What's going on?

We've been busy these days. It's a good busy, but also a tiring busy. Last week, the students at Mzumbe had a week long break from academics. To our delight, one of our friends at school planned a youth retreat in which he invited 30+ high school students from the city and surrounding to go to a camp in the mountains and spend a week in prayer and Bible study. He invited me (M) to come up and teach a little, so naturally I went and played games, getting the students to act out Bible stories, which they did a great job with.

About a week ago, the international school in Morogoro hosted a Christmas pageant, which was a pleasure to watch. We were able to watch some kids as they acted out the parts of shepherds, angels, mary, joseph, and all, and we enjoyed some Christmas carols played by the local international crowd on everything from guitars to flutes to trumpets. It was nice to feel a part of the Christmas season even though everything around us is so different from what we're used to!


One day my car was pretty slow to start, so after consulting a friend and checking the battery voltage, I decided to go to town to buy a new car battery. After a process of charging and filling with water, etc, we install the new battery on the side of the road in town. But the car doesn't start. So a short discussion ensues, which I mostly ignore b/c it's in my second language and would take waaaay too much brainpower to keep up with. Then one of my friends, a local mechanic, begins to climb into the driver seat of my car, telling me he's going to "shtua" the car. I sort of shrug as another guy yells in swahili that "Michael is able to 'shtua' the car." At which point I began to frantically think, "what in the world is 'shtua'?!?" So my friend climbs out and hands me the keys and says "can you 'shtua' it?" Again, I rack my brain for this funny sounding word, but I say "Sure... but what is 'shtua'?" He sort of laughs a nervous laugh as if to say, "I have no idea how to explain 'schtua' to this crazy foreigner who obviously knows nothing about cars." I then climb in the car, still whirring my mind for a memory of such a word, but quickly realize that I have no more time for that. A crowd of about 10 Tanzanians has gathered at the front of my car with hands on the hood and they begin to push me backwards into oncoming traffic. Thankfully, I gave up on trying to figure out this new word through language thoughts and instead rationally realized that I'd better throw it in reverse, turn the key, and roll start this car right now!! Seconds later, I 'shtuaed' the car to the delight of my new group of friends.

Oh, and always remember to keep a respectable Dress Cod. Your fish should not offend others.

Life in the Wild

Some recent animal photos:

Hanging out.


One big happy family!

What's that funny thing in the road?

Love the translation, or attempt. Trush in, trush out! Like the old GIGO saying. In Swahili below the 'english', it says in Swahili to 'please leave with your trash'.

Go Cards?

Didn't Pitino at one time say something about Louisville's restaurants being better than Lexington's?

Stay classy UL!


GO CATS!

A deal is a deal

Who else out there walks into a grocery store and without question buys the gigantic jar of mayonnaise, knowing well that you only need a small amount, because obviously it's a better deal?! I do. I always have. My wonderful mother taught me the beauty of a Sam's Club and a pantry at an early age. Even though I really don't like stockpiling food and such as home, I'll buy the extra-wholesale-super-big jar of pretzels to save 2 cents per every pound of pretzel, and then just eat nothing but pretzels for two weeks. Maybe that's my way of sticking it to the man.

So, I've always enjoyed watching prices of stuff, and anomalies amuse me. Take for instance, White Castle: Have you ever walked up and thought, "I really want 3 of those delectable delights with some fries and a drink... but the 'value meal' has 4 with fries and a drink. Oh well, it's a better deal. I'll take a #1 please!" Unless they've changed their menu in the last year, it's not a better deal! Add up the cost of 4 burgers, fries, and a drink, and you'll find the cost of the meal down to the penny. But we assume it's a 'value'. In their defense, White Castle calls them "Combo Meals" and not "Value Meals." Maybe genius on their part.

An example of how my patheticness helped humanity: One day in college, I was standing in the Long John Silvers line at the food court and I watched my friend Nick order a 2 chicken meal add a fish (his usual). I pointed out to him that if he would instead order a 1 chicken 1 fish meal, add a chicken, he would save 10 cents. I think if you ask him today, he will tell you I forever changed his life.

Anyhow, I've strayed. So we assume that bigger is [relatively] cheaper right? Why else would we buy the jumbo tub? Well, since I left home and moved to Tanzania, I've had to learn a whole new process of assumptions! It's not true here. My ethnocentricity wants me to believe that store managers here are missing something and have made a mistake. But I'm still not sure. Last week, we wanted some Orange Juice. Naturally, we grabbed the biggest one, a 1.5 liter jug for 3000 shillings. Then I noticed that the individual serving 250ml juices cost 450 shillings. That means we'd save 300 shillings by getting 6 little boxes instead of one big one!! A whole 23 cents (approx)! And you get lots of cool little straws! I then began to fill our cart with little boxes, but JJ removed them and tried to get more of the big ones, insisting on the convenience of having one big bottle to pour from. I kept adding the small ones until we came to a compromise to get both.

Is 23 cents worth the ease of one big bottle in the fridge? Help, save our marriage!!

[JJ the hippie wants to add in her thoughts that we are responsible to the environment and the 6 little boxes do much more damage than the 1 big one... juice for thought]

Watch the bottom line shoppers!

Swahili word for the day is hisabati which means 'mathematics'.