Fausch's in Tanzania 2015: Schools

11-09-2015

We got up and had breakfast with Tom, Beth & Julia and visited about each other's weekends. Breakfast is good here – usually fruit and coffee or tea, then toast, an egg omelet, and juice.

We were to be at the apartment at 10 to meet Winston Mdegela, a man who was going to take us to a school he owns with his wife and children. Julie, Adam and I rode with him out to the school, which is about 20 minutes outside of Iringa near an out of the way village on another bumpy road.

The school compound is very large; it is called Wendyrayna. They are completing their first year in operation and they currently have about 25 students, but when it is fully up and running, it will be able to accommodate 540 students at full capacity. It is a boarding school, so the kids stay there mid-January until early December, with a couple weeks off in June.

The well at Wendyrayna

The reason we were there was to talk about Winston's vision and need to provide enough water for his school while also providing water for the surrounding village. Currently they have just barely enough water, but as the school grows, he is faced with the possibility of restricting water for the village, and he is not anxious to do that. Bo made some suggestions, including having Winston get in contact with a project called H2O For Life out of White Bear Lake, which can partner US schools with Tanzanian schools to provide help with things like what Winston needs. It was incredibly interesting.

One of the students washing our hands before tea

Winston gave us a comprehensive tour of the school, including the dorms, teacher's quarters, bathrooms & showers, kitchen, and classrooms, and they also served us tea and fruit. One of the teachers had chickens and pigs, and they are growing fruit trees there. Most buildings were in some sort of construction, as they first complete what they absolutely need, and add finishing touches, doors, windows, and other buildings as they have money to do so.

Children eating their lunch

We went into the kitchen area - which was like an open log shed, with dirt floors and open places for windows but no glass - where the students were eating their lunch of beans and ugali, which is made with maize (corn) flower. The students will roll up the ugali into a ball and use that to sop up the beans. We tasted it and it wasn't bad, but these kids eat it for every meal. Juli says they like it and it's comfort food for them. Much better than going without, I'd imagine, but I would bet Charlie would not have tried it if he were with us.

Future lab

Next, Winston showed us his vision of the laboratory. It's foundation has been laid out, and he pointed out where all of the rooms will be, including two labs, an office, storage and prep areas, and bathrooms. He has very specific ideas of what and where everything will be, and we were all impressed with his ambition and what he's been able to accomplish so far of his dream.

Before we left, the children all gathered to sing for us and we introduced ourselves. They were all wonderfully behaved and they seemed to really enjoy our visit. We took group photos and were on our way.

SACCOS building

Our next stop was to the Iringa University. The semester has just started this week, but the students have a couple weeks to actually arrive at school, so it was not very busy. We walked over to the SACCOS building, but all offices were locked up, as most people had already gone for the day. We took photos of the building and Bo took us on a tour of the rest of the campus. He took us to the classroom Christiania built and we got a photo of that and saw the stained glass gift from our church. The room looked very nicely kept up, and Juli mentioned that the seats/desks were new.
We actually had a bit of the afternoon free! We went back to the hotel to catch up on emails, but the internet was down so instead we went to the restaurant for coffee and made friends with a Swedish couple, Toolive and Britt, who were staying here at the Lutheran Center. It didn't take long for me to figure out they were Swedes, as we were the only people drinking coffee at 4:30 in the afternoon. :)

We met Bo, Juli, and Michelle at a pub next door for a drink and then went to their apartment for relaxation, supper, and devotions. It was a lovely relaxing evening.

That night when we returned to the Center and Adam went to bed, I went into the lobby to do some writing and met the man who works the desk at night. His name is Francis. He is a native who speaks very good English and when he learned that I was from Minnesota, he went on and on about how much he loves people from Minnesota. He says that must be God's country, and he prays every night that nothing bad ever comes to MN or people from MN. He spoke for at least five minutes about how much he loves us and just was unable to stop praising people from MN. I just about cried, his admiration was so strong. Apparently once a woman from MN gave him money to fix his motorcycle, and he felt that all of us were as compassionate, generous, and helpful as she. It's a lot to live up to, and I was almost embarrassed, but I thanked him and told him I would pray for him too.