First Thanksgiving

'Quiver,' David's new hedgehog

It certainly does not feel like we are entering the holiday season here. That is--to a great extent--due to the lack of change in weather. More precisely, the weather has actually become warmer, albeit wetter, and everything is turning greener--not drying up and dying.

But even more than that, I think the absence of commercialism or even acknowledgement of Halloween, and most recently Thanksgiving, makes this time of year seem less like the increasing crescendo of Holiday activities moving in a frenzy toward Christmas that we were getting used to again in the US. On the good side, some of the excesses are absent as well.

We did manage to wrangle an invitation to an American Thanksgiving dinner, although it was not quite like any I have been to in the past--probably because it was packed with people, most of whom I did not know. 

Truck we drove behind on the
way to Thanksgiving dinner

Thanksgiving is not a holiday here (obviously) but after work and school last Thursday our family went to the house of Dr. Mark and Linda Jacobson. They are medical missionaries associated with the Lutheran church. He is the founder of the Arusha Lutheran Medical Center, a large hospital in Arusha that does amazing work. Interestingly, they are also both MPH graduates of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and were students of my father! (They were surprised to find this out--and he had visited us just a couple months ago.)

The Jacobson's Thanksgiving party has been a decades-long tradition and is open to most any American who is looking for a place to celebrate this distinctly American holiday. It is done potluck style, and it brought together over 60 people by my estimate. There was all the expected food--turkey, stuffing, many pumpkin pies and potato dishes, (although not much in the way of cranberries). The festivities began after 5 and went well into the night.

We left sometime after 9pm, and felt like we had at least whetted our appetites for turkey for the near future. On the way home, what would have otherwise been an uneventful drive to our compound in Njiro, became exciting as we neared our gate. My headlights caught a small animal crossing the dirt road. It looked like a mole and I told David to look (since he is an animal lover.) Then Rebecca said excitedly "It's a hedghog!" By this time I had stopped nearly right at our gate and David jumped out in time to see it run under a bush...then back out the other side. He reached out for it and it curled into a little ball of quills. David picked it up and took it to the house.

For the next several days the hedgehog slept during the day in David's closet and ran around in the living room at night. David gave it slugs and hotdogs which it seemed to fancy. There is an old playhouse outside our house that we turned into a little enclosure over the weekend. We have been watching it to be sure it does not look sick, but it seems quite healthy and surprisingly friendly. It seems content to let David pick him up. David has named it Quiver.

Having a pet for David is a good thing because we are not allowed to have a dog on the compound. David was supposed to get a hedgehog from some people who were leaving when we arrived, but it escaped the day before we got there. He is thrilled to have a pet at the moment.

Besides Thanksgiving, the work week was fairly busy even though I never left town. We had a team meeting on Tuesday, so our whole team was together for the day to go over MCC business. Zoe was in town from Longido. The rest of us live in Arusha. (There are 3 Tanzanians, and 3 North Americans working at our office.) We celebrated a double Birthday at the end of the meeting for Neema, our Program administrator, and Zoe.)

Thursday was also a busy work day with a meeting of MCC's Advisory Board. While we weren't part of the whole full-day event, we did have lunch with the advisory committee and then presented some of our projects in the afternoon.

The rest of the week was more normal, although Black Friday is not a holiday here so we were at work for all 5 days. We are still enjoying our Wednesday evening choir practice and have been working on a difficult Magnificat by Stanford, as well as the Pentatonix arrangement of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah-- which is kind of doo-wop. It's got a new Christmas text now. (I am singing baritone and also doing some of the beatbox effects).

HAPPY belated THANKSGIVING!

Bonus Photo: Kids at our church singing Father Abraham for the congregation. 

(David is in the back row.)

Ngorongoro and Embakaai

Baboons by the road on the way up to Karatu

I think it must be a sign of aging, that the beginning of a week seems like the distance past. Actually, I feel more the distortion of time when I am traveling. I feel very present wherever I am, but thinking back to a place I recently left, can seem like a memory from a decade ago. Maybe this is some kind of 3rd culture kid survival mechanism--being very present in the moment but having almost an amnesia about other places and relationships.

