The Children's Easter Disco

I just realized that I left out the most interesting part of our stay in Musoma: the children's Easter disco. Yes, you read that right. According to the guy at our hotel, it is tradition there to have a disco(dance) on Easter afternoon. He was kind of surprised we don't do it in the U.S. There is one for adults, but it doesn't begin till about midnight. We weren't about to venture out for that, but decided to drop by the child version just for kicks. It was basically a whole lot of kids piled into a place on the beach dancing with loud music. We stuck our heads in and then decided the kids playing in the water and along the beach had a much better idea. We walked around and even got our picture taken with a couple who was having what looked like engagement shots made. I'm not really sure that they do engagement photos here, but they had a guy following them around taking pictures of them posing everywhere. I wish I had pictures of this event, but I left the camera in the room. If we had pulled a camera out there we would have surely been mobbed by kids wanting us to take their picture and then show them. 

(For those of you who know Jeff Palk, we saw his African twin. I seriously wished I had the camera on me.)

Kenya! Uganda! Rwanda!

After leaving the girls to the girl stuff, Brett and I went on a Safari!!!....Ok, well, maybe not a safari. It turns out that even in Africa they have caged animals. The Impala above and the Vervet Monkeys below were in a park in Kisumu, Kenya. They were quite friendly. They also had a lion, a hyena, an ostrich, some baboons, and a few other token animals caged up for city folk to gawk at. Not my idea of a nice place...

Brett and I departed the Impala Park and headed straight to El Doret, Kenya to meet up with the Gafners. Keith Gafner has been in El Doret since 1989 and has been doing agriculture development for most of his time there. We picked his brain for a few days and enjoyed time with his wife Grace and his two daughters. Below is a picture of some Rosemary that is growing outside a window of their house. It is huge!

Upon departing El Doret we hi-tailed it to Jinja, Uganda, the source of the Nile. The girls joined is the next day and the fun wouldn't stop! We stayed with Bobby and Candice Garner, and learned about the work in Jinja. They are on a team that is the second wave of missionaries to work with the Church of Christ there. Much of the work is focused on The Source Cafe and its many resources. The Source is a coffee shop with a library, internet cafe, and gift shop attached. It is absolutely amazing and is a great resource for the people of Jinja. Also Bobby is involved with a reforestation project called The Mvule Project. They are assisting villages in planting Mvule trees using a grant system in which the village receives donations based upon their contribution to the work. It really is an amazing work! Check out there website at the link above.

No trip to Jinja would be complete without a trip to the source of the Nile! We spent time at Bujugati Falls just downstream from the beginning of the river. Also we visited a village nearby where Bobby is using some land to design some agriculture techniques that might help people nearby use the land better. The boy below lives in the village nearby. Playing with tires is so fun!!

One of Bobby's goats.

Brett and I at the falls.

We took a boat ride to the source and got to experience the water wildlife. We saw all kinds of birds, some monkeys, and a monitor lizard or two. 

To the left of us is the Nile River, to the right is Lake Victoria!

At the end of the ride, I took a second to photograph a flower we saw a good bit in Jinja. 

Then low and behold I found a Chameleon in the grass. He was getting a little riled up when I snapped this photo. You can tell by the red stripes on his back. And all this time I thought chameleons lived only on television!

We left Jinja and journeyed on to Kampala, the capital of Uganda. For some strange reason I seem to have no digital memory of that city. Just picture cars, cars and more cars and you get the idea. We left Kampala after a few days and arrived in Mbarara, a town that would be our resting between Kampala and Kigali, Rwanda. There we stayed with the Glisson family. It turnes out that Scott Glisson was friends with Duane Dixon, my good friend, when they were at Freed together. We had fun with there many kids, and got up early the next day to leave for Kigali. 

There is more to Kigali than just birds, but I guess as our journey came to a close, photography lost ground to sleep and driving. Sorry moms! Holly found this African Crane wandering around the pool where we spent our last day in Kigali.

It was two and a half weeks around Lake Victoria, but after a twelve hour drive yesterday, we arrived safely back in Mwanza. We will be leaving Saturday to trek to Iringa and begin language school! Keep us in your prayers as you are in ours.

Carson

East Africa Ladies Retreat

After leaving Musoma we met up with the Harrisons and some of the Mwanza team to go to the Ladie Retreat in Kenya. It was such a neat thing to meet so many missionary women who are hard at work in East Africa. They come from all stages of life, some married, some single, some with grown kids, some with little kids, some with both!, some with none. Some have been here for a LONG time. and then there was Christie and myself, just a few weeks off the plane. The Jinja girls put on this years retreat and did a wonderful job with it. I know I will be looking forward to it this time next year.

