Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

I thought you might like to hear some of the stories from my travel home during the middle of a global pandemic.  Some of you may have seen some of the photos on my facebook feed, but I have some more that did not make that feed.  I am also going to talk about what I am doing now that I am at home and in self imposed quarantine before I go to stay at my folks home.  I am also going to ask for your help to decide what I should be doing on the blog during what will be an extended break. Let's start with what was happening in Tanzania before I left.  The government had encouraged people not to gather in large groups and given some basic guidance along those lines.  They closed all school and  universities.  They required everyone coming in to Tanzania to go into a 14 day quarantine at a place the government set up.  This meant expensive type hotels that many of the Tanzanians returning after being overseas could not afford.  The government howev...

Before I get started with this week's blog, I want to tell you about my trip into town today so I could post it.  Our rainy season is finally here a bit late but here.  So it rained a couple of nights in a row which means I have swept bags full of dead termite swarms and moths out of my house.  I had been at the site for a week and half so I was also out of food good for a diabetic.  So I was ready to come to town.  I arranged my motorcycle taxi as normal and left just after morning devotions at the school.  He had apparently eaten his wheaties this morning because it was a fast trip to the normal dala dala stand.  Only no dala dalas and he kept going.  We get a mile past the normal dala dala stand and about 100 people are standing around a larger bus that is stopped.  So we get off and go look to see what is up.  The road is flooded.  Never fear we decided to cross it anyway on the motorcycle.  Twice I had to get off and hel...

Before I get started, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who wished me well after last week's blog.  My fever finally broke for good that Monday night.  I have been coughing it all up out of the deep recess of my lungs this week.  My throat is still very raw feeling and I am tired, but was able to help all week fill in for the teacher that was sick and proctored tests all day.  Due to the sluggish mental attitude, I am behind on my creative aspects of my job.  So I will go back to an old standby and introduce one of our student's via the Conversations with Barnabas program. This week I meet Mery's dad when he stopped by the school to meet with our Head Teacher (principal). He works at the sugar plantation that I ride through to get to our school each week after my day in town.  This means Mery and her family are not the traditional Maasai that surround our school.   Mery is one of those kids that would be any teacher's bright spot....

I thought it was time to bring back this segment of the blog now that I have been able to develop some background on many of our kids.  So I thought I would introduce you to one of the students at our school.  Seth is a young Maasai boy living near our school who most everyone who has visited our site has come into contact with.  Before I get into Barnabas' introduction of Seth, I wanted to brag a little again on the students and school in general.   We took the end of August tests during the first week of September because the school is closing for two weeks.   The school overall increased their average score by two points to 83.   It is also worth noting the Girls ruled this month with all three girls in standard 1 placing in the top three.   Pre-Unity also had girls in all of the top three spots this month.   Baby class had a girl in the top position followed by two of the boys.   So big congratulations to the girls at the schoo...

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.  These stories are told from Barnabas' point of view. We are headed back home.  It has been a weird year with the multiple trips home, having one ministry end and a new one startup.  It has been even more hectic than normal with Steve (I understand it confuses some when I call him dad) getting hit by the motorcycle in Arusha then coming back to work on the solar of the headmaster house only to have to make a last minute trip back to town to get a part for the inverter.  He was really busy wiring the house, doing final inspections on buildings under construction and saying goodbye to everyone. ...