Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

Archive for June, 2008

2 – Hymns in the Kinga mother tongue: there’s an mzee (old man) who lives in the hills between here and Njombe.  He is one of the Kinga people and over his lifetime, he’s come to learn over 40 hymns by heart in his mother tongue.  Considering the value Tanzanians place on singing, especially in choirs, this will be a great opportunity to expose a lot of Kinga people to The Way. This project is in the beginning stages with the first step yet to happen.  I will travel 7 hours to Makete (9°23’12.45″S,  34°14’17.88″E, Altitude 6,611 ft.) first to record these hymns to ensure they are preserved.  After they are transcribed with the help of translators, local Kinga choirs will be invited to come to Makete to be recorded singing one or more of the hymns. Then, a selection of those hymns will be chosen to make a compilation album duplicated mostly on cassette, maybe a few CDs, and distributed at an album release celebration/concert with the same choirs.

The biggest of all four projects gets highlighted tomorrow…

Yes, I deserve to be fined for blog neglect.  After all, it is the work I’m doing that brought us to Tanzania!  Time to get y’all out of the dark and let you know what’s going on.

I’ll start out by showing you a (not so very attractive) map of the Mbeya area languages with whom we’re working.

There are four current projects on which I’m working.  Here they are…

1 – Mark 6:34 on a language specific poster with this as the background:

Read the verse and you’ll see why this photo suits so well.  It was the favorite in a survey of my fellow Tanzanian SIL colleagues in the office.  It is a shot I took last November on the way back from our first safari in Ruaha National Park.

I’ve kinda hit a standstill with the progress of the poster because the cost to produce a decent number for each language group is going to be substantial.  I’m even exploring purchasing them from an online printer in the states and having them shipped over.  The quality will be better while the cost will be about the same or less.  The only issue we have with that is that we’d prefer to contribute to the Tanzanian economy by doing our business in-country.  Please pray for direction on this.

I’ll post about projects 2, 3, & 4 over each of the next three days.  I’ve gotta pace myself getting back into this blogging thing!!!

8:30am – Devotion & prayer with colleagues… all in Swahili

9:00am – We notice the voltage in the office has dropped from 230V down to 190V.  In case you’re wondering… that’s not good

9:45am – I bring 2 envelopes home that came from NC.  Best contents from them in my eyes… hand towels and grits!  Thanks y’all.

10:00am – I head for the post office hoping the Tanzania Revenue Authority (customs guy) is there during his posted business hours

11:15am – Still waiting on the customs guy

12:00pm – leave the post office with my packages from Dana’s parents after paying absolutely no duties on them.  Woohoo.

12:05pm – Ship an 80lb box of vehicle coil springs nearly halfway across the country.  Negotiate the price down to 14,000/= TZ Shillings or about $11.70USD.  Not too bad.  I even got a waybill number.

12:30pm – eat lunch with my family and explain to our house help that we’re picking her up full-time, M-F each week.  She dances in the kitchen while waving both hands in the air thanking the Lord.  We’re good employers.

1:45pm – Working back at the office when a colleague informs me some of the power lines next to the office are melting.  Hmmm… interesting…

4:45pm – I head home and have to pass a blazing fire in my normal walking commute path. Happy to have my camera phone…

Evening – dinner, crying baby, happy baby, crying baby, happy baby, cup of tea, finish a book, post a blog entry, head for bed. Nimechoka sana. (I’m really tired.)