The Ride
We plan on an early start for Nyakaliro, but "this is Africa" (an oft repeated phrase around here). The "fundis" (skilled workers) who are supposed to fix the bike by 9:30am are still working on it at 12:30pm. Initially, we want to catch the 11:30 ferry, but that turns into the 12:30, then the 1:30, and finally the 2:30 by the time we actually start out of the driveway at 1:30. Our hope is to arrive in time for prayer meeting, but we doubt we're going to make it. The ride to the ferry is thirty minutes, the ride across Lake Victoria is thirty minutes, and the ride across country to Nyakaliro about two hours if all goes well.
We strap our pack on the back of the bike and I situate myself behind Rob. This is going to be a long, bumpy trek, so we try to get as comfortable as possible while we head out the driveway, into Sweya, and then down the main road leading to Mwanza. We learn quickly that the bike rides well with two passengers on the rough roads. The bumps and holes are even fun, but the sand and the traffic (vehicles, bikes, and pedestrians) are another matter. Africans are in no hurry, especially to get out of your way. If a guy is walking down the road in your path, he is not going to break his stride to clear the road, even if he flirts a bit with disaster; it is a matter of pride. In addition to this, when Rob beeps his horn well in advance of our pass, people scatter in all kinds of different directions--to include right in front of you. By the end of the trip, I am wishing I knew a few choice words to deliver in Swahili, but Rob fills in well for both of us.
We arrive at the ferry to see busses, trucks, and people waiting en-masse for its arrival. After purchasing a ticket we sit back to people watch. The busses are something to behold. They resemble an old greyhound bus on huge truck tires with very high passenger seating; the frame is built to take a serious beating on the merciless roads. The busses are packed to the gills with people; in addition, there is luggage (a gentle word for mattresses, produce, furniture, poultry, and any thing else that can be carried) often strapped to the top and back. I can't imagine how they must smell inside, having experienced just a small sampling on the local dala dalas (public mini-van transportation). The drivers of these often gaudily painted behemoths think they own the road.
At one point it appears a vehicle hits a pedestrian just outside of the ferry station and we immediately hear whistles and yelling. In seconds, a large crowd gathers causing traffic to come to a halt. I walk toward the fence trying to get a glimpse of what is happening, but the wall of people is too deep. The crowd never clears while we wait for the ferry. There is a sort of mob mentality that takes over whenever something out of the ordinary occurs. A driver that hits a pedestrian does well to stay in his vehicle and keep moving; it may save a beating.
Eventually the ferry arrives and Rob rides the bike on board while I walk behind him. I'm looking for life jackets and asking Rob about safety issues while busses and trucks fill the little vessel from stem to stern. All I see are a couple life preserver's attached to the ship's rail--oh well. We're cramped into our own little corner and use the bike as a shield to give us some space in a crowd of people. Once again, we're the only white guys around (in fact, I won't see another white person until we arrive back in Mwanza) and that alone draws plenty of looks, let alone the bikes, helmets, and other motorcycle gear. Everywhere we go for the next 48 hours we are the center of attention. Kids follow us with big smiles and yells, while adults exchange greetings or just stare. As Rob says, "You are either a hero or a zero." We pull out our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, turn our backs to the crowd, and enjoy a beautiful view of the lake and a safe transit.
On the other side a great many of the passengers break out into a sprint when the front ramp opens. There are land rovers waiting in lines just beyond the ferry to provide transportation to all points inland. We wait for the crowd to clear and then offload. We ask to take a picture of the ferry, get permission, and do so. We'd really like to give all the vehicles a chance to get well in front of us so we are in no hurry. The roads from this point forward are not paved and great clouds of dust rise up behind any traffic. We have about a forty minute ride to our first turn-off, where we will lose most vehicle traffic. It is a bit difficult to get the bike started back up again, and it doesn't help matters when hundreds of eyes are watching. Rob cranks it several times before it finally sparks to life, and pulls the bike up to a small rock where I can clamber on board. The pack is strapped high enough on the back that it makes it just a bit difficult to swing my leg up enough over the seat without a height advantage. The pack works well as a back support, however, as I don't feel like I am going to fall off the rear of the bike when we hit bumps or it pops into gear.
