Last week was a rough week here on site. It is easy sometimes during those times to focus on what you don’t have and not what you do have. The fact that I have had to spend more time in the states during all the COVID restrictions has made me think more of the comforts of home while I am here than I do when I spend most of the year on site. When I am home and getting a chance to talk to groups, the questions also get me talking about things that are accepted here but considered hardships to those I am often speaking to.
During the middle of everything that happened last week, I found myself thankful for the blessings and not stressing about the issues being caused. I was comfortable in that mindset more than I was in complaining about what was going on. It is important I think that we all focus more on the things we do have and not on the things we don’t have, though that is not a modern American (my apologies to my South American friends for using American to describe the USA but here in Africa that is how they recognize it) way.
So what happened last week? I had been in town at the hotel for the weekend so I could travel to Arusha to purchase things for the school and visit some vendors I need to keep in touch with. When I returned Monday morning about 10:30 am, I saw everything normally stored in the water pump house strewn about outside. The water pump had quit working. It had happened over the weekend and they had a fundi (mechanic) come to work on this morning. The mechanic they got was (how do I say this nicely) oh yeah an idiot. He had started by taking the entire pump assembly out of the well. That means 13 something pipes with connectors taken out then the pump and motor. He had cut the wires to the pump motor rendering the water tight connector void (they are one use only). He was telling everyone it was dust that caused all the problems. Dust in the pump that prevented it from pumping water up. Then I saw the dust-it looked a lot like a couple of strands of an old mop head that had been discarded in the pump house and despite having only been removed an hour before they were completely dry. When you cut through them there was no moisture present on the inside.
I shook my head, and informed our people he was wrong and we did not need to replace the motor or pump head like he was suggesting. It took a couple of days but we did get a pump mechanic from Moshi to come out after Bishop Stephano got hold of him. He started looking at things in the right order by testing the electrical control box. Turns out our capacitor had gone bad again. So he replaced the capacitor and the water tight connector on the wiring. We tested everything and it worked. Friday they fully installed all the well piping and lowered the pump and motor back into the well and we had water going again that evening.
So our school went a week without water. Our blessings include the fact we are only a mile away from the church that has a well. Our blessings include the fact we have a bus and I have car if it was needed we can transport the water over that distance to and from our school. Our blessings include the fact we had the ability to borrow enough water containers in the community we could transport enough water to cook food for 166 students and 12 staff, clean dishes for 166 students and 12 staff, provide enough drinking water for 166 students and 12 staff, enough water for the toilets and enough water for the headmaster’s family and myself to use bucket baths, cook our food, clean our dishes and flush our toilets. Our blessings include a network of people we have been building over the last 5 years to find a real pump mechanic and get him to the site. Our blessings include the fact that while we did not have to go buy a new pump and motor, we could have through generous donations and the use of my car.
It was a rougher week than normal, but through some hard work and help from our staff and the community we made it through. Our blessings are many.
Now on to the chores of getting caught up on laundry. Another blessing is that I have more than a weeks worth of underwear, socks and shirts to get by on until I could do laundry again. The kids living at the headmaster’s house also needed to get caught up on things.
I will be home for an extended period again July, August and a week in September. This time not due to COVID but the country changed the school schedule after I had purchased my first two plane tickets. Instead of closing for June they are closing in August so they can do country wide census and they need all the boarding students home for that. This means I need to get out and speak to groups of any type that want to hear about this ministry or life in Tanzania during my time at home. I am already scheduled to speak at all 4 services at Mauldin UMC on July 31 and I am speaking at Rolling Green Retirement community on July 29.
If you would like to help me out getting some speaking engagements, please contact me at steveintanzania@gmail.com
