Back Home

Back home, doing ok.

My first flight was great, the layover and second flight were aweful thanks to malaria and whining children (not crying children, they just whined the whole damn way).

I'm now resting, recovering, and reminiscing.

thanks for the support!

Its the Final Countdown... II

I woke up around 4:00 a.m. today and feel great. No stomach cramps, no other digestion problems, I'm definitely going to try to fly home today! My plane leave Dar es Salaam at 11:00 p.m. so I have all day to say goodbye and to pack.

Quite frankly I'm amazed I recovered so quickly! Every other malaria victim here at LJS was taken out for at least a few days. I seriously feel almost 100%! Thank the Lord!


Top 10 List of Things I'll Miss From Tanzania

10- African Time: I like the slower pace of life here. You take your time to do things that have to be done. I didn't even really need a watch while I was here. It is a drastic change from
American time, where I schedule about every single minute of my day.

9- Swahili: I really like Swahili and it is something I definitely want to pursue in the future. Its a fun language and useful everywhere in Africa.

8- The Maasai Village visits: The Maasai are so welcoming and friendly. Even though they don't have a lot (materialistically) they don't hesitate to make us feel at home. They always give us chairs to sit in, more food then we could ever eat, and they will walk or ride many kilometers just to give us the luxury of soda. They also don't hesitate to give large offerings to the church. There giving nature and humble spirit is very inspiring.

7- Morogoro: Its so weird going from 'the bush' to Morogoro. Its like a big city but you can still tell your in Africa. There are all sorts of different people, different shops, and new experience to be had every time I go into town.

6- The Animals: I'm going to miss all the animals. I loved going to Mikumi and will definitely come back to Africa to go on another safari. Just about every day while I've been here I've discovered a new and exciting bug on my way to the dining hall. I think I miss most of the bugs here... except the mbu (mosquitoes).

5- The Music: The music is amazing! I mean the native Tanzanian music, not the silly rip offs of crappy American pop (see 'I love the way you do me' for reference). But I will be able to take a small piece of it home with me, I'll be bringing back a Zeze, a sort of Tanzanian guitar.

4- Worship: I hope I don't get too bored with church services back home. The services here are super exciting and you can tell everyone is having a good time praising the Lord. I will miss the dancing, the singing, and the goats in church for the offering.

3-The culture: Despite what some of you think, I really do like Tanzanian culture. It has its downsides (like every culture), but it has many things I want to bring back to America with me. Respect for elders, greetings, closeness within the family, I could go on and on and on.

2-The Land: I love the mountains and the warm breeze, the rain and sunshine, the trees and flowers. Its going to be quite a shock going back to snow...

1-The People: Everyone here at LJS is amazing. I've made some really great friends (both Tanzanian natives and other students) and its going to be really hard to say goodbye. They are so friendly and genuine. I know I'll see some of them in the future.

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High: I feel really good this morning, I just hope it lasts for the next 36 hours as I travel.

Low: I have to leave Tanzania. Its going to be hard.

Well thank you everyone for reading my blog, e-mailing me, writing me letters, and everything else you have done to support me. I'll put a short blog letting yall know that I got home safely. Otherwise, I think this is just about my last blog! Thank you, its been fun.

Guess who's got malaria?!

So, I know I haven't posted in a while. I've been uber busy doing all sorts of stuff and getting ready to go home. Actually, yesterday I was finalizing a very long and detailed post about the past week but a few things got in the way.

Last night PH took me, Kim, Luka, and Rob out to dinner for my going away "party". We went to an Indian restaurant, and if you know me, then you know curry and I don't go well together. I ordered a dish without curry, but when I woke up at midnight with sever stomach cramps I assumed that there was some curry contamination.

The pain was intense. I spent about 3 hours screaming into my pillow and running to the bathroom. On the pain scale of 1-10 I think I was at 8 for a good 5 hours. At tea time the Germain doctor Karina stopped by my room to see how I was doing. She recommended that I take the malaria meds. even though we didn't know what was wrong with me.

At noon we went to the clinic and I got tested. It came back positive with a parasite count of 4, the highest count so far this semester at LJS, I WIN! They gave me a really big injection into my butt to fight the pain, and it worked great! I sung songs the whole way back to LJS.

Most of the day I had a fever around 102 and it finally went down. This afternoon I was able to drink a coke and I even went to dinner!

Hopefully by tomorrow my dirreaha will have completely left and I will be able to fly back home!

Wish me luck!