The road between the ferry and Nyakaliro must be experienced to be believed. I am no dirt biker, but this is a dirt biker's heaven. The first several miles are well worn roadway because vehicle traffic is fairly constant. "Well worn" does not mean even, smooth, wide, or safe. The road usually consists of several ruts or grooves in which a driver or rider attempts to keep the wheels. This is generally where the ground is compacted and hard. Toward the sides of the road, or in the middle are deep grooves where there is sand or soft ground; it is absolutely hazardous on the bike. Wherever there is a swale--a place in the road where the ground is naturally low, or where fields may drain, the road is washed out during rainy season. This results in gullies, or for a biker--moguls, that range from one to three feet deep (or sometimes more), during the dry season. One either rides through the mogul, or circumvents it on newly made paths just off the road. After a turn off the main road, the last several miles are nothing more than a country path that looks like it has been bombed--there are craters and potholes everywhere, and several places where the road is completely washed away.
This would all be great fun if it were not for busses, trucks, bikes, cows, goats, chickens, dogs, and endless people that constantly threaten to cause collisions. We find ourselves rolling down the road shouting, "Bus!" "Car!" "Bike!" to warn of oncoming traffic. Passing is not for the faint of heart because it is accomplished in a cloud of dust with very little room to spare on either side. More than once, when we are attempting to pass a truck on the right, he moves all the way over to the far right hand side of the road, cutting us off, because he is avoiding potholes on his side of the road, doesn't see us, or just likes to be rude. Oncoming traffic is the worst, because you just hope the guy coming toward the bike sees you, will manage to get off your side of the road, and will not force you out of your groove and into the sand or soft shoulder.
The images in my mind are vivid: more than one person totally loses it when they hear the horn sound and pulls right out in front of the bike (fortunately, Rob is aware of this tendency and sounds the horn well in advance); a girl falls off her bike just as we pass, scared to death; I reach out and pound a cow with my fist to get it to move; Rob gives a biker a little love tap on the shoulder when he won't move over; we dive so deep into potholes that the back fender scrapes; we have to stop so I can get dust out of my eyes; kids waving and shouting; blowing through little villages horn blaring; Rob waving at men and machine to get to one side or the other; and giving the thumbs up to those who are polite. I wish I had a handheld video camera to capture the action. We both imagine what it would like look from a helicopter cam; we are imaginary stars in an action movie of our own creation.
The scenery we pass is remarkable. Sometimes we are on a narrow path with high brush growth on either side, at other times, large vistas break out before us and remind me of driving in the western United States again. The terrain tends to be rocky, with rough foilage and protruding hills. The colors are greens, browns, and greys, with occasional flowering trees. There are no cities to speak of after we leave Mwanza...just large towns, small villages, or clusters of huts. The houses are made of mud or concrete, topped by tin, wood, or grass. Children play everywhere and stop to stare or wave when we pass. Adults are huddled around cooking fires, manning small produce stalls, working in the fields, walking, or riding bikes. Every now and then a view of Lake Victoria breaks out on our right hand side. We generally can see a couple hundred yards of dirt path in front of us, but turns often obscure the view. A couple of times the road opens before us for a half mile or so. I try to take in as much of the view as I can, but I tend to stay focused on the road to prepare for the next bump.
Finally, we arrive at Nyakoliro battered, dirty, and sore, but safe. I think it may have been Churchill who said there is nothing so thrilling as getting shot at and surviving. Maybe that's why people love to do things like this. It's fun to talk about afterward, just don't ponder all the things that could go wrong during. At the end of the day, Rob does an excellent job of staying focused on the ride, and I do an excellent job of holding on.
Village Life
I am sitting by a fire in Nyakaliro to write this. We are in a village with no running water and no electricity. It is night and a single kerosene lantern illuminates the home of Elias and Leah, where we are staying. Rob pays an old woman half-a-day's wage (one dollar) to bring us sticks for a fire outside. She gathers dry grass to act as kindling and adds a couple small stumps to keep it going. We soak ourselves in bug spray and watch hens and roosters scratch in a scattered pile of grain. Darkness settles in around us as the stars begin to appear, and then to fill the sky in numbers like I have never seen; the Milky Way is plain as day. Elias, the pastor of the church in Nyakaliro, gets on his bike to go and buy us supper in the pitch blackness. Since Leah is close to the birth of her second child, Rob offers to pay for the typically late evening meal so she doesn't have to cook for us. Women in town cook food and sell it to bring in cash. After about twenty minutes Elias returns with fish and rice; the chai (very sweet tea) is already brewing on a tin pail grill filled with charcoal. Before we eat, Elias holds a bowl under our hands and pours water from a small pitcher over them so that we can clean our hands. Rob pulls out sanitizer and we make sure to rewash our hands and thoroughly dry them before we touch anything we might eat. We enjoy our meal around the fire and chat about life in the village.
