Pikipiki

I have found a great time to pray. On the back of a motorcycle heading down a mountainside in the dark. The Lords Prayer and Psalm 23 are two of my main go-to's when I am terrified. Days of Elijah also comes to mind often. I'm not sure why. Maybe its the whole behold he comes riding on the clouds part. Maybe I'm just not created to be a motorcyclist. When I came to first came to Tanzania Pastor Frank(who I stayed with) said that we would be going places on his pikipiki(yes that is really the kiswahili for motorcycle). However his motorcycle needed to be fixed.(It's another story why it was broke in the first place.) We picked up some parts in Moshi which was an all day event. The next day we went to Kifula to try to fix the bike. First we tried to do it on our own. I'm pretty sure that we just exacerbated the problems that it already had. We then dragged/carried it down the hill and to the mechanic. He was not impressed with our work. He was also not sure how to fix our unique problems. Needless to say, what we thought was going to be a home by noon job turned into a home past sunset job. On average we are able to accomplish about one thing per day. Coming here has given me a new appreciation for the ability to get places easily by car. They say that you don't really appreciate something until you don't have it. Traveling without your own transport does not lend itself to keeping a schedule. Anyway back to the motorcycle. The day was ending and the mechanic finally gave us the go-ahead. We hop on the bike, Frank confidently, myself not as much, and we were off. I'm no mechanic, but I did not like the sounds coming out of that engine as we tried an incline. Three minutes later we are walking the thing back to town. We got a bus home that night. So our one task for that day was an epic failure( two days wasted if you count the previous trip to Moshi for parts). That should have been my first sign that I'm not meant for pikipikis. The next day we planned to journey to Usangi to check out the future resource center that is actually the reason for me coming to Tanzania in the first place. We called one of Frank's pastor friends and he said we could use his pikipiki in Usangi. Our plan was to leave at 9:00 a.m. At 6:45 Frank wakes me up and says there is a bus here so we should catch it. I throw some clothes on and rush out the door. The bus has already gone. Frank says that if we hurry we can catch it further along the route. I say let's do it, so we do an early morning run through the mountain jungle to the next stop. Twenty minutes later, out of breath, we arrive at the next stop. The locals there said that we just missed it but it usually waits at the next village for a while. We did a speedwalk to the next village. Gone. Maybe this was a sign to turn around and go home. We don't give up easily though. We squeezed into a van going our direction. A few vehicles later we arrive in Usangi. We get to the church and borrow the motorcycle. My motorcycle experience before coming to Africa is exactly zero. So to say the least I was not ease when getting on the back of this thing. Maybe if we were driving on the streets of Shelbyville it would have been different, but these aren't exactly paved roads, or even necesarily roads for that matter.(see Musings #17) Before we are even moving I have started praying. I was probably into my third reciting of Psalm 23 when we come upon an innocent looking bridge. When we were about 2 meters away I noticed a crevice in the road about a foot wide. Being a pikipiki novice, I thought this is interesting, what do we do in this situation. It turns out in this situation we first try to apply the brakes to no avail. When that happens, the next step is to fall into the hole. The next few seconds are completely gone from my memory. The first thing I remember is turning around and seeing Frank on the ground with the motorcycle half on top of him, half in the chasm. After asking if he was ok I pulled the bike off him as quickly as I could. His lips were torn up and bleeding pretty badly but other than that he said he was unhurt. I checked myself over and did not have a scratch, I was not even dirty. Somehow I went over the handlebars and Frank and seemingly landed on my feet. I have never put a lot of thought into guardian angels, but I could believe I was carried by one in this event. After checking over the bike, and yes the brake was broken, I thought we would walk the bike back to the church. Frank however got back on the bike and said lets go. I said don't we need that brake. He said the other one is the only one we really need and it seems to be working. Bucking up my courage I got back on the bike. We went smoothly enough for awhile until we arrived at a particularly steep hill on a turn. We slowly toppled over. Once again I somehow jumped at just the right time. We walked the bike up that hill. We finally got to our goal. We looked at the building for all of ten minutes. We then start to head back a different route. It is a beautiful view overlooking some mountains and I am starting to feel somewhat relaxed. I pull my camera out of my pocket and snap a few shots. We come to a fairly steep decline. We aren't going very fast and I'm feeling fine. Frank says something to me that I can't hear and then we start to go towards the side of the mountain into some brush. Once again confused as to what is going on, I am forced to alight from the bike. This time I wasn't quite fast enough and got my leg dirty, from rubbing against the wall while on the bike, and a scratch on my finger. Frank ended up inside the brush. What he had said before the crash was "Now we are in danger". It turns out that the motorcycle would not switch gears when he tried, so rather than go down the hill at an uncontrollable speed he opted for a calculated crash stop. We then walked the bike down the hill. And yes we did continue the journey on the pikipiki. We made it back to the church eventually. And we made it home that night. After another forty minute jungle walk in the dark we arrived to a dark house. The entire town had lost power. While taking a shower by cellphone light I looked back on the day. I was involved in three motorcycle wipeouts and all I had to show for it was a little finger scratch. God sure does make life interesting. In order to make this blog worth your time I am now going to turn it into some allegory. One interesting facet to the journey was that after each incident I became more and more comfortable on the thing. I chalk it up to seeing that, yes we would crash, but also we could survive the crash. In our lives we all have unexpected crashes. Some of them are worse than others. The choice you make after the crash is what determines if you reach your destination. You can choose to give up, say "I am too afraid to continue", walk the motorcycle home; or you can dust yourself off, say a prayer, and continue the journey. The first option is a whole lot easier, but have you ever heard anyone say they were proud of taking the easy way out. If any of you finished reading this story I am impressed. I myself probably would not have, if were reading it. I don't have much of an attention span for these kinds of things. As a bonus note for making it to the end you can know that I am writing this after seeing the sunset on Mt. Kilamanjaro then taking an uneventful motorcycle ride down a mountain in the dark.

