A View into Tanzania: 'Proposals,’ Widows And A Reminder That Blonde is Beautiful

I should preface this post by saying that I have now received a nickname from Omega – I am now Miss America (Tim is Obama and Steve is Mr. Mountain). Also, I never thought about how much my long blonde hair would be a hit here. It seems like everywhere we go, people want to touch it and just stare at it, even here at LJS Moreto commented on how he likes my hair. But that is all beside the point.
Yesterday we visited another Massai village - Moreto came with us on the visit since he is Massai and his uncle is the evangelist for that village. The visit started with a walk to the grave of the village elder who had died a little while ago from liver cancer. This particular village has had a rough patch with the church since their evangelist had left them and didn’t return after the elder’s passing. And in my opinion, Mchungaji did a great job at working to reestablish and strengthen the relationship once again. After our visit to the man’s grave, we had chai and maandazi (tea and half-cake) with some of the men in the village. Then Mchungaji had a meeting with some of the elders and Moreto took us on a tour around the village. It was really nice – we got a chance to see the inside of a house and a kitchen. After we had seen typical buildings and walked around for awhile, we sat down with some men and just hung out with them. Steve had brought some Barack Obama stickers so he gave them to a couple of the men, who in turn placed them on the two motorcycles. Then we had a church service with 16 baptisms. Finally, we ate some rice with more chai and we headed home – on the ride home, Moreto told me that some of the men had asked about marrying me.
For me this visit was a little different than others. I felt a little bit off – don’t get me wrong, physically I felt fine. I felt out of place. I realized that I am always the only woman when we are on the village visits. The elder at our previous village had even told me something along the lines of how I came and I sat and talked with the men. I don’t think it is seen as a bad thing necessarily but I still feel a bit out of place at times.
But on yet another unrelated note, there were two widows and their children who got baptized at the village. Mchungaji explained that they were so thin and that shows him that they are not being taken care of by anyone. He said that the elder who had recently passed, used to take care of them and make sure they had what they needed (usually the job for a woman’s husband) but since he was gone, no one was doing that now. They were the low level of society. I instantly thought of the Bible story of the widow who gave two coins for offering and Jesus said gave more than those who gave a great deal – because this was all the money she could spare. These women wanted to be taken care of by Christ and wanted their children to be protected as well so they chose to be baptized, then they gave offering, which I am certain is money they could very well use to purchase one necessity or another but instead they wanted to offer it to the church.
I guess all in all, this village visit opened my eyes to a lot. I saw the real life portrayal of Luke’s widows giving offering, I was asked to be someone’s wife, and I learned a bit more about the life of a Massai. Suffice to say, that this was a productive village visit.