Nyakaliro is a fishing town on the banks of Lake Victoria. It is really just a large collection of odd huts and shacks numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands, spread over a couple square miles. The city center is a large market full of rickety shacks, huts, and buildings made of mud, concrete block, tin, and wood. Right after we arrive, we ride into town to purchase mosquito nets, water purifier, blankets, and flip-flops. The shops are so small that you can only take one step inside them, if that. Most of the goods can be seen stacked on a single bank of shelves or piled outside. A "restaurant" consists of four walls made out of wood sheets with tin piled on top. A charcoal grill is the stove. The town square is the hub of village life. Men sit on small tools playing cards and sipping chai or some other beverage. At night the square fills with people and we can hear music blaring (generator power) through our windows several hundred yards away.
The church in Nyakaliro was born a few months prior to our arrival. Rob and a couple other guys performed a survey trip by stopping in several villages along Lake Victoria and conducting interviews. Based on their findings, Rob preached a series of weeks on the town square (literally pitched a tent there) and invited interested persons to begin a church. The result is a congregation of 40-50 adults, a piece of land, a church "building," and a pastor's home. Elias and Leah have been here for four months.
Life in Nyakaliro is about living. Much of your energy is spent in the day-to-day effort to put food on the table, clothes on the back, and a roof over the head. Growing food and keeping some kind of livestock are staples. Goats, chickens, ducks, and cows are everywhere. Water must be obtained in five gallon buckets (or whatever other kind of container you may own) at the local well (purchased for about $1000 by the residents in the neighborhood). If you are dirty (you can’t help but be dirty because everything is dirty), baths consist of pouring water over you, lathering up, then rinsing. There is a small room in the house for this purpose. Elias and Leah are fortunate to have a relatively nice house compared to many in the immediate vicinity. It consists of a large living room area, two bedrooms, the wash room, and a storage room. Furniture is minimal and crude. Total square footage is about 600 feet and is a step up from their mud hut in Sweya. The toilet facilities in most homes are a five foot deep hole out back surrounded by a screen made of cornstalks or canestalks. Elias has a two-holer in a small concrete building attached to a much deeper pit about 50 feet from the house.
There are no appliances, so clothes are washed by hand. There is no phone (you can climb a local hill about a half mile away for cell service to work--maybe), though you may run a battery or generator powered radio. There is no newspaper. If you are cold, build a fire. If you are hot, sit in the shade. There is no sink to wash dishes, or brush teeth, or get a quick drink. There is very little health care, though Leah will go to a local clinic when her baby is ready to be born. All of the little things we use to keep us occupied are gone. Bricks are fired in outdoor kilns. Wheat and corn are ground at a local mill (a shack) or by hand. There are no shortcuts here. Life is hard.
Other observations: Many of the children, and some of the adults, wear only rags for clothes. Shirts, shorts, and dresses are in tatters and hang from their limbs. I see swollen stomachs--the telltale sign of malnutrition. This is not an indication the kids don't eat enough (Elias' two year old son puts away more rice, ugali, and fish than Rob and I can); it is a sign their diets are not balanced. Everything is dirty. Nothing is cared for well. The smells are interesting...sometimes wonderful...the smell of frying fish, but sometimes less so...the stench of anything decaying. There is no trash removal service here; in fact, trash is everywhere and ignored. Is your toothpaste tube empty? Just toss it out the window and forget about it.
The Ministry
When we arrive in Nyakaliro the church is gathered in front of Elias’ home for prayer meeting. We join them for a short time before the service ends. The congregation is seated on four wooden benches in the dirt. We exchange greetings while I take in the surroundings. The new church building is just a few feet away. It is really just canestalks arranged vertically in a rectangle with a small portion of the roof covered by bamboo mats. The purpose of our trip is to challenge the congregation to support Elias as their full time pastor. We are planning on a meeting Thursday night to have this discussion.
When the service concludes, Rob asks Elias (pictured here) about the schedule on Thursday, expecting a congregational meeting. Instead, Elias says his plans have changed and throws Rob for a loop--he is thinking about leaving Nyakaliro. Rob is not sure why. The rest of our first evening we spend guessing about the ensuing conversations and what they will unfold. Here is where cultural issues come into play. Africans are far less direct than Americans. It is possible we will spend our whole time here and never really learn the reason why Elias and Leah are considering a move.
It is during our first evening around the fire that Leah (pictured here) does something unusual for an African woman. She opens up to Rob about some of the difficulties she is experiencing here. Their son was quite ill just a week or so before and the health care available is of far less quality than in Sweya. They are far enough away from their home village that news is scarce; she feels isolated in Nyakaliro. Though they have made friends, and the Lord is obviously blessing their ministry, the concerns of a young wife are the same here as they would be anywhere else. Another note here, during the course of our conversation this first night, I asked Elias and Leah how they met. Four years ago Elias saw Leah in her village and sent a man to see if she was available and let her know of his intentions. She expressed interest, and one month later a nineteen year old woman married a thirty-five year old man, a common age span in African marriages.