My own Musings

A rebuttal to Tyler's musings of India. If you have not read them on his blog then you should. They are at http://tylergoestoindia.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html

So here it goes.

1 Even though people don't have pets as companions, don't be surprised to find any animal in any place. Like a hen in a kitchen, dog in a classroom, cat in a hospital room, rooster in a living room. All of which I have seen.
2 Ninataka choo and Ninatoka choo do not mean the same thing. Choo means toilet. Ninataka means I need. Ninatoka means I come from.
3 People like to decorate their walls. About every house has a picture of Jesus and/or Obama. But I have seen posters of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Titanic, and The Undertaker from pro wrestling.(all in the same room)
4 Just because a man is wearing a Chicago Bulls shirt doesn't mean he likes the Bulls, has heard of Chicago, or has even knows what basketball is.
5 Even though you are on the sidewalk, you still have to watch out for Matatus(commuter buses). If there is a traffic jam, no place is off limits to them.
6 If you feel homesick for America, just find the closest mall. They are pretty much the same everywhere
7 Most Kenyan students know more American rappers and R&B artists than I do.
8 Sometimes in order to get from where you are to where you need to be you have to just jump in the back of a random truck.(or walk for hours up a mountain)
9 I have seen Pepsi products in Uganda and Tanzania but none in Kenya. I wonder if it has anything to do with Kenya's website url endings. ie. www.google.co.ke
10 You don't really appreciate western style toilets until you have the runs and your looking at a small hole in the ground.
11 Sometimes it is better to just close your eyes and take a bite. Wait till you are finished before you ask what it was you ate.
12 Don't be surprised to hear a cell phone ring at any time or place; restaurants, church services, funerals, weddings.
13 There is always room for one more. This includes taxis( I have been in a five-seater car with ten people in it) matatus( 25 people with 12 seats) Tea time(26 people sitting and drinking tea in a room not much bigger than a bedroom)
14 If you ask what time an event begins don't put too much stock in the answer. First of all the system of time here is 6 hours different than ours. For instance at noon they say it is 6:00. And it is pretty safe to show up about an hour after the supposed start of anything.
15 Even if you can't figure out what time it is, it is probably Chai(tea) time. As they say here, "Every time is chai time."
16 If you like music at church then show up on time to the service. The first hour is almost always singing.
17 Every place is a path(or road if your a matatu). If there is no razorwire in front of you then it is ok to walk there.
18 Every place outside of a building is a toilet(at least for the boys).
19 It is rude as a guest to refuse food and drinks if you come to visit. So just put on a smile and eat the whole thing.
20 Don't drink something too fast unless you want more. As soon as you finish a cup of tea it will be instantly refilled. So if you don't like the beverage, but you want to be polite and finish, time the cup so that you finish as you are leaving the house.(It took me too many cups of bad coffee to figure this one out)
21 They also play the roll-the-hoop-with-a-stick game. They are pretty inginuitive at figuring out things that can roll. I still don't get out they roll them uphill.
22 Kaka kakamavu ana mkakate ka kakakaka. Try saying that out loud. If my Kiswahili grammer is correct(which it most definitely is not) this means "My cunning older brother has a plan to rapidly sit.
23 When we were walking through a mountain forest the other night. I told the Pastor I was with that it was "so muddy" he that I said it was "samadi" which was kiswahli for cow manure.