Chirstie working on her mask for the masquerade ball.

Christie and I with the Mwanza ladies, dressed up as Tanzanian women for the masquerade ball.

We played dirty santa with wrapped gifts of food! (food that is not available here)

Triscuits and EZ Cheez were hot items!

Carson and Brett were in El Doret, Kenya visiting with some missionaries there while Christie and I were at the retreat. Maybe Carson will post about that in a bit.

Easter in Musoma

We're a bit behind on blogging as we've been away from the computer making a trip around Lake Victoria. You can expect several posts in the next day or two.

On the Saturday before Easter we headed to Musoma. Like Mwanza, it is a town on Lake Victoria, but it is smaller. Easter morning we decided to find a nice spot on the water to read the Easter story together. We first tried a spot close to our hotel, but almost immediately some guys came up and wanted to talk. In fact they all sat around us as we continued reading for a few minutes. We talked with the only one who knew English for a while and then left to find another beach spot. We drove out on a peninsula and at the very end found a nice area where we read together on one of the big rocks, and then ate lunch in a little hut. It was an overcast day, but we enjoyed it alot. The pictures don't really do it justice.

This is the rock where we read the Easter story.

This is where we ate lunch

There were lots of birds around which Carson had fun trying to capture on film

As we were leaving we came upon some goats and their herder. That's not unusual here, but in this case the road dropped off steeply on both sides so he was running them down the road in front of us, trying to find a place to get out of the way!

Geita!!! (part two- the trip home)

Our trip to Geita ended with a flat tire as we arrived at the ferry back to Mwanza! Carson, Brett and Aaron managed to put on the spare despite the rain and people crowding them offering help. We made it back to Mwanza and on Thursday took the truck in to get new all terrain tires. We were already considering it and the flat just sealed the deal! There is a mechanic in town that the missionaries here have used for a long time and have a good relationship with which made it easy.

Below are pictures that I took from inside the truck on the ferry. On the smaller ferry there is seating for all of the people, but on this one they just crowd in between the vehicles!

This video was taken on the road back to Mwanza. 

It had rained a lot so we went through lots of water crossings like this.

Geita!!! (part one)

On Monday morning we set out for Geita. Aaron, from the Mwanza team, went with us and was a huge help with language, and in general a log of fun. Carson did a great job getting the truck packed onto the ferry alongside the giant buses and navigating the rough road to Geita. While there we had dinner with the Kroppachs, the only other Mzungu (white) family in Geita that is not involved with the Gold Mine. We had a great time meeting with them and asking lots of questions about Geita. One thing that was clear is that the Gold Mine influences every part of life in Geita.

We also spent time walking around the market, driving around (especially looking at housing), and looking into the different guest houses (hotels). Honestly, by Tuesday afternoon we were out of things to do. We bought a deck of cards! Geita is just not very big and there are a lot of things we can't really do until we have more language and are actually ready to move there (after language school). It also seems/appears/some people have said, that they are paving the road from Sengerema to Geita. There were even people out working on several sections when we drove by. This will make the trip to Mwanza faster and much more pleasant. We anticipate making trips to Mwanza often for supplies and fellowship with the Mwanza team.

It was exciting to finally see Geita. Please continue to pray for the people there. 

I did manage to take a few picture which are posted below.

It rained alot while we were there. This picture is just outside of our hotel room door. The red gate leads to the parking lot.

Carson posing with the metal giraffe at our hotel.

The park in Geita

A couple of shops

Brett at the internet cafe which actually has pretty fast internet

Aaron standing in front of what they told me was a wedding chapel. Apparently they were joking, but it really does look like one. The two trees are intertwined in the branches and check out the heart shape in the concrete. Who wouldn't get married there?

Football (soccer)

On Saturdays, the Mwanza missionaries go to the school many of their children attend for football with other ex-pats. Last Saturday we went with them. I thought I'd post a few of the pictures Carson took.

The older group of kids warming up.

Christie relaxing

Brett is a pretty big fan of soccer (he used to coach it. perhaps the only sport he is not a big fan of is cricket, but that could change.) and played some with the school's high school team later in the day.

Baby Ezra

Emily putting sun screen on Judah

Charity and me holding Micah

Elijah. I wish I had a picture of his big brother Josiah. We are staying at their house and Josiah almost always has on a soccer outfit. I think he lives for Saturdays!

I'll try and do a post about our first trip to Geita soon!