High: Almost everyone here at LJS has been super supportive! Teresea, Rikka, Upendo, and Padre came with me to the clinic and have done way more for me then I can describe in this blog. I have also enjoyed the company of many of the other students who have stopped by to wish me good health. Thanks especially to Paulette who came and chatted with me for quite a while and was able to take my mind off the pain.

Low: Malarai... it sucks.... it sucks real bad.

p.s. sorry if todays blog rambles on or doesn't make sense, but I'm a bit out of it...

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Good
I had a great week of classes last week. I split teachers from Kim and can move at my own pace. PH said that most Wartburg students don't make it past lesson 40. The 40 test wasn't that bad and it looks like I might reach 50 or 55.

The Bad
I didn't make it this far because I am so incredibly smart... I was moving too fast for my own good. I don't know all the vocab I should, and now in the higher lessons they are throwing 12-18 verbs per chapter at me, and just oodles of nouns.

The Ugly
Moving to fast has come back to bite me in the butt. I'm going to have to really work hard to get all the vocab, might even have to spend a full day of just review.


The Good
I am having a great time with EVERYONE at LJS. We are a great group, good dynamics, and we really care about each other. I hang out most with Teresa the Texan and Padre Sandro the Priest.

The Bad
Scott and Lu are gone. I was devastated after they left. Scott was probably my best friend here for quite a while and by they time we really got to know each other, he had to leave.

The Ugly
I already miss Tanzania. I'm not even gone yet! I still have 2 weeks! But it is going to be really hard to leave.

The Good
I went to Dodoma this weekend to visit Audrey and Paul. Kim came with as well. The bus ride there is the best bus ride I have had here in Tanzania. We had seats in the very back. They were large seats with tons of legroom and place to put my humongo bookbag. While at Dodoma we ate good food, watched good movies, had pleasant conversations, and it was all around an amazing trip. I got to interview Paul and Father Tim about Missionary life in Tanzania. You probably have noticed that some of blogs have been focused around the flaws of Tanzanian life, society, and culture. But Father Tim was very inspiration. He has been here 25 years and is still going strong. He renewed my faith for the future of African missionary life, I plan to put some of his stories and comments in future blogs.

The Bad
Teresea had malaria all last week. She was very weak and spent two nights in the hospital. Don't worry, it was not as bad as Scott's case. It wasn't life threatening but still, very serious. The medicine they give you for malaria is called quinine. It is super powerful and makes you loose your hearing and sometimes vision. Exactly 1 hour and 30 minutes after Teresea takes her pill she looses her hearing, almost completely. On a funny/wierd note, when she looses her hearing it is replaced with a buzzing sound. But the sound is one pitch and it was driving her crazy. She is a very musical person and her mind replaced the solid pitch with a short little melody. Unfortunately, the melody was on a loop in her head and is driving her even more crazy. She sung the melody for me and it is pretty annoying, I'll sing it for you some time if you ask me. I'm not sure if it was just the pills talking or if she is truly insane, but she described the melody as "being whistled by little Irish men". How she knew the people whistling in her head where Irish... I don't know. How she knew they were little men... I don't know. But I do know that she is flippin crazy.

The Ugly
Now it is not just Teresea that has malaria. Karinna, the German doctor, got malaria shortly after. Also, this weekend, while I was away at Dodoma, Padre and Upendo got malaria. They caught it early and are doing very well. The will be fully recovered in a few days. Now there is only 4 people here at LJS that have not had malaria. Luckily, I am one of them. But I don't know how long that will last. Padre said when he went into town to pick up his medication, every pharmacy was out! He had to go to this scary one in a slum somewhere to get his quinine. He said there were government cars around morogoro with loudspeakers telling information about how to prevent and treat malaria. It must be an epidemic. And with malaria, the more people that have it, the worse it gets.
Also, just as Teresea was staring her health upswing, her father died. Teresea is 45 and her father was in failing health. She knew that when she came she might not see her father alive again. She got the call Saturday night. She is in pretty high spirits, but definitely grieving. It also does not help that she is too sick to fly and will not be able to make the funeral. Please pray for her, she needs all the support she can get.

Low: Teresea's father dieing. She was in such bad condition already... I hope this doesn't turn here away from mission work entirely.

High: Dodoma was a nice change of pace after some very intense studying.

p.s. I have been trying to take pictures and upload them to my facebook album, but for some reason it is not working. In three hours I managed to get 1 picture up! I guess I'll have to wait till I get back in the states... only 14 days of Tanzanian bliss left!