Long introduction to say that I was traveling between Monday and Wednesday. I was up in the Ngorongoro crater region in a ward called Nainokanoka where I was visiting the project site of a maternal and child health program  one of our partners is kicking off this month. Although I have met with the partner several times in the past in the nearby town of Karatu, I had not had a chance to go up into the Ngorongoro conservation area itself. One reason is that it is fairly expensive to enter as a non-citizen, about $70 per day. The crater itself is a huge tourist attraction, and now having been there I can see why.

love birds on Karatu motel

I left Arusha Monday morning after Swahili and drove up to Karatu a town just outside the conservation area. I stayed the night there at a place called the Karatu Motel, and met Laangakwa, the director of our partner NDI early the next morning. The hotel was OK, looked new, and I seemed to be the only one staying there. One thing I liked about it was all the love birds hanging out on the roof.

I rode in NDI's landrover into the Ngorongoro district, which was good because we drove over 200 km on very rough and sometimes muddy roads over the course of the day. The first part of the drive was spectacular. We climbed to the edge of Ngorongoro crater and drove around the east side, heading north. I have looked into a few craters in my life and thought I knew what I was going to see, but I was not prepared for the sublime vastness of this crater. It looks like it is 50-100 miles across. The amount of terrain one can take in from the lip of the crater is staggering.

Maasi women at Bulati village market

The only people who inhabit the Ngogongoro crater conservation area are Maasai. They are the only ones allowed to live in here, and they have to agree not to have any permanent dwellings or do any farming. (They live on the outside of the crater itself.) They receive food supplements from the government and get milk and meat from their cows and goats. Our program is meant to help 3 Maasai villages in the ward improve their maternal and child health outcomes. The purpose of the visit was orientation to the 3 villages where the project would be based. I especially wanted to see the 2 dispensaries and health center that were located in the villages. (One of our program activities is to help prevent stock-out of ante-natal vitamin supplements such as folic acid, iron, and vitamin A, so I was curious to see what kind of supply was kept on site at the clinics.)

Frederica, a midwife at Kerpusi dispensary

Over the course of the day, we visited all 3 villages. I was encouraged to see that all 3 clinics offered antenatal care services, although I found one of them had no vitamin supplements in stock. The nurse midwives at the dispensaries and the doctor at the health center were all very interested in the project and were happy to share information on challenges they face in providing antenatal and delivery services. They did say that women often do come to antenatal care visits but most will not come in for a delivery. (Our project supports neighborhood care groups that encourage women to have facility-asisted deliveries). They also told me that women do not normally exclusively breastfeed for 6 months. From what I learned, I felt encouraged about the objectives of our program.

pharmacy at health center

I was also impressed to see, despite very minimal offerings, that there were some alternative technologies that greatly improved their capacity. 2 of the 3 facilities had solar powered refrigerators where vaccines were stored. (There is no electricity available through the grid in the ward.)

delivery room at Kerpusi dispensary

The delivery facilities were very minimal, although they all had oxytocin on site. I have a picture of one of the rooms--no specialized delivery bed, or any electronic monitoring equipment.

Besides visiting the facilities I was quite struck by the landscape of the place where these villages were located. It was not like anything I have ever seen, but might compare somewhat to Montana. The vastness of space was remarkable, but it was not flat open savannah, it was mountainous with pastureland in vast impressions 20 or more miles across, like someone had dropped a gigantic bowling ball in the region which had left concave valleys and raised jagged hills.

I did see some wild animals--baboon, zebra, ostrich, but most of the animals are in the crater. At the end of the visit to the villages we were deep in the ward and Laangakwa (NDI director) took me an extra 10km to see another crater called Embakaai. It was like nothing I have ever seen as well. Not as big as Ngorongoro, but filled with water! a giant lake, far below the ridge where we stood. I noticed that the water all around was trimmed in pink dots. Then I realized they were millions of flamingoes! I tried to take a few pictures to capture this, The second picture is a close up of the bottom right corner of the first picture.

flamingoes, close up of lower right of previous photo

It was a perfect end to a great day. From there we drove the 100km back to Karatu where Laangakwa left me for the night. I went back the next morning to Arusha, in time for Swahili. Admittedly driving off at 6:00am made the rest of the day at work seem quite long.

