BACK IN TANZANIA

BACK IN TANZANIA,   March 4, 2013  --Kenya Election Day

            I arrived back in Tanzania Friday afternoon (Mar 1) on schedule after 19 hrs in the air and 19 hrs waiting in airports. That evening I was pleased to meet the new Maryknoll Lay Missioners who were all in Mwanza for the week. Three had just come down from the Musoma language school for their mid-term break. The other 4 new ones finished language school last Spring and now all reside in Mwanza, which is a 4 hr drive south on the south shore of Lake Victoria. I also met our two oldest missioners, Liz and Joanne, our 2 Maryknoll sisters, 2 Maryknoll priests and 2 Maryknoll brothers. They had gathered there at the Mabatini parish for a Lenten reflection Friday evening.  I then went to dinner at a nice restaurant on the lake with the lay missioners so I could get to know them a little better. What a nice way to spend my first day back.

            The next day I was picked up by one of our Indian sisters, Teresa, from Kowak Hospital and her driver who had been in town buying drugs for the hospital. The ambulance was packed with drugs so we were barely able to squeeze my 4 bags in. We arrived back in Kowak in time for dinner, thanks to no mechanical problems. I was greeted by many who recognized me now after 7 yrs at the mission. That is always a nice feeling to see a smile on their faces, esp. the kids. This is the warmest time of year (85F) here, so it is still sinking in after leaving some pretty cool and white conditions in Kansas City. I was especially pleased to see our lay volunteer Vikki again, who has been “holding down the fort” while I’ve been on home leave, the last 4 months. I was glad to finally meet the two short term volunteers, Jean and Henry from Utah, who arrived in January and will be here one more month.

            The next day, Sunday, my house mate, Fr Conard had scheduled a nice welcome home party that evening, so it was a great time to say hi to everyone again and enjoy some great food and drink. We even had a special American guest who arrived that afternoon from the Arusha area near Kilimanjaro. She, Lora, is a young Biomedical engineer working in Arusha for Duke University. She had come to see if our hospital outreach program might fit their qualifications for medical equipment assistance in a new project to supply HIV medication to new babies at the very earliest stages. She will be with us for about 4 days and seems to like what she has seen so far. She has been in Tanzania 4 yrs, so has good Swahili skills and traveled alone by bus after flying to Mwanza; impressive.

            Today I delivered the three microscopes and 4 cameras to the secondary school and greeted many of the girls that I have come to know pretty well. They all told me how fat I have become at home. That is a complement hear, but somehow I did not feel that good about it. I will give the 20 girls on our softball teams their gifts later this week and give the 25 teachers and staff the little gifts I brought them tomorrow at breakfast tea. I saw some of them at chai today. I brought the men neck ties and the women little wrist watches. Henry showed me his new seedling tree project which is doing very well. I hope to attend one of Jeane’s English classes for the 120 freshman girls. I did talk to our regular English teacher and he said she is really giving him good suggestions for teaching techniques. We have a serious water problem which I hope to assist with in the coming days but it is due to the failure of electrical equipment on one of our two water well pumps, so I’m not sure how much I can do. This is our main pump because it is run by a generator and is not susceptible to the frequent electrical power outages of the other water well. They have had a lot of outages recently because of damages to a large gas turbine generator in Dar es Salaam on the East Coast. So our school tank was empty yesterday when I inspected it. It’s hard to keep 450 girls fed and bathed with the one pump that only operates part time. Never a dull moment, as usual.

 The bishop is scheduled to arrive next week for a big meeting to discuss the future management of the secondary school, so we are all anxious to hear what that is about. I am hoping to make another camping trip with my friend Liz and our new volunteer Henry during Holy Week. So, I hope that all comes together as planned and I can see the Watatulu tribe again and our elderly priests Fr Dan and Don who work with them. Today I am on my one-day-a-week water only Fast for Lent, so will be ready for a big breakfast tomorrow of pourage (Ugi).

