Day 1: Ruvu Parish - Louisa

On Thursday and Friday, I had the opportunity to visit two parishes in the Pare Diocese. My travelling companions on both days were Mai Vu and Cheryl Philip.

The Pare Diocese is in the northeastern border of Tanzania.
(Photo courtesy of ELCT website.)

On Friday, Mai and Cheryl and I went with Peter and Barraka to visit the Ruvu Parish. Both Peter and Barraka work to fight malaria through both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) and the Lutheran Malaria Initiative (LMI).

The Ruvu Parish has a main headquarters in the town of Ruvu as well as 28 different sub-parishes in the area. We were able to visit two of he sub-parishes and end our day in the main parish building.

Our first stop was a Maasai village. Here we visited a well and ate our lunch in the house of the chairman of the village. Though the Maasai are traditionally a nomadic people, this village is becoming more permanent in such cases as the well, the church, and the kindergarten they are planning to build.

Lunch in the home of the chairman of the village. The chairman follows up on the work of LMI to make sure that  the people use the bed nets they have, and that they are using them properly.

Mai Vu outside the church in the Maasai village. 

Mai Vu with some new friends.

Lou with some new friends. The women of the village sang for us, and many of the people also came to shake
our hands and gather to hear what Peter and Barraka and the parish pastors had to say about our visit and malaria. 

Cheryl as we left the Maasai. This was one of those places "they" are talking about when they refer to people in those hard-to-get-to places known as the "last mile."