"I am, I am, I am the Promised One! I am the One whose name you have for a thousand years invoked, at whose mention you have risen, whose advent you have longed to witness, and the hour of whose Revelation you have prayed God to hasten. Verily I say, it is incumbent upon the peoples of both the East and the West to obey My word and to pledge allegiance to My person."
- The Bab
There should be (God willing) some new pictures on the Flickr site.
This past weekend, against May's vocal protests, Mitra and I went to Iringa in the mountains of the southern highlands area of Tanzania. We were there to conduct external affairs training, and I also delivered a presentation on intensive programmes of growth and consulted with the cluster coordinating committee of Iringa.
Unfortunately the most reputable bus company in the country has been declining in quality quite severely lately. Some of the stories the friends have been bringing back about their trips have caused me to concern, and, of course, I wasn't disappointed on our trip...
In the beginning, the bus was late even leaving Dar es Salaam because we got caught in traffic related to there being no functioning traffic lights during the day and not enough traffic police to direct the flow of traffic. Then barely outside of Dar, the bus broke down. Something was wrong with the gear box so we could only go in third gear. There was some discussion about turning back to Dar es Salaam, but the driver decided to go to Morogoro (2 1/2 hours away) and "see what happens." I guess he thought if he kept driving the bus would magically fix itself. When we got to Morogoro, after driving in third gear the whole way, they did some tinkering around and seemed to fix it a little bit, but it still wasn't functioning properly, which meant a 7-8 hour trip took us 10 hours.
Along the way, Mitra and I discussed dreams, the Baha'i community, Africa, homosexuality and the Faith and women on the Universal House of Justice among other things. For the most part we dozed, read and did a little preparation for the training.
When we arrived in Iringa, we were retrieved by Sohaila, a member of the Iringa Town community, and taken to her house where we were to stay and conduct the training. Lucky for us, the jacaranda trees were in bloom in Iringa, which meant there were purple blossoms all over the place. With the beautiful weather and surroundings it's not hard to understand why Iringa held such importance to the colonialists and still holds importance to modern-day missionaries. Sohaila's house is at the foot of a rising ridge with large rock formations, which helps to block a bit of the raging wind and give you something nice to look at.
The external affairs training started on Friday evening, shortly after we arrived. In fact, the friends were basically there waiting for us when we showed up at Sohaila's house. We were able to refresh ourselves with a quick wash and some chai and fruits before getting into the material. We're trying to develop a network of public relations officers around the country that we can call on and mobilize especially for the defense of the Faith within the country and in regard to the Baha'is in Iran but also for media efforts with newspapers and radio. The training manual was based on one developed in the U.S. for the Public Information Representatives there, but it took a great deal of modification to make it fit in with local media and what we were trying to create. Iringa proved to be the training ground for the training itself since it was the first time we conducted it. There are even more modifications that need to be made before we give the training again, which will probably be in Dar es Salaam and probaby after I've already returned to the US.
Friday night, I was nearly assassinated by my bunk bed. I put on my pajamas and got ready to get into my nice comfortable bed. When I put my hand on the mattress to ease down the whole thing collapsed down on top of me! After retrieving Mitra and Sohaila we managed to fix it and I got a nice, motionless night of sleep. The next day, Sohaila said when she was inspecting it it fell apart on her again! With a bit of investigation, she determined that her house staff had broken it when they were moving it around, and they were hesitant to tell her. "What should we say?!" they exclaimed. "That we broke the bed?" I suppose so, yes, that would have been the thing to say.
On Saturday, we went to Ruaha Secondary School for its graduation ceremony and 20th anniversary celebration. Like any graduation, there were plenty of speeches but there were also a few dances. One in particular by "The Shake Brothers" was interesting. I tried to take some pictures but with the lighting it seems they were moving a little too fast for my camera. =P We got to speak with the year of service volunteers - Annais, Rahan and Ella - for a bit, as well as a woman visiting the school on behalf of the Office of Social and Economic Development in Haifa. She was working on some moral education curriculum and doing a bit of field testing at Ruaha and Banani in Zambia.
