The First Full Week

Everything moves slowly in Tanzania. Patience will either become a byproduct of my visit or I'll end up in a nut house. I know my family is hoping for the former, realizing I often live life closer to the latter.

For instance, it took ten days to get internet hooked up to my computer. The computer company doesn't say they'll be at your home between 1:00 and 4:00 on Tuesday. You have to go to their office - I did that three times. The owner was in Dar es Salaam and would be coming back sometime. He's the only one with the codes to hook someone up. That's OK, I can wait. Finally he comes back. It took three visits to my computer to finally get everything to work. Hallelujah!

Now, as I use the computer, I discover that the old 56K modems were a luxury. Lightening speed. It took three hours to write a new blog entry. I tried to add a picture, waited 15 minutes for it to upload, only to find out that service was interrupted during the transmission and I have to start all over. So here I am.

When it comes to moving slowly, I could talk about the traffic (surrounded by people and bicycles), banking (a simple transaction takes two hours), eating out (plan on at least an hour and a half to get your food), getting a task done uninterrupted (good luck - there are always people walking in and out of the apartment), or getting our new apartment painted (the painter has been at it for two weeks and everyday says, "one more day." He's still there).

But there are also positives to moving slowly. I've gotten to know some tremendous people. Every time you meet someone, you always take time to greet each other and visit a bit. Every afternoon at 4:30 or so, regardless of how hectic the day has been, the four of us who live together (Don and Eunice Fultz, Gary Langness and me) grab a beverage of choice, take a chair and visit.

Mealtime is outstanding. We often eat with the groups visiting from Minnesota. There have been three groups here so far. We visit about each other's day, learn about our lives and laugh a lot. Conversations are comfortable, never rushed and very enjoyable.

In this first week I've visited five churches, met tons of pastors, been on the campus of Tumaini University several times, visited a Lutheran hospital, orphanage and secondary school. I've spent time in the town market, run lots of errands, cooked breakfast with Eunice for several groups and gotten acquainted around Iringa. I've even begun to work on the strategic plan written by Tumaini University, one of my main reasons for being here. Even though the pace is slow to get things done, everyday brings progress.

So, it's been a good first week. Every day is new and different. There's so much more to see and do. I feel like I'm settling in a bit, and trying to stay focused on my work with planning and administration.

I'll try to add pictures to a later post. Four hours on this post is enough.