Things around here have been pretty normal. Most of the Jesuits are away right now for business or other meetings, so our community nights are a little small but nice. We have community nights at the Jesuit community every Monday – they invite the volunteers, calling us the “other house,” meaning they consider us just an extension of their community. It’s really nice to feel fully incorporated into their life and not just visitors or guests.
Dodoma has had an exciting week. There has been a new bishop just appointed to the city and so banners have been hung all around. He was to arrive on Thursday. His bus passes our school and so we decided to greet him as he passes. Fr. Kizito made a grand banner proclaiming “St. Peter Claver Welcomes Your Lordship” and many tiny yellow and white flags for the students (the flag of the Vatican), and Sr. Maria grabbed a few kids to pick wild flowers from around campus to throw at the car and the bishop as he arrived. He was supposed to arrive around 3pm, so all students gathered in our multi-purpose hall for instructions, but he ended up being about and hour and a half late. We eventually took a long walk to end of the road and waited in the grassy area for his arrival. It was quite the commotion. The students were so excited to reach the other side of the campus’ fence. There were a few random cars that passed with the yellow and white flag hanging from the window and our students cheered them as they passed. I think that really built up the suspense of his arrival.
Finally we saw a caravan of maybe 30-40 vehicles coming down the road. The students started cheering and jumping (don’t forget that about half of our students are Protestant or Muslim, and they were still just as excited). The bishop’s car pulled to the side of the road and he came out to greet us. It was really exciting. They threw flowers and started singing loudly our school anthem (“We are students of St. Peter Claver. Our motto is, to learn to love to serve…”). He said a few words in English that I could barely hear because of the students’ voices, and shook a few hands and returned to his car. The students again cheered him on. This was a little after 5:30pm, so those of us returning to town boarded our bus immediately and waited for the caravan to pass to join the journey to town. The students cheered every car sporting the Vatican flag, and cheered us too as we left. It was a lot of fun.
Going home took about 45 minutes longer than usual because of the bishop’s caravan. I hardly noticed though because there were people lining the road the entire way home cheering, waving flags and tree branches at the cars ahead of us and our bus as well. (There were many unhappy trees at the end of that day.) It was quite the experience.
The whole city was invited to attend the bishop’s consecration on Saturday morning, but I decided not to go. It was bound to be endless hours and I was up late the night before so I thought it best to sleep in. Plus, Sean and I were going to the Cheshire home with our students the next morning at noon. But apparently it was huge. Probably everyone except Sean and I (and our students who had to take exams) were at the Cathedral downtown. Even the president of Tanzania made an appearance (and a 25 minute speech!). The president of Tanzania is a Muslim – I think it is amazing how religion is not at all something that separates the people of this country. Though it would have been neat to see the president, I got word that he will also be attending St. Peter Claver’s “grand opening” this coming June, so I suppose I will be meeting him then!
What else – it has been raining all week! It is COLD here! Like, cold as in I wore pants and a long sleeve shirt to school every day! It usually rains only at night, which is really lucky because it is no fun to be at school when it rains. You get wet going anywhere! Actually, I pulled out the wool blanket for my bed last night, and I didn’t get hot at all. It is beautiful. It reminds me of April showers in the States – it’s only a month off. Not too bad!
Another funny story – I cooked a turkey (bata mzinga) this weekend. Yes me, as in I cooked a turkey by myself. It’s okay to raise your eyebrow here, I did too when Fr. Lucas asked me to do it because his cooks have never prepared one before. Turkey isn’t eaten often here, and the Jesuit community got one as a gift (a frozen one, thank goodness. I wasn’t about to kill/gut that thing). He was sweet when he asked if I knew how to prepare it, knowing Americans eat turkey at least every year. Part of me wanted to say no – which is the truth – but I watched and helped my Mom and aunts do it for so many years, I could figure it out, right? Thankfully my Mom was ready with directions for our weekly phone call, and she sent some more helpful tips in an email on Sunday.
I went to the Jesuits on Saturday afternoon to do an emergency thawing of the bird. The first time I saw it I thought it was huge so there was no way it would thaw in a day. But after weighing it, we found it was only 4 kilos (about 9 lbs.). Oh yeah, everything is in the metric system, so not only did I have to figure out exactly how to cook it, but I had to convert everything to kilos and degrees Celsius. I never turn down a challenge! I ended up soaking the thing in warm water and it thawed out fine.
The following morning I joined the cook after Mass. It was well before the time we should start cooking it, so instead I helped her make lunch and showed her how to make banana cake (most cakes made here are just a plain white sugar cake, made from scratch of course). The time finally came to make the bird. I was stressed out all day, not wanting to ruin it. Turkeys can get really dry, you know? Thankfully I didn’t have to remove any weird insides, but we did have to cut off a really long neck.
After following all the steps (well, actually forgetting a few) and trying to speak in Kiswahili to Agnes the cook when I needed her help or to find something, we put the ndege kikubwa (big bird) in the oven. At that point, I tried to write the directions in Kiswahili for Agnes. That was a challenge all itself.
Two and a half hours later (after forgetting to take off the lid to brown the top), the turkey was done! And JUICY! It was really peppery because Agnes sprinkled the pepper as I rubbed and turned the bird, but it tasted amazing. I’m crediting the bird – like all animals here, it was free range and ate food normal for turkeys, rather the industrial feed we Americans give our birds. I also made real mashed potatoes with milk (the Jesuits have milk, we usually don’t)! Sean said it tasted like Thanksgiving. I took that as a compliment! And Br. Vincent exclaimed, “Laura it is really good,” and we all decided that he speaks only truth. Truly it was a miracle. Moral of the story: I really like cooking. We’ll see how long that sentiment lasts…
That was all the excitement for this week. Hope things are well at home. Missing everyone constantly!
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