Thursday, September 29, 2005
What a day! Maybe pride goeth before a fall, but I gotta say that tonight I feel rather proud, and it is a warm and thoroughly intoxicating feeling. It’s like this:
This morning I was able to teach our school secretary Pude how to create an organization chart using Word. That was just plain fun. Then the coordinator of our entrepreneurship course arrived and we were able to get approval for our Nsumba students to stay at school for a few extra days to complete their Business Plans. That month-long closure after the August riot had really scrunched them for time.
Later, on my way downtown by bicycle I stopped at a minerals laboratory to see if it might perform, or allow me to perform, tests on eucalyptus samples from Ngara. They couldn’t, but they directed me to their other lab in Mwanza. That lab turned out to be fabulous: Scrupulously clean and orderly with quite modern instrumentation for water quality, microbiology, and petroleum analyses. Whoda thunk, in Mwanza? Edson Msangula, Manager of Quant. Analyt. Svcs. was sharp and quick, and so was his assistant, Josephat Maganga. They were proud of their facilities and gave me a tour, introducing me to several impressive technicians along the way. They immediately understood my needs, and volunteered to set up a small apparatus where we could steam distill eucalyptus samples to determine their oil content. BINGO!!
On arriving home, I called my friend in Ngara to give him the good news. Gunje had received my last letter with its reprints of eucalyptus articles, and was wondering how to proceed. I will be away during next week for our Close of Service Conference, but it turns out that Gunje will be coming to Mwanza that weekend, right after I return. So he can bring leaf samples with him and we can work on them right away. How about that?
Is something wrong here? Stuff just doesn’t fall into place this way. Is there a waterfall around the next bend in the stream, or is the universe just playing games, smiling and making up for all those landmines that seem to waylay the best of plans?
That left me just enough time to take a quick shower – it was a pretty hot day to be riding from town on a bicycle - before heading out to Bondeni’s watering hole for a beer and a committee meeting to plan the actual program for the graduation ceremony. It was kinda hard to take notes after dusk at our table under the stars, but we got it done anyway.
I’m getting enough requests to stay after my time here is over to make me feel wanted and appreciated. It is a nice feeling, even though my immediate desire is to rejoin Myrna and then get things in order in Philadelphia.
And after all that I came back home to find that my electricity has been turned back on – halleluiah, the problem had been a fuse at the meter – so I don’t have to try to read by kerosene lamp again tonight.
Can I put some of today in a bottle to save it for one of those inevitable other types of day? Can I share it around to other people who need it?
This morning I was able to teach our school secretary Pude how to create an organization chart using Word. That was just plain fun. Then the coordinator of our entrepreneurship course arrived and we were able to get approval for our Nsumba students to stay at school for a few extra days to complete their Business Plans. That month-long closure after the August riot had really scrunched them for time.
Later, on my way downtown by bicycle I stopped at a minerals laboratory to see if it might perform, or allow me to perform, tests on eucalyptus samples from Ngara. They couldn’t, but they directed me to their other lab in Mwanza. That lab turned out to be fabulous: Scrupulously clean and orderly with quite modern instrumentation for water quality, microbiology, and petroleum analyses. Whoda thunk, in Mwanza? Edson Msangula, Manager of Quant. Analyt. Svcs. was sharp and quick, and so was his assistant, Josephat Maganga. They were proud of their facilities and gave me a tour, introducing me to several impressive technicians along the way. They immediately understood my needs, and volunteered to set up a small apparatus where we could steam distill eucalyptus samples to determine their oil content. BINGO!!
On arriving home, I called my friend in Ngara to give him the good news. Gunje had received my last letter with its reprints of eucalyptus articles, and was wondering how to proceed. I will be away during next week for our Close of Service Conference, but it turns out that Gunje will be coming to Mwanza that weekend, right after I return. So he can bring leaf samples with him and we can work on them right away. How about that?
Is something wrong here? Stuff just doesn’t fall into place this way. Is there a waterfall around the next bend in the stream, or is the universe just playing games, smiling and making up for all those landmines that seem to waylay the best of plans?
That left me just enough time to take a quick shower – it was a pretty hot day to be riding from town on a bicycle - before heading out to Bondeni’s watering hole for a beer and a committee meeting to plan the actual program for the graduation ceremony. It was kinda hard to take notes after dusk at our table under the stars, but we got it done anyway.
I’m getting enough requests to stay after my time here is over to make me feel wanted and appreciated. It is a nice feeling, even though my immediate desire is to rejoin Myrna and then get things in order in Philadelphia.
And after all that I came back home to find that my electricity has been turned back on – halleluiah, the problem had been a fuse at the meter – so I don’t have to try to read by kerosene lamp again tonight.
Can I put some of today in a bottle to save it for one of those inevitable other types of day? Can I share it around to other people who need it?