Hope you got a few laughs from these. I am having a great time. Stay in tune for stories from Tanzania. Merry Christmas!

Waitence

Word of the day; Patience.... and Waiting. I guess thats two words. Lets try that again. Noun of the day; Patience. Verb of the day; Waiting. No, I like to have only one word of the day, lets make one up and call it Waitence, which now means waiting with patience. Now I'm rambling. Thank you for your waitence.

I can't speak for all of Africa, but at least for the parts of East Africa that I have seen, I can say that time is relative. America absolutley loves time. So much of what we do revolves around being places at very specific times of the day and doing things for very specific amounts of time. Even when I was in America sometimes I would say that we are slaves to time. Being in Africa has only reinforced that idea. Don't get me wrong, they do have clocks in Kenya. They are just not always in places where they can be seen, or have batteries in them.

I remember my days at Shelbyville Middle and High Schools. Each class period was an exact number of minutes,and I remember even setting my watch to the precise second so that I could know when to jump up and run to lunch. The passing period between classes was 4 minutes I think. If you weren't in a classroom in your seat when that bell rang, you would be listed as tardy and there would be consequences. Looking on that now from an African lens it makes me think "We Americans do like stress don't we." Here when it is near the time that the 40 minute class period is over a student will get up and ring a bell. If the student is five or ten minutes late or early, not a big deal. Nobody stresses. Then the teacher will mosey towards the classroom when he or she feels like it and start class. If there is an interesting conversation in the staff room, then the students can wait by themselves a few minutes until the teachers arrive. Nobody stresses.(If I remember right I think some of the math/social studies teachers at SHS employed this technique.) I have not seen any place to keep attendance, let alone tardy slips. And you know what, its ok. Why should the kids be policed to come to school. They realize the importance of an education and want to be there. If they do not show up then it is probably for an important reason. Maybe there is work on the farm that needs done today. Maybe a mother is ill and needs help. I don't think that we could use these policies in America unless there was some major overhauling of our attitudes. We are very rule oriented and we like that structure. Time, as a rule, rules our lives. Sorry I'm rambling again. Have some waitence.