Tom in Kowak

Adam's Moving Back

Wow, another interesting week. About the time I posted my last blog I got a call from my son in Baltimore informing me that he and wife Megan have decided to move back to Texas. In fact back they plan to move to his mother's home in Friendswood where he was raised. How fun. I'm sure his mother Pam is thrilled to have them and the two grandkids for more than the usual few days each year. I then got a call a few days later that my son Kyle and his fiance have set a date for their wedding, already. That will be Oct 19. So that means I will need to change my return flight from Africa to early Oct instead of early Nov. No problem, of course. Just makes my visit there a little briefer than I had hoped. At least I'll be there for the graduation of our seniors in late Sept. Today was another fun time as my sister, Janice, informed me that her former employer called to offer me a used microscope for the school biology lab. So we went to see it today and it is really beautiful and has an oil emulsion lens for bacteria, which we really need. They will be so excited to see this when I arrive. We only have one working microscope and it is in really bad condition, so this old 1995 model will blow them away. Of course it will add another 20 pounds to my luggage but it will be well worth it. Also my lovely daughter-in-law, Megan, has just offered me her awesome portable Epson printer, so I don't have to spend an arm and a leg on a similar used one. We really need something like this for all our passport pictures for the hundreds of ID cards we make each year at the school and I was admiring her's last November. This will make life so much easier. I had a lovely day at the diocese Prayer House (former Shantivanam) on Friday and had another lovely lunch with the staff. The weather was beautiful and after lunch I was the only one there, so it was a very peaceful afternoon to walk in the woods. That reminds me of the book "A Walk in the Woods" by Bryson, which I just purchased for my son Adam this week. Funny, when I called him that evening to tell him I had purchased it he about died. He had just borrowed the same book the day before from his friend the church pastor, I believe. We had not talked about it for over a year. Must be those brain waves. Finally I got a wonderful email from my friend and Maryknoll Lay Missioner Steve, who is now in Cambodia. He shared with us (23) his memories of our times together in Ossining, NY during our 3 month orientation in the Fall of 2005. What a wonderful time and such great memories. We will all miss that old building, Bethany, where so many former lay missioners first started their mission training. They will be moving down the street in a few weeks and selling the house and property, I believe.

