Hello friends! Welcome back to our regularly scheduled programming. It is hard to believe that today marks the official two-month anniversary of my arrival in Tanzania. It has flown by, and I can hardly believe we are already almost halfway through September. Anyways, enjoy all that Week 9 had to offer!! ☺️

Week 9 (September 6 – September 12):

My eighth official week in Hanga began with saying goodbye to our Italian friends as they headed back home to Italy. We celebrated with a lovely cake, featured in Picture 1, that the sisters helped the Italians bake to celebrate all their accomplishments while they were in Hanga! On the Italians final full day in Hanga, Br. Germanus took all of us to visit the resident herbal medicine doctor of Hanga Village. Unfortunately, pictures were not permitted during our visit, so I don’t have any, but I can assure you it was fascinating to learn about their techniques for curing folks and their methods to help cure ailments that other medicine may fail to rectify. A picture that we did manage to get however is of me, Allan, Lauren, and Br. Germanus, as featured in Picture 2 below. We also paid a visit to St. Laurent Pre-Primary and Primary School, and we were able to play on some of the swings that one of the Italians had helped construct during their stay in Hanga. You can see me in Picture 3 testing out one of the swings, and I can assure you that it was stable and quite fun! 🙂 During our adventure through the village, we came across this MASSIVE anthill that, by my estimation, was roughly 20 to 25 feet tall, visible in Picture 4. It is truly amazing what living things can do when they work together! Picture 5 features myself, Allan, the Italians, Juliette (the blur of pink), as well as some Tanzanian friends from the farm. 🙂

Teaching has continually gotten easier, but the hardest part for me still is teaching in Swahili and ensuring that they understand the concepts that I am trying to teach them. That being said, we have some fun moments too, including the one featured in Pictures 6 and 7, in which my first-years were quite insistent on getting a photo with me. 🙂 Overall, it was a very good week teaching and exploring, and it has been a wonderful time so far. 🙂

The video below captures a barn owl that decided to join us for Morning Prayer this past week. 🙂

I hope you all enjoyed this post, and I look forward to making another post next week. 🙂

Peace,

Cormac 🫶🏻

Photo Gallery!!!

Hello friends! Below is what I’ve been up to over the past two weeks. Enjoy the read!

Week 7 (August 23 – August 29):

My sixth official week in Hanga began with my typical Sunday routine of morning prayer and Sunday Mass. Teaching has continually gotten easier for me as I have gotten into a steadier rhythm with my classes and my students. As I am still learning Swahili (it is a steady work in progress), they have been very gracious, and we have shared lots of laughter over my mispronunciations of words or a mistranslated word or two. Allan and I also spent time hanging out with another group of Italians from the same veterinary program in Bologna that the previous group came from. Picture 1 shows a restaurant that we went to in Hanga with the Italians, and let me tell you that the pork they served was the best bite of food I’ve had in a while. It was fantastic! 🤩 I also returned to the farm to visit the cows with them and to see a newborn calf, which is pictured in Picture 2 and Video 1. He was very grouchy because we woke him up from his nap. 😂 Later that week I visited to kittens, who are getting so big, and they discovered my kangaroo pocket in my sweatshirt and quickly became obsessed with it, as seen in Picture 3. As featured in Video 2, just like human siblings, cat siblings like to wrestle though it was unclear who won this match as they quickly got distracted by the plant in the video and then by their mother, as seen in Picture 4. Another unexpected surprise that we encountered during the week is that the female dog we had gotten for Germanus’ garden, was apparently pregnant and had given birth to puppies!! We were lucky that the Italians were vets and could check on the pups and make sure they were doing okay, and as seen in Picture 5, they are doing quite well, and to this day they continue to grow and gain strength, but they sleep most of the day still. Overall, it was a great and busy week, that also included more teaching, I spent the week working on Microsoft Publisher with my third year students, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word with my second years, and Microsoft Word and typing basics with my first years.

