Today was a very quiet day. I went into town with Malasi to get passport photos taken. While there, we passed by the Bunge (that’s a two syllable word with a hard “g” sound), the parliament building.
Other than that, most of the day was spent reading and resting.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Sunday, May 24
The highlight of the day was going to the 07h30 Mass. You’ll find some video of it here soon enough, I hope. Imagine a church built to hold 1,200 people with SRO for an early morning Mass. This week was the Catholic student choir from the University of Dodoma – really very wonderful. It was a moving experience for me.
What moved me most was the offering. First people came up in procession to different stations and inserted bills or coins into locked toolboxes with slits in them. When this was done, a procession of food items along with the bread and wine were brought up: bananas, bags of rice, a case of Fanta, and a clucking hen (which we had for lunch!). It was a real sense of folks giving of themselves.
I did some writing in the afternoon (I’m working on job descriptions, doing some budgeting, and also working on beginning to formulate foundational documents for the school). I walked around a bit in the afternoon as the children were preparing for the 16h00 children’s Mass and then attended the beginning of the first Mass. In an earlier blog I mentioned the measure of responsibility given to children. This was witnessed again at the Mass, where a ten-year-old girl was directing the music – and very fine music, too, as you’ll witness.
In the late afternoon Michel brought Steve, a Jesuit visiting from Mauritius, and me to a parishioner’s home. There we enjoyed some conversation and a few Kilimanjaro beers. During the visit, we began talking about various foods, including pork. Pork is popularly referred to either as “Catholic goat” or kitimoto (hotseat –not sure of the spelling). These are the popular names because there are, in fact, Muslims who enjoy the meat forbidden to them – thus Catholic goat. It is called “hot seat” because Muslims ordering the meat at pubs are constantly jumping out of their seats – as if they were hot – to check if anyone might catch them.
The evening meal was spent with the volunteers, Catherine, Chiara, and Martina, at a restaurant just down the street, Leone l’Africana – a pizza joint. It was a nice evening.
What moved me most was the offering. First people came up in procession to different stations and inserted bills or coins into locked toolboxes with slits in them. When this was done, a procession of food items along with the bread and wine were brought up: bananas, bags of rice, a case of Fanta, and a clucking hen (which we had for lunch!). It was a real sense of folks giving of themselves.
I did some writing in the afternoon (I’m working on job descriptions, doing some budgeting, and also working on beginning to formulate foundational documents for the school). I walked around a bit in the afternoon as the children were preparing for the 16h00 children’s Mass and then attended the beginning of the first Mass. In an earlier blog I mentioned the measure of responsibility given to children. This was witnessed again at the Mass, where a ten-year-old girl was directing the music – and very fine music, too, as you’ll witness.
In the late afternoon Michel brought Steve, a Jesuit visiting from Mauritius, and me to a parishioner’s home. There we enjoyed some conversation and a few Kilimanjaro beers. During the visit, we began talking about various foods, including pork. Pork is popularly referred to either as “Catholic goat” or kitimoto (hotseat –not sure of the spelling). These are the popular names because there are, in fact, Muslims who enjoy the meat forbidden to them – thus Catholic goat. It is called “hot seat” because Muslims ordering the meat at pubs are constantly jumping out of their seats – as if they were hot – to check if anyone might catch them.
The evening meal was spent with the volunteers, Catherine, Chiara, and Martina, at a restaurant just down the street, Leone l’Africana – a pizza joint. It was a nice evening.
Friday, May 22, 2009
U of D
That’s the University of Dodoma! Go Lions! I actually don’t know if they have a mascot, but given that Lion Rock is a landmark in the city (where, of course, there are no lions nearby – the most ferocious mammal seen so far has been a cow with a mind of its own), it could be so.
As we made our way up to the university, which sits on a promontory overlooking the city, we passed by a commercial area. I didn’t have my camera with me, so we’ll return on Monday in order to take pictures of a huge depiction of President Obama and perhaps a picture of me enjoying a Kiliminjaro at “The New Obama Pub.” Whatever your politics, I hope you can appreciate what the presidency of Barack Obama means here. (President George W. Bush’s visit here a few years back was an important moment that expressed the friendship between the countries, too.)
The university is expansive – it’s hard to describe how very large the campus is, with buildings spaced up to, it seems, .5 mile from one another in some instances. The view is commanding. Of course, one of the highlights of the view will be of another impressive campus to the north: Our Lady Queen of Peace Educational Centre.
As we made our way up to the university, which sits on a promontory overlooking the city, we passed by a commercial area. I didn’t have my camera with me, so we’ll return on Monday in order to take pictures of a huge depiction of President Obama and perhaps a picture of me enjoying a Kiliminjaro at “The New Obama Pub.” Whatever your politics, I hope you can appreciate what the presidency of Barack Obama means here. (President George W. Bush’s visit here a few years back was an important moment that expressed the friendship between the countries, too.)