Since I got back on Wednesday, Rebecca, the kids, and I went to our Christmas choir practice. We have been enjoying being part of this the past few weeks, rehearsing about an hour and a half once per week for special music at Christmas. The choir director is a very nice woman who doubles as a surgeon. (Actually that is her real job.) We had just started rehearsing when she got a text saying there had been a small plane crash that killed 11 people. Two of the choir members turned white with fear and immediately got on their phones because they had loved ones flying at that moment.

We were relieved to hear that no one connected with the choir had been on that plane (Coastal Air), which was traveling from Arusha to the small airfield in the Serengetti. It sounded like a tourist flight.

The next day Rebecca and I went to the pool to find one of the old women who works as a cleaner there weeping (We often chat with her when we see her in the morning). She had lost 3 family members on the flight. Then the man who usually swims in the pool with us who drove for the safari company said he knew 3 people who were lost. When we left the pool and got to the office, our Swahili teacher cancelled our lesson because he was going to the funeral of one of the victims-- a friend and classmate of his.

As it turned out, 7 of the people on the flight were Tanzanians who worked as staff at some of the Serengetti hotels and were returning form Arusha (There were 2 Germans and 2 Americans on the flight as well). I also learned the following day, from news reports, that the plane had crashed in Ngorongoro region into a mountain at Embakaai because it was flying low.

It was very sad and sobering to think that only hours after I had stood looking at that staggering beautiful and sublime venue, it had become the scene of such tragedy for several friends and acquaintances we have come to know and care for here.

Trimming our Wicks and Replenishing our Oil

Cordon Bleu Rebecca and I saw on a walk

This short rainy season is heavy. Some days it is overcast most of the day and it can rain for several days without ceasing it seems. This rainy season is not like the short afternoon showers I remember in Burundi. But I have been pleasantly surprised, as the rain has washed away the curtain of haze that seemed to hang in the air since our arrival, that we have a view of Mt. Kilimanjaro from our house. Not from our window, but when I climb to the top of our water tower, it stands majestically to the east of Mt. Meru, which looms much larger in the foreground and frames the background of most of our views in in Arusha.

As a side note, our water tower stands about 40 feet tall (since we have a 2 story house) and is quite a substantial structure. Not a light metal framework, but more of a large square minaret made of brick and mortar. There is a metal ladder on one side and a guard rail around the top. It rises just above the canopy of trees around our compound and it feels like you are popping up over the Amazon rain forest. The view is quite spectacular now that the air is clearer.

Mt Meru behind Gymkhana golf course

This week had a more-or-less normal routine except Monday when the kids were not in school because it was parent-teacher conference day. We started out at work and brought the kids to our Swahili lesson in the morning. We were hoping they might try to join in,  since they are both taking Swahili classes in school, but they were not interested in trying. Sadly, Oren seems to be at a disadvantage, because Swahili is offered based on one’s grade level. Thus, David is getting an intro course in Year 4 but Oren has to be in a more advanced class in Year 8. Consequently, he is learning very little and has been given a book to ‘self-teach’ by his teacher.

I feel of two minds about my own progress in Swahili. On the one hand we seem to be learning the rules of the language in leaps and bounds and I can construct complex sentences to say things like: "When I arrive, we will go see the project together.” Nitakapofika tutakwendana pamoja kuona miradi. But when I listen to the radio, or read something, I am aware of just how little I comprehend because I can identify all the parts of speech, but do not know the vocabulary. Despite this, I do get some satisfaction comparing English, French and at least 2 Bantu languages which I know. One of the things we take for granted in English is how broadly we use the concept of ‘being’. In English you can ‘be’ at a place, you can ‘be’ a state of mind, you can even ‘be’ an age. In Bantu languages, the word for being in a location is not the same as ‘being’ happy, for instance. In fact being in a location has several words depending on whether it is particular place or a general place. It's fascinating how much language reveals worldview.

The most challenging aspect of Bantu languages though is the concept of noun classes, of which there at least 12 in Swahili, I would compare them to masculine and feminine nouns in French (2 classes) with which all adjectives have to agree in a sentence. Only imagine having 10 more classes all with different agreements for adjectives, direct objects, pronouns, etc. (If I could try to give a hypothetical example in English imagine a sentence like: The chi-two chi-red chickens chi-are chi-mine.) It is not that simple because it is not really the first letters of the noun that make the agreement, but you get the idea. I won’t even get started on the fact that suffixes in English that tell us number or verb tense are always prefixes in Swahili.

