Cancelled Plans, A Special Birthday, and a Visitor

Produce from the market

'Torrential downpour' is rapidly becoming the most common expression in my daily lexicon. While I know this is the rainy season, I did not realize the extent to which everything we do is defined by it during the 4 months between March and June. Rain and mud. It has already taken its toll in the first 2 weeks of this month at MCC, forcing us to cancel 2 trips. (We had planned to visit partners in Dodoma and  later, several places in Serengeti region.)

The Dodoma trip cancellation was particularly unfortunate because the rain was not a factor on the roads per se. But on the weekend before we left, the Area Reps. (who have been in town last week to see our projects) were out on a hike. Laura slipt on some rocks because of mud and broke her wrist. She had to have it surgically set at KCMC in Moshe. We cancelled our trip with them that week and they headed home after some recuperation. Sadly, upon being X-rayed in Kenya, it was determined she would have to have it surgically redone because it was not set properly in Tanzania. (Another cautionary tale about the medical system here.) I have heard that the second time went well and she is recuperating nicely.

The second trip was one we were planning to leave for next week, but given the amount of rain we contacted our partners in the Serengeti region which has virtually no paved roads and asked about our chances of getting around without major delay. They told us the roads were very bad, and we have decided to reschedule for some time in the dry season.

The rain and the tilt of the earth are making it feel cooler here, and apparently temperatures will continue to drop through July. Swimming is already getting quite cold even though we are more acclimatized. It is often raining when we go and last week I swam in one such torrential downpour that made it even hard to tell if I had tilted my head out of the water to breathe or not.

The kids have been on their two and a half week term break and Rebecca and I cannot wait for them to go back to school. She has been doing most of the childcare during the day, although I took a turn on Monday this past week so she could do some work.

We have also had some exciting adventures worth chronicling as well, so I am handing the computer over to Rebecca to tell about a special Birthday and the arrival of a visitor.

This is Rebecca:  

We have probably mentioned that we have a woman who comes to clean our house twice a week. She is a very cheerful and sweet person, as well as a very efficient worker, who doesn’t need a lot of direction. And that’s good, because most of the time, she comes and goes while we are at work, and so we don’t see each other that much.

She has long wanted to invite us to come to her house, but I must confess, we didn’t immediately snap up the opportunity. I guess after six years in Burundi, we found that we were reticent to jump into patronage relationships too quickly. If you’ve lived in Africa, you probably know what I’m talking about. This time around, I wanted to build the relationship more slowly, make sure we were staying in this neighborhood, keeping her on as an employee, etc. In any case, we have really grown to appreciate Nai, and always breathe a sigh of relief on Mondays and Fridays when we come home to a clean, orderly, spotless home. I enjoy sharing conversation in Swahili with her on the few days when we have some overlap. She has a very positive attitude towards life and I’m grateful for how she helps us.

In any case, a few weeks ago, she invited us to come help celebrate her oldest daughter’s 8^th birthday at her home. It was a great arrangement for us since it fell on a weekday evening during our school break. Nai asked if I would bring a cake, since she doesn’t have an oven in which to bake one. So, on Wednesday, David and I baked a layer cake out of Betty Crocker. Oren helped with sugar cookies. And on Thursday, Oren helped me to decorate my very first pink birthday cake (being a boy mamma), with pink icing and pastel colored Mentos. In fact, David had been invited to a schoolmate’s party for the early afternoon, so he and Paul met us at Nai’s house separately after work.

Nai’s husband, Abraham, is a gardener on the base where we live, so he met us at our house and we drove all through the compound, across the private bridge, up the hill, through a gate, along the dirt road past the Joshua Foundation school and then along another dirt road about 1.5 km. We arrived at their house at the most glorious hour of the early evening, and they were very happy to show us around. Nai and Abraham built their house together after they got married and they have taken a lot of initiative to make it a nice place. They have two large rainwater collection tanks, as well as a tank in the ground – very wise for dry season. They are raising chickens and rabbits to sell and have a variety of fruit trees in their yard. They tend maize fields just outside their compound. Their house is built of cinder blocks and pretty big for a village house, with a good strong tin roof – they are just saving up to put in ceiling boards. Their three kids (8, 5 and 2) were happy to run around with the neighbor kids and David, looking at everything and poking the rabbits.

These kinds of cross-cultural visits are much more challenging for our older son, but he has become more mature and polite about it, and just quietly sits and observes and tries not to be too awkward. Nai cooked some very delicious pilau (rice cooked with meat and spices) and a meat stew. Then we sang for Lidya and shared cake and sugar cookies. Everyone seemed to really enjoy having special sweets, and Lidya was happy about receiving some gifts.