The university is expansive – it’s hard to describe how very large the campus is, with buildings spaced up to, it seems, .5 mile from one another in some instances. The view is commanding. Of course, one of the highlights of the view will be of another impressive campus to the north: Our Lady Queen of Peace Educational Centre.
Meeting the Bishop
Sossy brought be to the episcopal residence to meet the bishop of Dodoma, whom readers have heard about already from the earlier entry about the report of the ground breaking. Our meeting was brief but it was very powerful. He was very welcoming and encouraging. His invitation to help this local Church – with national implications, really – was most sincere.
When I spoke I lost it. I started recounting my conversation with Sossy and Deo in Berkeley. I mentioned that I had told Sossy that I didn’t want to be the mzungu who came with all the answers (although you can see that is a trap easily fallen into), and how Sossy assured me that they realized that I don’t have all the expertise but that I have some that they could use at this point. I also mentioned what both Tim Kesicki and Rui Nunes had shared with me: That I will learn something important about the spiritual life not available in the same way late modern industrial society (Okay, they didn’t say “late modern industrial society” but something like it ☺). Indeed, I’m beginning to see that after just a few days here I have a lot to learn from the Tanzanians in this regard. When I have the opportunity in the next day or so, I intend to tell Sossy that I am asking to be missioned here to assist in the founding of the Our Lady Queen of Peace Educational Center.
My fear is the vastness of the project. It will stretch me. I feel very comfortable relative to the skills needed to get an academic program up and running, but I have a lot to learn relative to the skills involved in this new job, which includes the duties associated with a high school president as conceived in Jesuit schools in the United States. This is to say that my experience has mostly been in how to spend money, not raise it and make budgets! The other fear is that there is so much more involved in running a boarding school (the first project of the centre) –a coeducational one for 1,200 students!
My Second Dinner in Dodoma
We were invited – six of us (including Sossy’s niece in town for business) – to the home of a parishioner for dinner. After we took our seats we were offered sodas, Kiliminjaro beer (which is soon becoming a favorite of mine), or water. After some visiting, I was asked to bless the food, and then we had our hands washed by our host, a very nice Tanzanian custom. The meal was extraordinary: rice, beans, a vegetable stew (not giving it the description it is due), chicken, and chapatti. For dessert, watermelon or avocado. The food was great, but the storytelling that accompanied it was wonderful, too. A wonderful evening.
A Visit to the Parish Youth Centre
Fr. Michel asked me to go over to the parish youth centre, where he was going to set up a pool table. The previous day he’d set up a ping-pong table, which, like the pool table had been sitting in a box, for some time. He got some of the young men to carry the table over to the area where it was to be set up and unboxed it. It had not gone unused during its time in the box: It served admirably as a rat’s nest (whose desiccated remains were present), as a lair for lizards, and a shelter for spiders.
After finding the right-sized spanners, they realized there was a slope — hard to play pool with such a slope. I’d noted that the bottoms of the legs were adjustable and started on my way to show them how to do this, having done the same recently with a rocking table at a restaurant. Michel, however, realized already that the screw that effected the adjustment was close to its end and cautioned me to stop. “We will take care of it in the African way.” He said this very matter-of-factly. It was however probably the most important thing I’ve learned so far, and on the way back home I told him so.
I will have answers, I will have proposals and suggestions during my time here, but these will have to be offered with some humility. Bricolage is a French term made famous by Lévi-Strauss; it is the artistic adeptness of inventing new use of material for something other than for what it was designed. I mentioned this to Michel, and he agreed that this is exactly the “African way,” making do with what is at hand.
On the way home I thanked him. He was afraid that he had offended me when I brought it up, but quite the opposite, quite the opposite.
After finding the right-sized spanners, they realized there was a slope — hard to play pool with such a slope. I’d noted that the bottoms of the legs were adjustable and started on my way to show them how to do this, having done the same recently with a rocking table at a restaurant. Michel, however, realized already that the screw that effected the adjustment was close to its end and cautioned me to stop. “We will take care of it in the African way.” He said this very matter-of-factly. It was however probably the most important thing I’ve learned so far, and on the way back home I told him so.
I will have answers, I will have proposals and suggestions during my time here, but these will have to be offered with some humility. Bricolage is a French term made famous by Lévi-Strauss; it is the artistic adeptness of inventing new use of material for something other than for what it was designed. I mentioned this to Michel, and he agreed that this is exactly the “African way,” making do with what is at hand.
On the way home I thanked him. He was afraid that he had offended me when I brought it up, but quite the opposite, quite the opposite.
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