Week 8 (August 30 – September 5):

My seventh official week in Hanga began with my typical Sunday routine of morning prayer and Sunday Mass. It was quite a busy week, and unfortunately that meant I forgot to take a lot of photos. 🙁 Anyways, I spent the week continuing to make progress with my students in the Vocational Training Center, a new addition I am eternally grateful for: getting a translator in the classroom with me to help answer more complex questions I had a hard time explaining in Swahili! John has been a huge help, and it makes me feel better to know that he is helping them understand things that I have trouble explaining in Swahili. Besides teaching, I went to the farm a few more times with the Italians and continued my daily prayer routine by attending morning and evening prayer with the brothers. Other than that, the rainy season is fast approaching, and with the rainy season comes an invasion of the toads, as seen in Picture 6. Finally, to conclude the week, Allan and I travelled to Songea to pick up the third and final person that would be joining us for the year in Hanga, Lauren!! 🤩 Lauren is a graduate of CSB, and will be working in the Health Center helping assist in surgeries, and in the lab work. While we were in Songea we visited Krista Park, which is a restaurant that serves all kinds of different foods, and I got the Chicken Sizzler, as featured in Video 3, and as you can hear in the video, it really was sizzling. 😂 It was delicious and a great way to end the week! Overall, another great, busy, and productive week in the life of a BVC’er! I hope you have been enjoying the posts and keeping up on my journey! I will definitely have more photos for my next post. 🙂

Have a wonderful week friends!

Cormac 🫶🏻

PHOTO GALLERY!!!

Hello friends! I apologize for the lengthy delay in getting this blog posted. I’ve had a very busy few weeks, and I am very excited to tell you all about what I have been up to. 🙂 I am going to try something new and do a few paragraphs per week, instead of going day by day. Feel free to let me know which format is preferred. 🙂

Week 4 (August 2 – August 8):

My third official week in Hanga marked the first week that I would start my official assignment, teaching Computer Literacy at the Hanga Vocational Training Center, which is a post-secondary educational option for students. I will be teaching 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-year students, who range from 16 years of age to 25 years of age. The computer lab that I am teaching in is shown below in Picture 1. A few hurdles that I had to address immediately were revamping my lesson plans, as I had been under the impression that it would be predominantly English-based instruction, but I quickly realized that it was much easier for them to understand what I was teaching them if it was spoken/written in Swahili. So, with this in mind, I translated my lesson plans into Swahili in an attempt to adequately get my explanations and teaching across, and my teaching and their understanding became much smoother after that. Throughout the week, I continued to hone in on my teaching ability/skills and became more comfortable with the subject which I was teaching.

Featured in Picture 2 is a little girl named Juliette, who is the daughter of the woman who runs the monastery’s guest hostel. She has taken a liking to Allan and me (enthusiastically shouting “Mzungu” when she sees us). We frequently run into Juliette on weekend afternoons when she is not in school.

Week 5 (August 9 – August 15):

My fourth official week in Hanga kicked off with a Sunday celebration of the ordination of Br. Barnabus, now Fr. Barnabus, which included a celebratory Mass featured in Video 1. The celebration also included a DJ and dancing after the Mass which was followed by a delicious dinner (Picture 3). However, before I could get to dinner, I found myself back in St. Mary’s Garden, which, if you remember from my previous blog posts, is the garden run by Br. Germanus (the one wearing my sunglasses in my previous blog post and the brother featured in Picture 4 harvesting lettuce). We were in St. Mary’s because Br. Germanus has recently decided to get two dogs for the garden, in an attempt to stave off the monkeys that were eating his crops (particularly his oranges and lemons) and frustrating him. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of the dogs, so I will try to include a picture of them in my next blog post. Anyways, Allan and I took the dogs (now named Jack and Rose) on a walk to get them some exercise and help familiarize them with the property and terrain.

Featured in Picture 5 is a delicious Tanzanian breakfast of bread and Mandazi (an East African donut of sorts). I usually have peanut butter with my bread to add some protein, and Mandazi are great for dipping in coffee or tea, but I enjoy them dry, as pictured. Picture 6 features another brother with my sunglasses who is known as Mr. Him or Mr. Hymn; I never asked for clarification on how it is spelled. 😂 Anyways, he was visiting Hanga Abbey to celebrate Br. Barnabus’ ordination, and he has been one of the most entertaining brothers I have met in Tanzania. He has an incredibly outgoing and goofy personality, and I even witnessed him shotgun a glass bottle of soda (I have no idea how you can even do that), and then he promptly dropped the bottle, looked at me, and says, “Now let’s do a beer.” Unfortunately, we never did shotgun those beers, but perhaps if I run into him again one day, we will get around to it. 🙂

Featured in Picture 7 is one of the resident cats, napping with her 1-month-old kittens. The monastery has many cats who live there because they are very good at catching rodents and keeping them out of the monastery. Most of them are incredibly wary of humans and will bolt if you get within 15 feet of them, but the kittens and their mother are incredibly curious and don’t seem to be as wary of humans as the other cats, so I was able to get close enough to get this picture without them bolting. Most of the cats hang around the kitchen because the sisters will feed them with some of the leftover food from cooking, and because it is right next to a large open outdoor area where they can sunbathe and sleep. I was hanging around the kitchen area because I was preparing to depart for Imiliwaha, Tanzania which is located in the Njombe District of Tanzania, right next door to the Ruvuma District, which is where Hanga resides. While I was waiting to depart with some of the brothers for Imiliwaha, I grabbed a quick lunch in the monastic refectory and saw an incredible mural (Picture 8), and the artist unbeknownst to me was someone I would end up meeting upon my return from Imiliwaha.

