Dear family and friends,
Things are going very well here. We officially started the rainy season two weeks ago…and found out that all water flows to our front door. After bailing and sponging up ten buckets of water from our house (it was 1 ½ inches deep in one room), we worked on digging a trench around the house. I had to take out a row of brick from our entry and back patio to allow for water flow. The burm the trench created added to the insurance against future flooding. You live and learn; a student warned me against having the brick level with the floor, but I had no idea of the amount of water HE KNEW would be coming. I taught him an English phrase to say to me, “I told ya so!” Now, the only time we get water is when the wind is blowing from the south and water runs down and under the door. Life is simple and good. A little water is good for mopping the floors. As I type, the rain has begun very heavily and Joanne has put a rag at the front door. A group of Brahma walk by the front window, two bulls, a cow, and a calf, followed by a lone sheep. Poor things are looking for shelter. Perhaps they will come under our back entry roof, where a goat routinely beds down. I told the owner of the goat that she has adopted us; he told me if he ever wants to sell her, I will get the first chance. It would make a good Christmas dinner!
We started construction a couple of weeks ago on a hen house and adjoining garden space, which needs a fence against the cows and goats, but as the Form II students helping me went on a two week break, the work has all but stopped. We have a hen that knows her place in the house and gives us an egg nearly every day; we are excited about adding to the flock when things get organized in order to offer boiled eggs at the student canteen; they could use the protein in their diet, as do we.
Joanne continues to get new students and is up to 60 in her class; she knows them all by name. She is teaching English and Math, sharing with some student teachers from Madisi. Gary has added to his teaching schedule the task of photographing the student body for government records. Come January, he will be very busy organizing and attempting to teach all of the Bible Knowledge classes for Forms I, II, and III. As the students get to know us, along with the staff, we are getting more and more visitors in the afternoon and evening. We discuss Kiswahili, play games, sing choruses, and discuss the differences in cultures. Nothing is really an interruption; what you were doing just gets postponed. We love it.
We don’t know when our computer will be up again in order to check what we’ve received or respond. “POLE” (Swahili: Sorry)
Love you all dearly,
Gary and Joanne Grenell
Idigima Secondary School
Tanzania, Africa
P.S. The rain has stopped and people are walking about on the dirt…this ground is so sandy that it doesn’t get sloppy muddy like in Iowa. We’re thinking it would be perfect for carrots. They are sold in Mbeya, but we’ve not seen them out here in the remote villages. We’ll have people going to the city look for seeds. During the hard rain, two students called from the darkness outside our window, wanting to give us avocados. They were huddled under an umbrella and had two gunny sacks with huge avocados; nearly twice as big as you’ll find at Hy-Vee. They had walked 30-40 minutes in the rain to give fruit away to their teachers.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
In the thick of it!
Our computers are down and we don't know when we'll get them restored, but we have use of this visiting laptop for about ten minutes, so here goes.
Joanne has new students arriving daily, it seems, and now has a class of 60 who will begin as Form I students in January. She knows them all by name and many visit us in our home in the evening and on weekends. They enjoy using their English skills and teaching us Kiswahili phrases. They also enjoy learning American table games and chapel choruses. We have a number of Madisi student teachers helping until they return to school in January, so that has helped to break up Joanne's class into the different levels of proficiency. We have taken the more challenged learners, each of us taking classes with about twenty students. The other day during class, we heard a low, pulsating noise and looked out to see a group of very large black birds with huge bills and red baggy throats walking across the soccer field. The red sack at the throat was the source of the noise, puffing up and down somewhat like a bull frog...or bagpipe...making drumming/throbbing noise...very strange. The class was excited to know about a bird not familiar to the local American. Another day in Form II Bible Knowledge, we had a goat start to enter the classroom. I asked if she was a Form II student...the class laughed so loudly that the goat left in a hurry.
