Christmas Preparations with a Smattering of Swahili Wisdom

The beginning of the past week seems like a blur to me. I do know that the kids had a short school week because Friday was a National Holiday (Islamic). The work week was also largely uneventful as we are in the season between reporting periods and partners are busy implementing activities and not in frequent contact. I am excited about a new proposal that is being finalized to implement a child protection program in 18 Lutheran schools. The program will provide instruction to teachers on alternative forms of discipline instead of corporal punishment -- which is frequently used here, despite some attempt by the government to limit it. To a great extent, I believe teachers are simply practicing what they have learned from their own experience as students. Some of the stories we hear make it seem shockingly arbitrary.

The project will also implement safe school clubs (modeled after peace clubs) in schools for students to address issues of bullying and harassment. The club meetings will provide a space for students to discuss issues with each other and with a trained adult mentor. The third leg of program will facilitate meetings with administrators and parents' associations to develop and disseminate a written child protection policy.

The other somewhat interesting work day event happened Wednesday, when we helped to empty MCC's long-used storage container. If you have not lived overseas, it might be hard to imagine how ubiquitous these enormous shipping containers are. Once they are not seaworthy, they end up being used in any number of ways, including as houses, smalls dukas (shops) on the side of the road, storage units for farmers, etc. MCC has had one for a while, but we will need to empty and get rid of it, because the property it is parked on belongs to some missionaries who are leaving town.

Sharon our Country Rep. was out of town, but the rest of us at the office went over Wednesday morning, emptied the container, and stored the contents at our houses. Rebecca and I have a shipping container next to our house which is available to us, so some of the stuff went in there. The really great part of this was that the family that was leaving was also selling an almost new trampoline, and Rebecca and I bought it as well. We helped take it down, and took it to our house during the move. We have not set it up yet, and are thinking of doing that as a Christmas surprise for the kids.

The best Christmas surprise though will be the arrival of Rebecca's parents, David and Jean Sack, who are planning to be out here at Christmas and will also go on our short vacation with us to the beach! (That story will have to wait until it happens.)

Back to this week...Having Friday off meant that we could finally begin preparations for Christmas. It is a family tradition to begin setting up the tree the day after Thanksgiving. This year, we decided to wait until the weekend of first Advent. We are really into Advent and Rebecca usually makes an Advent wreath with 5 candles and (if possible) we buy chocolate-filled Advent calendars for the kids. We were able to get some of these this year, even in Tanzania! Lots more imported goods are available here, than were in Burundi.

Finding a nice Christmas tree was a bit harder but Rebecca did manage to get one during a shopping trip in town. It is not real, and really does not look very real, but we were happy to have it to decorate (Charlie Brown would be proud). We did have a friend bring out a Christmas suitcase filled with all of our Christmas stuff (Thanks, Rebecca H) and on Friday afternoon we decorated the tree, put up lights and other decorations including stockings and 4 creche sets. Rebecca also got the kids to make some paper cut-out wreaths that we hung on the door. Oren and David were both into decorating and it was a nice thing to do on our day off.

In the afternoon we met some friends at Gymkhana. I also brought our squash rackets and played with Oren and David. (It was their first time.) I used to love the game and the squash court is old but well maintained. Reminded me of childhood at the American club in Bangladesh. David and Oren both really enjoyed it as well.

We ended the day with a family game of "7 Wonders". It was the first time we ever played it as a family because we thought David would be too young. But he actually won it! (We also played Settlers the day before which is what you see in the photo.)

Saturday we got off to a slow start, but then did some adventurous visiting. We had met a family at our church and decided to go out to their place which was nearly an hour away. We were interested in connecting with them because they have 4 kids and one is Oren's age and one is David's. It was nice to visit them despite the somewhat treacherous driving conditions on unpaved roads. They are definitely a missionary family (which mainly means they get a lot less screen time than our kids.) But Oren seemed to hit it off with Harry and David had a blast on their trampoline with the 3 younger kids.

Sunday was church as usual and I was helping in Sunday School. After church we met a number of friends for lunch, followed by another social event-- Oren invited his classmate Abraham, and his younger brother Barack (yes, he was born in November 2008) to come over to make Christmas cookies.

It would have been fun for me to participate in the festivities after church as well, but it was at that moment that I realized I had lost the keys to the pick up and needed to leave early the next morning to Karatu for a training session. I searched for hours, then went to our office, where we have a box with spare keys. Sadly, the spare key box was locked. That key was locked in the desk of the office manager, and the keys to her desk were with her at home. All this happened in the two days while we are getting a new key system in place at the office.

Since I was bringing all the curricula and supplies to a training, I could not afford to be late. With plan A and plan B thwarted, I decided to get a taxi to drive me there, for $100. (I had way too much stuff for a daladala trip.)

When Rebecca got to work the next day she called me from Arusha to say the guard at our office had found the truck key in the parking lot. She also tole me that Lucia, our finance officer, shook her head and offered a bit of Swahili wisdom with the proverb: Kifu cha nyani, miti yote huteleza --- which could be translated: When death comes for the monkey, every tree is slippery.   I think it is about the inevitability of fate (or else it is about avoiding dead monkeys falling out of trees:-)