The SACCOS training sessions continue with good attendance,
avid listeners, lots of questions, and astute observations. Our role is mostly recording the lectures,
taking pictures and providing child care as needed. Friday’s lectures covered “Developing a Financial
Proposal” and “Managing a SACCOS office.”
Tom was on Radio Furaha again on Thursday evening where the
topic was the importance of saving. He
got a lot of questions from listeners.
Unfortunately, the station was having problems with a lot of dropped
calls. Tom was able to answer most of the questions, but there was a caller who
asked what to do about children who would rather steal than work, and Tom had
to tell him he wasn’t qualified to answer that question because he had never
had the experience.
We are appreciating the good things about living in
Iringa. The vegetables we get from a
local grower are like what we get in Minnesota in July and August. We’ve been eating fresh sweet corn and green
beans several times a week; and beets, tomatoes, peppers, onions and lettuce are
delivered to us every Wednesday. The
market offers freshly picked papaya, pineapples, avocados, mangoes, and of
course bananas. In this mile-high city
we can enjoy the intense sunshine and when we get too hot, a step into the
shade offers a substantial cool-down. The
climate produces geraniums as large as bushes and poinsettia trees. At night the sky is so full of stars it
reminds Sandy of her years growing up on the prairie, only here we see the
southern cross instead of the big dipper.
Although we live in the city, our neighbors have livestock,
so we hear the familiar sounds of roosters crowing and cows mooing. Add to that the cacophony of bird songs and
dogs barking, it calls to mind the old Vacation Bible School song, “All God’s
creatures have a place in the choir, some sing low, some sing higher. Some sing out loud on the telephone wire, and
some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they’ve got now.”
Before anyone decides to move here, you should know that the
power goes out regularly, our water pressure is a strong trickle, our internet
is sporadic, and the roads, if you can call some of them roads, well……..we
refer you to our blog entries for Kivalamo and Ugesa.
The training sessions concluded this morning, sadly without
Itiweni. Her brother-in-law died very
suddenly yesterday while attending a funeral, so Itiweni is with her sister and
the rest of her family.
We were back at our house by 2:30 with a whole afternoon ahead
of us.
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It's too bad we can't grow trees like this in Minnesota!
At our training session we gave the SACCOS officers all of the forms they will need to run their offices.
Christopher Ugulumu explained how to use the record pads.
He went through all of the forms and had each of the officers fill in examples.
This little attendee needed a nap with Grandma.
It's lunch time!
From his reaction this little guy has probably never seen a picture book! (He was afraid of the picture of the elephants.)
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