Week 5 Moshi Blog to November 13th

Original oil painting by Famous Marangu painter 1950's

Let the tears pour down for a little while more.

I believe this has been the hardest week that I have ever spent anywhere.  I am grateful for Moshi, for the friendships that John and I have developed over the years, the expatriates who seem to a person to have been overwhelmed and horrified by this election week, and the vast majority of our Tanzanian friends, and even quite a few just acquaintances and most especially our project and the staff. Many of us have cried together in fear, anguish, and stunned disbelief.  Our senses of justice, freedom, kindness and morality, have been shaken by this election and our sense of loss that a woman who has worked her heart out in service for others should have lost this Presidential election.

Before the election John and I had a lovely dinner with our friends Elizabeth Minde (a lawyer/director of KWIEKO (the women’s legal rights organization in town), and the sister of Mama Mkapa who is the wife of the former Tz. President,  and friends Agnes, Kristen and Erling.  Our dinner was delicious and we all commented about our hopes for the election.

The day in which the results of the election were announced, I had my usual 7am swim session and tried to work hard just to shore up my anxieties. Moshi is 8 hours ahead of the US, and we were not sure what was happening except that it did not look good.  My fellow Saa Mojas (at the hour of 1, =7) also gave false encouragement, “it cannot be true, something will happen”).  But then I met another American friend in the parking lot and we both burst into tears.  And for our own reasons, refugees, poor people, global health, kindness and decency, our children, religious freedom, we wept and wept.  When we got ourselves together, I drove to Machame to see my dear friend Sylvie.

Anyone who has read any blogs of mine have to be familiar with our friends Nic and Sylvie.  They have lived near us in Machame for years, been married since the early 60’s and run the best coffee and sisal farm around until Nationalization.  The coffee is still fantastic-none can come close, though now Nic and Sylvie have to rent their own farm back, and the sisal was destroyed through the government farms.  But, these two friends are perhaps the most resilient I know, and their love and strength supports us continuously.  Sylvie was at our cabin in Boone when the BREXIT vote came in and we cried then, so it seemed fitting that I should be going to see her on the day of our election. 

We did after all have a plan, and that was to visit Machame Secondary School, which was the first job Sylvie garnered after graduation from University in the UK.  She always knew she wanted to return to Africa, and was happy to get this post.  As she relates, her first night alone in her new bungalow at the school was quite scary until she got out her Daily Word and saw that it was the feast of St. Michaels and all angels (Michaelmas) and knew that she would be fine.  And so she was.  Her years at Machame Secondary School were on the whole wonderful, and definitely enhanced by the appearance of young single men who came up to the school to play tennis and take a look at the new crop of young British teachers.  Here is where the romance began between Nic, the dashing young Greek, and Sylvie the beautiful, smart and caring British teacher. 

List of Head Mistresses over the years. 

The famous tennis court is now being converted to a basketball court

Gate on the front of Machame Secondary School

We had quite a walk about the school, being graciously accepted by the Head Mistress who was interested and quite excited to meet a teacher from the 1950’s.  She was eager to hear about the school’s history in those days and noted some corrections in the school’s written documentation through Sylvie’s discussion of the days.  She gave us full permission to walk around and accompanied us to see Sylvie’s old house and her reminiscences of the path to the house, how it looked and some stories of walking up and back from the school.  All the teenaged girls were studying outside because the next day was the beginning of the national exams, and they would be eating and studying for exams outside, as exam day would be spent in the cafeteria. 

Around the school yard

Sylvie's first bungalow, now a bit decrepit & many little buildings around

Words for young teenaged girls to live by

While everything looked quite a bit different to Sylvie, it just was all-fabulous to me and a great distraction for my day.  My respect grew for the work that Sylvie has done over the years, that she and Nic have built a beautiful home and nourished it, and have raised a family who now all have families, and continued to show their kindness and graciousness to an array of people.

With the full moon coming up tomorrow, I have been practicing with my cameras, and wow has this been a learning experience.  I have several pictures to post, but trust me there have been about 30 missed tries.  The most astounding thing to me is that my trusty SLR camera and this particular lens cannot seem to take a good picture.  They look good, but the clarity is very bad even though I have carefully zoomed and taken on tripod and used a two second delay.  But my little Canon Powershot 65x has rescued the day.  I have one picture in which I tried to hand hold the camera.  Fun picture but not really a moon in the making.  But, on the tripod with a manual focus and 2 second delay and nearly full zoom (not quite) I got some really nice photos, and I will post them with joy at the potential of seeing the full moon tomorrow night.  Remember this is the closest full moon to earth that we will have for 70 years. 

I have to call this the moon on drugs Nov. 12th the big spot is the moon

Nice almost full moon Nov.12th

Nov 13th moon 1 day to full

Finally, the name Patricia!  I have 2 close friends in the US who are named Patricia.  My sweet “Patty B”  (Pat Beaver) and my good old Boston friend Patty Shay. But all of a sudden I find that I have two new Patricia friends here.  One Patricia, close to my age is in my Moshi Book club (to which I am privileged to belong and the other in the Saa Moja group.  A young lawyer Patricia (who is a very good swimmer), her friend Sophia who is a businesswoman, and her father Erik, also a lawyer who is learning to swim.  We all are valiant in coming out at 7 to hurl ourselves into cold water and be tormented by our really good swim instructor Sabini.  So 2 Patricia friends on two different continents.  What fun.

Patricia the Old and Patricia the Young

We will hang tight and be strong, and let the lessons of this election stay with us as we continue to strive for the higher ground.  God help us in the meantime!

Jacaranda tree, purple Allium and Travelers Fern keep hope alive