The rainy season officially began a couple of weeks ago, and we were formally initiated. We'd not experienced more than a light rain, almost misty, since coming to Idigima, so had no idea of the kind of rains we'll be living with for the next few months. We had gathered fragments of bricks from the construction areas and put in an entry pad at the front door and wrap-around patio at the back. The plan was to establish a buffer between the dirt and the floor of the house. The student helping me told me to set the brick three or four inches below the floor level to keep water from flowing into the house. I thought that would cause a lot of people to trip, walking around at night without lights as much as we do. I assured him that the gaps between the brick would allow plenty of drainage.,, We bailed and mopped about ten buckets of water out of our house after the first "real" rain. The student came by the day after our first seasonal rain, and I taught him a new English phrase, "I told ya so!" We both had a good laugh and started rearranging the brick and digging ditches around the house to direct the floods that wash over the ground during the rains. You live and learn, and everyday is an adventure with totally unpredictable events. It may be a need in the middle of the day or night that totally changes your scheduled activities, or it may be a chance meeting of someone on the road who ends up coming to your home for a Bible study. I was pulled off the street into a tea house one day by a tailor we'd spent time with a week before (Joanne showed him things on his sewing machine he didn't know how to use). He was so excited that his children were getting an education...and he considers Joanne his sewing teacher, even though she's lost her sense of timing in being able to keep a treddle machine going.
Better close this before the battery dies and you fail to receive news for another month. :-)
We covet your prayers.
God bless you all as you serve our Lord in your various responsibilities.
Gary and Joanne Grenell
Joanne has new students arriving daily, it seems, and now has a class of 60 who will begin as Form I students in January. She knows them all by name and many visit us in our home in the evening and on weekends. They enjoy using their English skills and teaching us Kiswahili phrases. They also enjoy learning American table games and chapel choruses. We have a number of Madisi student teachers helping until they return to school in January, so that has helped to break up Joanne's class into the different levels of proficiency. We have taken the more challenged learners, each of us taking classes with about twenty students. The other day during class, we heard a low, pulsating noise and looked out to see a group of very large black birds with huge bills and red baggy throats walking across the soccer field. The red sack at the throat was the source of the noise, puffing up and down somewhat like a bull frog...or bagpipe...making drumming/throbbing noise...very strange. The class was excited to know about a bird not familiar to the local American. Another day in Form II Bible Knowledge, we had a goat start to enter the classroom. I asked if she was a Form II student...the class laughed so loudly that the goat left in a hurry.
The rainy season officially began a couple of weeks ago, and we were formally initiated. We'd not experienced more than a light rain, almost misty, since coming to Idigima, so had no idea of the kind of rains we'll be living with for the next few months. We had gathered fragments of bricks from the construction areas and put in an entry pad at the front door and wrap-around patio at the back. The plan was to establish a buffer between the dirt and the floor of the house. The student helping me told me to set the brick three or four inches below the floor level to keep water from flowing into the house. I thought that would cause a lot of people to trip, walking around at night without lights as much as we do. I assured him that the gaps between the brick would allow plenty of drainage.,, We bailed and mopped about ten buckets of water out of our house after the first "real" rain. The student came by the day after our first seasonal rain, and I taught him a new English phrase, "I told ya so!" We both had a good laugh and started rearranging the brick and digging ditches around the house to direct the floods that wash over the ground during the rains. You live and learn, and everyday is an adventure with totally unpredictable events. It may be a need in the middle of the day or night that totally changes your scheduled activities, or it may be a chance meeting of someone on the road who ends up coming to your home for a Bible study. I was pulled off the street into a tea house one day by a tailor we'd spent time with a week before (Joanne showed him things on his sewing machine he didn't know how to use). He was so excited that his children were getting an education...and he considers Joanne his sewing teacher, even though she's lost her sense of timing in being able to keep a treddle machine going.
Better close this before the battery dies and you fail to receive news for another month. :-)
We covet your prayers.
God bless you all as you serve our Lord in your various responsibilities.
