July 29th.

The old saying:"If you never ever go, you will never ever know", still rings true today. Last Sunday we decided we would go to the early church service as we had been told it was in English. Surprise, surprise! The only English was one short Bible reading. However we loved the singing and learnt something which is their custom and of which we were unaware at previous services. After the service, the pastor stands at the door and the first person out shakes hands and then stands beside him. The next person shakes hands with those two and then stands next to them. This continues until everyone is standing in a circle and has shaken hands and greeted everyone else. True to form, guess who was last out and had to go right round the circle and shake about 250 hands and say some form of greeting. A great idea in principle. We have decided tomorrow we will revert to the 10 am. service
and at least get an English precis of the sermon before the Swahili version. This doesn't let us out of the greetings.

Sometimes the pantry is a little lean until supplies can be replenished.Cornflakes, noodles and roti (a type of flat bread we make out of flour,water and oil and cook in the pan) are all good standbys. We finally got to Bukoba on Tuesday,to find the supermarkets all closed. So the fellow who was with us took me to the open market. I did get some nice green vegetables and we have just found a guy who will supply us with eggs regularly.

You may be familiar with the Bible story of the crippled man who took up his bed and walked when Jesus told him to.Well this week we saw a different version of this enacted out. Where the dormitory is to be built, there was a storage shed about 5mx4m right in the middle of the area. Instead of dismantling it, the workers picked it up and walked it to another position. They then had the task of breaking up the concrete slab ( up to 12 inches thick in places) with a sledge hammer. They just work so hard.  

Take up your shed

and walk.

Kevin is happy that the excavation for the dormitory has finally begun but does feel sorry for the women who have to dig and move all the soil with hoes and wheelbarrows. We are grateful for their willingness and the good relationship between them and the "boss."

Dig,dig,dig

Friday was quite an interesting and challenging day for me. The librarian was away with suspected malaria and the assistant was supposed to be there at 10.00 am but didn't show all day so it was just me. It took me about two hours to find the computer and then nobody could remember the user name to open the Library program. I knew the pass word but had never needed to know the user name so all had to be recorded manually. That's fine but when the 400 odd students aren't assigned text books for the whole year as they are back home and have to get them for each lesson that day, things become a bit chaotic. It also doesn't help when they can't select the books themselves but you have to get each one from the store, especially when they want books in Swahili. About 3.30 pm, the School Administrator  suddenly remembered the user name and so I then had the task of  entering all the information. The day turned into ten and a half hours in the Library. Excuse the smudges on the page, if any, but my hands get filthy handling the books. (literally black marks). I did enjoy the chance to interact with the students in a way which hadn't been possible before.
There's always a bright side if we only look for it.