Meetings

I travelled on a bus for fifteen hours Wednesday and arrived in Arusha after midnight. I stayed with friends with whom I used to live many years ago and it is a nice reunion. In the morning Yonah and I went to the Union office where we were both invitees for year end meetings. The discussions are mostly out of my realm but there was some discussion concerning independent ministries and even Kibidula and publishing work that I found it good to be present and even able to defend ourselves a bit. In general I feel that we are well accepted and just being able to familiarize myself with many of them and they with me was probably worth my while coming. After arriving here I stayed up with Yonah until after 2 a.m. Talking. The meetings on Thursday lasted all day. Thursday night we got home late and I ended up chatting with Rachel until midnight. Friday was all day meetings but we got back to the house early evening. Yonah and rachel's daughter, Amina, arrived back from boarding school with several of her friends. I saw her last 12 years ago. It is interesting seeing someone you took care of often in infancy now all grown up. Raspy voice, outgoing and loud, she is the life of the party here. She arrived with her was her cousin who used to visit us at kibidula many years ago and always liked to sit on my lap and teach me Swahili words and little songs. Around midnight last night a whole family of people showed up needing a place to stay (this place is like grand central station with all kinds of people coming and going all the time). Since I was occupying a whole room to myself, I got up and moved to the living room to give space for the family of five in the bedroom. Yonah asked if I remembered the lady. I looked at her and she at me and we both shook our heads. A few minutes later she was talking to one of her kids in a language sounding language which jolted my memory. To my almost horror I suddenly remembered who this middle aged looking woman was. I gaver her a ride in my pickup probably in 1996 from morogoro to mafinga. I had heard her speak her language and its sound had struck me as being so foreign way back then and now her saying a few words brought me back to that day. She was just a young teenager, well younger than me. How did she get to be so old? I guess life does that. I wonder how people see me? I don't feel as old as she looks but I know I am older than she is. This evening I went out with Yonah and his daughter Amina to see Amina's sister Orupa at her school. From the time she was born, she had been my special little friend and now when she saw me she threw her arms around me I was surprised at the feelings of nostalgia that welled up. Except that she is eighteen, she looks like when I used to carry her around as a baby. Of course we have nothing in common anymore and we only stayed a few minutes. Now it is early Sunday morning and I am waiting to board a bus home. Another 15 hour ride. I should rather have been heading to Dar es Salaam to accompany a visitor back from the airport but I am too ready to get home and so the thought of another day of travel was too much. The poor visitor will have to make his own way to the bus and to Mafinga. My two oldest daughters are in Makete now with their grandparents. I talked to them last night and they sounded like they were enjoying it. Jason

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