Gary and Joanne Grenell
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Getting settled in & learning the ropes
With the love of God we greet you from Idigima Secondary School. Very little time for this, so hang on. We’ve been here two weeks and already I have preached with an interpreter at a local (one hour walk) Moravian church when 6 congregations came together for an end-of-month service. Joanne got to teach at SS. Next week I am to preach at a Baptist church in Ihowa…one hour bicycle ride away; pray for Joanne, who will be sitting side-saddle on the back of my bike in her long skirt. The roads are dirt with rocks “growing out of the surface,” so it is often like Extreme BMX sports when you go down the steep hills.
I have been assigned to the upper Form II classes, teaching three Bible Knowledge classes several times per week, while Joanne has her own Pre-Form Class, which are brand new students who know very little English; she teaches English and math for five 80 minute classes. We have also been assigned to supervise the weekly chapel service with one of the national teachers; the chapel is supposed to be student-run, but due to recent exams, prep time will not allow this. Joanne has been asked to bring a devotion tomorrow, as Gary lost his voice after preaching Sunday and “enthusiasm” in the classroom. It is almost restored, but don’t want to push it.
We live in a four bedroom brick home, just like the buildings you see in the Idigima pictures. There is a long room where we eat and socialize, small kitchen in the back, and someday will have indoor bath and toilet facilities. Two of the bedrooms are shared by the five female teachers, while the fourth serves as a pantry and prep room for the fried bread sold with hot tea at the school concession shack. There is another house shared by 10 or 11 men teachers, and two more homes under construction. When the next one is completed, the girls will move out and we’ll have this house to ourselves; we don’t know what we’ll do with all the room, although the girls assure us they will be over here to cook and socialize. (Gary)
We are doing very well, mixing in with the culture and learning how to live with people. We are learning some language skills (Swahili), how to eat with our fingers, and do our laundry with a bar of soap in a dishpan down at the river. I can go 3 days without washing my hair and I’m wearing the same outer clothes more than once (it cuts down on the amount of laundry.) We all do it here, so it is culturally acceptable. Good thing, huh? There are churches all over the place, so you just pick which kind of service you like. The drums are incredible and to watch the children praise the Lord and dance is really something!! The people are so friendly, it seems like we are really special people everywhere we go. They have a market every Thursday in our near by town of Idiwili. It is only a 20 minute walk and full of open air booths and all sorts of things to buy. Bananas and avocados are in season right now. There is also Roma tomatoes, onions, rice, beans, flour, cornmeal (for ugali), dried fish for sale. We have an assortment of chickens running around our teachers houses, which end up in the “pot” for our dinners. There is a teacher who owns a small herd of goats and Brahma cows here, so it feels like a real farm. I love it!! The community garden is down the hill by the river. We raise some of our own veggies. We are teaching the students how to garden, so they help water and transplant. I’ve planted some seeds left over from last year’s garden planting time: summer squash, pea pods, spinach and beets. Some are up, as this is early summer here.
I have taught a whole week of Intensive English, now, and have 16 students so far. It is so fun to see their eyes light up when they understand what is going on. And yes, I have a favorite one or two (boys) that are doing very well and are easy to connect with. (teacher’s pets) haha. It is fun to walk back and forth in front of the class, writing on the blackboard (which is the whole front wall). A sure sign of a good teacher is that she has chalk all over her hands and even some of the clothes!!
We start the days with short sleeves on, covered with long sleeves. We shed the long sleeves by noon or before and put them back on by 5-6pm. Our air is dry, so we have beautiful blue skies most of the time right now. The wind picks up sometimes in early afternoon, to help dry the clothes on the lines, you know.
We feel your prayers, as we have much peace and feel like we are meant to be here!!
We love you all very much and are so thankful for all you have done for us and are doing for us.
We are keeping you in our prayers.
Gary and Joanne Grenell
I have been assigned to the upper Form II classes, teaching three Bible Knowledge classes several times per week, while Joanne has her own Pre-Form Class, which are brand new students who know very little English; she teaches English and math for five 80 minute classes. We have also been assigned to supervise the weekly chapel service with one of the national teachers; the chapel is supposed to be student-run, but due to recent exams, prep time will not allow this. Joanne has been asked to bring a devotion tomorrow, as Gary lost his voice after preaching Sunday and “enthusiasm” in the classroom. It is almost restored, but don’t want to push it.
