Tanzania

Today my parents arrived in Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania. They have travelled in Tanzania on a number of occasions but this is the first time they have visited Dodoma, the place I lived and worked and learned so much for six months, way back in 1993. I have just spoken with them, so easy these days with mobile technology and a far cry from the one phone call home I had in six months, on Christmas day. I recollect Mum and I crying most of the 30 minutes!

Tanzania was the place that I really and truly developed my heart for maladjustment, taught by so many wonderful friends there and supported by a great team of folks who were keen to learn the same lessons as I and desperate to give whatever we could. Cathy, Gill, Jackie, Mark and David. I will relive those days so much over the next two weeks and am desperate for news and photo's and my parents' stories.

I went back to Tanzania with another team a few years later. It was another truly inspiring time. We started a process of building a secondary school by helping make the mud bricks. That team grafted their hearts out in tough but wonderful conditions. I think about those guys a lot too. Annette, Rowan, Brenda and Terry. Jenny and David to name a few. I am so bad at keeping up with folks that they are probably sure I do not even remember their names. The secondary school is finished, I have heard, and I know much of the work that was started in the hearts of team members is still real and bearing fruit. I know it is in mine.

If I had the authority, I would be oh so tempted to make it mandatory for everyone to spend at least one week of their life in another culture. The world would be a much more understanding and generous place. We would better know what was important for sure.

For me, I want to take the family and go back to Dodoma and learn some more.