with colleagues there and we were blessed by invitations to attend church and share meals in their homes.  The work and cross-cultural relationships are not always easy, but there is a deep richness to them as well.

What do you eat?

We get asked this question quite often about life in Tanzania. So we thought we’d give you a taster (unfortunately not a real taster!) of some of what we ate in January.

Breakfast for me (Rebekah) is usually this: oats, milk, yoghurt, maybe chia seeds and raisins if we have them, and fruit (here banana and passion fruit). Roman is extremely “creative” with his breakfast bowl … we can include that another time! (The yoghurt we make at home, from milk that we pasteurise ourselves – see this post from my old blog.)

Lunch for me is often bread with eggs and vegetables:

When I bake bread, I usually make a few loaves at a time:

When Roman is working at the office, he sometimes has something like this for lunch: meat (or fish) with rice, and side dishes (here beans and greens). This day had the exciting addition of lemonade!

Our evening meals vary, depending on time and energy! A few from January are: vegetable pasta bake; bean and vegetable filled wraps (then baked in the oven); wraps with falafel, veg and salsa; and chickpea curry.

I realise that I didn’t photograph any of the meals that Roman cooked … that will have to wait until next time!

What are some of your go-to meals?

Video calls with a difference.

While we are back in the UK, we are still working remotely with our Tanzanian colleagues. This involves using some excellent linguistic and translation software, lots of emails and instant messaging, and also now some regular video calling.

These days, I’m sure most people are video calling a lot! We certainly have our fair share: family catch-ups, Bible studies, church, staff meetings, etc.

But the calls with our Tanzanian colleagues are a little different. Here are some things that have happened in recent work calls.

Roman has been working with the Ikoma translators, together with another colleague elsewhere in the UK. One of the Ikoma translators doesn’t have electricity, so he has two laptop batteries available. He can charge them both elsewhere and then he can use his computer for longer when he’s home. The other translator has electricity most of the time, but when he doesn’t his working hours are also limited.

The internet connection is quite challenging for both translators. At one point one of the translators was walking around his house while calling, to test where the internet connection was good enough. The best connection was in the doorway to the house which was fairly inconvenient. Later on he got a WiFi modem, so he doesn’t need to sit in the doorway.

A typical house near Musoma.

Some of our colleagues have had to arrange to borrow a desk from the office. Otherwise, their only space for working at home was sat on the sofa, which would not have been comfortable for a prolonged period.

I (Rebekah) have been working with the Kabwa translators. In a call last week, one colleague had to sit on his front step to get enough data signal for the call. Even so he still kept dropping in and out of the call. His village home is a bit more remote than the others in the Kabwa team; we hope that his connection is better for future calls…

Another colleague was sat inside his home, and introduced me to some of his children who poked their heads into view. I think they thought it was quite funny to see a white person (‘mzungu’ in Swahili) talking Swahili and Kabwa!

Another colleague started the call under a tree outside his house (this may have been to have enough space, or for signal, or for fresh air). This meant that he was almost constantly greeting his neighbours as they walked by on the path! This was a little disrupting, BUT he could also ask them questions. This came in useful when we were discussing the spelling of certain words in the Kabwa language. At one point when we were struggling with a particular word, my colleague spotted a group of elders talking nearby, and so he went over to ask their opinions. It’s great to be able to involve more of the Kabwa community in these everyday discussions.

However, after about an hour, his laptop battery started to run low. So he walked a few minutes down the road to his cousin’s house, who had electricity. All the while he stayed on the call, which meant I got a lovely tour of his village! It made me feel nostalgic for the beautiful, rough landscape of the Mara region (some pictures of the typical Mara landscape below).

Once he arrived at his cousin’s house, he sat down on their sofa. And then for the rest of the work call, his cousin and her children sat on the sofa next to him, avidly listening in and laughing at my attempts to pronounce Kabwa words!

All of this was in a single one and a half hour video call! It’s going to take us a while to get through all of the work that we need to, and I find it very tiring talking Swahili and trying to steer a 4-way call. But I am also very thankful that we can continue the work at all.

What have been your funny experiences with video calls? Any unexpected blessings and bonuses?

Timber!

We’ve had quite the rainy season here in Musoma, including some heavy storms at night. This includes thunder and lightning, wind and pouring rain.

A couple of weeks ago I (Rebekah) got up in the morning to find that a tree, which had already been growing too close to the electricity wires, was now even closer, with a half broken branch resting on the wires … not good!

The electricity wires are trapped under those branches resting on the roof.

Not only that, the weight of the branches resting on the wires had caused the wires to pull on the pole which connects the wires to the house. This pole is secured to the house by two bolts going into the house wall, and the bottom bolt had been pulled loose, pulling with it a big chunk of the wall of the house … oh! We thankfully still had power in the house, but I was concerned that another heavy rain storm would cause further damage.

Doesn’t look too good …

I immediately contacted the principal of the school on whose compound we live, and he contacted the electricity people to come and have a look. They did come, and there were lots of looks, and humming and ha-ing, and “kazi kubwa…” (big job!). They said they couldn’t work on it then, it being 4pm nearing the end of the normal working day, but they’d return “kesho” (“tomorrow…”).

