Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

  This week it is ceiling work.  When I first got here there were holes in the ceiling of the Ward building due to something like carpenter ants.  The ceiling board is made from wood chip/fiber.  It is very heavy but easily damaged and easy for the termites and carpenter ants to digest.  So this month is the month I am attacking the bats in the attic spaces of our medical buildings again.  This includes removing all the bat guano(crap) from the ceiling spaces and then spraying down the bats with a strong pesticide that attacks the nervous system.  The picture below is of the bat crap I pulled out of just the Ward building.   For the next couple of days we found dead bats all around the building.  All in all I counted about 35 dead bats which means I still have 10 to 15 holding on for dear life after several sprayings. In addition as I was working the fellow below was found and killed.  Those that know me ...

This is a time to celebrate for me personally as I am writing my 100th blog about becoming a missionary engineer with Full Dimension Ministry in Tanzania.  I honestly cannot believe I have found enough to talk about to fill 100 blogs.  I am not known as a chatty person, some might even call me laconic or reticence.  But here I am at blog 100 and I thought I would try something different (yes again) by blogging by the numbers.  Hope you enjoy it. 1- item I built that failed-the bed when I loaded it up with all the kitchen stuff so I could work in there 2- number of consecutive days before someone asks me for “their” money 3- pairs of glasses ruined and number of computers I have needed(also the number of blogs I have done on numbers like 47 and significance of Pi) 4- times I have I watched Pitch Perfect since being here (remember my man card cannot be revoked) 5- letters/cards I have gotten not including care packages 6- conversations with Barnabas...

Standard Disclaimer:   Welcome back to Conversations with Barnabas Bear. A couple of items up front, the conversation is fictional (hopefully that was obvious) but are pulled from some of my conversations and observations during my time here in Tanzania.   The main purpose of these is to help everyone get to know the people in Tanzania a little bit better while having a little bit of fun.   I would love some feedback on these so I know if I should continue and if so what types of conversations Barnabas needs to be having.   The stories are told from Barnabas' point of view and because of that they are in English though I try to reflect some of the problems with the English translation. This is Zekiel which I think is supposed to be Ezekiel.  Dad was working on the pre-school building while school was out for the harvest break.  Communication about what is going on is hit and miss a lot as was evidenced throughout the week as kids showed up for pre-schoo...

This was another good week of work.  School is out so I have a lot of projects I need to complete before the kids come tear everything up again.  I guess I got job security that way. I will start off with my Saturday afternoon project after spending a very long morning responding to emails.  Things are really picking up here.  We have a group coming over in September of this year and already two groups starting the process to build teams for 2017.  The Full Dimension Ministry wish list is going well with lots of items already funded.  So I wanted to relax for a little while and I have had a picture of a bracelet on my computer for awhile now and had not figured out how they made it.  Fortunately I brought everything I needed to make the attempt.  I am using a bead made of cow bone as the button.  This caused two significant deviations from the picture I was seeing.  First the hole is so small I could only get the very thin yarn to ...