Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Last night in tanzania

We finally have internet access and it is our last full day in Dar es Saalam. We saw four of the big five, on the safari, missing only rhinos.  It has been a blast but we are ready to head home. We leave tomorrow at midnight.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Last night in Dodoma

Hello everyone. Well, it is our last night in Dodoma and we are leaving for the Safari early tomorrow morning. We have been quite busy touring around since our windmill has been finished. For those of you who may be wondering what we have been doing, I will say that there has been almost too many adventures to name! We spent a day at Mother Teresa's Sister's of Charity compound where the sisters look after orphans, as well as physically and mentally disabled people. Many of these people have been abandoned. The sisters will actually go out and look for those who have been left, just like Mother Teresa did. We also went to a leper colony in Sukamahayla, and  the birth place of the CPPS Mission, which is a town called Manyoni. The CPPS brothers run a trade school to train young men in mechanics, autobody and carpentry.We traveled with the Kamloops group to a town called  Iyumbu. This group had built a windmill system in 2005, so they wanted to go back to see it. A few years after they had left, the village built a medical dispensary(clinic). You can see how the village is flourishing. Many of the houses have been replaced with brick houses and many people have gardens.  We were also able to go see a very intense soccer game just down the road from the compound the other day. Last night we had a special mass for BRO and a wonderful supper, celebrating his 65 years of service as a Brother. So, as you can see, the building of the windmill and providing water for a village was obviously the focus of our trip, but there has been many more opportunities to see other areas where people get help from the CPPS Mission (delivering rice, cornmeal, clothes, medicine to those who need it).
NOTE: The last pictures we posted were primarily from the windmill celebration we had when the Bishop came to see us. It was a wonderful celebration. The Bishop spoke and the village women danced for us. And as you can see, the girls all got a chance to try out the drums. Roxanne and Vanessa kept busy with the babies as you can tell. And the village presented us with a goat as a gift, which in this culture would be seen as very special!
So my fellow Canadians, hopefully we will have more time to blog in Dar es Salam.

Last day in Dodoma!

Well it's our last day in Dodoma. On Sunday we all went to mass at the local parish and were treated to African music and really cool liturgical dancing. Yesterday was Bro's 65 anniversary of being a brother with CPPS and we all laughed and shared stories. Tomorrow we head to mikumi national park to go on safari. Internet may very well be spotty but I'll make sure to post once in Dar. Pray for our safe travels. Mathew

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Exciting news

Well it's another beautiful day here in sunny Tanzania. The rest of the group to a trip to the great Rift Valley and the leper colony and will undoubtably blog about that when they get back. I stayed behind to write this blog. We had an earthquake at 2:15 yesterday and I kept with tradition by sleeping through it. Had a little ice cream as a treat, am waiting for the group to arrive back at the compound.