Africa Trip, Post 2

There is a group of women at our church that make prayer shawls, and when they found out we were going to see Dena, they got busy crocheting and praying, to give us the opportunity to deliver theses as gifts to the wonderful missionaries that have chosen to serve in Tanzania, along side Dena. They also gave me one that I drug through the airports, kept close by me on the plane, and slept with every night. It was a wonderful comfort. So our first day of life with adjusted time zones, we went to Shawna's home first and met her and Emily, the teacher of the missionary children. They loved their shawls.
Next was a tour of the Pioneer Bible Translators office where we met Lynne who works in the office, mans also maintains the library of English books and movies the missionaries can check out. Shawna showed us around and we got to peek  in on the translation teams working away in the six languages they are working on right now. Currently they are working on Hebrews. Coming back from the school to get the car, we saw baboons playing . Then onto a video tour of downtown Morogoro for Rita (Dena's mom). We saw lots of school children in proper uniforms walking home. In all the schools, they must have proper uniforms to go to school.

We stopped at Pira's, an import grocery store where American foods can be found. We spoke with the shop owner and he was saying that to own a store like Kroger is his dream, with rows and rows of products - his store had two rows. He carried  lot of the brand name foods we have here though. A box of cake  mix was about $7, and a bottle of Absolute Vodka was only about $20. We bought neither, but saltine crackers were on our list. Talia's malarial prevention treatment of doxycycline was making her queasy. I think there has to be better treatments that I will look into next time. We stopped at a carvers right outside the import store and got two little girraffs.

Then onto the market. Spices piled up, rice, beans, fruits, onions, potatoes, pineapples, everything in little stalls. It reminded me of the old flea market stalls, like on the way to Hot Springs. Vendors came up to us asking for us to buy from their stalls. Kids also worked to get us into their family's shopt, but not as young as I have seen in other places. Dena maneuvered us through the allies and shops to find all the things we went there for. We asked a couple of vendors if we could photograph their space, they were reluctant, but agreed as long as they were not included in the photo.  We kept the camera out and just shot what was allowed. It is a little odd being a photographer, but yet wanting to make sure you are not culturally offensive, nor leaving behind a bad association that will damage the missionary work and relationships that are being built. The photographer side of me wanted to capture those exotic faces and expressions. I wanted to be able to portray in photos everything my eyes were seeing. But, as I learned over and over again, it really was not about ME and my wants. Don't get me wrong, it was a great lesson that we all need from time to time, and  This was not a tourist at the zoo trip. These are real people that need and deserve respect of their wishes. I am pretty sure if someone that looked really different, acted odd, and pointed a camera at me, even when I asked them not to, I would feel pretty violated. I had plenty of opportunities later to photograph people who did want to be photographed.

But more about that later.