Featured in Pictures 9, 10, 11, and 12 are the church in Imiliwaha, the garden in the convent in Imiliwaha, a delicious dinner in the guest refectory featuring chicken, noodles, and Chipsi Mayai (French Fry Omelette), and a beautiful mountainside view of Tanzania on our drive back to Hanga. The reason that we were visiting Imiliwaha was twofold: it is the sister convent of Hanga Abbey, and the sisters that are staying in Hanga currently are all from Imiliwaha; secondly, we were there to celebrate a jubilee for sisters who have been with the convent for 25 and 50 years, respectively. It was a beautiful ceremony, and it was really, really cool to witness the celebration firsthand. Video 2 and Video 3 are clips I captured of the Mass and the celebration afterwards.

Week 6 (August 16 – August 22):

My fifth official week in Hanga actually started in Imiliwaha, but we were only in Imiliwaha for a short part of the morning as we left for Hanga immediately following Sunday Mass that morning.

The rest of my week was really uneventful, as it was pretty much the same as my prior two weeks of teaching. I continued to refine how I was running things in the classroom and began to find a rhythm of teaching that I was becoming comfortable with. The tricky part about vocational schools is that even though there is a set schedule, that doesn’t always mean classes get out on time, and sometimes I have to adapt a lesson plan meant for a 1.5-hour class to a class that ends up being 15 minutes because of some unforeseen delay in the schedule, so that has been something that I have found challenging but have been getting used to. Featured in the final two pictures in the gallery below are pictures 13 and 14, which are a selfie of Juliette and me and of two of the kittens who came to say hello to me when I went to check on them.

Recap:

Overall, it has been a whirlwind few weeks, and I cannot believe that September is almost upon us, and I am beginning my sixth week in Hanga. Overall, it has been a blast so far, and I cannot wait to see what this week has in store for me. Thank you again for following me along on my journey, and I will do my absolute best to get a blog post out this coming Sunday! Have a phenomenal week, my friends, and we will chat again soon! Asante na uwe na wiki njema!

Kwa upendo na shukrani,

Cormac 🫶🏻

PHOTO GALLERY!!!

VIDEO GALLERY!!!

Hello friends!

Welcome to the second official update of my journey with the BVC! These past two weeks have been a whirlwind of trying new foods, new adventures, and so much more! I intend to update this blog weekly (aiming for publishing every Sunday), but I was busy exploring Tanzania last Sunday (more about that in the blog) and time got away from me. So, this post will be a bit lengthy as I recap the past two weeks, but know that I will try to publish weekly to keep things from being too overwhelming for myself, and my lovely readers. 🙂 So, with that out of the way, let’s get into my first two weeks in Hanga, Tanzania, the site that I will be living at for the next 11 months!

Week 2 (July 20 – July 26)

July 20: My first full day in Hanga definitely got us off to a running start! We started off the day with Lauds and immediately after Lauds, me and Allan met with our site supervisor, Fr. Amadeus. Fr. Amadeus invited us on a tour of Hanga by car later in the day, and we gladly accepted as we were eager to get to know the place we would call home for these next 11 months. After meeting with Fr. Amadeus, we went to breakfast, and met three Italian veterinarians who were in school at the University of Bologna and were volunteering in Tanzania through a program called Vet for Africa. (Picture 1 features all 5 of us and Father Amadeus) After breakfast we had a little free time before all five of us met up with Fr. Amadeus, who gave us a tour of Hanga! Little did I know, but Hanga was so much bigger than I had previously realized! Hanga includes, a kindergarten, primary school, secondary school and even a seminary for young men! Hanga also has a million little shops and stores where you can buy all sorts of things like laundry detergent, or rubber boots. Hanga Abbey is an incredibly self-sufficient place, everything has a purpose and things that have served their purpose are repurposed into something else (i.e. potato peelings and other food scraps are used as animal feed), and so nothing is truly ever wasted in Hanga. After concluding the tour, Allan and I explored Hanga, had lunch, and took advantage of our extensive period of free time in the afternoon to further familiarize ourselves with Hanga, and continue unpacking our luggage. In the evening, we went to Vespers, had dinner and went to bed early.

