Episode Two in Mara is Ending

 

My time is coming to an end as I write. I am in my last week and it has been very busy since my visit to Gesarya in early June. I concluded six Saturdays since May in a leadership program attended by over 30 people. I started writing this blog five days ago and as I wrote I looked back on the last month and realised I would have to write a number of shorter blogs given how busy I have been. I am tired, essentially having worked six days weekly and Sunday here is hardly a day of rest with four hours at church generally.

The Last Month – Leadership and a Graduation Day

My time is coming to an end as I write. I am in my last week and it has been very busy since my visit to Gesarya in early June. I concluded six Saturdays since May in a leadership program attended by over 30 people. I started writing this blog five days ago and as I wrote I looked back on the last month and realised I would have to write a number of shorter blogs given how busy I have been. I am tired, essentially having worked six days weekly and Sunday here is hardly a day of rest with four hours at church generally.

As I reflected in my last blog, I have learned a lot  and gained insight into training cross culturally. I cannot help but feel people who come short term to do training and other public events don’t really manage to connect. The last session was on change management, something completely foreign to people in the room.

I was able to get the message across about how much change they have experienced with a few simple photos – of a bowl of water over a charcoal fire being boiled for tea, a thermos and a gas stove top and electric kettle. Cheap Chinese exports have made a huge difference to life here. Many people in town now have a two burner gas stovetop cooker that can be purchased for less than $200. Talk about time saving devices. But the electric kettle is even better as you don’t need to put the tea or hot water in the thermos – you just boil water as needed (provided there are no power outages).

This means no collecting firewood, no pollution from cooking on an open flame and reduced costs. The hostel here still boils water over an open fire so I was able to help the manager see that for 30,000 TZS ($18) she could boil as much water as she liked and save 5,0000 TZS ($4) on firewood or charcoal. Not to mention the reduction in trees being harvested for firewood as well as the environmental effects.

Type your email…

How has this changed life?

The assumption I started with was that Tanzanians were a nation of tea drinkers so when my cup of tea went up with the question “How has making a cup of tea changed since you were a child?” I was told by one person that they didn’t drink tea in his community. A lesson learned.

Bunda Bible College (BBC) held its thirteenth graduation on Saturday 10 June. Unlike last year I was able to take a backseat and assist with some logistics and ensure public relations were improved to highlight the supporters of the college. So in the end when it came time for presentations I was like the stage director up front telling people to stay still while a photo was taken as they received their diplomas and again when receiving their book packages (all graduates received a book pack for future use).

BBC three year Diploma and Certificate graduates 2023

Two days prior I spent the day meeting with  the distance students who undertake a two year program in their churches coordinated by BBC. I also interviewed a number to get stories for the book sponsor SparkLit Australia. 

Sephroza

Frank

Hearing about the lives of individuals and how Christianity has changed them and given them purpose and meaning is never boring. A young girl who fled from her family during the cutting season found refuge in a church where she lived with the pastor for a week after fleeing home having been tipped off by her aunt that this was the day. At 14 years of age she had seen and heard a lot, heard about options in school and fled for her life. She ended up undertaking the extension course and wanted to be a pastor in order to help her community.

In class with TEE students

TEE students after a day with me speaking to them

My job for the day in addressing the group of 25 who were at the college for a two week residential prior to graduation was to talk about planning, economics of going into ministry and practical things about governance. All in all well received and appreciated by the students. Imagine my surprise when at the end I was asked to set two questions for the exam they would do the next day! I obliged but declined the offer to mark as the exam is in Swahili.

Having arrived on Thursday travelling down with two other staff to Bunda, I planned to stay overnight with young Nguti, the IT guy who was doing some preparatory work at BBC and also the two schools. Basically I had arranged with the travel group to bring in 28 mini desktop computers which would replace the aged PCs at BBC. In order to make this all work, the old PCs were being transferred to Shalom and Bunda Girls Schools for a nominal cost which contributed to the screens required for the mini desktops. So while I was busy talking to students he was involved in his work, moving computers from BBC to Bunda Girls School next door.

BGSS will have over thirty computers once all are set up and running. Nguti with Education Secretary Misoji

We stayed overnight in the house donated to the diocese and Friday morning I as usual made breakfast for us both – boiled eggs and toast. As we were eating as he bit into his toast he took the piece in his hand and said “What is wrong with this bread?” Looking at him and the “bread” and seeing nothing wrong it occurred to me he had never eaten toast in his 29 years. And I was right. So I showed him a toaster and how bread became toast. That incident has caused many laughs as I related it with someone wondering how a person who has been to university and lived in major cities had never experienced toast.