A Techno African Hoedown

On Thursday I took my Book 1 exam. I didn't miss one question in any of the 10 sections except the section that deals with subjunctive imperative/indicative phrases, where I missed almost all of them. I can't tell you what they are in Swahili... hell, I can't even tell you what that means in English. Lets check Webster's New World Dictionary for an explanation:

subjunctive - adj. LL subjunctivus. gram. designating or of the mood of a verb that is used to express supposition, desire, hypothesis, possibility, etc., rather than to state an actual fact (ex.:the mood of were in "if I were you")

imperative- adj. LL imperativus. gram. designating or of the mood of a verb that expresses a command, strong request, or exhortation.

indicative- adj. Fr indicatif. gram. see also indicatory

aneurysm- n. when an artery in the brain spontaneously bursts. Reason previously unknown by American Medical Association, now known to be caused by subjunctive imperative Swahili phrases.

On Friday PH rescued us from classes and we went to a far away village. It was almost 4 hours away and we entered the jungle area of Tanzania, located in the south east. We were in thick jungle, going up and down huge cliffs and mountains, dodging monkeys and pineapple vendors. But soon we hit the plains again and entered the village. During the service the confirmation class was confirmed. After they took their first communion they sang a song and all of their parents and relatives greeted them in a big mob and decorated them with some things very close to those big flowery Hawaiin lais.

Saturday was a fee day so I had time to relax, study, visit the shoppes in town, and a bunch of us went out to eat. But after we came back Kim and I went to go ask PH about the situation mentioned 2 blogs ago. It was pretty awkward to ask him about it, but some people around LJS were quite upset with him and I thought it would be better that we asked him instead of someone else getting angry and accusing him of things. It turns out he as just really swamped with work at the time and any time students at the foreign language school ask him for help he immediately puts a wall up. He was the director of the school for a very long time and retired a number of years ago. But the Tanzanians won't take responsibility for themselves and run their own program, so he is trying to force them to ween off his influence by not taking more responsibility then necessary. He was also unaware of the urgent nature of the situation. All in all, it was just a big misunderstanding and everyone is at ease here @ LJS once again.

Sunday was very interesting... We went to a village that is built around a school. The funding comes from the states and have they have over 200 students! The church was GIANT, it was as big as some of the churches at home. We were warmly greeted, as always, and had our tea and biscuits. After that we entered the church and watched as the choirs performed some preludes. There were two choirs, each with about 50 people. One choir was all school students. They had matching uniforms that were, well... hideous. I would have hated to wear their uniform. It was a sort of canary yellow shirt and these awful swamp muck green pants. And I would describe the shoe as brownish black clunkers. They sort of looked like the shoes I would imagine Frankenstein would wear. The other choir was of Maasai children from the surrounding area, dressed in regular Maasai garb. The church had a generator that supplied power to the Toshiba electric keyboard which was hooked up to massive speakers. It was the wierdest music I have ever heard. The choir would be singing Swahili words to ancient christian hymns with traditional African chords and structure while the keyboard sort of dabbled in western chord progressions and the pre-set drum beats pumped out an um-pa-pa polka rhythm. All this was at a decibel level loud enough to knock small planets out of orbit. I would describe it as a techno African hoedown. It was so wierd.
But the highlight was the dancing. One girl in particular was amazing, she even got to solo in a few songs. At one point the choir knelt down and she was the only one standing and she did this weird thing where she would shake her shoulders really fast and jump and swing her head back and forth... it is hard to describe, but it was amazing. The whole church was clapping and cheering, it was quite the spectacle. After the service I was all excited to practice the Swahili I had learned the week before but all the students wanted to practice English with me! So I talked with many of them for about an hour and we had a great time.

Monday we started classes again and had a pretty normal week. Unfortunately, it is the sisters' last day today as well as Scott and Lu's. The sisters have been here for about a week longer then I have and are almost done with the books. But its time for them to start work at their assigned stations. I'm going to miss them, they were a lot of fun and good study buddies. But I am really going to miss Scott and Lu. They have been really great friends and we have bonded a lot. It is going to be terribly hard to see them go, but we will definitely keep in touch.

