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...

It has been some happening weeks here in Tanzania since my return or more importantly the return of my laptop from Nairobi.  After getting a week behind in my work with the repair of my laptop and then the trials and tribulations in getting it back in my hands, I had to spend a large amount of time working to prepare for visitors from the States and several issues we had to deal with on the site.  So I am a little late again getting to the blog and when this happens I normally sit at my computer with conflicting ideas and topics to cover and never really sure what should be talked about first.  So I am doing a little bit of a combo here. Let's start with the video I prepared for the FDM USA banquet which can be seen on youtube: To answer the number one question I am hearing about this video-yes I have lost some weight while I have been here.  Walking everywhere tends to help with that and I have been very good about my sugar as I cannot get medicine here so I w...

Before I actually get started this week I am going to deviate-I know I do that a lot- and make a request for assistance. Rev. William Makali and his wife Martha would like to come stateside to see their daughter graduate college.  This is not an FDM USA sponsored trip so he has to raise his money for the tickets.  He currently has raised $1200 and needs $1800 more.  If you can assist, please arrange to give your money or check to William while he is in the USA from May 12 to Jun 10.  Thank you in advance for your generosity.  Just because they are not on an official FDM USA trip they would still love to meet with friends and groups that have supported them in the past, just contact me to see what we can arrange.   One of the fun parts of my life here in Tanzania is the visa process.  You cannot get a residence work permit in the USA, you have to apply for it in Dar Es Salaam which is no where near where I am.  I have found out recently you can h...

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...

This one will be a bit long as there are a lot of things to cover about the trip out to Singida and Yulansoni this first time as an individual.  While I have had the pleasure to go to both and to use local transportation to get to Singida in the past this trip as you will see had a lot of new adventures.  For those not familiar with the geography:  Singida is a town and a district in Tanzania.  It is the nearest town with things like hotels, "regular" electricity and so forth.  It is 324 Kilometers (201.3 miles) from Arusha where I had been before.  In the past this trip was only partially paved, but now it is almost completely paved (mainly repair areas you have to go off road).  Yulansoni is the village the Full Dimension Ministry site is located nearest to in the valley area, so we don't actually go to the village but to the site.  (BTW site is located at -4.381468, 34.572284 and can be found on Google Earth where you can see the buildings...