“What’s wrong with this bread?” Note Vegemite.

The Saturday afterwards was the third leadership workshop at Bunda. In the middle of school holidays the numbers were low but the participation was great and it was easier to work with a smaller group of people than the larger groups that had attended sessions one and two. Given the low numbers from Bunda I decided the last three would run at Musoma which saved me travel on Saturdays and meant only those who were really motivated would make the hour and a quarter journey each way from Bunda to Musoma.

The last two Saturday workshops went well. The session on communication was well received especially the activity called Chinese Whispers where a message is given and passed along a line of participants with the last participant telling the group what the message received is. We had two groups of nine and both groups had a different message at the end to the one communicated at the beginning. There were a lot of laughs as each message received was explained and compared to what I had provided. The laughter was particularly loud for the message received “Julius Nyrere was born in Butiama and went to school in Musoma. He walked 26 miles each week to attend school.” This became, Julius Nyrere was born in Butiama in 1922 and died in 1999.” The following week I repeated this twice. The second time because some suggested that doing it in English was the problem so I provided a message in Swahili and the same thing happened. The message in fact was more distorted and examining where it changed, it seems it was the first person to receive the message who changed one aspect of it.

In the end nineteen participants will receive a certificate to be presented at a farewell dinner two days prior to my departure. 

Honour and Shame (Working as as Consultant 2)

 

Personal Reflections

I have just completed the third session of the leadership program I started back in early May. The numbers have come down to what I realistically expected they may be when I had suggested it back in April. We had 13 at session three but it did not impact the discussion or interaction and may have actually enhanced learning outcomes.

Personal Reflections

I have just completed the third session of the leadership program I started back in early May. The numbers have come down to what I realistically expected they may be when I had suggested it back in April. We had 13 at session three but it did not impact the discussion or interaction and may have actually enhanced learning outcomes.

Session three was about Organisational Leadership, which I explained to them is a huge topic and one we could only scratch the surface of. A smaller group meant some good role plays and exercises to get my point across. Comparing the organisation to a human body was well understood as we discussed systems and how each of them worked in a system and in smaller systems within the larger diocesan system which employs them all. 1 Cor 12:12ff was the text used to help them understand the concept and a few role plays were easy for them to get the idea.

This all led to how organisational management develops culture and their focus as leaders was to develop a good culture in their workplaces. However we discussed how this is different from the culture previously discussed between African/Asian societies and western culture – collectivist versus individualistic ways of operating.

I advised them that there would be matters discussed that may be out of sequence as it was impossible for this topic to flow and that systems, human resources, communications, finances and change while all separate topics may overlap with this big topic.

Feedback to some of the questions was excellent and I was even interrupted a few times as people wanted to speak and make suggestions (this is a big thing so they are obviously comfortable).

What did surprise me was the readiness for change. People understand they have no strong direction because the diocese has never had a strategic plan. Most had been involved in consultations last year about the strategic plan and I did assure them that the training they are voluntarily attending will help them in the implementation of the strategic plan as each of the heads will be required to develop plans for their own units.

Guilt/Innocence and Honour and Shame

The practical implications of the different worlviews has impacted some of the other things I am doing. Having a greater awareness of honour and shame in this culture has impacted my sermon series on Ruth. The biblical narratives are set in similar cultures so when reading Ruth, looking at the story through that culture changes lots. Boaz honoured Ruth by redeeming her through the purchase of Elimeleck’s land. While we may miss that in our western cultural lens clearly there are other things to understand from a different cultural framework.

From the first session which discussed this at length I have now had a month to process much of what was discussed. Nepotism in our culture (Guilt/Innocence) is always seen as wrong. We are individuals and believe that individuals should all be treated equally. In a collectivist (Honour/Shame) culture favouring people according to the place of honour is a given and it would be shameful to disrespect someone by not honouring them.

Honour has to do with age, position in a family (grandparents, firstborn gender), position in society/church/employment, gender, wealth (land, herds), power and types of honour (good v bad honour) https://honorshame.com/kinds-of-honor/

Some of the discussions we have had have highlighted to me how people in the course with different types of power or status responded to what were for them difficult questions in a group setting. Questions such as you are employing someone and a relative who is qualified has applied and there are five other candidates, some with better qualifications. Who would you choose. Reflecting now, I put individuals in a group setting in great difficulty because on the one hand they knew what the answer I expected was but eventually culture won out but I could see the discomfort they were in. Had I asked them that privately, I would have received the answer I was expecting but in a group setting it would have been shameful to have said the relative would not be preferred. It is just the way things are.

