The sun rises every day at 6:30 am and sets every day at 6:30 pm, as I’m located just 3 degrees south of the equator. This Sunday, I was awaken at 6:30 am by monkeys chasing each other on the corrugated tin roof. Getting up, I heard and saw them run around, checking out my new clothesline I put up the day before. I wonder what this means for my laundry?!? Will monkeys decide to grab items that are close to the tree? I’d better leave some space. (For those concerned about the tree branch, I have half a dozen sticks between the rope and the tree’s bark to not impede the work of the xylem and phloem. The xylem distributes water and dissolved minerals from the roots to the leaves upward throughout the tree. The phloem carries food downward from the leaves to the roots.)
These are blue monkey, the third species of monkeys on campus that I’ve seen since arrival.
Blue monkey on the pink clothesline
Later, one monkey was checking me out through the window. (Cleaning windows comes after cleaning out the kitchen and room cupboards. I bought vinegar for this very purpose, using a home recipe with vinegar and a smidge of dish soap in water.)
After the morning’s monkeys, I was able to catch a ride to the Arusha Community Church, the English language worship. My driver/host was Randy Stubbs, a former ELCA missionary that has continued on here since 2006 and has done an amazing job of building up a next to nothing music program into a flourishing Cultural Arts Center, with a performance center, 19 employees, and a small museum. The musicians and dancers are now providing cultural arts at special events, like the recent visit of the President of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan, who was on campus just days before I arrived for the opening of the new science buildings at Tumaini University Makumira (TUMa).
Tumaini University Makumira (TUMa), my home now.
It was lovely to worship with Randy’s wonderful piano playing and his oldest daughter that I first met in 2011 when she was a teenager, now is a gifted worship leader (with two adorable twin daughters). There were some people who remembered me: the woman who taught the preschool where Anya attended twice a week and stayed with her daughters at their home until Eric was done working at Heifer International; and his former colleague at Heifer, who remembered Eric’s friendship and rich Bible studies together; and some I knew from the extended missionary community, and some who were names or networks I knew about but hadn’t known personally.
One providential conversation was with one of the local Roman Catholic priests from the Spiritan Brother order. All the Spiritan brothers that I’ve met are amazing! He introduced me to a recent Maasai civil society organization, the Maasai International Solidarity Alliance and connected me with a recent newsletter.
This newsletter is connected to my project in a tangential way, but it would take too long to describe tonight. So, it helps to identify the bigger picture of where I am.
Mungu akubariki. (God bless you.)