July 21: Day Two in Hanga came rather quickly, and it felt like I had just closed my eyes, when I was opening them again to my alarm going off at 5:30 AM. Tuesday morning played out exactly like Monday. Lauds, followed by breakfast, and then followed by some free time to explore Hanga! Fr. Amadeus met with us and chatted about potential assignments for the year we are in Hanga. He asked if I was interested in helping in the Vocational Training Center with computer literacy, to which I said yes. Fr. Amadeus said he would chat with some folks on potential assignments, such as the computer lab, and other options for myself, and Allan. Lunch couldn’t come soon enough, and before I knew it, we were already well into the afternoon! Soon, 6 PM was upon us and it was time for Vespers, with dinner to follow and an early bedtime. 🙂 (Pictures 2 and 3 below are of various spots in Hanga!)

July 22: Wednesday went by rather quickly, the Italian veterinarians, whom we had become fast friends with, invited us to the farm to help them with the animals. While they gave some of the cows vitamin injections, we got the opportunity to explore the farm, which has pigs, chickens, and cows! After the cow injections, we went with some of the workers to gather hay for the cows from the field, and so this was a new experience and something that I found to be quite fun! (Picture 4 is of me, and Allan, in the trailer full of hay!) The morning flew by while we were helping on the farm and before I knew it, it was lunch time! The afternoon brought more time to explore/rest, and then Vespers, dinner, and bedtime.

July 23: I awoke Thursday morning feeling like I had gotten hit by a truck, and I feared that I was coming down with something, and did what you should NEVER do, and googled my symptoms. Of course Google said it could be malaria, and that I should go to a doctor to receive proper treatment. I am someone who would rather just wait and see if my symptoms get better or worse rather than acting immediately, but you don’t want to do that with malaria, as the longer it is in your system, the more dangerous it can get. So, while Allan went to the farm, I went to the St. Bernard Health Center in Hanga, which is run by the monastery. The experience was quite pleasant and I walked out of the health center roughly two hours later with a negative malaria test and a positive attitude. The doctor thinks it was just sheer exhaustion catching up with me given the incredibly busy two weeks we had endured. After I got back to my room, I decided to take a nap until lunch as I was coming down with a headache and felt a nap was the best thing I could do for myself. I woke up two hours later feeling much better and ready for lunch! Once again, the afternoon went by rather quickly, while Allan went back to the farm, I rested in my room and took this time to download a few books to read on my Kindle! The evening had the usual activities, vespers, dinner, and bedtime.

July 24: Friday brought exciting new experiences and foods! Earlier in the week, the girls had invited us on a trip with them to Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) in Mbamba Bay, which was just a 4 hour drive west of Hanga. We would leave Saturday morning and come back Sunday evening. So on Friday, Fr. Amadeus invited the five of us to have dinner with him and the head of the Hanga Seminary, so that we could all spend time together before we left for the weekend. The food at the Seminary was fantastic, and I discovered what has easily become one of my favorite foods in the Tanzanian cuisine, Chapati! Chapati reminds me of a crepe, but is thicker. It is typically flour, oil, and sometimes eggs and sugar, and it is either steamed or fried. It originated in India, but Tanzanians adopted it through trade and has made it their own. Anyways, it was a phenomenal dinner and a wonderful way to start our weekend.

July 25: Saturday morning came, and I got to sleep in an extra hour, as the car to take us to Mbamba Bay was leaving at 7 AM. The drive to Mbamba Bay went by rather quickly for me, as I ended up sleeping for most of the trip. But once we arrived at the place we were staying, a house run by Benedictine Sisters on the shores of Lake Nyasa, I was wide awake! The views from the house were incredible, and we were all very eager to get to our rooms, drop our stuff and go to the beach! (Pictures 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 are all pictures from our trip!) Now, unfortunately it is not safe to swim in Lake Nyasa as there is a parasitic worm that lives in the lake that can infect a person with something called schistomiasis, which simply put, is not a good thing to contract. So we just walked along the shores of the beach and enjoyed the ocean breeze and sand. After a brief walk on the beach, we headed back to the Benedictine House for Lunch, and then headed into town, where the monk who came with us on the trip, Br. Irenaus, gave us a quick tour. After the tour, we headed to a place called the Bio-Camp which was owned and operated by a friend of Br. Irenaus, and what was really cool about the Bio-Camp was that all of its electricity was generated by the waste of the animals they care for (cows, pigs, and chickens). (Picture 10 illustrates how the process works) The Bio-Camp also had amazing hiking trails that ended with incredible overviews of Lake Nyasa! (Picture 11 shows the amazing view from our hike!). After we finished hiking, we headed back to the car and after a quick pitstop at a different hotel that Br. Irenaus wanted to check out, we headed back to our hotel for dinner, and then promptly went to sleep.