Last night we went out to dinner and had burgers and beers and played a little pool. But after we got back I started to feel sick. I went to bed around 10 but had a hard time falling asleep because my stomach was really hurting me. After I finally got to sleep I would wake about every 20 minutes to either clutch my churning stomach or run to the bathroom. On a funnier note, at about 2 in the morning I was on my way to the bathroom when I started to think I was having a hallucination. But my eyes were not deceiving me... at 2 in the morning Baba John (Grandpa John in Swahili), the old senile Dutchman who live a few doors down was in his underwear sweeping the walkway. Baba John is very very old and has a very hard time sleeping and I'm pretty sure he only takes naps. But on a serious note, this morning Padre Sandro, my catholic priest neighbor, came and apologized to me. He said he felt bad because he didn't come and check up on me last night. I asked why he though he had to check up on me and it turns out I was screaming in my sleep. I hope I didn't scare him too bad.

Unfortunately, I'm having such terrible stomach problems that I wasn't able to Join PH, Luka, and Kim on the village visit today. They are also spending the night in the village, which seems like an amazing opportunity but I just couldn't handle it in my current condition. I'm hoping its just food poisoning because I've seen what malaria can do to a person!

Low: Stomach problems. And I know I am really sick because I started to crave country music today... whats that about?

High: I'm going to separate from Kim on Monday and get my own teacher. I really like the language and now I can move at the pace I want to!

Clarifications and Bacon Cheeseburgers

I just wanted to clarify some things about my last blog. First, thanks everyone for the input, good and bad, concerning my last blog. I have gotten more response about my last blog then any of my others. If you haven't given me your opinion yet, please e-mail me and let me know what you think.

Secondly, all those stories are completely true. No slander, no bs, they really happened. I also plan to talk to PH about his reactions, so look for that in the future.

Third, looking back it does have a mien of disappointment, frustration, and anger but it is not to condemn Africa or to bite the hand that feeds me. It is just the way I felt, and I do know there is hope for the future.

Finally, unless you have been here in Tanzania and have seen the poverty and the wealth, the happiness and hopelessness, the healthy and the ill, the black and the white... I don't think you can even fathom the situation- I can't, and I've seen a lot of it already. So sorry for any misinterpretations, just e-mail me with questions and comments.

______________________

The past few days have been pretty good. The Internet and power have been on and off, no biggie.

***Scott Watch: Day 10***

Scott is back to his old self. He is doing well in class, coming into town, playing cards, speaking in his funny accent, etc. He was so grateful to finally have his health that he decided he needed to eat a good western meal. We went to the New Acropol Hotel, which had the highest concentration of white people I have seen in Tanzania besides the airport. It seemed to be a hotel for business people; or could have just been a hotel for people who talk constantly on their cell phone, who carry a briefcase and laptop, and dress in really snazzy clothes. At the hotel was a very western restaurant. For starters he had a big plate of nachos and I had deep fried zucchini. For the main course Scott had a 10" beef pizza which was fantastic. And I had (remember I'm in Morogoro, Tanzania) a bacon cheeseburger. It is definitely among the top 3 meals I have ever had in my life, beaten only by some of my Mom's mac & cheese and my Dad's chicken noodle soup! As it turns out, Scott's stomach wasn't back up to its normal size so he couldn't finish it, and my burger was so big i couldn't help him at all. So we gave the leftovers to Kadege who really REALLY liked it.

Swahili lessons are going well. Kim and I will hopefully finish book 1 today. I really hit the books last night and rocked this mornings lessons! But some aspects of the language are really frustrating:
1- every single verb starts with the letters KU- and needs to be conjugated for every noun/subject.
2- almost every noun and adjective can be turned into a verb... ya, crazy I know.
3- Even though most of the words are primarily vowels, certain vowels don't like to be by each other and change randomly.
4- most native speakers do not speak grammatically correct. This is especially fun when I'm trying to buy stuff in Morogoro.
5- Sometimes small invariables (such as from, in , on, at, etc.) are implied and never mentioned. For instance when I want to say, "I study Swahili in the city of Morogoro at Lutheran Junior Seminary and I really enjoy it", it is sort of said like "I study swahili enjoy Morogoro Lutheran Junior seminary". Whats that about?

Regardless of all that nonsense, I really like the language.

Sorry there isn't much more the today's blog, just not a lot has happened.

Low: Omega, my teacher this week, pronounces his 'L's like 'R's and vice versa in both Swahili and English!

High: Bacon Cheeseburger, with fries, and a nice cold Kilimanjaro Lager! MMM-MMM GOOD! Also, Padre Sandro - the Catholic Priest that smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, and swears like a sailor- is a hoot. I'm learning a very large amount of Italian... although most of the words are expletives.

What is with this country?