A Big Week in My Life

As the title suggests this has been a fun week. Actually the whole month of January has been pretty awesome, but let's start with this week. Most important was the wedding engagement of my son, Kyle (now 26), to his long time girlfriend, Chrystal Martens. The whole family has been hoping for this for several years, so we are all thrilled. So it looks like I may be returning a few weeks early depending on when that wedding date is scheduled. So far I hope to return Nov 5. Last Saturday I attended my first Jazz Festival and it was too much fun. It was free and held at the local Johnson County Community College and was called Winterlude. It was all local talent and was very impressive and in a very comfortable atmosphere. KC is really loaded with lots of Jazz artists, old and young and really encourages it in the youth. My family (brothers and sisters) have been enjoying one group weekly (Fri nights) at our favorite local restaurant, Lucky's Brew Pub nearby; always good food and very nice music to eat and drink by. There are a ton of restaurants, bars, hotels and casino's all over town with great weekly Jazz. Today was our weekly meeting of my contemplative prayer group at Guardian Angel Catholic Church basement and the 1 hour video presentation was great, as always. Today's presentation was the first in a series by James Finley, a former seminarian at Fr Thomas Merton's Abbey in Kentucky in the 1960's, I believe. He is a wonderful speaker and very humorous. Last Friday I called Fr Conard at his mission in Kowak, Tanzania, where I will be returning in 5 short weeks, God willing. He is feeling fine after a 2 week retreat and meeting with fellow Maryknoll priests and Brothers. So I gave him my arrival time and location for pickup (Mar 1). The next day I called (via Skype)to one of our two visiting volunteers (Henry and Jeanne)from Salt Lake who just arrived last week. They are enjoying Kowak already and are anxious to get to work. Jeanne started teaching English to the 150 freshman girls today, so I'm anxious to see how she likes that. Most of them only speak Swahili at this stage, but their classes will all be in English very soon. During my call with Fr Conard I informed him that I met Sr Ruth Baudhuin who is in our weekly prayer group. Her brother was a Maryknoll priest from the Green Bay area, like himself, and was with Fr Conard during their seminary days in the 1950's. I also met her friend Sr Mary Francis Kobets, a former K State grad, who is currently a Maryknoll sister in Zimbabwe. I learned that she was originally in Tanzania her first 10 years in mission, so she knows many of the old time Maryknollers that are still there. That includes her former classmate,Sr Marion, who I see regularly. Last Wednesday a few of the family celebrated our aunt Mary's 99th birthday with a nice Italian dinner at her favorite place near her assisted living high rise. It was a wonderful time and we all enjoyed her great company and being able to share this important day with her. We were all so pleased to see her in very good health. A few days later I saw her again as I took her to her monthly lab tests at the local St Luke's hospital. They noticed that she had just had a birthday so many joined in a nice Happy Birthday song as she checked in. She was very pleased. I also had the pleasure to have dinner with her sister, Francis, and her children at their weekly dinner for her at her home here in KC. I then stayed to have a nice chat with her about my grandparents before her important KU basketball game; she was a gifted athlete (high diver)at KU many years ago. She is now 90 yrs old. I have not yet visited my 96 yrs old aunt Louise, but hope to do so soon. Earlier in the month I made my long awaited presentation on African Spirituality to our prayer group and later that week made my first visit back to Shantivanam Prayer House near Easton, KS after a year of travel. It was wonderful to see the staff again (3 of 4) and to spend a few hours in the wonderful solitude of that beautiful rural site. I felt very much at home, as always, and was the only visitor that day, so was even more blessed. It really has been a Happy New Year!! for me so far.

Arrival in Kenya Today

It's hard to believe it's been over a year since my last blog update. I will try to do better this year. I'm now back in East Africa after a few months back home in Kansas City. It was great to meet a lot of new people there, especially the contemplative group at Guardian Angel Parish. They remind me a lot of the contemplative group in Texas that I became very close to over the last 10 years. One minor difference is the use of Fr Thomas Keating's readings (Contemplative Outreach and Centering Prayer) vs Fr John Main's readings (World Community for Christian Meditation).
It was very nice to see Sam Stanton (Director of Maryknoll Lay Missioners)in KC a few months ago and get up to speed on who is doing what in lay missions; especially those in my class of 2006. I hope to meet the 5 new missioners in a few weeks that are now in Swahili language school in Musoma near my mission sight (Kowak) in Tanzania. They will be graduating in a few weeks and going to their new assignments in Mwanza soon. I am also looking forward to seeing my old classmate Vikki Smith who just moved back to missions from Oregon and will be working with me in the bush. I think she turns 72 this summer and is a real trooper, after many years all over Africa with Maryknoll and The Peace Corp.
I arrived last night about 10 pm after 26 hrs of flights and layovers. It was a very uneventful trip and I even got all my luggage without a problem. I was particularly concerned about the bag with the ten digital cameras and the digital projector for teachers at Kowak Secondary. But all arrived safe and sound. I was very blessed to be given some religious books by Fr Wempe and Sr Barb McCracken just before I left. That added a little weight but will be greatly appreciated by my seminary friends.
I was especially pleased to have a taxi waiting for me in the rain when I arrived and to get back to the MM Fathers House and have a cold beer and watch an excellent football match (Barcelona vs Chelsea) that was just starting. I was even able to get a sound sleep the first night which was very satisfying and have a warm shower this morning. Pat and Ilona are also here and heading back to Northern Calif after finishing their 3 1/2 yr contract with the Lay Missioners, so it is very nice to see them again. Ilona had a fall a few months ago and is needing to use a cane periodically but she seems to be doing fine and is anxious to get back and see the kids.
I hope to see many more of the Lay Missioners when they arrive Sunday for their semi-annual Kenya meeting here at the Father House. I don't know all of them, but have known several for many years, like Russ and Dr. Susan. It will also be good to see Cindy and John Korb again; the couple from Tonganoxie, KS. Their regular blogs have been a good example for me to follow (kenyaforus.blogspot.com). We have a lot in common since they also work in secondary schools that are very similar to the one at Kowak; however, I'm not sure their's are boarding schools.
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Week One in India