9 days later they did return, in full force, with 19 men suddenly appearing in our front yard! Fortunately I was home, as well as a local gardener friend who had come to cut the grass. After 30 minutes of the boss men assessing the damage and forming a plan (with everyone else sitting watching, enjoying eating lemons from the tree), there was a flurry of activity, with wires and trees being cut left, right and centre!

Assessing the damage.

The man who climbed the pole to cut the wires had some very interesting shoe attachments.

Taking a break under the lemon tree.

In less than two hours of having arrived, they were gone! I was impressed with the efficiency of the work, but not so with the destruction left in their wake – branches and general mess everywhere (including the largest branch totally blocking our kitchen window…!).

An interesting view from the kitchen…

Thankfully, the gardener had been trying to clean up while they were working. And then a few men who work for the compound soon turned up, “pole”-ing me (poh-leh – offering sympathy) for the mess, and working hard to get things tidied up a bit, including removing the huge branch from the roof/kitchen window. They even turned up again the next morning (a Saturday!) to keep working here and next door to get the mess cleaned up.

I also enjoyed spending most of Saturday in the garden, repairing the fence (upon which the huge branch had also landed), and using the cut branches and leafy bits to repair holes in another stretch of fence.

Repairing the fence that the branch landed on. Our dog is quite the escape artist, so hopeful this will withstand the test!

The wires redirected nicely away from the trees, with the trees below “trimmed”.

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the gardener came to clean up some more, and now things are looking lovely. There are still plenty of piles of branches and leaves scattered around, but at least they’re more organised.

Still a hole in the house, as you can see in the background, but at least the pole is straight now!

Anyone need some firewood?!

I’m thankful for electricity and for plenty of new fence posts!

A Multicultural Christmas.

We enjoyed a very multicultural Christmas this year. This of course included food from many places, including Slovak Medovníky (spiced “honey cakes”, a bit like gingerbread), English Christmas cake (a.k.a. the top layer of our English wedding cake), and a New Zealand Christmas dinner (featuring potato salad, crunchy coleslaw, cold meats, fruit salad, and stained glass window cake (blancmange containing multicoloured jelly!))

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We celebrated with many different nationalities: Tanzanian, Dutch, New Zealander, Canadian, Australian, and of course Slovak and English!

We sang a lot of carols, played many board games, as well as table tennis, volleyball and badminton, and enjoyed times of “gezelligheid” (a very good Dutch word for cosy, happy times).

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  Advent carol evening

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  Surprising friends by carol singing on 24th

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  Volleyball in our garden

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  Playing “Risk”, playing the keyboard, and reading – “gezellig”

And most importantly, we enjoyed celebrating our Saviour, the greatest gift we could ever receive.

On the 24th December, we enjoyed a time of celebration with our Tanzanian colleagues in the office, and spent some time sharing stories of God’s gifts to us over the past year. I found this time so uplifting – sharing in our colleagues’ genuine thankfulness that they had lived for another year. Too often we take it for granted that, of course, we will live to see the next Christmas.

On Christmas morning, we attended church here (wearing matching outfits), and the service included a number of baptisms – what a great way to celebrate!

We enjoyed a laugh on the way home, when we had to pause at a ditch that had not been there a few hours earlier! People were busy digging outside their homes to make way for a water pipe to be installed, and they helpfully sourced some planks to enable the car to cross safely.

It was good to have this time, to rest, to enjoy friendships, and to celebrate. The important thing now is to remember every day that Jesus came to earth, and that he’s coming again.

New Name, New Blog

Welcome to the first post of our new blog!

I (Rebekah) kept a blog previously about my life and work in Tanzania, but we decided that, with getting married, it would be nice to start a fresh blog together.

(The old blog will still stay where it is. We might sometimes refer to some of those old posts.)

For now, we thought it would be a good idea to update you, our friends and supporters, with where we are and what we are up to.

Roman has been in Europe since December, because from January until June he was in Gloucester, finishing off his linguistics and translation training. This will better equip him for helping Tanzanian translators in Musoma.

I (Rebekah) have been in the UK since May, because in July, we got married!

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We had a great time celebrating with family and friends in both Slovakia and the UK. (How many people get to wear their wedding dress twice?!)

In the rest of July and August we enjoyed time with family in Slovakia, Hampshire, and Essex.

Then from the end of August until the beginning of October we have been teaching in Gloucester. We were helping with the Language and Culture Learning module of the Foundations for Living and Working Cross-Culturally course. This is part of Moorlands College’s MA in Language, Community and Development.

This course aims to provide people with essential tools for community-based development, linguistics, literacy and Scripture engagement, to equip people for service amongst communities across the world.

Roman was leading sessions on a method of language learning, for when no language schools or textbooks are available. While I (Rebekah) was teaching phonetics, how to recognise, produce, and write down most of the sounds in the world’s languages.

Now that that course is over, we have a few days staying with my parents, before travelling to Slovakia for a couple of weeks. After that, we will be back to the UK for a few weeks, before hopefully returning to Tanzania (work-permit renewals permitting).

So that is what we have been up to recently. We will continue to post about our life and work, as things progress.

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