Mid-year Retreat, Dentists, Dodoma, Lutheran Charismatics, and the End of Vacation
As I publish this post, I am in the final hours of my mid-year break between academic semesters at Majengo Secondary School (MJSS). The school will reopen with a vengeance tomorrow (July 11), and from then on it will be back to the teaching life again until the end of the school year in late November, with a week or so of mid-term break in September. Although I am excited to return to teaching and see all my students regularly again, I have enjoyed my last few weeks.
Last month, JVC Tanzania had a wonderful mid-year retreat at the Mbagalla Spirituality Centre (alas, Tanzanian English generally follows the spellings and conventions of British English [BrE, according to the dictionary abbreviations I taught my students] rather than our fair American tongue [AmE]) in a suburb of Dar-es-Salaam, where we were able to reconnect and prayerfully reflect on our experiences. And, of course, as usual, the food was wonderful and, even better, made by centre’s wonderful staff rather than us. We even had hamburgers for lunch one day! After leaving the retreat centre, most of us visited Dar’s Indian Ocean beaches before returning to the Mabibo neighborhood and a meal with the Jesuits there. The retreat was well worth the two 8-hour bus rides. (Of course, I also enjoy riding Greyhound in the States, so I am perhaps not the best judge. For the record, I think most JVs would disagree with my views on this issue, among others.)
The Sunday after retreat, I worshipped for the first time with Moshi’s Lutherans. Not because I have left the lower-case “c” catholic fold, but because there was no English language mass at the cathedral due to the lengthy KiSwahili first communion service that was finishing as we arrived. So, that afternoon, I rolled into Moshi’s main Lutheran church for what turned out to be the monthly charismatic service. It was wonderful, and all in KiSwahili. In addition to being a worship style I became comfortable with in South Africa and a different method to draw near to God than the traditional Catholic mass with which I usually worship here, the charismatic form of worship was also comprehensible to me since the Lutheran worship leaders tended to repeat the same simple KiSwahili phrases over and over again. During the sermon, I thankfully figured out which Bible stories the pastor was using while they were being read and was then able to cheat a bit and use context clues to decipher most of the message. It was a great charismatic time, and I suspect I shall visit my new Lutheran friends again from time to time. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) is quite strong in the Kilimanjaro and Arusha regions of northern Tanzania and now refuses aid from most (or maybe all?) Western Lutheran churches due to the increasingly liberal theological positions of the latter.
I also made two trips to visit a Tanzanian dentist recently. And survived to write this blog post. Due to my own poor track record of dental maintenance and my increased soda consumption here (not my fault, I swear, because I feel culturally rude turning sodas down . . . although I do like them), I figured I ought to continue my usual teeth cleanings every six months. The staff of the Kilimanjaro Dental Clinic was very friendly and enjoyed my poor KiSwahili quite well, although they spoke fine English. The very experienced dentist had actually finished his dental studies in the Soviet Union in the late 1960s. I had a full cleaning and polishing/sealing. Unfortunately, he found a small cavity (I blame the sodas), which meant I had to return a few days ago for a composite filling. Their office was very clean and well-stocked, and although the equipment was a bit older than what I am used to (with a bit more grinding than brushing-style implements) and triggered a partial return of my longstanding gag reflex, I am glad my teeth are generally back in a healthy state. I plan on returning for two more cleanings while I’m here. Perhaps the dental experience means that I am now actually settled in here since I don’t recall having ever gone to a dentist outside of Phillips (or in KiSwahili, “kijiji cha Phillips,” literally, the village of Phillips).
As for my final adventure of vacation, I just returned on Thursday from my whirlwind trip to Dodoma, Tanzania’s official capital since 1973 which I first visited with the other JVs over New Year’s at the end of our in-country orientation. I visited my friend Sean, one of my best friends in JVC and one of the first two JVs to serve in Dodoma. On the way there, my bus stopped for four hours along the highway while our driver and the other employees tried to fix what was either an oil leak or a problem with the engine’s mixing of oil and water, or at least that was what I gathered from the other passengers. I suspected when one of the attendants told us we had “matatizo kidogo” (a few problems) that we would be there for a while, but it was okay. The man sitting next to me for the journey, a kind civil servant working for the National Social Security Fund and heading to Dodoma for a training seminar, kept asking me during our lengthy stop if I was worried, but really it was fine. Anyway, I finally rolled into Dodoma at 11:30 p.m. at night, 16 hours after I left Moshi, which meant it was a perfect time to eat chips (thick French fries) and meat with Sean at late night restaurant. I spent the next three days with Sean, living the Dodoma life. In the mornings, we helped out with his boarding school’s mid-year break tutoring program for the school’s few Form I students from KiSwahili language primary schools, who are struggling. Of course, two thirds of my students come from KiSwahili primary schools, so it was a great training experience. Father Marty, the school’s American Jesuit headmaster and a former freshman English grammar teacher, taught the students grammar far better than I have done at Majengo so far, and it was great to get some new ideas and watch an experienced American teacher effectively teach English cross-culturally. We visited a friend of Sean’s in the village nearby the school, climbed Simba Mlima (the small rock formation rising above Dodoma), and spent two great evenings with the Jesuits, including spending our 4th of July at a mass followed by a meal and party with the Jesuits and the nuns who operate Dodoma’s Jesuit primary school. It was also great to catch up with Sean, even though I had just seen him at retreat, especially because he had been too sick to attend our Easter retreat. On Thursday, I bused it home again without another large stop, but we did have two hour-ish delays related, I think, to the bus’s electrical system. For one thing, bus trips are great for reading. I finished The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by Father James Martin, SJ. If you wish to learn more about who the Jesuits are and what they are about, I would highly recommend this book, which is quite readable despite its 400+ pages.
Well, that’s it for now. I will also put up a post of pictures from Dodoma to make up for the boredom any of you who finished this post may be feeling at this point. Term #2, here we go!
God bless,
Andy
