Computer is back.. again.. It stays turned on now and will turn back on after being shut off. Much slower though, but it should still serve a purpose. I’m slower these days too.
Last Blog I was heading to the airport. Got there and most the way back then Hilda’s little truck made a noise that required me to pull over and turn it off. Still awaiting its return from the shop I towed it to.
The Taxi for Sunday costs about as much as fueling the little truck for a full week worth of movement. That is why we have the little truck. That and the Children’s Village has a car, a Toyota VX, a Dahla dahla (minibus), a piki piki (motorcycle) and a Coaster (larger Toyota School Bus) but no truck of any size. We’ve hauled desks, chairs, water, soda, food, propane tanks(full), plumbing supplies, etc. Its utility in addition to seating five in safety belts means it is missed by more than just Hilda and I.
Safety belts.. Not North America. A few weeks back, after a birthday party, we transported five adults in the back seat, after dark, into Arusha where we dropped them at various locations along the big road. No one was wearing a safety belt except for Hilda and I in front. All were happy, laughing, and talking right along in local free shorthand Swahili/Meru that still goes too fast, I have learned, for even most seasoned foreigners who have lived here for years. Ladies often prefer to sit in the back because they choose to skip the safety belt back there so as to better take care of their clothing, or so they claim.
They are all so very young.
This is a world of pedestrians. Though pedestrian is too strong a word in that it implies an understanding of other modes of transportation. I think I can safely say that most rarely, if ever, travel in a car. Some can afford to pay for rides on motorcycles. Some can afford the Dahla dahla that cruise the big road between communities. Fewer can afford taxi’s and then only as a crowd of folks jammed in with goods to be taken to market, or to a funeral, perhaps a wedding.
Most who operate motor vehicles likely purchased a license, to show when waved over by traffic police, without the impediment of training. So folks who are unfamiliar with motor vehicles, unfamiliar with trying to see people on foot after dark, unfamiliar with anything to do with operating, controlling or avoiding people on foot with a motor vehicle, are operating most motor vehicles. Everything is operated by people who are most familiar with travelling on foot. Most travel by foot and are clueless about motor vehicles.
This changes everything. Firstly walkers don’t understand why they shouldn’t walk in the middle of the road or the middle of a lane. After dark, especially a busy Saturday night, they do walk in the middle of the lane, middle of the road. They walk in family groups in their Sunday best going to prayer meeting or late Saturday service. They walk, beautiful dark skinned people, in their black dresses and fancy black shirts and slacks on their way to and from one local drinking establishment or another. They wander out into the road unknowingly, are shoved, or run into the road to have a pugilist exercise of dubious merit.
Forgive those on foot, because, they do not know what they are doing. Beware those on foot, because they are precious and do not have any protection from anything a driver may be operating.
Yes, I am pointing to Jesus’s last words from The Cross. There is a moment by moment reminder here of the consequences of not doing everything perfectly. The consequences of a miss-step by a walker can be permanent, harsh, and deep loss for families, friends, and a motor vehicle operator. Sin is like that.
So by necessity walking people must be monitored at all times. And their animals must be monitored at all times. Here, unlike the US where farmers are required to pay for damages resulting from their animals going wild from pasture or barn, motor vehicle operators must compensate for every cow, goat, chicken or dog that bursts out from ditches or undergrowth into their vehicles path.
As I understand it so far, there is no compensation for struck people. Perhaps the required insurance helps with medical expenses if a collision is survived. But when a human life is lost, the impression I have gotten is that there is no compensation possible. This is because the walker was allegedly responsible for themselves, unlike an animal. Further is a deep cognizance that a human life is priceless. That too is different from North America where judges and juries are required to find faults and demand compensations for anything and everything including those things beyond price.
Next in roadway pecking order is busses of any size. They serve the rare walking ones who can afford their use and hence operate as though they own the road. Given that they are most often full to bursting of people, it’s best to let them own the road, no matter how they are operated.
I was passed several weeks back by an empty articulated fuel tanker weaving through traffic like a motorcycle at a truly insane speed. Large trucks here have different slower speed limits. That does help overall yet results in much overtaking and passing by other motor vehicles and even other trucks. This means that your lane of travel is not your own.
Your lane of travel is shared with people on foot, their children and their animals. Your lane of travel is shared with motorcycles overtaking you, or not, on both sides of your motor vehicle. Your lane of travel is shared with other motor vehicles merging into the road way without thought or concern. Hopefully that merging is in the same direction your motor vehicle is travelling, however, this is not necessarily so. Your lane of travel is shared with other motor vehicles overtaking other on-coming traffic and you are expected to leave the lane if necessary and not kill any walking ones, their children or animals in the process. This is why Hilda has chosen not to drive her little truck here. That is what I am here for.
Hope that little truck gets back to us soon. It has been a long expensive three weeks.