***Scott Watch - Day Seven***

Well Scott ended up spending 3 days and 2 nights in a hospital. He came back Wednesday night. Looking back at the whole fiasco is both humorous and scary. Humorous because we really bonded as friends despite the rotten circumstance. But it was mainly scary because he was very close to death, for real. I'm not being over dramatic- if he would have stayed at the 2nd hospital or had a parasitic relapse Scott would have died. But he was able to tough it out with the help of European doctors, Chinese pain medications, and an American friend. Here at LJS he is making great progress- he is able to eat real food, drink fluids other then water, and he was able to take a standing shower yesterday. The day before that I moved a chair into the shower for him and stood nearby in case he passed out or tipped over. He thinks he will be back in class Monday and everyone is looking forward to his complete return.

As for me... I don't know what to think of Africa.

I love and hate this country at the same time. Let me explain...

We have started our "cultural orientation" classes lead by Chooma, the school director. At first it seemed like he was going to teach us practical rules of etiquette and society. But it turned out to just be Chooma's ideas of what Tanzanian society should be like, or what he wants us to believe Tanzania is like. For example, one of the biggest topics for discussion was the concept of relationships. Relationships, explained Chooma, are at the heart of every aspect of Tanzanian life. In greetings you do not say 'Hi' or 'Hello' you say 'Habari gani?' or 'What is your news?'. You are supposed to show genuine interest in others and find out how they are doing- as a person, as a friend, as a fellow human being going through the same trials and tribulations as you. While this initially seems a noble and earnest endeavor, the true motive is a selfish one. Chooma explained that you greet everyone you meet because later you might need help from them. He gave this example- Lets say you are traveling through a town and at a gas station you greet a few strangers and see how they are doing, you form a 'relationship' with them. If you blow a tire out or lose your way you can go back to them to ask for help or directions which they most likely willingly give. But if you did not greet them and form a 'relationship', when they see you the second time, in need of help, they will say, "You did not show interest in me until you needed something, there is no reason for me to help you".

I have many problems with this hypothetical situation. First off, that is not a real relationship. This pretend act of empathy is just selfish subterfuge aimed and getting complimentary compensation. While I have no problem with watching your own ass and making sure you have what you need to live day to day, why bother with the silly guise? The other major problem I have with this hypothetical situation is in the statement "you did not show interest in me until you needed something, there is no reason for me to help you". Really? No reason at all to help another person out. Isn't there a certain Son of God that was here about 2000 years ago who would beg to differ? Christ calls us to be servants to others, it doesn't matter if they are your friend, your enemy, a random guy in the gas station that didn't pay attention to you, it could be anyone. And so what if you don't get compensation or even a thank you.... "Your Father who sees what you do in secret will reward you." Matthew 6:6

Unfortunately, this sad hypothetical situation has many factors that stem from real life here in Tanzania. Here just a few stories:

Audrey's boyfriend, Paul (who invited us to Dodoma a few weekends ago), witnessed a car/truck crash once. At first, it seemed like everyone was helping the victims. Everyone stopped their cars and got out. People came from their homes at the sound of the crash, and shoppers and bystanders came from the streets to surround the accident. But they weren't interested in helping the injured vehicle owners. People started to open up the vehicles looting and pillaging. They stole all the packages from the back of the cargo truck. They siphoned out gasoline, stole the batteries, mirrors, anything that could be sold. Meanwhile the 2 drivers from the crash sat on the side of the road bleeding to death. One man had a gaping head wound and the other was in shock, both serious conditions that would have ended their currently overlooked lives. ...

C.P.P.S. (mentioned in previous blog) is a Catholic water well drilling organization, but they also give food to needy families. They only have the funds and resources to give food to the people who absolutely need it, the ones who literally have nothing. They will give these families paper vouchers so they are able to cash it in at the food bank. One woman has the unlucky job of going around and choosing who gets the paper vouchers and who doesn't. She also goes around to check that the people with the vouchers are as desperate as they say they are. On one routine check up she found a family with a voucher for milk for an infant. Surprisingly at the food bank the mother never came with her infant and occasionally sent a 15 year old boy to collect the milk. As it turns out, the 15 year old boy was the infant who at one time needed the milk. But now he was old enough to collect the milk himself. The family was also in good enough condition that they didn't need a voucher, or any food assistance for that matter. The mother was confronted and told that there are thousands of mothers who have infant children that can not supply healthy breast milk and are in desperate need of assistance. The mother, in her defense, said that the 15 year old just liked the milk. On another voucher check up, a family that at one time had nothing was found to now have a house with brick walls, electricity, and running water! But every week they would dress down, come begging to the food bank, and collect groceries. Their utility bill, that they themselves payed, was probably 10x more then the value of the food they recieved for free. And here is the kicker- all their neighbors, the ones who lived not 50 feet from their house, lived in shacks with little to no roof, no electricity, no vouchers, no furniture, no food, and no water. So everyday while this family gorged themselves on the cache of charity food and clean water under lamp light, they could look out their window and see their neighbors eat dirt. Both families, obviously, had their vouchers torn up. These are also not unusual cases, this is a common occurrence. ...

