Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

Before I get started on this week's blog entry, let me thank everyone who helped make the first Barnabas Bear Newsletter a huge success.  I am hearing stories of a Chick-Fil-A in New York that printed the newsletter at their cost and gave it to customers purchasing a kid's meal.  Another story from California is a church kindergarten that sent printed copies home with all the kids.  Thanks to all the folks who sent encouraging words concerning the newsletter.  We will continue to do them and I will look at doing them more frequently if we continue to get such great feedback.  Those events happened because you, my friends, shared the newsletter with others and shared it with others, but it started with you. Now to this week's blog.  Yes Communication and Banking do go hand in hand here in Tanzania.  You see while there are real banks here, they charge for everything.  The reason is that unlike more developed countries, where people get loans for ...

As I am two days late with this blog and part of that is due to falling sick to some very small sardine like fish in a soup that was absolutely no fun while traveling from Yulansoni to Singida and then a day later to Arusha, I am not doing a normal blog but instead a couple of small items I thought were interesting.  Please feel free to comment if you run into similar situations. First a note about traveling while having a stomach problem-they don't stop for bathroom breaks or at least nothing that would help.  It used to be they stopped at a midway point for a significant amount of time but since they finished paving the roads they no longer do that on the 6 hour trip to Arusha.  They did make one very quick stop-not nearly long enough for me to risk getting off the bus for.  The second travel day while not pleasant was much better than the first that was at the height of my problems. Speaking of traveling on buses:  It was interesting that a policewoman ca...

It is difficult to believe I have already been in country for over a month.  It has been strangely fast paced in overall time despite the slow pace of the individual days.  There are still a lot of things to talk about which I am shocked over because I figured I would have run out of things to say by now, but I actually have a list of topics to cover in the coming weeks at least as I try to keep this blog current and hopefully interesting.  On that note I apparently had some very interesting articles at the beginning of February  because those got a viewership of between 85 and 130 but the last couple are back to averaging right around 60.  I hopefully can find some more interesting topics to cover in the future like communication/banking (yes they go together), solar energy topics, changes in the 13 years since my first trip to Tanzania, and the close community with those of differing faiths. This week I have been back to the Full Dimension Ministry site in Y...