I just finished my second week in India and have one remaining. It has been wonderful and full of adventure. I hope to summarize my first week in this update and another of the second week soon. As you may recall my initial interest in this trip was to see some of the sites where FCN (Foundation for Children in Need)is supporting some of their 2,000 children here in south central India. My sister and I just became sponsors of children last June.
I joined three other Americans in Hyderabad on Jan 27th. We met the founder (Tom Chitta) and his wife (Dr Geetha)and were shown around an orphanage and a primary school the first two days. My sister's sponsored child (age 7) was at this orphanage which had about 25 young boys. They were all charming. Tom was a formerly a priest and Dr Geetha was formerly a nun, both for 20 yrs. The founded this organization 10 yrs ago.
The city of Hyderbad is very large with 10 million people. It is 5th largest in this country of 1.3 billion. The first thing you notice is people and villages everywhere. Fortunately 60% of the land is farmable compared to 20% in the US and 5% in Tanzania. Hyderabad is a mixture of rich and poor, young and old, modern and ancient. The most shocking was probably the silicon-valley type city on the edge of town, where very large high rise office parks are everywhere, with names like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and many, many more. It is nick named Cyberbad.
We visited several schools each day and were given charming dance performances at each school. Most of these school were around the village south of Hyderabad where Tom and Geetha have their home and main office. It is also Tom's home town of about 30,000. We all stayed at their house which is a new 3 story , 5 bedroom home. It was very comfortable. There were no hotels there. We arrived there by night train and stayed 4 days.
Besides the schools we visited a "tribal village" which was almost like going into an aboriginal village about an hour from Tom's village. These people live on the edge of the forest and spend the week collecting tree gum for sale to the government at the end of each week. Their homes or like tents made of sticks and the children go with them into the forests. Tom's brother is a social worker and tries working with these people to provide schooling for the children (maybe 15 total). FCN is trying to get them to clear a spot to build a car-port type structure so they can get a government teacher to work there out of the elements.
Following that we drove on into the forest where a new Hindu temple is being built with local donations. It was really amazing how much the stone work looked just like the much older temples all around India. They still have 3 or 4 years of work left. They have pilgrimages there already for up to 50,000 people at a time and provide food for all of them at no charge from local donations.
At the end of the week we all drove 7 hours with Tom and his driver to Madras on the East coast (Bay of Bengal). We stayed there overnight and separated, me to go south and the other three to finish there tour near Delhi in the north. Our last day in Madras (now called Chennai) we toured the cathedral of St Thomas the Apostle and his tomb, then the beach and finally St Thomas Mount where he was killed. That evening we went shopping. The following is my thank you letter to Tom and Geetha.
LETTER
Dear Tom and Dr Geetha,
My visit to India and your sponsored projects in Andra Pradesh has been the experience of a life time. I was so thrilled to meet Devendra, my sponsored child at the St Mary school in ______________. Even though he is only 8 yrs old and has no father he seems to be doing extremely well and is already writing me letters in good English. I think he will even be speaking it in a few years. I look forward to sponsoring him for many years to come and probably visiting him again, God willing.
I was especially impressed with the way the sponsorship programs are set up for those not attending the FCN school, which is most of your 2000 sponsored children. You have documented and organized things extremely well and at the same time are teaching the children good accounting practices, organization and communication skills. These skills will all be extremely beneficial to them as they mature and is not something they would normally get in school.
I was also very surprised at the variety of projects FCN is supporting, all of which are dear to my heart. These include an orphanage for HIV positive children, a home for the elderly, a school for sewing classes of young and middle aged women, and housing for handicapped children next to a good school they attend. The dancing and singing performances at each school we visited were very impressive, but the one at the handicapped home was truly amazing. And the joy of the performers and the children in the audience was very obvious on their faces. I cannot say enough about how valuable these lessons in dance in each school will be having on their confidence and joy for living. Very impressive.
The one week tour allowed us to get to know you and your family and staff very personally and I am very appreciative of that. Your hospitality is beyond reproach and is an example to us all. I think we Americans have a lot to learn in that area from other cultures like India. I have seen it on a much smaller scale in Tanzania where I have worked in mission. They, like you, truly believe that any guest is a real blessing to the household.
I look forward to many years of support of FCN both financially, spiritually and through volunteer projects back in the US. Congratulations on a wonderful tour and thank you for introducing me to the other Americans who have similar mission support interests. They were charming.
Tom Scott

