Renewing Relationships

Sunday Afternoon and Evening

The graceful grounds of Lutheran Junior Seminary (LJS) will be our home for the next two weeks. This campus began as a seminary but over the years has changed to a boarding school for middle and high school age children with a Swahili language school that serves students from around the world. Although the focus of the school has changed, the name remains the same.

Arriving yesterday shortly before the family-style dinner was served, we scrambled to unload our mountain of bags so our bus driver could leave and we quickly dropped everything, untouched, in our rooms. Dinner was a selection of rice, boiled potatoes, baked beans, beef and carrot stew and fresh cucumbers and tomatoes.

Although the long trip and lack of sleep was apparent on the face of every team member, directly after dinner we met in the common room for our first team meeting where we discussed some of the cultural differences that are important for us to know and observe. A brief plan for the next day was outlined, but Cindy warned to consider all plans drawn in very light pencil!

Meeting concluded, the team turned to unpacking and settling in to our basic but clean rooms. All are furnished with a foam mattress on a frame, a cabinet for clothing, a mat on the floor and a trash can. And a self-contained bathroom!. The bachelor boys (Chris—because his wife is not on this trip, Will and Zach) have individual rooms near each other in the B wing. Both married couples are in the H wing and have rooms with a large bed and the 4 solo women are paired up in the F wing with Cindy and Pati right next door to Ashley and Nancy.

Monday Morning

We are not yet on Doug’s early morning rounds time table, so we took our time with breakfast (yogurt, granola, the local porridge called uji, and toast.) Our attire is our Sunday-go-to-meeting best since our first stop is the diocese office at the parish in Morogoro of Mjimpyia. Bishop Mameo, the bishop of the Morogoro diocese of the church, is currently in the US for a few weeks so his assistant, George Pendua, formally greeted the team. We were warmly welcomed and treated to a tour of the multi-story church that, year by year, is ever nearer completion.

Communication woes were solved this morning when our friend, Kishumu, and his cousin, Eliah, helped us get set up with a wireless modem and activation of the team phones. This means that we will all have access to good, fast, internet every evening in the common room. We are all pretty stoked about this!

Lunchtime found us at a local restaurant, the Hilux, where we enjoyed typical Tanzanian food. Our day will finish at Mazimbu, the small government hospital where we will be working. We will be greeting everyone at Mazimbu and showing the new team members the layout. Once the formalities are concluded, we will unpack our medical supplies and medicines and set up our work spaces, including our locking pharmacy. We do not know what we will find when we arrive but are prepared to begin our work if hopeful patients have already begun to arrive.