I arrived back in Tanzania for my twelfth visit in late September 2024 (I count each time I go through immigration as a visit). Accompanying me was a friend who was with me on a tour in Jerusalem after a conference and one of the group of 18 after the conference in Kigali last year which spent six days visiting the Mara Region. He was keen to come and spend time here and see if he could contribute his skills. We will leave together for the USA after we finish here.
This visit will be my shortest and most focussed since starting to volunteer with the Anglican Church here in Musoma two years ago. My two visits in 2022 of six months with a month in Europe in between were a long orientation and also preparation for the Strategic Plan I was asked to develop after I arrived. Similarly 2023, I spent much of my time here on reviewing the information for the strategic plan and then drafting it, consulting again and leaving after four months with the final draft for review and approval by the Diocesan Council in December.
2023 also saw 18 intrepid souls venture in a small bus, with me as tour leader/organiser to see the real Tanzania after spending five days in a resort hotel in Kigali where one American delegate was overheard saying "this is just like Florida." Hopefully he managed to divert from the road to the airport to see life as it is. Retired journalist now blogger John Sandeman was on that trip and here is how he described his time travelling around Mara Region
So what am I doing back here? Not, what am I actually doing here but why am I here? I am after all retired and could be swinging a golf club (if I played golf), or sitting on the beach or Netflixing my way to death, or doing any number of things that don't mean I am living away from home and the comforts of western civilisation. I could be volunteering at home maybe doing Meals on Wheels etc.
I reflect back to my first visit to Africa in 2009 and the Assistant Minister at Campbelltown saying part of your heart will stay in Africa. He was right. Africa does impact you to the point that you don't forget it. It probably also explains why so many westerners leave wanting to make a difference after one fleeting visit. There is a lot to confront once you leave the cities.
So why am I here? Part of it is I don't feel ready to retire, whatever that means. Being a graduate of Paid Employment essentially means no one is paying me to do anything. My time is my own. Having worked at Anglican Aid I am one of a small percentage of people who have seen life in the developing world and all its challenges directly. I also received an invitation in 2019 to come and assist here, something I had to decline because of my employment at that time. Having been endowed with certain unique skills and confronting retirement I accepted the challenge in 2021.
It seems to me that having been blessed by God in many ways (starting with my parents chosing Australia when displaced in Europe after WWII) and noting the apostle Paul's words "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Eph 2:10) I am doing what I believe is God's work for me to do. For those reading this who are not followers of Jesus it may sound corny but ....
It is now two weeks in. My initial plans were scuttled in week one as one major objective in the strategic plan was the introduction of an accounting package across the diocese and for which training had been organised during my first week here, meaning key leaders I had planned to meet were unavailable. This was an historic training being the first ever undertaken on computers. Through my networks the diocese has received over 40 laptops and small desktops brought in by people visiting. The Kigali conference grup brought in 28 desktops last year and twenty laptops have come at various times including three in July and three on this trip now.
So apart from checking in at the beginning of the training and addressing the importance of it to the group, I was fairly free for the week so apart from some administration and reviewing documents I met a number of people during that week and visited a village with a half completed preschool to see if there was anything I could assist with.
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| Mary Sange is the manager here and this was networking about microfinance loans |
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| The incomplete classroom |
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| The building houses a completed classroom (R) and one to be finished (L) |
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| The finished classroom |
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| Hygiene taught |
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| Kids line up for uji |
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| Water tank attached to the church building |