Do we westerners with individualist values have a right to trample culture, even say if it is development aid money that says you act according to our values? It is a big question.

Recently I was at an event for 500 women across the three Anglican Dioceses in this region. There was an opening church service which went for two and a half hours and was great because of the singing. At the end it was speeches of welcome. It took an hour as I sat there understanding that as each person was asked to stand (the three Mothers’ Union groups 100,100 and 300 were stood as groups) I could see how they moved up the honour scale. The office bearers of each MU group from Tarime, Mara and Rorya, significant others who were visiting who were employees or office bearers, through to clergy, choirs, myself, the wives of bishops who were all asked to speak as was I and then each bishop. Each bishop and wife were then brought to the front and given a gift followed by me and a few others. So in the honour scale I was behind the bishops. It is the first time I have understood a number of things like why the bishop insists I sit in the front of the car when we travel together and he takes the back seat.

I also discussed failed leadership. While people may bring dishonour to themsleves or their organisation again it seems like it is not discussed but everyone knows. So a recent employee who was terminated was used as an example of bringing dishonour to the agency they led. Checking in with some of the senior staff wondering if that was going overboard I was encouraged to be open as the culture tends to hide bad behaviour.

So this course I am facilitating on leadership has impacted me as much as I think it has impacted the participants.

A lot of time is spent giving honour in formal settings. The above example took just under an hour and looks inefficient from our western individualist culture but is the done thing here. It also explains all the gifts I received in my early years here when visiting on behalf of Anglican Aid.

We nowhere finished the big agenda and continued the following week. We touched briefly on delegation at session four and had some excellent role plays.

Two sessions to go and I have an accountant doing some basics this coming weekend.

Gesarya, Serengeti (3)

 

I was warmly greeted by this octogenarian whose ear lobes had large gaps from her years of wearing large decorative piercings and were disfigured by parts snipped off the top. She and her cohort were ahead of western culture where these piercings are all the rage with punks and goths.

Family Matters – Kenya

Marriage (2)

After leaving Sophia, current second wife of the polygamous Mwita Nguti, we then trekked down through some maize fields to the house of Nguti’s grandmother Agnes. Enroute we met Kihengu, who was Nguti’s chemistry teacher in form 4. He attended lessons on Saturdays at his school in order to prepare for exams. Age 47 he is Nguti’s father’s best friend and the two of them had come from the home of Nguti’s grandmother. He has been a teacher for 17 years and now is at Gesarya Seondary School which is local for him. We continued on to grandmother’s house.

I was warmly greeted by this octogenarian whose ear lobes had large gaps from her years of wearing large decorative piercings and were disfigured by parts snipped off the top. She and her cohort were ahead of western culture where these piercings are all the rage with punks and goths.

She greeted her grandson and I warmly and chairs were brought for us to sit outside the house and talk. She produced a range of artifacts from her past to show me how life was lived. Two enormous seed pods, smoothed and polished served variously as scoops for water, bowls for porridge of cups for tea. A large wicker basket with top then emerged and was placed on her head as she proudly showed that even at her age, she could still carry things on her head.

We chatted and as I suspected dishes of beef came out for a snack. After the conversation she showed me inside her house very proudly. Grandma Agnes Nguti was born in what is now Kenya, which gained independence in 1963, three years after the Mau Mau uprising ended (which was the independence war against colonial Britain). She did not know her age but through deduction it is estimated she is 84 years old. She never attended school and has no literacy skills. Kuria is her first language and she has learned Swahili but speaks to family and others in Kuria. She has never been to Musoma and has no idea what work Nguti does. She married and in 1960 she and her husband left Colonial Kenya for Tanganyika essentially for land which was plentiful and settled in Gesarya. Borders came some years later but still the border is fluid for locals who have relatives on both dides.

Her husband Nguti Mwita Nguti died in 1993. He went to bed with a head ache and was dead in the morning. It was unknown what the cause was, but many people died with this mysterious illness around that time which may have been meningitis, according to Dr Google which can result in death within 24 hours. She has eight children four boys and girls.

Her current brick house is about twenty five years old, replacing the original stick, mud and dung house with its straw roof that was home for over thirty years. This house with earth and sand floors has three rooms. Off the room we walked into from the front door were two bedrooms. The public room had a charcoal fire burning and her daughter in law breastfeeding a one-year-old as she tended whatever was cooking.