That description of the current driving conditions here is a fair representation. I have the experience of having been here thirteen – fourteen years ago. The current driving conditions are hugely improved from that time. There are crosswalks everywhere. When people on foot choose to use them, traffic is required to stop and let them. Not so thirteen-fourteen years ago. Although I am convinced that nearly all traffic police have never received any training involved in operating a motor vehicle themselves, they travel by Dahla-dahla to where they wave traffic over and demand money, at least they are now.. there.
Traffic police assure that crosswalks are respected, if not repainted. Traffic police assure children wait in a group before entering a crosswalk and get safely to the other side of the road. Traffic police are people on foot and are at least there to look out for those like themselves. Not so thirteen-fourteen years ago.
Tanzania may still be near the bottom of the still developing world, but, Tanzania has been improving itself in very real ways. When I am required to teach about driving here, I start with the massive improvement undertaken by this poor country in that too long, yet short, time I was gone.
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Two Sundays ago I did preach in a rural church for Pastor Lazarus. Last minute Pastor Lazarus was called elsewhere. So I had the joy of an older gentleman translator who, now retired and working his farm back in TZ, is brilliant enough to have received his economics degrees in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Together we were one presenter. How much of that is this man’s brilliance, and how much is The Holy Spirit and what difference that could possibly make, I don’t know. It was a joy. It let me come to understand something I wasn’t so consciously aware of. Awareness coming from seeing it also in my brilliant translator’s eyes.
That rural church is a building in progress like so many other preaching points here. Open on three sides, from the pulpit one is looking West, North and East over pews then open countryside. The Cross is above on the South wall behind the pulpit. South of that wall are three rooms without doors accessible from outside the worship space.
The East Pews were empty but for one young man sitting in the morning sun. The West Pews, in the morning shade, were full! Words were given me and I let them go. I took folks through the days scriptures and added another Gospel Reading along the way. I was given the ability to do this while looking everyone there in those full west pews each in the eye. No one turned away even when I challenged them. But for only one distracted older man, they all looked back.
When we were done I was aware of it in my translator/guides eyes. We had done well. We had done well in spite of me knowing I am not enough. I realized yet again that I am not alone in this teaching, proclaiming, challenging, job called preaching. I also realized that I am blessed and tried in these moments of preaching by knowing simultaneously that here I only have the attention of these precious people for a few minutes before I am gone, likely to never see them again. Further, that as I present scripture I present it to precious people who I could not be more in love with. I love them like my own children.
Since growing up on the farm and learning to work with and for my folks and Aunt and Uncle, siblings and cousins I have been working every job for the sake of love. Leaves one vulnerable in the worldly context and in retrospect I see that now. The world tried to teach me to work for money, position, even power. It disgusted me over and over. The farm and those precious relationships there taught me to work and work hard.. out of love. And, somehow, the impossible task of loving every person to their face and in their eye, so much that it aches, gets done. Nobody is enough. God help me, ever.
Last Sunday, English Service for worship, up the mountain to gather helpers, down to Silverleaf Academy for Sunday School at 10. Then up the mountain again to The Children’s Village for Sunday School there. Then Text study / preaching with the Mama’s of The Children’s Village.
My grandmother was there joyfully singing old hymns in African English to me. Matron is nearly ninety. She comes at least weekly to check the children’s health and teach about wellness and nutrition. She is a retired nurse from the local hospital. Like my grandmother on the farm Matron is petite, wiry and lean. Were she not gentle, the fire in her eyes would cut you without a single word. This is also like my grandmother on the farm. She is a breathtaking rare elder here who survives and thrives by choosing joy in the face of such deep hardship and want. Somehow presentation of last weeks scripture evoked dancing and singing to spring forth.
I not only have love.. I am given love.. We are given love..
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What to Pray for:
Our armed forces families, our leadership, our people, whole world round, all of Gods kids -
All the tough and blessing expressed above –
The love of folks –
Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –
For our children and grand-children who miss us.. we miss them too..
I continue to be under much harsh spiritual attack concerning my sense of self-worth and those many things I have yet to get to, please, only as you are comfortable, remember me, indeed us.. the world doesn’t like what we are doing out of love we don’t own.. yet have none the less -
For Makumira Secondary School looking to share stories and partner in some way with a foreign school, Great leaders, teachers, students, programs, strong backs, minds, and hearts –
Gratitude for my dear friend and Brother in Christ who writes now with my dear friend Reverend Dr. Justin Mungure -
For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us –
For a way for us to invest with our experience and even financially in support of local industrious people so we can afford to stay and continue to make a difference one face at a time –
For those who have braved the donate button to discover Kajun Crofton, our daughter who helps getting each one of your donations to us and every blogpost to where you can read it -
For each and every one of you –
Each and every one of your prayers, your precious conversations with God –
Prayers, Your Prayer, Even our groaning prayers makes all the difference..
Vern W
May Life be as Music to your Heart - May Music be as Heart to your Life
- May Heart be as Life to your Music -
