Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

Morning Parade with Kilimanjaro peaking out between the building and the tree. I would like to apologize for missing the last two weeks.  It was due to a combination of factors.  My computer once again succumbed to the heat, dust and travel conditions of living in remote areas that are difficult to travel to and from on a weekly basis.  I am using a computer that is based on Windows 8 so everything is different.  Now add the fact that the school needs the end of year student report in a completely different set up from the previous letters.  So different in fact that I had to reprogram all the database functions to create the data they wanted.  They delivered their end of year tests to me four days late and still expected me to produce them by Monday despite the fact no one was willing to come in on a Saturday to review them (they actually tried to tell me it was against the law in Tanzania for teacher to work on Saturday).   Add to all...

I guess I should start by telling you what a fundi is.  The original meaning of the word was someone who is a specialist in some type of work.  It was the word for someone who could repair a phone, a welder, a carpenter.  It has since been used more generally.  It can still mean someone like a welder but also someone who builds a building is now a fundi.  A person you hire to dig a hole in the ground is a fundi. Over the l ast month I have hired two different type of fundis to help at the school.  One was a typical fundi and one was not.  Let me describe how things went with both and see if you can guess which is the normal type and which is not. fundi one with his one tool Fundi One was hired to install the solar systems and wire up all the outlets at the school.  Normally this is a project I would do, but after my illness in September I was not up to go crawling around in the attic space for a week or two which is how long it would tak...