Her daughter in law, Catherine is twenty years old and married to Nguti’s fifty five year old uncle, Samwel. His first wife died about ten years ago. He was an Anglican pastor but was elected to a local government position and required to step down as a pastor for what is a paid representative role. He has five children from his first marriage, the youngest aged 15 living here.

Through the back door and I noted this house is part of a compound with houses to the left built by her son who lives there and the rest fenced with branches and bricks to provide a boundary. It was nowhere near as big as the house where I spent the previous night. The washroom had no door and through the fence to outside, which was still her land was a large grassed area maybe 15 metres wide leading down to a maize field which she tended. A toilet was to one side, and Nguti showed me the burial sites of his grandfather and the aunt who died in 2013. These were raised, grassed mounds near a tree with mimosa plants growing on top. The crosses had long been destroyed by cows which feed in this area.

Type your email…

• 

• 

• 

• 

• Agnes’ compound looking back
• The guy collected 60L of water and carries it on his bike
• Grandfather’s grave
• Closer view of the rear of the house

We saw people carrying water and so headed to the water source. Nguti’s uncle hand dug a well when the government came and bored a public well a few hundred metres further on and so the family has a relatively short 250 metre walk to an endless water supply. We proceeded to the public well where a man with a bicycle filled three containers to the brim, skillfully balanced them on his bike and rode off into the distance with 60 litres of precious water.

Returning to the compound we were met by Agnes who brought out her mobile phone. Nguti laughed as he told me she does not recognise names in the contact list so just guesses, asks who it is when answered and then hangs up if not the person she hoped to call. She relies on grandchildren to locate the contact when they are around.

Back to the courtyard and Catherine was washing clothes in water that was brown with dirt. It amazes me that despite the conditions women wash under, whites come out looking very white.

Carrying water

This is a water cooler made of sand

Washing clothes

We bid her and the others farewell and returned to town for lunch. At the town centre we stopped to say hi to a shopkeeper and I had a stick beek at what she was selling. Lots of facial creams were on display and I kid you not garlic face cream and then I noted a carrot based cream. All Chinese of course. The owner was bemused by my fascination with her stock but no purchases from me today.

A bit further along was a woman whose age was difficult to guess with a stunningly attractive face standing outside. She turned out to be Eliza, aunt of Nguti’s oldest maternal uncle and aged 42 but with facial features of a 25 year old. She is separated and struggles to raise her five children as a sole parent. She came to Gesarya after marriage and has little contact with her own family as it is too far to walk, being about 25 kilometres from Gesarya.

Enroute back to Nguti’s place I saw a chicken broker who basically bought chickens then went to villages to sell them. He made 100% profit per chicken.

• 

  Eliza

• 

  Beauty secret in Serengeti

• 

  Johnny the cow boy

• 

  50 kgs to the mill

• 

  Catherine and 15 yo daughter of her husband

On arriving I saw Johnny the Cow Boy who tends cattle for the Nguti’s. He gets Saturdays off. Aged 14 he came to live with them from Mwanza three years prior having been helped by one of Nguti’s siblings who learned of his homelessness and neglect and said her parents could have him stay. Anyway he herds 28 cattle daily and is paid 30,000 TZS monthly but some months Mrs Nguti buys him a sheep to help him save. He has two sheep now.

Lunch was goat meat. Mwita thanked me for coming. The previous evening was the first time his wife and daughter and Nguti had sat down as a family for a long time. He talked about the last time white people came to his village about 2007. They could not wait to get out as they appeared scared. Americans, they came over to do a mission and did not interact with the local people who were aware that they were not interested in them.

The goat after breakfast

The goat at lunch

He also mentioned his concern that I did not eat much. This then led on to the size of the American who visited. Nguti remembered that one was so large he barely fitted through the door.

Once lunch was done it was time to depart. The farewells were filled with appreciation for my visit. I was appreciative of the warmth and hospitality and the openness to discuss life here including polygamy.

Mwita’s brother arrived prior to our departure. He is the one who lives with his mother and second wife. He was able to take some photos of us all. We left heading to the next village. Tyre changed, it turned out the spare was very low and when checked had only 20kpa in it. Once we filled it, we headed back to Musoma with lots of debriefing for me taking place as we drove.

The chicken broker – buys at market and goes door to door

We changed the car tyre first thing in the morning. A guy named Chacha came along and wanted to help. After we rang the normal driver and Nguti got instructions Chacha with the hidden parts we needed was able to pretty much change this all himself and earn 5,000 Tzs 9$3) which Nguti said was too much.