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Published: August 8th 2007
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Class Mates
We were surprised that almost our entire class was from America.From left, John and Kathy, Rachel, Joachim, Gaudia, Lis, Anthony, Shasta Ok … I’ll admit …. It’s been a while. So sorry for that. We have been busy as bees. So, let me get you caught up!
The first of the month we were at language school. We were there for 3 LONG weeks!! It seemed longer than it really was. It’s been a while since we have been in school so sitting in a class room getting called on to go to the board or speak out in class took some getting use to. Now, I will say that it helped Anthony in a way that some of you men folk will appreciate, in that I was forced to talk … not that I really needed an excuse of course! Now, what is good about that, is that according to Anthony from some statistic he read SOMEWHERE, women speak about twice as many words during the course of a day than men, so by being forced to talk during class it ate up my “word allowance” so when we got home, I was almost all talked out! Notice I said, almost!
Back to the classes, they are held at a very nice learning center that took us about
Waxing the fabric
The first step of Batik is to "paint" the cotton fabric with a pattern of some sort. These ladies had pre-cut patterns out of foam, and then some used foam "pencils". 30 minutes to get too each morning. We would leave the house in time to arrive in class at 8:30. A tea break at 10 am, lunch from 12 - 2, and then class until 4:30. Then homework after we got home!! The school takes folks from all over the world, doing all different types of work, and teaches Swahili on 3 different levels. Our first day of class we had an “evaluation”. We took the Intermediate class and began realizing that we really didn’t know a whole lot about ENGLISH …..! They teach Swahili based on English grammer, so we had to brush up on our infinitives, adverbs, demonstratives, and association words. Just like taking a big leap into the time machine where I found myself sitting in English class at White County High.
Our class was made up of all American’s and one German. John and Kathy Matlock who are here working with a denomination helping educate children, Lis Helfen from Indiana also working with a denomination helping to provide ministers with the proper tools to do their work, Rachel Pope from Pennsylvania who is here for the summer doing Women’s Health research for her grad work,
Dying
The second part is to let the fabric cool so the wax hardens and then put into the dye for 10 minutes, then rinse. Friederike from Germany who is a Building Consultant going to work in south Tanzania, and then Anthony and I. Our teachers were Joachim Kisanji and Gaudea Lwakatare.
The classes started daily with some variation and we were able to take a couple of “field trips”. A couple of the trips we passed on as we had already been to the Cradle of Love with the Sew Be It Project and then on Wednesday’s we left early to get to Bible study. Two trips that I particularly enjoyed was visiting two different ladies groups and learning about their projects. The first one was a group of 10 ladies who get together weekly and hand make several types of crafts to sell to help their families. The day that we went to visit them we got to do a tie-dye fabric and a batik fabric. The batik process in particular was interesting, and surprisingly very easy. You start with white cotton, boil plain wax and then using different stencils or a “pencil” of foam, write or draw with the wax your design. After it has cooled, put it in a pot of dye, color of your choice!! After it has set
Removing the Wax
Next, is tricky, put the fabric in a pot of boiling water. The wax will float to the top where you pull it out (you can reuse) then rinse and dry and if you want more colors ... repeat. for at least 10 minutes, remove, rinse, and then put into a large pot of boiling water. The wax melts and comes to the top, dredge the wax off, take your fabric out, rinse … and then if you want to do more than one color repeat! Sort of messy, but fun.
We also went to visit a group that started out with the Heifer Project, and now has a Land O’Lakes certification to make cheese …. GREAT cheese!!!! We tasted some and bought some and sat on their mountain side compound in wonder at what they were accomplishing. They have provided children with a school and an education because of what they have done.
We finished off our 3 weeks of language school with a small “Fondue” party at Gaudia’s house where we made a cheese fondue and a chocolate fondue and watched comically as they tried to dip just about anything and everything in the chocolate! We now have the task of continuing to study and learn the language. Brother Earl Edwards was here last week to teach a short course and while eating dinner gave us some very good advise, “Take the time to learn
A Smile for the Camera
This little girl stood and watched us when we were making the batiks and tie-dyes. it now”, which is so much harder than you would think, as we have so many things going on here that you hate to delay Bible studies in order to study. His reasoning, after having been a missionary in Italy for over 13 years was, “Does a lumberjack take time to sharpen his axe?” He said you will be 10 times more effective in the later years when you do not have to depend on translators.
Let’s see, what else? Each Sunday, including the weeks we were in language school we continued to visit village congregations for worship services. This month we visited Kisongo, K’ingori, Umbauda, and Boma N’gombe. We try to encourage the Christians to continue worshipping even though there may not be but a handful there. Plus, it gives us the ability to see if they are indeed worshipping correctly and faithfully and give them some guidance and help.
When we were heading to K’ingori we got a call from Brent and Julie, they were headed out there too! So, we met up and drove together, only to find shortly that there was no more road! We could see the church building so we just made
Building in Progress
The K'ingore congregation has a building project unlike any we will see in the states. Anthony is teaching class in their original building made of a pole barn like structure is simply surrounded by the new brick wall structure so they can continue to make use of the cover until time to get the new roof on. Christians with a determination to worship! our own road until we reached the “parking lot”. As you can see from the picture, they had a pole building and then started building a brick wall right around the pole barn. It is a work in progress, but they have a faithful group that meet each week.
Then last week we had a group of visitors that came to work for a couple of weeks. Kathy Pollard and Lynn Hite spoke in a Ladies Seminar with 4 of our Tanzania women in 3 different places, Usa River, Moshi, and Arusha. Saturday was the last of the seminars and I was able to help by introducing the speakers. The theme was “What’s in Your Hands?” Neema Martin, Julia Mwakabanje, Kathy Pollard, and Lynn Hite all gave wonderful lessons on how we can use our hands for God.
All in all this has been a very busy month. And I turned 44!!!! Yep! I will say it out loud cause I KNOW I only look somewhere in the 30’s … won’t say which one though HA!! Anthony took me to eat and I am thankful for one more year to do what I love with the one I
Paved Parking?
We worry about whether we have new lines painted on our parking lots every year .... in Tanzania we are just hoping for a good path TO the building. This is out side the K'ingore building. love!
For some added viewing, I keep my camera with me and take pictures everywhere, so I have included some pictures for you to see what we see. I have a couple of blogs planned that I continue to take pictures for so be on the watch for them!!! We love and appreciate all of you!
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Tammy Fowler
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Great pictures
I love to see the pictures. There was no need to title this "Not Lazy! Just Busy!. Everyone that knows you and Anthony knows that Lazy is not a word in your vocabulary! Love you and miss you. Tammy