Back to the report—After Swahili, Rebecca took the kids to the meetings with their teachers and gave me a full report. Essentially both boys are doing well in school. For Oren, the exceptions are his foreign languages. He has to take Swahili and French. I admit I am extremely disappointed that he has seemed to retain none of the French he learned in 6 years of going to a Belgian school in Burundi. He makes up for it in math where he is currently getting an A+.

Flame-tree flower in bloom next to our house

During the rest of the week, we enjoyed our normal routine of dropping kids off at the bus then going swimming and to work. Generally we are settling in well into our projects and for me, a full week at the office without travel was a welcome change. (This week that we are starting, I am already off in Karatu, and Ngorongoro to see one of partner projects but will say more about that next week.) We went as a family again this Wednesday to choir practice. The kids are happy to let us enjoy our hour and a half for an Indian meal on the way home. It is actually a blessing since we would get back around 7pm and would not want to start a meal then. (Our day starts at 5:30 to get out of the house by 6:45am)

The weekend was pleasant with our family doing our Friday afternoon swim followed by kuku na chipsi (roast chicken and French fries), which is the basic fast-food of Arusha. Zoe, the MCC SALT volunteer was down in Arusha for the weekend and stayed at our house on Saturday and Sunday.

Rebecca giving the Benediction

Sunday was special because Rebecca preached at our church! She was also on the music team and it is great to see her involved in worship! She preached an excellent sermon on the passage about the 10 virgins who prepare their lamps for the arrival of the bridegroom to his house. Since the church follows a liturgical tradition, she was not given a choice about what to preach on, and she said she really appreciated being stretched to understand this parable. She did an amazingly good re-telling of a traditional marriage where a young groom goes to meet his future bride then spends a year preparing a home for her and brings her back to his home village for the wedding. I actually recorded it on my phone and I have put a link here if you would like to hear it. The quality is not bad. Definitely worth the 30 minutes to listen to it!! ( Rebecca Sermon Link 11-12-2017 )

(Shout out to North Baltimore Mennonite Church folk! Since the service here has a somewhat traditional feel, the ordained pastors usually preach in their robes. Rebecca, as you can see, is wearing the stole she was given by NBMC at her ordination. She looked very reverent—and was introduced as the Reverend Rebecca Mosley:-)

We had lunch after church with Zoe and two young German women who were volunteering for a year at the Mennonite Church in Arusha. (Rebecca wanted to find out more about their program.) It was a pleasant afternoon. The evening was spent doing homework and Oren and I played an epic game of chess. Sadly he ended the evening with a bout of diarrhea which is keeping him out of school today.

Rebecca Sermon Link 11-12-2017

Sweet routines; sudden tragedy.

tricks

Rebecca taking a turn at blogging this week:

About 2 weeks ago, we began a new innovation in our family routine. Having looked at all the options, we decided to engage the private school bus company that takes many kids to St. Constantine’s school. When we tried this option early in our time, the kids had to leave home at 6:10 am to get on the bus (we were the end of the line) and didn’t get home until after 5 pm. This time, we arranged to meet the bus at our office at 7 am. In this way, we leave home as a family at the same time in the morning (6:45) and then the kids are dropped off to us at the office at 4:15. 

This new arrangement is revolutionary. We still have some drive time together (with audiobooks!) It saves us/me at least 2 hours of driving time each day. And Paul and I are able to start our morning swim at least 30 minutes sooner, and then get to the office earlier. It allows me to put in long, concentrated days of work, so that I don’t have to leave early to pick up kids. Finally, we can all leave work together at the end of the day, rather than Paul getting home much later than us, using public transit.

