Bassotu

Today we traveled about an hour away... on the extremely bumpy roads again... to the village of Bassotu. Nate Wolf, one of the missionaries here has started a church and him and Brad scheduled an outreach ministry to the community as well as an event for the people of the towns of Katesh, Arusha, and Bassotu churches. There was a big soccer game that a good majority of the village came to watched. almost 1,000 people.
we arrived in the morning to pass out invitations to the game. and after that Nate took us to one of the member's of his church Mama Moses to eat lunch. The custom in Tanzania is when you first come to someone's house there is a big greeting, you ask how they are doing, how the wife is, how are the kids, hows the farm, etc. Nate said it usually takes about a half hour. then they tell you that you can sit down. its rude to sit without being told.
when we got to their house they greeted us with "Karibuni" which means welcome everyone. which we replied "asante" which means thank you. then they introduced their family. and brought out what we were going to eat. The Mama served us heaping portions of rice and meat. probably three or four times what i could normally eat. but it is considered rude to not eat it all. so i tried. very very very very hard to eat what was put in front of me. it was difficult to say the least because there are little pebbles that you sometimes find. and most of the meat is fat and i dont even want to know what else. im pretty sure i got a piece of the throat. but i ate as much as i could.
after lunch we went back to the field where the game was to be. I didn't really know what to do because I dont really enjoy sports. But there were so many children running around. and like all the other tanzanians they seem to enjoy watching the Americans. so at one point i sat in the shade of the Safari car and about ten came over and tried to talk to me. that's where it started. an hour later i had probably 50 little kids all trying to hold my hand. all trying to be next to me. some pet my hair. when i sat they sat and stared at me. i taught them the word tickle by demonstration. then we skipped around the soccer field. with many of the Bassotu people watching me. haha i loved it though. they were adorable little children.
and they love getting their picture taken :)