TIME TO START PACKING

It seems like I just said that back in April but this time my chances of success are higher in returning to Tanzania as planned. It should be a very interesting year since I’ll finally be visiting India, a long term goal that seems hard to believe may actually come to pass. It will be especially meaningful since I will not be visiting the typical tourist spots. I’ll be seeing two FCN mission sites, then the mother house of the Indian sisters that work in Tanzania, the Shantivanam catholic ashram established by Fr Bede Griffith and traveling the last 10 days with my friend Christel from Switzerland who has done mission work there before. Some of you may recall Christel was the engineer I first worked for in Tanzania. Like me she’s retired and works about 6 months each year in Tanzania. The two day trip by train from the East to West coast by myself should be especially interesting.

My biggest problem at this point is trying to decide what to pack. When I was initially heading straight back to Africa two bags was not a problem, but now the thought of toting two bags all around India, north and south, by train and plane does not sound so appealing. If I only had my clothes that would be one thing, but as usual I have things for friends that they would really enjoy and have been purchased for them long ago, like a camera, external hard-drives, books, clothes, gifts and 2 used laptops. I think I’ll have to cut back on my clothes. At first I thought about just shipping it but for $700 some things will just have to wait.

I was hoping to complete my income taxe calcs before I left but it does not look like that will happen due to a lack of 1099 and 1098 forms, so I just did a rough estimate. It will be my first year to pay state income tax except for a little last year since it was my first time in 5 years that I’ve lived in the country the entire year. It makes me appreciate those 38 yrs in Texas a little more; no state tax.

I got good news from my doctor and my niece this month so the year is starting out good. My heart surgeon said the recent echo shows no growth of the enlarged aorta, so I should be good for another 6 months before I have it checked again. It is staying at about 4.7 cm diameter and 5.1 is the point when they get concerned. My twin brother shocked me a few days ago when he reminded me that his first aneurysm grew from 3.0 to 5.0 cm in 6 months. The other good news from my niece Marisa was that she wants to live in my house while I’m gone and help pay the utilities. Wow. How nice is that. She’s lived here before and really likes the house and she won’t have to share it with anyone this time. She’s even agreed to continue feeding the fish so I won’t have to give them all away. I think her cat will like the company.

I had two wonderful driving trips last Fall to Houston and to Miami. I got to see Pam and Kyle and Charlene and a few friends in Texas at Thanksgiving. Then I drove to Miami (1600mi) to visit my three Maryknoll friends in early December. I stopped along the way to see old friends in Louisville KY, Asheville NC, Columbia SC, and Jacksonville FL. It was great fun and really broke up the travel time. Rose and Tara worked with me in Africa and are now living together in Miami and our friend Steve Pohl was returning home from Bolivia for his parent’s anniversary, so we gave his a nice surprise welcome. Tara just flew back from her first business trip to Africa and had lots of good stories. I got great tours and great food in all locations but it was best to just see everyone again and meet some of their friends.