Anecdote 2: I went to Uganda this past weekend to go white-water rafting at the source of the Nile. (God did a very nice job wih the Nile.) Traveling to and from Uganda we took large coaches, kind of like Greyhounds. From Nairobi to Jinja it was supposed to take ten hours. Actual travel time; thirteen hours. But whats another three when you are already sitting for ten right. I slept through most of that anyway, so not a big deal. It was the trip back that really tried my waitence. My group had to split up going home because of the availability of tickets and work schedules. So my friend Lauren and I were to take the 6:00 pm bus to Kisumu where we were supposed to meet our friend Anselm. Leaving at that time we should have arrived by 10:00 pm when our friend would be waiting to pick us up and take us to his home. We arrived at the bus station at the scheduled time of 5:00. We waited. Six came around, no bus. We waited. Seven, no bus. Some buses passed through, but the workers said these were not our buses. They were going to other places. Eight, no bus. At about ten we find out that one of those earlier buses was our bus, but that it was full and could not take us on as passengers (even though we had bought the tickets a day earlier.) But we could get on the next bus. Midnight, finally a bus arrives that they tell us to get on. YAY, more hours of sitting. We get through the Kenyan border ok at about 2:30. After another police check, we are off again. I ask one of the bus employees to let us know when we get to Kisumu so that we don't fall asleep and go all the way through to Nairobi. To our chagrin he informed us that this bus was not going to Kisumu. Surprise. After some conferring they decided we should get out and wait for another bus. Fortunately there happened to be a Matatu bus going to Kisumu for whatever reason at 3 in the morning. Not a pleasant ride, but anyway we finally get to Kisumu as the sun is coming up. My first American reaction was "Who can I sue, or what can I get out of this bus company in compensation." My next thought, "Haha, we are in Africa now, it happens, don't stress."
I'm trying to learn now. If I am supposed to be at a meeting at noon, it may or may not get started at two-ish. If a post office's posted hours say open till six, I better get there by three if it is important, because they close when they feel like it. I'm going to try really hard to master this way of looking at time.
So in conclusion. I apologize in advance for when I return to the States and Orem time is two hours late instead of only fifteen minutes. Have some waitence with me. Peace and God Bless

Tests

The school year in Gatundu is coming to an end. The Form 4s(Seniors) recently left the school. Kenya has a very intense examination for the students finishing their schooling. This is called the KCSE test. It tests material that they have learned over the past four years. The examination process takes about 3 weeks. It is divided up into each of their classes. So on one day they may have a biology practical and then a 2 hour English essay test. This test decides if university is in their future. The rest of the students have final exams pretty similar to our own, except that they are worth a lot more towards their semester grades. There are only three grades that go into the gradebook. Two tests throughout the term worth twenty percent each, and the final exam worth sixty percent of their term grade. That puts a lot of pressure on them to do well on the exams.

Happy November!

Yay, I have begun to receive mail. Email is great, but there is something special about receiving physical lettters and pictures. It appears that it takes between 10 and 17 days for mail to reach me from the states. Keep this is mind, as I will not be at this address for the month of December. That is when the break between school years is. I am not sure where I will be during December so mail may be best be sent to Phyllis, my site coordinator. I am not sure what that address is, so I will put that up soon. I hope everyone had a fun Halloween. I went to Nairobi to celebrate with my fellow Americans. Seeing as I did not have my full arsenal of costumes I had to settle for a flowerchild of the 60s and wear my tie-dye and a bandana with a peace sign and a guitar case. My extensive facial hair helped too. I hope everyone is having a great fall season. Until next time.

Happy November

Yay, I have begun to receive mail.  Email is great, but there is something special about receiving physical lettters and pictures.  It appears that it takes between 10 and 17 days for mail to reach me from the states.  Keep this is mind, as I will not be at this address for the month of December.  That is when the break between school years is.  I am not sure where I will be during December so mail may be best be sent to Phyllis, my site coordinator. I am not sure what that address is, so I will put that up soon. I hope everyone had a fun Halloween.  I went to Nairobi to celebrate with my fellow Americans. Seeing as I did not have my full arsenal of costumes I had to settle for a flowerchild of the 60s and wear my tie-dye and a bandana with a peace sign and a guitar case. My extensive facial hair helped too. I hope everyone is having a great fall season.  Until next time.

Mr. N'Jenga making dinner of Kuku (chicken)