Day 215: Mwizi Monkey

"...man's glory and greatness do not consist in his being avid for blood and sharp of claw, in tearing down cities and spreading havoc, in butchering armed forces and civilians. What would mean a bright future for him would be his reputation for justice, his kindness to the entire population whether high or low, his building up countries and cities, villages and districts, his making life easy, peaceful and happy for his fellow beings, his laying down fundamental principles for progress, his raising the standards and increasing the wealth of the entire population."

- `Abdu'l-Baha

This has been an absolutely exhausting weekend! Because of a scheduling difficulty, the National Spiritual Assembly (NSA) ended up meeting on the same weekend as the National Teaching Committee (NTC) and then we found out that the National Institute Board (NIB) was also meeting at the same time and the Continental Counsellor had come to meet with the NSA! The Baha'i Centre was really packed full with practically the entire national administration.

Dr. Sabet, the NTC's chairman, was out of town in Ghana. I was expecting him back on Friday evening, but he called to say his flight had been rearranged to early Saturday morning. Then he called to say that his flight from Accra to Nairobi had been overbooked in Sierra Leone, so he had to schedule himself to Dar es Salaam through Johannesburg and he wouldn't be there until the afternoon. Then finally he called to say he was stuck in South Africa because his flight from Accra was late and he missed the connecting flight to Dar. Fortunately everyone else showed up!

We ended up meeting from 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM! That's the longest meeting we've had since I've arrived but we did have a lot to cover. The week before our meeting I really forced myself to work and wrap up the handful of projects that I had pending. So now we have a manual for youth year of service volunteers, a manual on how to conduct the National Baha'i Convention, guidelines for Area Teaching Committees and an in-depth presentation on intensive programmes of growth. I still need to develop a presentation on Baha'i elections and the role of the Local Spiritual Assembly in the Five Year Plan but those were lesser concerns at that point.

Among a myriad of other decisions, it's been formally decided to send me westward to begin capturing the learning that's happening in the clusters on the other side of the country. The clusters there are experiencing explosive growth with the sixth intensive programme of growth launched last week - four of the six are now in the same general area, including two in refugee camps. So I'll be visiting all of these clusters along the way, interviewing their Local Spiritual Assemblies, Area Teaching Committees and institute coordinators to discuss how they've managed to see so much growth. Hopefully we can translate that knowledge into something useful for the rest of the country and even the Baha'i world.

I'll be leaving for the west in November following an October trip to the southern parts of the country to visit another outstanding cluster in Mkululu/Masasi where a homefront pioneer has set the area on fire (figuratively!). While I'm in the northwestern reaches of the country around around Lake Victoria I'm hoping to drop into Rwanda to visit a friend and see some of the things dedicated to the genocide there. One of the members of the Committee started to question why I would want to go there but another interjected to prevent the question, saying simply that it's "an important place for Americans," which I take to mean important to us because of our failure to stop it before it was too late. After Rwanda I plan to go see the Baha'i House of Worship in Kampala and then either cross Lake Victoria by boat to Mwanza and back by bus or loop around the lake to Nairobi and come back via Arusha.

In addition to long hours dedicated to the NTC meeting, I also met with the NSA with Mitra to discuss External Affairs activities. We covered a lot of materials, determined our budget and largely discussed the issue of registering the Faith in Zanzibar, which is turning into a bit of a legal quagmire. While we were meeting the Centre staff brought in the Assembly's lunch and put it on a table. Some time afterwards, an NSA member noticed that one of the monkeys that lives around the Baha'i Centre was trying to reach through the window and steal the Assembly's lunch! Now that's definitely an experience unique to Africa!

We've had the Counsellor and a member of the NSA staying with us this weekend, so it's been a pleasure to have guests at the dinner table. Not a lot of elucidation about the Plan or our work or anything, but we've heard some wonderful stories, including how the NSA member and her family were detained for two days when first arriving in Tanzania about 20 years ago! Apparently they really didn't like foreigners too much back then.

This coming weekend, I'll be going to Iringa with Mitra for Ruaha Secondary School's graduation and to conduct external affairs training and give the presentation on intensive programmes of growth to the Area Teaching Committee there. It seems like whenever I travel somewhere I have to try to cram about a hundred different things into a small amount of time! But with the weather warming up, I'm looking forward to getting into the mountains where it's a little cooler, not to mention it will be nice to see the friends there again.