July 26: Sunday morning was a slow one, and really the first day in almost 2 weeks that I had woken up past 7 AM, which felt amazing. 🙂 After a nice breakfast, we got dressed and left the hotel to head to the Bio-Camp for lunch, and to hang out before heading back to Hanga that afternoon. When we got there, the staff had set up chairs on the beach for us, and served us some hot coffee, and so we were able to relax and enjoy Lake Nyasa (from the beach of course). (Picture 12 is us on the beach!). After some beach time, and lunch, we began the long journey back to Hanga, and this time I was awake for most of the trip, and let me tell you, it felt a lot longer this time. 😂 We got back to Hanga just in time for dinner, and after dinner, I went to sleep, exhausted but fulfilled by an incredible weekend!

Week 3 (July 27 – August 1)

July 27: Monday morning of my second week in Hanga, once again came very quickly and my day was relatively uneventful. For my morning work period, me and Allan went back to the farm to continue helping out with farm chores, this week was harvesting the maize (corn) from the fields! So, we spent our morning, and afternoon work periods helping shuck corn! After the afternoon work period had concluded, we had roughly 1 hour to relax before Vespers, Dinner and bedtime.

July 28: Tuesday was very similar to Monday, both our work periods were spent harvesting corn, and after the afternoon work period came vespers, dinner, and bedtime. I was definitely starting to get more into a rhythm as the days went by, as our schedule was basically the same every day, and so the days just seemed to start flying by!

July 29: Wednesday went very similarly to Monday and Tuesday, my work for the day was harvesting corn, but we had a little extra free time in the afternoon and so me and Allan went to go try Chipsi Mayai from one of the shops in Hanga. Chipsi Mayai is essentially a french fry omelette, and is a dish frequently assosciated with Tanzania and is the most well known “street food” dish in Tanzania. It is made by frying some potato strips in a pan and then pouring scrambled eggs over it and cooking it all together, it is typically served with a vegetable salad containing onions, and cabbage, as well as Pili Pili (Hot Sauce). It was, as I expected, an incredible dish! (Picture 13 shows Chipsi Mayai!).

July 30: Thursday brought some new experiences and some hard goodbyes. Earlier in the week, I was invited by some of the kitchen staff to help bake some bread for the weekend. So, I said goodbye to the farm and met with my good friend Victor, who works in the kitchen, and spent the morning, and afternoon helping to bake some bread. (Picture 14 is some of the bread we baked!). Some goodbyes were also had, as the Italians were leaving on Friday, and so me, Allan, and two of the monks from the monastery took them to the bar next door (called the Papaya Garden) to celebrate their time in Hanga, and to say goodbye. Allan brought a deck of cards and taught everyone a game called Old Maid, all in all, it was a great way to spend a Thursday evening and to celebrate our dear friends before they left for home. (Picture 15 is all of us playing cards!)

July 31: Friday had me back in the kitchen helping peel potatoes, and shell peas, as well as helping to prepare some rice for the coming lunch and dinner hours. We said goodbye to the Italians, and after they departed the rest of the day flew by really fast, and before I knew it, I was crawling into bed for the evening.

August 1: Saturday was my first official “weekend” day in Hanga, as we had been absent the weekend before due to our visit to Lake Nyasa. Saturday’s function almost exactly like the weekdays, and my work periods in the morning and afternoon were spent baking more bread than I have ever seen in my life. (Pictures 16 and 17 show all the bread we baked) After work concluded, Vespers, Dinner and Bedtime came quite quickly.

If you have read this far, I appreciate you reading, and I apologize for the length! Again, I am trying to make weekly posts, so that these posts will not be so lengthy, for your sake, and my sanity. I hope you enjoyed learning about what I am doing in Hanga so far, and I am excited and already thinking about next weeks post! Have a wonderful week friends, and as Br. Germanus (Picture 18) says “enjoy life”! 🙂

Cormac 🫶🏻

Photo Gallery!!