Tanzania
October 22, 2020
SST canceled until fall 2021
Goshen College announced last Tuesday that international courses scheduled for this summer and May term have been canceled due to concerns with the coronavirus. Study-Service Term programs are expected to resume in fall 2021. The courses affected by this decision are arts in London, filmmaking in Japan, hiking the Inca Trail in Peru and the summer SST units to Ecuador and Senegal. Canceling these courses was a decision made based on four criteria: little positive movement has occurred in COVID-19 rates or changes in State Department and CDC travel restrictions at present; there is faint hope of being able to vaccinate...
January 31, 2020
“Teaching me more than anyone else”
Editor’s Note: Every once in a while I invite someone to share a story with the Record in the form of photojournalism, with a short statement detailing what the pictures mean to them. If you’re interested in that kind of storytelling, reach out to the Record or myself. This week’s come from Gloria Bontrager-Thomas, a sophomore currently on SST in Tanzania. “This is Henry. He’s two, and doesn’t speak English. Since coming to Tanzania two weeks ago, we’ve been trying to figure out how to communicate without being able to speak the same language. We play ball, tickle, and chase...
January 31, 2020
Spring SST units depart, new curriculum finalized
As classes began last Wednesday on campus, 38 Goshen College students embarked on an intercultural journey as the spring 2020 Study-Service Term units departed. 17 students made the trek to Tanzania, while 21 departed for Ecuador. This semester’s unit marks only the second group Goshen College has sent to Ecuador following the switch from Peru. As with the fall semester, the group is led by Andrew Hartzler, professor of accounting, and his wife Ruth. The unit in Ecuador partners with the Cofan Survival Fund, which is a carbon-offsetting partnership. After leading a fall unit of only six students, Hartzler recognizes...
February 23, 2017
MCC quilt raises awareness of albinism in Tanzania
Hanging on display in The Depot is a quilt that was made as a way of saying “thank you.” Located in Goshen, just off of Route 33, The Depot is a thrift shop that supports “the local and global relief, development and peace projects of Mennonite Central Committee,” according to their website. One of those projects took place in Tanzania. In 2015, MCC worked with Albino Peacemakers to provide 91 students who have albinism with education on how best to protect their skin and reminded them that they are loved by God. Albinism is a congenital disorder where the pigmentation...
November 6, 2014
Students Share Experience From Tanzania
The Study Service Term students who went to Tanzania organized and presented a bonus convocation to share their experiences. Though there was no official time slot in the convocation schedule, Jared Zook, a senior, took the initiative and worked closely with Beverly Lapp to arrange the event and get it approved for convocation credit. "We wanted to share [our SST] experience with everyone and include the whole campus in our story," Zook said. "There was no way we weren't going to!" While Zook lamented the difficulty of trying to squeeze several months of SST into a 40-minute presentation, Ida Short,...
January 12, 2012
Tanzania SST-ers revive chicken slaughtering experience in Goshen
Plucking chicken feathers wasn’t something Leah Thill, Indy Miller and Laura Krabill expected to do on their Study-Service Term in Tanzania last spring. During a visit to a service location one afternoon, however, they learned the process of turning live chickens into a meal for 13. On a warm March day, Thill, Miller and Krabill met with five other SST-ers in Mogabiri and were invited to a host family’s home for dinner. Sharing a meal with a family is an act of hospitality in Tanzania, and as a token of their appreciation the Goshen College students decided to buy two...
April 14, 2011
Tanzania and Peru SST returns
Almost 30 faces returned to the pool of Goshen students yesterday after a semester’s worth of traveling for Study-Service Term. Fifteen students safely returned from Tanzania and 14 returned from Peru. The Tanzania group arrived Wednesday afternoon around 3 p.m. The 7 remaining students of the group either traveled afterward or flew directly home. Tanzania 2011 was led by Ryan and Donna Sensenig with their two children, Mara and Isaac. The group spent the first six weeks of the term in the capitol, Dar es Salaam, studying Swahili and Tanzania’s culture. For the second half of the semester, students were...
February 5, 2011
Jan Emswiler’s journey to Goshen
Goshen College’s newest nursing professor might have a few words of advice for Ryan Sensenig and the Tanzania SST group. Jan Emswiler has only spent a year and a half in the United States since 1998—she spent the other 11 years in Tanzania. It all started between her sophomore and junior year of college, when she participated in Mennonite Central Committee’s SALT (Serving And Learning Together) program. SALT sent her to Tanzania for the first time. After graduating from Eastern Mennonite University in 1998, Emswiler heard that M.C.C. was looking for a nurse to go to Tanzania, so she volunteered....
January 20, 2011
Goshen students say goodbye to friends, hello to Tanzania, Peru
It was the middle of the night, but a few overhead lights illuminated smiles, tears and frantically waving hands as dozens of friends, roommates and family members bid adieu to spring SST students. A bus carried the 23 Tanzania-bound students from the Union shortly after 1 a.m. last Wednesday, Jan. 12. The spring 2011 Peru group also left the Union at around 6:30 the same morning. For many, the occasion was bittersweet. Laurel Woodward, a sophomore, acknowledged the challenging aspects of saying goodbye to close friends who left for SST. “It was harder than expected,” said Woodward, “because you form...
September 15, 2010
Drawing people in with Swahili
The conversations start with Jambo! Habań yako, but the fall Swahili class at Goshen College doesn’t end there. Students are gearing up for their Study-Service Term experience in Tanzania this spring by learning the Swahili language, Tanzanian culture, history and geography. The young professor duo, Theo and Agnes Odhianmbo, from Musoma, Tanzania, are teaching the basics. Students meet four days a week, in addition to small group and one-on-one conversations. With only a semester’s experience, students will not be fluent when they step off the plane in Tanzania. Yet according to Theo Odhianmbo, they will know enough to draw people...