We live in a four bedroom brick home, just like the buildings you see in the Idigima pictures. There is a long room where we eat and socialize, small kitchen in the back, and someday will have indoor bath and toilet facilities. Two of the bedrooms are shared by the five female teachers, while the fourth serves as a pantry and prep room for the fried bread sold with hot tea at the school concession shack. There is another house shared by 10 or 11 men teachers, and two more homes under construction. When the next one is completed, the girls will move out and we’ll have this house to ourselves; we don’t know what we’ll do with all the room, although the girls assure us they will be over here to cook and socialize. (Gary)
We are doing very well, mixing in with the culture and learning how to live with people. We are learning some language skills (Swahili), how to eat with our fingers, and do our laundry with a bar of soap in a dishpan down at the river. I can go 3 days without washing my hair and I’m wearing the same outer clothes more than once (it cuts down on the amount of laundry.) We all do it here, so it is culturally acceptable. Good thing, huh? There are churches all over the place, so you just pick which kind of service you like. The drums are incredible and to watch the children praise the Lord and dance is really something!! The people are so friendly, it seems like we are really special people everywhere we go. They have a market every Thursday in our near by town of Idiwili. It is only a 20 minute walk and full of open air booths and all sorts of things to buy. Bananas and avocados are in season right now. There is also Roma tomatoes, onions, rice, beans, flour, cornmeal (for ugali), dried fish for sale. We have an assortment of chickens running around our teachers houses, which end up in the “pot” for our dinners. There is a teacher who owns a small herd of goats and Brahma cows here, so it feels like a real farm. I love it!! The community garden is down the hill by the river. We raise some of our own veggies. We are teaching the students how to garden, so they help water and transplant. I’ve planted some seeds left over from last year’s garden planting time: summer squash, pea pods, spinach and beets. Some are up, as this is early summer here.
I have taught a whole week of Intensive English, now, and have 16 students so far. It is so fun to see their eyes light up when they understand what is going on. And yes, I have a favorite one or two (boys) that are doing very well and are easy to connect with. (teacher’s pets) haha. It is fun to walk back and forth in front of the class, writing on the blackboard (which is the whole front wall). A sure sign of a good teacher is that she has chalk all over her hands and even some of the clothes!!
We start the days with short sleeves on, covered with long sleeves. We shed the long sleeves by noon or before and put them back on by 5-6pm. Our air is dry, so we have beautiful blue skies most of the time right now. The wind picks up sometimes in early afternoon, to help dry the clothes on the lines, you know.
We feel your prayers, as we have much peace and feel like we are meant to be here!!
We love you all very much and are so thankful for all you have done for us and are doing for us.
We are keeping you in our prayers.
Gary and Joanne Grenell
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
We've arrived!
We have very little time to spend on the Internet.The trip was hard, especially b/c of the heavy carry-on...and especially the 12 hours on the bus where we had to hold those bags on our laps... We left at 6:00ish from the bus station and promptly got in a jam b/c of the bus inspection in front of us, which costs us over an our. Then we met construction and during one detour had a blow out and burned breaks in the mountains, which were being burned off (flames like a grass fire right beside the road). When we stopped for lunch, they changed the tire and checked the breaks. We got into Mafinga around 7 PM and the big dump truck from VST came with cheers from the folks meeting us. We all hoisted the checked luggage (25 pieces) into the dump truck and it left for Madisi. We had dinner and went to bed. This morning we had breakfast and were sent on a 2 hour limit scavenger hunt, which included different Swahili greetings for different aged people, bartering for certain items, and asking directions to different places (bus stop/PO).
We are about to leave to go to Madisi to begin our training. Our bus is here now, so must go.
Much love.
Gary and Joanne
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