Visiting Mtera Secondary School and Church

Today's blog post is written by Katie Edwards and Nova Kroschel.

Today we left the Iringa Lutheran Center at 7:45 in anticipation of another great adventure. We were not disappointed! First I would like to share a few words about the roads here in Tanzania. The road we are taking today to Mtera is all paved. That was not the case the last time a group from St. Paul Lutheran visited here. They are mostly two lanes, but those two lanes can quickly become 4-5 lanes depending on the type of vehicles that are moving along at the time. Please note, the size of the roads don’t change, just the number of vehicles on it. Imagine a highway with 4-5 vehicles going down the road with several passing at the same time. Sometimes it feels like we are in a cartoon, with cars coming in all directions. In all fairness I must point out that most of the vehicles, ie, pikipiki (motorcycles) and the bajaj (3 wheeled canvas sided vehicles) are much smaller than what we generally see in traffic in the US. Even most delivery trucks are much smaller. There is very little of what we consider the shoulder of the road and very often people and animals walking along the sides in both directions. Pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way! Vehicles DO NOT stop! They do honk a lot! Tanzania also has road construction and we knew that there was going to be a relatively short stretch of that on the way to Mtera. Road Construction here does not look like US road construction. They don’t detour you off to another paved road, they detour you off on to a rough trail. We get full body massages as we drive over all the lumps and bumps! I am sure that if our Coaster Bus ever had good suspension it is definitely shot.  

We had a very scenic drive to Mtera Secondary School. Some of the things we saw on the drive were animals such as donkeys, goats and cattle being herded down the side of the road, oxen pulling a large tree branch, a goat being transported on a pikipiki (motorcycle) donkeys pulling wooden carts of supplies, and many people carrying supplies in baskets or buckets on their heads.  

The diversity of housing along our drive is amazing! The housing here gives a whole new view of making do with what you have. I could go on and on about that, but I will save that for another post.

After about two hours we arrived at the Mtera Lutheran Secondary School, where we were greeted by the entire student body even though it was a Saturday. We were given a tour which Nova is going to share with you at the end of this post.

After the tour we were served brunch before we left for Mtera Church. The school is a short distance from town. We were greeted at the church, shown around the area, and then went to unload our bags at the Empire Inn in Mtera. We took all eight rooms that they had. Pastor Dale commented right away that it exceeded his expectations. It was clean and had screens on the windows. The rooms had a bed and a chair. It had a tiny bathroom with a squatty potty and a shower which were in the same spot. There was no sink. Unfortunately, most of the rooms did not have running water in the shower, but we didn’t know that until in the morning when folks tried to shower. Be sure to ask Steve and Carol about the chickens outside their room when you see them next. After leaving our bags in the Inn we went back to the church where we were served lunch. Yes, lunch, even though we had brunch two hours previously. This was our third meal of the day.  

Following lunch we once again boarded the bus to head to the Mlimani preaching point,one of 5 preaching points from the Mtera church. We soon learned just how remote this preaching point is. It was during this trip that we experienced the true meaning of Bega Kwa Bega!  We quickly left paved roads behind and ended up on very bumpy, sandy trails, not really roads at all.  We have had an amazing driver for this trip and he was masterfully managing the trail.  We were soon in for a trip of a lifetime!  We were dodging bushes, trees, low areas and at one point a herd of cattle. Cattle also do not have the right of way in Tanzania! Our driver just kept honking his horn and driving forward until all the herd had scattered. We certainly could have used the Land Cruisers that we used on Safari at this point!  The drive seemed to take a very long time, but we were assured that we were almost there. We were out in the middle of nowhere!  There were no buildings in sight and it had been a little while since we had seen one.  At that point we were trying to drive across an area on the trail when our coaster bus got stuck in the very fine sand. (Think of the very worst situation you have been involved in being stuck in the snow and triple it!)  The back wheels were just spinning.  So, all but two people got off the bus. At this time we had our group of 16, the driver, the guide, 3 additional pastors, and an evangelist on the bus. The plan was for the men to push the bus forward.  It was a great plan, but the back wheels were too far down in the sand.  The rear axle also needed to be dug out.  Men and kids were trying to dig out sand with their hands.  Some folks were pulling dried corn stalks from the surrounding area to put under the tires.  The evangelist started walking to get tools to help with digging out the bus.  By this time we were taking lots of pictures and making comments about who had an AAA membership! Off to the side of where the bus was stuck was a water hole where two local children were watching all of the action.  They turned over the bucket they were using to collect water and sat down on it to watch.  Soon the evangelist was back with one shovel and a hoe.  Then someone else arrived on foot with an ax.  By now the word has spread and more people are showing up on foot to watch the show.  In the meantime there is much conversation about how we ended up in this situation!  Some were making mental notes about how much water we had and how much daylight was left.  Thirty minutes from the time we drove into this goofy situation we were back on the road because of Bega Kwa Bega, folks shoulder to shoulder, managed to push the bus out and we continued on our way to the preaching point. 

Members of the community who came to help stayed behind to work on the trail, so that we wouldn’t have the same problem on the way back.  We continued on our way to the preaching point.  Our visit there was very short, because we didn’t want to drive back in the dark.  We were greeted warmly by the members of the preaching point, but the youngest children cried when we tried greeting them. This was certainly different from our other stops. We decided that they had never been exposed to people from outside their area.  The church was made of sticks, but the blocks for the new church was built around it, so it was a church within a church.  The new church doesn’t have a floor or roof yet.  It is part of their long term goals.   They need more bricks before they can move on.  They also want to build a school for the kindergarten children in the area.  This would be a one room building. The children all have to walk to school and they want to keep the youngest ones close to home for one more year.  This is completely understandable after seeing how far it is to walk to school!  

We left the preaching point and made it back to Mtera without incident. This time we got off the bus and walked across the area we had been stuck in.  The bus made it across thanks to the helpers who had stayed behind and worked. At 8:00 PM we ate our 4th meal of the day and then headed to the Empire Inn for a memorable night’s stay. ~Katie Edwards

We went to the Mtera secondary school yesterday. Out of 365 total students, 149 are sponsored by Bega Kwa Bega. The students welcomed us with several songs, led by their choir. They are pretty similar to our choirs, but it's fun to see how much energy they have compared to American high schoolers. We went to the principal's office to sign in and learn a bit more about the school before going out for a tour. We were shown several classrooms, including one for visually impaired students. The braille typewriters they have were partially funded by our church. Most of the buildings and supplies they have are old, but they make do with what they have, and are slowly saving for renovations. We met some students who are sponsored by people in our congregation, and learned what they've been doing so far in school. They don't choose classes like we do in high school, instead having several core classes every year like math and geography. They are also required to pass examinations to move onto the next grade instead of passing automatically. The students seemed very committed and one girl told how she wanted to go to university and become a pastor. While their school is very different from ours, I got the feeling that those kids are much the same as we are, with big hopes and dreams for their futures. And now those dreams are going to be possible because of people who were willing to sponsor them. I will always remember how despite all our differences, the students are essentially the same as we are. ~Nova Kroschel