Mural Party

A wall, while being great for protection, is not the most beautiful thing to look upon. In fact, it kind of felt like a prison yard.

So, Sarah had the great idea of painting murals and enlisting volunteers to come over and paint our walls! It was kind of neat, it ended up being most of our Bible study group who came over and helped us beautify our yard.

I'm not much of an artist, but I can follow lines and fill in color!

And the final products?

Eucalyptus branches and an orange weaver bird:

Passion fruit vine (we are currently working on a real, fruit-producing, passion fruit vine canopy that will bring shade to this corner of the yard):

An interpretive version of a mango tree - one of my favorite local fruits!

Other than the black for the lines, we didn't even have to buy paint for the murals! Left over paint from various bedrooms and kitchens around Musoma were used - which led to some fun creativity in the final products.

Zinza Writers' Workshop part 2

So, this "part 2" is simply for showing a few of my favorite pictures from the trip to the Zinza language area a couple of weeks ago.

First, this "bibi" (grandma) at the workshop was beautiful, very interested and, in my opinion, dressed exquisitely. A t-shirt with a skull encircled in fire, and a leopard print do-rag. Her name is Sarah and she used to help with the translation of Scripture into the Zinza language!

The beauty of clouds and nature exists everywhere, but there is just so much more nature here that I can't help but be awed by the beauty of this land everywhere I go. 

Traveling back to Musoma from Kome Island included 6 different modes of transportation: private vehicle, ferries (2), daladalas (2), taxis (3), buses (2), and a motorcycle. Traveling like this really encourages packing light, but a guitar is still worth bringing along on a trip, even if it means being quite squished in a daladala and sticking out a bit more than I already do.

Zinza Writers' Workshop Part 1

Last week I went out to Kome Island to participate in a workshop teaching about 15 Zinza speakers to write their language. This group had already been taught to read Zinza, so they had some experience with their writing system. Now it was their turn to write some stories, rather than just read them.

One of the exercises that they did was to draw a picture and label the various items in the picture (using Zinza, of course). The next day they wrote stories, in groups, about the pictures.

Even though I couldn't completely understand the stories when they were read out loud, it was truly a delight to hear the laughter that was elicited by them. I did clue in at the end of one of the stories when my Zinza name (Nyakahoza) was incorporated into the story. I was honored to make a guest appearance in their story!

Here are the pictures that they drew which inspired the stories:

Fishing

Animal Husbandry

Home Life and Family

Hunting

Farming

Is everything spelled exactly correctly? No. BUT I saw tone markings, vowel length and other little uses of their writing system that were very encouraging to me that they will use it and grow in their ability to write their language accurately!

As you can see though, they really enjoyed the exercise:

Flat Ronit

This past week I got to travel up to Nairobi to pick up a family returning from 9 months in their home countries. It was of course best that I was getting to help some good friends get back to Musoma, but also Nairobi is a fun place to go.

My house-mate Sarah was thinking it would be fun to drive up with me, but since she is a teacher, she couldn't leave her students alone to fend for themselves. So, she made a paper-doll version of herself for me to take with me, so that she could be there in spirit. Well, it was only fair that I then leave her with a paper-doll version of myself to return the favor.

I know it sounds silly, but sometimes we need some entertainment here, and this was great entertainment. If you want to hear about my trip up to Nairobi with "flat" Sarah you can read about it on her blog: http://sijambosarah.blogspot.com/.

Below is what "flat" Ronit was doing in Musoma, whilst the real me was traveling.

This was my first attempt at immortalizing myself in paper-doll format - so here is what the attempt looked like.

It is part of my morning routine to open the curtains and let in the glorious morning light! Thankfully, I still got to do that.

I got to go to school and be a part of one student preparing a lesson on celtic knots.

And, I got to dissect an owl pellet...yay?

Took an afternoon nap with a friend's cat:

And rounded off the day with kefir and peanut butter cake with Sarah.

I'm leaving today for a workshop trip for a week. "Flat" Sarah is coming with me...we'll see if she makes an appearance in my next blog post!