If everything stays on schedule I depart Jan 24th and return to Baltimore Aug 2nd. I hope to see Claudia in Annapolis, Mary Orfao in Philly and Liz Mach in New York while I'm in that area, along with the grand-kids of course. I’ll be in touch by email, blogs and picasa web albums, so keep in touch please. I might even try Skype and Facebook once in a while, internet willing.

thomascott@gmail.com, scottintanzania.blogspot.com picasaweb.google.com\thomascott

MORE GOOD NEWS

Maybe you remember the good news in my last Blog Update (Sept 19) about the opinion from my new heart surgeon that I would not need surgery in the foreseeable future. Well, I just got the results of the PET Scan of my prostrate and was told that the chemo treatments have apparently eliminated all the malignant cells in my prostrate. Today my urologist did a fiberoptic exam and said everything also looks normal in the bladder and prostrate. It's been a blessed month.

I applied for a tourist visa for India last week and as soon as I receive that I will proceed with purchasing the tickets for the flights to India and Nairobi, Kenya (Jan 23rd). I received an email yesterday from my friend Sister Mary John in Nairobi. Her Mother House is in southern India (Kerala) and she said one of my favorite Kowak sisters (Sr Jincy) will be home in India at the time of my visit. Sr Jincy and I met at language school 5 years ago and learned that we would both be working at Kowak village. She is a lab tech at the hospital. I was hoping to add their Mother House to my travel agenda and it looks like that will work out. I plan to be in India 3 weeks before flying to Kenya and Tanzania for 6 months and am really looking forward to that.

My friend Rose from Miami made a surprise visit this month while she recovered from shoulder surgery. She lived and worked here in the early 80's after attending nursing school in Wichita. We met in 2005 in New York as we attended orientation for Maryknoll. She worked in Kenya as a nurse practitioner so we also attended language school together. Rose stayed at my house 10 days and introduced me to a lot of her friends here and in Emporia and Sedan (her home town). We even got to visit our friend Tara in Oklahoma who had worked with me in Tanzania for 3 years. She just arrived home from a year of graduate school in London.

Rose's visit was especially helpful for me by introducing me to Sr Barbara at the Keeler Women's Center and Fr Wempe now retired from operating the Catholic Worker House here. Sr Barbara is introducing me to a sister that has a meditation group here which I hope to start attending. Rose also introduced me to a Prayer House near Leavenworth called Shantivanam that looks real interesting and very unusual. I hope to spend a few days there in November at one of the 7 cabins in the woods.

I started exercising and golfing again this month thanks to the approval of my new heart surgeon. The exercising isn't much yet, just 10 minutes a day on the basement Air Dyne bicycle and a 30 minute walk in the neighborhood. The weather has been beautiful and the golf cheap due to the Sunday afternoon discounts to attract football fans. Maybe we'll get in a few more rounds before the weather turns bad. Lately I've been spending a lot of time watching baseball playoffs on TV and recording some games to take back to Africa for training purposes at the school.

Regarding family news, my sons Adam and Kyle are both doing well in Baltimore and Texas and are still employed, thank God. Adam's wife, Megan, has started home schooling Lauren, so I'm sure she has her hands full. They are anxious for the holidays to start so they can get a few days off work to spend with family in Kentucky. Grandma, Pam, is in Baltimore this week and will return there for Christmas. Kyle and Chrystal are getting involved with the catholic church now that she is attending RCIA classes weekly. I'm very pleased about that.

I have no plans yet for these holidays but will probably stay here and enjoy the cool weather and rake the leaves which are now changing colors beautifully. Brother Jim's daughter Bridgette and husband Ben are expecting their first child (a boy...Wyatt) in late November so that will be an exciting time for all the family. What better Christmas present. Sister Peggy's son, Braden, just got engaged this week so that is also exciting news. Sister Janice's step granddaughter, Tyler, has adjusted well in her sophomore year at the local catholic high school so we are all thankful for that. She just move here from North Carolina this summer.