Today is vacation Bible school day! We will travel to several remote Maasai family villages called Bomas. From the bus window, I am a spectator to the glory of the Tanzanian countryside that I missed on our arrival day.
I wave to a 10 yo boy who wears a baby securely tied to him. He waves with outstretched hand. There is no fear of dropping the darling, focused entirely, naturally, on waving back at us. It is a joy shared.
I see a small boy alone in the quiet dimness of the light brown backdrop of his house. His clothes pop with color against it and when he sees me wave to him he breaks out in the kaleidoscopic brilliance of being seen.
There is mist rolling down the green hillsides of Mount Ketumbeine. The towering top is hidden from view. I imagine it as a mini glimpse of Mt Sinai on 10 commandment day.
From a distance, the canopy of trees look soft and inviting but closer up is a different reality. The landscape is a mix of muted greens and browns with varying degrees of sharpness. The jagged thorned umbrella trees dot the plain, providing effective shade but messy hair. There is the intermediary cacaphonied tangled mess of bushes with their dagger thorns. And everywhere an explosion of rocks that splatter the ground in uneven barrages of chaotic inequity, as if they were pelted from above in a wild monsoon rock storm.
In ‘sharp’ contrast is the seemingly illuminated white softness of the goats. They wander about under the keen eye of their goat herding, shuka wearing, staff welding child, no older than a preteen. He leaves his 99 to run toward us waving in unbridled welcome.
Out the window, someone spots a goat giving birth so naturally we stop. The wet small thing lies on the ground where it was dropped from its mama. It struggles to stand and it’s unwieldy, never used legs slip and slide on the dust. It truly is his first day with new feet. Wobbly and unsure yet determined to get to Mom for life.
Our first boma is a 30 minute ride toward the mountain. A Boma is a grouping of thatched roofed one room dwellings that house multiple families of an extended family. These houses are surrounded by a Maasai fence made by laying multiple thorn thick branches upon one another to deter lions, leopards and hyenas, oh my! The livestock are sheltered in the center. This boma is remote and waterless. They must haul their water from town twice a week on the backs of their donkeys and it is an all day affair.
As VBS is set up, I wander over to the main shade tree just outside the city ‘gate’. There is a gathering of women and small children and babies. I greet the women and befriend the babies. I look up and one small friend darts from me taking refuge at the boma entrance. He stands like a sentry, his small staff firmly planted. His message is clear, ‘I shall Not pass’.
Others are shy but we speak the same language, unlocked by a ball. These are the under 3 crowd. Some can catch with their forearms and hands in solidarity, some prefer to chase the fallen, rolling ball. Some are robust overhanded throwers, some timid underhanders. How ever it is accomplished, they who were hesitant are now engaged, though not quite smiling yet… by the time of the parachute ball toss, we are all in! Laughing, chasing, our caution flying away with the balls, replaced with faces not big enough for our delight.
Our next boma sports a flat rocky area that we use as a soccer arena. The afternoon is spent in a vigorous soccer game: American team vs. Interpreters. It begins including the children but the olders are all-in and the children are lured away by the parachute. I sit beneath an acacia tree and marvel at the sweetness of connection that overrides spoken language barriers.
In the evening, we are taken to Pastor Peter’s sheep. They are being kept on a friend’s land south of town. There is a delicious breeze as the sun dips toward the horizon. When we arrive the olders have not yet arrived from their daily sojourn in the fields so we hang with the under 3 day old crowd. Baby goats, like baby dogs, are so beautifully quirky in their movements. They unexpectedly romp and jump, bounce and run. They are wildly endearing in their every move and sound.
I find that I can get them to all abruptly look my way by mimicking their high pitched bleating and my spontaneous giggling surprises us all. My heart is light and dancing, just like the babies.
At Pastor Peter and Nashipai ‘s home later, we are treated to fresh goat milk and nutmeg chai while we sit out under the stars. Others are just out of sight, ‘preparing’ a goat for tomorrow’s church feast. All of a sudden, before I even had a conscious opinion about it, I broke out in song.
It is truly the very first time since Philip had his come to Jesus moment, that my goof spirit burst from me with power, unbidden, and unsupervised. It was like a lightning jolt of spontaneous imagination. It was who I used to be. When my teammates picked up the next verses, my joy was made utterly complete. How wondrous to consider that I may be on my way back. How marvelous to share the journey prompted and joined by my friends!
🎵🎵
Oh they cut the head off of the goat
and it falls in a bowl.
And the blood spurts out of the neck
and fills up the bowl.
Oh please don’t do it twice
cuz it wasn’t very nice
When they cut the head off the goat
and it fell into the bowl!
🎵🎵
TanzaniAnne
Tripping with God: Stories of Faith and Inspiration 