Mitra and I got a little bored with the graduation so we wandered around the school a bit. As a member of the Policy Committee, she's planning to do an environmental audit for the school so we were snooping around to see what areas she'd have to focus on when she returned for that purpose. In the kitchens, we were warmly welcomed by the women tending about 30 huge aluminum pots on makeshift fires stuffed full of food for the graduation. We asked for a taste, a little - "kidogo" - and of course we were presented with two heaping plates of pilau and meat, white rice and fried chicken. Although it wasn't quite what we wanted, it did help us avoid the enormous line for lunch later. There must have been 1,000 people there! Freed from having to eat, I was able to catch up with a homefront pioneer and consult a bit with another member of the NTC during lunch, as well as talk to the lady working with OSED about her projects and organize the cluster coordinating committee for a meeting that evening. It seems that work follows you everywhere!
At two points during the graduation, Mitra and I were completely caught off guard by being introduced during the formal programme. While Mitra technically has some connection to the school as a member of its Policy Committee, I have absolutely no connection. But still, it seems that when a mzungu shows up at some function then they must be paraded up front for everyone to see. I imagine it reflected well on the school to have visiting "dignitaries" and "experts" from Dar es Salaam, even if we aren't really anyone in the grand scheme of things. Since we didn't really announce that we were coming, I have no idea how they managed to spot us and work that into the programme. I must have been as red as a beet when they made me stand up!
On Saturday evening, I managed to accomplish my NTC project - a PowerPoint presentation on intensive programmes of growth and collection of information about the activities ongoing in the Iringa cluster. It was a bit of a task trying to assemble the cluster coordinating committee right after the graduation, but I managed to get most of them, the cluster institute coordinator and one of the other members of the NTC. The presentation itself is a bit long (described as "epic" by one of the participants) but walks the friends through the entire intensive programme of growth, from its launch to the four phases in each cycle of growth (planning, expansion, consolidation and reflection) to the end of the cycle and the beginning of the next. Especially important, I think, are the questions it provides participants to assist them in their planning phase. The friends seemed to find it helpful and it assisted in fruitful consultation afterwards when I began collecting information and "capturing the learning" from their efforts so far. Hopefully their challenges and successes can be put together with the information I'll collect when I go to the western part of the country to assist the remaining priority clusters with their own efforts.
We travelled back up the mountain (Ruaha school is at the base of the plateau thing that Iringa town sits on) to Sohaila's house, ate dinner and got a good night's sleep before the external affairs training resumed on Sunday. Thanks to the participants good grasp of English and understanding of the material we were covering, we managed to finish by the early afternoon on Sunday. Mitra and I accompanied the friends into town to the bus stand, laughing and joking all the way. Three Africans, an American and a Persian laughing and talking together managed to turn a few heads, including those of the missionaries who seemed to be wondering who we were and what we were doing on their turf. Mitra and I did a little shopping in the market, got cursed at by a tiny little street boy of no more than five years who we refused to give money to ("Fuck you!" he yelled) and then headed back home. Because there was so much food for dinner, we invited four of the friends from Ruaha school up the mountain to have dinner with us, including two of the year of service volunteers. They stayed fairly late into the night as we swapped stories about Africa, Tanzania and pioneering in general.
The whole time we spent with Sohaila at her house was truly wonderful. She's a delightful woman, and she proved to be an exceptional host. The food was absolutely fantastic but always too much to eat (Persians, go figure)!
On Monday morning, we loaded up and headed back to Dar es Salaam. After stopping at a rest stop built by Muslims to drive business away from the Christians who had built the old rest stop down the road, we heard this God awful crowing from the back of the bus. I turned around and noticed this woman had two chickens with her. On the bus. "Good Lord," I thought. This particular bus company, which I mentioned has been going downhill, seems to have taken a nose dive. Before, they tried to maintain a certain professionalism and insure that no barnyard animals and arm loads of vegetables and fruit and household items were hauled onto the bus, but it seems that policy has gone out the window. Now they're just like every other bus company in Tanzania.
Next time I take a trip, I feel certain I'll find myself sharing a seat with a goat.
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