Rob and I chat before we hit the hay about the conversation around the fire. If Elias and Leah do leave, that will make the future of the church doubtful. The Howells are planning to live in Nyakaliro for a couple weeks in late August, but Rob is certainly not prepared to pastor the church. Alternating short stays between the Sanders and Howells is a possibility, but certainly not optimal and questionably practical. It seems a shame to shut the doors after such a promising start. Tomorrow's conversations will be crucial; Rob needs to do some creative thinking.
Throughout the course of the next day, Rob and Elias make preparations for the Howell's to arrive in three weeks. The house needs to be painted, a ceiling installed, furniture purchased, and a privacy fence built. A fundi arrives to give an estimate. Rob engages Elias and Leah in further conversation. There is nothing for me to do but read and write; welcome to life without electricity. Rob learns that Elias and Leah may also be concerned about their empty home in Sweya. Someone may sell it in their absence. In order to prevent this, they need to obtain the deed from the title office in Mwanza, a process requiring up to several weeks. By this time, Rob has thought of some potential solutions. Elias could return to Mwanza three times a year to attend a two-week institute course. Leah could extend her stay each time to one month. This would provide her with time at home and alleviate some of the separation anxiety she is experiencing We enjoy a lunch together in the afternoon and I get to taste ugali (a corn based food much like cream of wheat) and tilapia for the first time, both quite edible. The fundi refuses to eat at the same table with us because we are seated together with Leah. He also will not put food on his own plate; he is a guest and should be served. It takes the fundi the entire day to produce an estimate for a relatively small job, and even then it is inaccurate. Welcome to Africa.
That evening we have our final serious conversation with Elias and Leah. Well, I shouldn't say we, because I sit and listen. They have thought about things all day and Elias launches into a long monologue. He tells Leah that they should make a decision now about whether they will stay or go. It is not fair to leave the "servant of God" hanging. Elias reminds Leah of Rob and Kara's hard times and their refusal to quit. If the Howells have left home to come to Tanzania, surely they could stay in Nyakoliro? Rob reminds Elias the decision does not need to be made tonight. Nothing is going to change between now and when the Howells come to visit. Let's just wait and see where everyone is then. Nevertheless, we are encouraged by the tone of the conversation and Elias' resolution. The timing for our trip has been perfect and the moments spent with Elias and Leah rewarding.
Rob and I go out after the final chat to enjoy the night sky. We see several shooting stars over a period of about forty-five minutes and then a brilliant flash lights the sky and ground around us. A shooting star, with a fantastic explosion, streaks across our field of vision and falls apart. It is the brightest shooting star either of us has ever seen and makes the trip complete. On Friday morning we get up early to head back for Sweya. The trip is not uneventful, but it is safe and flies by. The first thing we do when we get home is eat French toast, make a pot of coffee, and take a hot shower. In retrospect this was a "pansy trip" to Nyakaliro...anybody can hack a couple days. Rob and Kara will be packing up the whole family for a couple weeks there later in August. Pray they will be an encouragement to this young church and new pastor.
That's the life.
Posted by: Joel | August 06, 2005 at 12:30 PM
Jon, you're a great story-teller; we've enjoyed your posts here. Glad I'll be able to keep up with you while we're away.
Posted by: Deb | August 06, 2005 at 09:34 PM
I want to thank you for insight in to the ministry at Nyakaliro. I am from one of the Howell's supporting churches and the Sanders sending church. I always enjoy read an outsiders point of view.
Posted by: Jeff Turner | August 07, 2005 at 07:24 AM
Dead on about that, Joel. You would know.
Thanks for being a faithful reader, Deb. I'll try to keep up with your jaunt to the west.
Happy to be of service, Jeff. I am glad some are reading from other supporting churches. I enjoyed chatting with the Sanders today as well.
Posted by: jon | August 07, 2005 at 01:25 PM
Dr. David Livingstone didn't have a motorcycle to ride. He used the old fashioned "shoe leather express" to get him where he wanted to go.
I am truly enjoying this whole journal of your's. I am sure Rob is enjoying a supporting church's pastor in the help of his ministry. I am sure his family is appreciative, as well!
BTW, any "bugs" yet? Just curious!
Posted by: Doug | August 08, 2005 at 04:09 PM
No bugs yet!
Posted by: jon | August 09, 2005 at 01:39 PM
It's good to know that you are still doing fine!
Posted by: Doug | August 09, 2005 at 04:07 PM