Primary in Dar

A friend of mine, Courtney, wanted her primary to learn about primaries in different parts of the world, so she wrote requesting information. I thought I'd post it here in case anyone else is interested. This picture is from our branch's primary Christmas presentation during sacrament meeting.

Primary here is pretty small. We have between 5-16 kids depending on the day. Most of the kids come without their parents. Most people here don't have very much money, so the kids come to church in whatever they have. They try to wear their nicer clothes, but are often in T-shirts and pants. The traditional outfit for women and girls to wear here is called a kanga. Many, many people still wear them. You buy kangas in to matching pieces. They have a pretty design or pattern on them, and a saying in Kiswahili. Often times, friends give one of the matching kangas to each other, then they wear them at the same time. It isn't uncommon to see friends in matching kangas, holding and hands and walking around. Kangas are left as a big piece of fabric, then wrapped around the waist for a shirt, or wrapped around the shoulders, wrapped around the head, used to tie babies on to backs, and any other thing you can imagine.
One thing that makes primary different here is that it is held in English, even though the children all speak Kiswahili. We're hoping someday it's in Kiswahili as it's very difficult for the kids. They're pretty patient though.
Jambo is hello. So our kids like to sing the hello song with Jambo in it. Think of Lion King for Kiswahili. Simba is lion, asante sana is thank you very much, rafiki is friend. Habari is how are you. Nzuri is fine. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 is moja, mbili, tatu, nne, tano, sita, saba, nane, tisa.
Let me know if you want more Kiswahili, or anymore information. There is a lot I could send you. The big thing here is poverty. Most of these kids live in tiny cinder block houses, without private toilets. It's beyond hot in here, so most people don't spend time in their houses during the day.

Tim and Britton - Mafia Island - Whale Sharks

Britton still LOVES sharks, so I arranged to take him with me to Mafia Island, an island off the coast of Tanzania. There are 3 main islands, the biggest is Zanzibar, the next is Pemba, and the third is Mafia. Mafia is the farthest away and the smallest and we had never been there before. The reason that we wanted to go there is that every year, whale sharks migrate past the island during the winter months (well, summer months for us people living below the equator). We flew over in a little 12-seater aircraft and as we approached the island, Britton saw 2 whale sharks from his window seat. The runway was just a dirt strip, so that was really interesting, and there were no paved roads on the island. We went to our hotel and hung out, and then the next day we went on our whale shark expedition. We found them within 10 minutes of being on the boat and it was great. They were really huge, with some being at least 30 feet long. They are very docile creatures and only eat plankton, so one can swim with them and not have to worry about getting eaten by the whale sharks. While they are called whale sharks, they are sharks, and not whales. So, while Britton took pictures from the boat, I put on my snorkeling gear and jumped into the water and swam with the sharks. They were pretty fast swimmers, but I got close enough to touch them. In fact, I grabbed one by its dorsal fin and let it pull me around for a minute. That was fun, but I got chewed out by the locals who told me not to touch them. Haha, it was worth it. A good friend of mine owns an underwater camera and he let me borrow it, so I took a lot of underwater pictures and videos. We ended up going twice and finding the sharks both times. The first time we found 6 sharks and the second time we found 5 sharks. It was a great time. We flew home from Mafia Island very happy.