And its not just the Africans with this mentality, it is anyone who stays here too long. One of the language school students, married with one child and in her late 20s, had a miscarriage. She was bleeding quite terribly and needed desperate medical attention not only to save her reproductive organs, but to save her life. Audry and Kim went to Pastor Hofferman for help. They said, "Pastor Hofferman, one of the language school students had a miscarriage and is bleeding. They need your help." Then Pastor Hofferman said, very nonchalantly, "Doesn't someone else have a car? Right now I'm getting the money ready to pay the workers. It will be about 3 hours." Pastor Hofferman, a man with a western upbringing, a man who knows how desperate the situation is here and has seen the effects of humane negligence, a man who was a BIOLOGY major in undergrad, told them to wait 3 hours. Audrey and Kim walked away stunned, what do you say to something like that? He was probably the person most capable of helping in that situation and THAT was his reply?...

Stories like this kill me. What is it about Africa that does this to people? If you witnessed a car crash, who among you would want choose to steal a car mirror worth $3 over saving someones life which is priceless? When you have the capabilities to be self sufficient and already have more then you need, would you choose to illegally obtain free food or let someone have a meal that would otherwise die? If you had money, education, and more then adequate resources would you let a woman with a partial fetus still in her damaged uterus bleed to death in her bathroom or would you take her to get medical attention? What is infecting the Africans, making them act in such cruel and insensitive ways? I don't know. It is NOT poverty, many of the people who choose the actions are not impoverished. It is NOT lack of knowledge, many of these people are educated enough to adequately assess the situation. It is NOT lack of religion, many of these people are our Christian brothers and sisters. Is it greed? Is it heartlessness? Is it the devil himself?

I came to African to for many reasons. One of the main ones was to find out if I would enjoy being an African missionary. But these problems are too big for me. How could a just and loving God allow us to treat each other like this? When we are given the capability for love, compassion, intellect, and wisdom why do we so often choose the opposite? Why don't we listen to the call of Jesus? Why don't we follow God's will? Why are we so damned selfish and evil?

Sorry if this seems like a beat up on Africa blog. America and many other countries commit many of the same acts. But its what I'm thinking about and its what I'm currently experiencing. Its easy to sit here and point fingers and feel sorry for myself and other people. Its much harder to muster up the courage to try and change the world. Please pray for me and everyone who needs the power to choose good over evil.

As always, my high and low:

High- Scott is back and rapidly returning to normal.

Low- Even though Africa is such a wonderful place, I don't think I have the personal stamina to be an African missionary, which is something I have dreamed about my entire life.

__________________

This was written on Saturday, today is Monday. My mood has definitely improved, no need to worry :).
Yesterday, we went to a Maasai village in the midst of conflict. Now the Maasai are relatively well off (money wise) as compared to most other indigenous Tanzanian tribes, but this is only because of their cattle. Recently, the corrupt Tanzanian police force has been stealing cattle from the Maasai, confiscating it in the name of the government. There are multiple reasons for this. The low ranking police force then sell off the cattle and make quite a bit of money. The higherups then buy the land that Maasai can no longer afford because they have no income. This illegitimately bought land is kept by the rich or given to friends, or friends of friends.
One man's entire herd was stollen just a few days ago. So when we were there, most of the Maasai men were in the bush hidding their cattle incase the police came back. This conflict resulted in much distress in the village women further resulting in demonic posession. I have now seen my 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th posession. One of which happend right next to me. We were kneeling down for communion and the woman next to me started scratching my arm. When i looked over her eyes were rolled back, she was started to scream and hit the people around here. Some of the other women carried her outside and prayed over her. The other 4 women had similar experiences, one of which flopped on top of her baby, hurting its leg.
Today, Swahili lessons are going well and Scott is back in class. I also want to say a seperate thank you to everyone who has been sending me e-mail and reading this blog. Its nice to know that I have you guys backing me up!

Low: REALLY hot last night and I'm still scratching off my mosquito bites in my sleep.

High: Almost done with chapter 30 in my Swahili lessons. I don't think I'll finish all 60, but I'll be pretty close!