We wanted to try out this possibility in order to see if it would make our house situation feel more sustainable – since we live so far from the kids’ school. So far, it is really helping us to feel much more positive about the house and the compound where we live. We continue to enjoy some family time around the communal trampoline on most evenings (when it’s not too wet!)

treats

We’ve been able to join the Joshua Foundation community for a few more events as well – an ice cream social farewell for one gentleman, and the biweekly team potluck dinner on Thursday nights.  We are getting to know our neighbors better and having good conversations with them more often as we know what to talk about. Most of them are teachers at the Joshua School, but a few are part of the community outreach team. Oren in particular enjoyed talking with the Ugandan pastor, Simon, who heads up that team. He’s a really nice guy, and I’m glad Oren is finding another good adult to talk with.

On Tuesday evening, I was anticipating a normal evening at home, but David asked me, late in the afternoon, “what shall I use to collect candy? I don’t have my pumpkin. Maybe my pillow case?” I realized that he did NOT realize that there IS NO Halloween here. No neighbors would be waiting with candy for him. We had a period of the kids grieving this move again bitterly, as they mentally considered how many pounds of candy each we were asking them to give up by being in Tanzania. Finally, I scrounged up a selection of treats I had brought and saved for special occasions. We told the kids to get together some costumes. Then Paul and I went upstairs and hid behind all 7 doors in succession, handing out candy or scaring the kids. The candy they received could not compare with the haul they would have gotten in Pine Valley, but at least It was a token.

Snake eyes! (playing Monopoly)

We have been trying to think of ways to get more involved in our local church, and last weekend, we heard about the Christmas choir needing singers. So on Wednesday, we decided to try to go to the choir practice after work as a family. We were expecting protests from the kids, but actually, they were quite amenable to this. Oren stayed outside and did his own thing. David actually agreed to sing soprano along with me, and it was such a sweet time! He stood right beside me, often holding my hand, and doing his best to read the music and follow the parts. He lasted for an hour and then I sent him outside to catch lizards for a bit. We had sweetened this deal with the promise of Indian dinner afterwards, and the kids were so excited to return to get some chicken tikka masala at the Impala hotel. They both kept exclaiming about how delicious the food was, and we had really nice conversation together.

The week was overshadowed by very tragic events at the kids’ school, however. A 16-year old student named Nolan collapsed on the school field at the end of last week. The school informed us that he had been rushed to the hospital and then evacuated to Nairobi for brain surgery. Sadly, he had suffered a cerebral aneurism from a pre-existing condition and was in a coma; the damage to his brain was irreversible and total. He died Monday night. On Tuesday, the secondary school students were informed about Nolan’s death and then given a free hour to pray and process, either in the chapel or in their tutor group rooms. On Thursday, the school held a huge memorial service for Nolan – he was apparently a star student, a prefect, played on the football team, and was loved by all. And on Friday, school was closed so that students were free to attend the massive funeral at the Anglican cathedral (where MCC rents office space). Throughout the week, the school did an outstanding job of communicating with parents about what was going on, and letting us know about counselors being available, etc. Oren came home on Tuesday, saying that nothing like this had ever happened at the school, but in his opinion, the school had done an amazing job of helping kids cope with their emotions and find some sense of calm. Oren had never met Nolan, so he didn’t feel the need to go to the funeral, but he was very impressed by the way this young man had lived his life and also how the school recognized the tragedy for the community. I don’t think a US public school would have had as much freedom to respond in such spiritual ways.

The kids and I did some things at home over the long weekend, including playing an epic 3-day Monopoly game. We ended our work week at the pool, where we got in to swim just as a gully washer swept through. It was still very fun times! 

I also was able to join 6 other women from my ladies’ Bible study for an overnight retreat at a local safari lodge. I’m grateful for the time to get to know them better, and for more intimate worship and prayer together. Also, for the time to just be with other ladies for good conversation, not worrying about the kids. 

Paul drove me up to the hotel and then took the boys on their maiden voyage to our local movie theater. They were actually able to watch Thor Ragnarok in 3D! Arusha certainly offers more options in entertainment than we had imagined.

Paul finishing:
We went and picked up Rebecca after church on Sunday afternoon, then went to a semi-monthly fellowship of some ex-pats who live on the far side of town. I had gone to church early with the kids for a Sunday School meeting where I committed Rebecca and I to help organize a children's Christmas program on Dec. 17th. In the activities this week I feel we are very intentionally finding a niche in some communities here, particularly at the church.