The founder of Full Dimension Ministries, Rev. William Makali has been doing what we call Teaching Training and Evangelism Classes in two locations of the Iramba Valley. This is the same valley our medical and school facilities are located. While at one of the sites called Nduguti, a pastor mentioned wanting to start a program that not only gave women a chance to earn extra money but also would help to build community among women of different churches and families.
William suggested the crochet class that I had done at our site and in Singida. So at the beginning of all our adventures is this class. We had 11 ladies sign up. Each was given a crochet needle and two skeins of yarn to work on the projects taught in class as well as to practice at home. The total cost for these items was 30,000 Tanzanian Shillings or $18 US dollars so not a bad deal. I printed at my cost some sheets with drawings showing how to complete some basic stitches, how to turn a row, how to make and increase rounds.
I arrived at our site in Yullansoni early that morning after the normal 1.5 hour mini van ride with 20 something other people in the mini van and 1 hour and 15 minute motorcyle taxi ride called a piki piki. Then William took me to Nduguti on the sites piki piki for an hour and a half over some of the very roughest roads still around in Tanzania, a country full of tough rocky roads. As always William wanted to have lunch before we started the class.
The first class was about basic stitches like Chain, Single Crochet and Double Crochet, how to work in rows to make squares and rectangular projects. Our biggest challenge was the difference between turning with single and double crochets and how you skip the first hole on a double crochet. I had them practice all three stitches on simple dish/wash cloth patterns. Normally I talk about how a stitch is done while they look at the drawings, then I go to groups of two and have them watch me do it several times, then all three of us do the stitch several times together, then I watch them do a row. I move around the class doing this until I feel everyone has it. One thing I find interesting is they all like to wrap the yarn around one of their fingers several times to keep it under control. I showed them some other techniques for holding needle and yarn but they all liked that one even though they have to stop a lot to re-wrap their finger.
After our first class was over, William and I headed back over the rough roads to our site getting their just as the sun was setting. A total of almost 6 hours of travel over the dirt and rock roads of Tanzania.
The next class was held that weekend so they would have several days to practice their stitches at home. This time I got up at 5:30 am to ride a piki piki to the local bus station (a Balbao tree) to catch a bus to Nduguti. This is one of the larger buses that normally have 40 or 50 seats and typically have close to 80 or 90 passengers. It finally arrived at 8:30 am and was full so standing room only for the almost 2 hours it took the bus to get there.
We started with only about 9 students but then everyone showed up as the class went on, but several early showers had to leave early so they did not make the photo. The young man in the front is the child of one the students and he loved Barnabas bear. Hear is a video of them playing together:
The second class focused on using our stitches from before to do rounds and specifically we worked on newborn hats and we asked they donate those to our medical clinic so we could give them out on a newborn's first checkup after being born.
We had some difficulty with the concept of closing a round and then chaining three to start a new round of double crochet. I thought it would be the pattern of increasing the rounds in an even pattern. But no they kept chaining three and then closing the round. At first I thought it was how I explained it but after going around an making sure everyone not only saw me do it but I watched them do it correctly I would find they went back to chaining before closing shortly after.
One of the most important concepts I tried to get across is that crochet is something fun to do together in a low stress setting-no deadlines. I explained how many churches had groups that got together and crocheted together to make items to give away or for sale.
After the class and managing to get Barnabas back from his new friend. I went to get the next bus that would take me to Singida. The local bus stop was only a 10 minute piki piki ride and then the bus was supposed to arrive at 2 PM for which I was 40 minutes early. It arrived an hour and half late. Then the trip that should take an hour actually took 3 hours fortunately I had a seat for this ride as it was very rough again especially when the driver did not know all his gears and was often going so fast he would slide into the concrete barriers before bridges.
Life here is a lot of fun.
Here are some pictures of the class:
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