Sick Sunday and Fishy Fish! (6/14)

I was awoken by Paul and I realized it’s been awhile since that’s happened! His voice when calling me to wake up was quite scratchy and weak and I found out he was feeling pretty sick (some sort of cold). This meant that he would not be able to accompany me to church and that I could go with Henry or one of the others. Paul told me that I needed to leave at 9:45am and since it was only 8:30, I had plenty of time to get ready. After all, I’m used to giving myself 5 minutes to get ready some mornings! 

I boiled myself water, got ready, and walked up to the office to connect to some WiFi (I wanted to send a couple of messages before I left since I knew I probably wouldn’t have WiFi for a while). Before I left, Paul told me to go meet with Mr. Chesco so I walked to his house. Thankfully I knew where that was as the previous night when we walked Michael home, Paul pointed out Mr. Chesco’s home! 

When I arrived, I waited outside and watched chickens until he came out where he brought me bad news; Henry was very sick and could not go to church. Mr. Chesco insisted I go inside and say good morning to Henry where I learned he had been throwing up all night. Thankfully, Henry was feeling a little better that morning, yet Mr. Chesco still wanted to tend to him to make sure he didn’t get worse. The last thing that Mr. Chesco wanted was me to go to church alone so we called Luka to ask if Eli was on his way to church. More bad news! Eli was also sick and unable to go. Next option, Miraclin who’s host we couldn’t get ahold of. I thought about walking down the road to get Michael but I thought he would still be sleeping. With no one to accompany me, Mr. Chesco walked me to church which was nice. He handed me off to a neighbor that was also going. 

Walking up to the church you could hear the music the moment you turned onto the road leading up to it. I walked into the church where the woman directed me where to sit. Men and women sit on opposite sides of the church here! Michael arrived shortly after me; it was nice to see a familiar face. Worship was once again amazing and I had the opportunity to dance again with the boys from last time. It was a blast. My calves were burning from all the jumping we were doing! Michael also loves to dance but went to the bathroom right before I was invited up. 

The sermon promptly followed the worship, but this time it was entirely in Swahili. Thankfully the pastor from previous weeks sat by me to translate the sermon and the boys that danced with us translated for Michael. We focused on Psalm 127 and how we must do all things through God. This means never ceasing in prayer and putting your full faith into His works. If you want to prosper, give it to God. If God sees fit that that’s His plan, He will bless you and your endeavors. 

Additionally, we are to know that God’s armies are protecting and providing for us everyday! It was a little hard to understand as whispering any sort of message muddles up what’s being said. The pastor that was preaching used to live in this village before being relocated to a coastal town due to his work in the government. Thanks to some sort of coincidence, he was here for the weekend and was able to preach to the church!

Afterwards, we went with one of the boys that we danced with named St. Moses to a house nearby to eat (same one as last week). Michael and I talked about all sorts of things with Moses; school, hobbies, favorite things, ect. He’s 18, in Form 6, and honestly pretty short (4ft?). Nevertheless, he’s a wonderfully sweet person and it was great to finally talk to the guy who’s so passionate with his dancing for the Lord! He showed us around the village, mainly to the tea fields and showed us how to pick it. You pluck the light green leaves on the top of the tea bush and throw it behind you into a bag. I can see how this can be brutal work as you’re paid by the kilogram of tea plucked and only get $0.05 USD to $0.10 per kilogram. You can imagine how much work even one kilogram is as the leaves aren’t that big!

We walked back to the house to eat ugali and beans. I didn’t have breakfast (tea time) so I was pretty hungry! We all ate together and learned some more Swahili from Moses. “Watermelon” in Swahili is “tikiti maji”. The food went down quickly and we were on our way in no time. Before getting back to our houses, Moses introduced us to his father, grandmother, and mother. An offhand comment from Moses revealed that his father, the pastor, has many wives which Moses said is, “a behavior I do not want to do”. 

They were very kind and of course spoke no English. When you greet someone that is older than you or holds a role higher than you, you say “shikamoo” and their response is “marahaba”! I randomly mentioned that I like sugar cane and since there was a massive plant in their front yard, Michael and I were given massive pieces for us to eat! We picked up Moses’ younger brother and briefly met his aunt and younger sister before walking all the way back to our houses. There was no need for them to walk Micheal and I back, but it was very kind nonetheless. I tried to eat my sugar cane while walking and got it all over the front of my shirt!

When I got back to the house, Paul was leaving to go get a haircut at the village and was therefore feeling better. Seeing that I had some free time and a sticky shirt, I figured I might as well wash it! I also washed my towel since I was already getting into the trouble of getting everything out. While washing, the neighbor Peter invited me over to watch more football and a movie. He insisted that, “I should not be idle” and since I truly wasn’t going to do anything better, I went over there when I finished washing and hung up the two pieces to dry in my room. 

We first watched some Tanzanian club soccer when it was time for lunch. A neighbor was there named Simba (yes, like the Lion King. Simba means lion in Swahili) and watched with us. Peter’s wife had made ugali, greens, and a weird fish sauce that I was too scared to try for lunch. I already ate before coming here so I only had a little bit of greens and ugali. The football game was fun, yet I fell asleep only 30 minutes into the game. I excused myself to take a little nap back at Paul’s house which was wonderful. 45 minutes later I was back at Peter’s house where the soccer match was still on. I proceeded to stay at his house until 10:00pm. 

Throughout the day, while we waited for the big World Cup game to come on, we talked a ton about random things, played with his 9 month old son Arusha, and watched a random assortment of things on the TV (random dramas with horrible acting or music videos). 

Eventually the main event had arrived, Germany vs Curacao. I learned that this was Curacao’s first time being at the World Cup and is the smallest country ever to be in this tournament (150,000 people). As the game started a ton of people came over to watch, mostly school aged boys. Perhaps it was the fact that no one cared about the teams playing, but no one seemed to cheer or really react that much when something exciting happened. I believe that in Tanzania it is very much custom to be more conserved with emotions. 

The game ended up being pretty boring. Germany smoked Curacao, ending the game 7-1! In the middle of the game, dinner was ready for Peter and I to eat. It was the same food as lunch so I decided to try the fish… The fish dish (ha) consisted of small chunks of potato in a sauce with very tiny fish (minnow size or smaller). I’ll be honest, I generally really like the food here and am not a picky eater but this stuff was disgusting. I don’t mean to be crass, but the fish smelt like vomit and was the fishiest fish I’ve ever tasted. I’m not one to complain, especially here, and I’m extremely glad to have food prepared for me, but this was just one of those things I could not fake like. 

Peter could tell that I didn’t want the fish which just meant more for him, but he wanted to make sure that I was still fed. He asked if I liked chips (french fries) and I of course could not say no to that. In about 10 minutes, there was a small plate of chips for me to eat paired with a spicy chili sauce. It was fantastic! At this point it was late (not that late, but I knew if I stayed any longer I would be roped into a new game that started at 11:00pm which meant I wouldn’t get home until 1:00am at the latest). 

Back at the house, it seemed like Paul was tucked soundly into his bed! I went to my room, but didn’t feel like blogging so I watched The Goonies! I’m hoping for a very productive day tomorrow as I have a lot to get done this week. I ended up not eating that much today, which was the first time since I’ve been here. I’m always welcome to new changes! Perhaps this will be how things are out here, who knows. Regardless, I fell asleep very quickly.