Later we took a little stroll through this village area in the perfect late afternoon light. First, we went to visit the neighbor cow, belonging to Mama Jackie, who supplies our fresh milk (we only met Mama Jackie later on our return journey, a widow and mother of four, who is doing her best to make ends meet). The sun was gleaming across the river on the hillside, Mt. Meru was perfectly clear and glorious, and we couldn’t stop walking. It has been raining torrentially and often, and so a clear afternoon was a real treat. So we visited another neighboring farm, and accidently met the owners, a much more well-off family, investing in roaster chickens and lots of other kitchen garden stuff. They also have cows who produce 10L of milk per milking, but I feel better supporting Mama Jackie.

We headed back to Nai’s house and the cars as the sun was setting, and Oren was saying, “Come on, mom! We need to go!” But, being relational has its own sense of timing, and it was almost dark as we got in the cars. We drove back the way we had come…and found the gate to the Joshua foundation locked.

Now, this was a problem because we had come across the river on the private bridge. And we weren’t sure where the next bridge was. I knew there was a nearby bridge suitable for motorcycles, but not for cars. Google maps pointed us down the road farther, assuring us we would be home in 6 minutes. We drove on and looked down the narrow, dark slope heading to the river – with no car tire tracks marking it. I sent Oren down to do reconnaissance (and to get his complaining voice, saying “I told you so!!!” out of my ears), and meanwhile I asked some passing children about the way forward. They told me, “well, there’s a way, but you’ll never find it without someone showing you!” And just at that moment a man came strolling up, learned of our problem and said, “Let me show you.”

So he got in the car and we drove another 20 minutes through very muddy slippery roads, across the muddy foundation of the new East Africa highway that’s being built near us, down and around, fishtailing here and there. And finally, FINALLY, he led us back out to the tarmac main road that we knew. And then we drove him all the way back down the other side of the river to nearer our neighborhood. As he got out of the car, Oren said, “That was a really nice man.” And I replied, “He was more like an angel helping us out of a really tough spot!” (and I had told the man as much in Swahili when he left us). We were back home five minutes later and as we entered our house, I had to confess to Paul, “I enjoyed EVERY MINUTE of that experience!!” That was an afternoon of really living in Tanzania.

On Friday, the boys and I had our first dental visit in Arusha with Dr. Tanya, who is apparently trained in Macedonia. She seems very good to me and has good equipment. She talked quite a lot about how she needs to treat teeth differently in this context because of the problems of excess fluoride. In fact, the water that comes out of our resident volcanic mountain, Mt. Meru, contains extremely high levels of fluoride. Even the fruits and vegetables that are grown here contain a lot of fluoride, so filtering one’s drinking water is not the only solution. In the US, we often add fluoride to our water to help prevent cavitites. But here, there is a public health problem called fluorosis. Many people who grow up in the Arusha area have badly stained teeth, and children often experience stunting, when they are exposed to too much fluoride at a young age. Our kids are old enough that it shouldn’t be a problem, and most of our drinking water is rainwater, harvested from our roof. But we won’t be putting any sealants on their teeth.

Later in the afternoon, we joined a group of expat families at TGT, a club on the other end of town. It was the first time we had ever visited the place, which has a pool, exercise facilities, restaurant, playground, a series of big fields where people gather to play soccer and rugby on Friday evenings. It was another lovely evening free of rain, and our purpose for gathering was to help welcome the Cameron family who have just arrived in Arusha. They will be working to restart Young Life clubs in the international schools (and here is more about the teen ministry of Young Life). Our kids are younger than the ones they will be intentionally reaching out to, but we still want to be part of supporting their new life and ministry here.

We didn’t stay for dinner with others there, because we needed to be home to welcome a special guest later that evening. Julie, my cousin Colette’s daughter, is nearly finished with Med School in New York City and had a few months free before graduation. She decided that she would like to broaden her experience of medicine and the world and come to visit us. She found an opportunity to observe/volunteer at a local hospital in Arusha and will just be living life alongside us for the next two weeks. It’s been very fun to have her here and to get to know her better as an adult (in the past, we just spent time with her at big family gatherings where there wasn’t as much time to really talk and get to know one another).

On her first afternoon, I decided to take Julie to the central market area of town. We worked on getting some extra keys cut for her and then headed into the market proper to see the sights. It’s always wonderful and intimidating to walk between rows of beautiful fresh avocados and bananas, on into the wonderful aromas of cardamom and pepper in the spice aisles, past grain sacks full of tiny dried fish (which don’t smell quite as appetizing) and back into the area of stalls selling household goods. We were able to find string for a Sunday school craft Paul wanted to do the next day. And then we found a smaller wooden spoon for kitchen use (the one we had was about 2 feet long, for making ugali). And finally we started shopping for produce. I was really happy with the beautiful broccoli and Chinese cabbage, as well as red peppers, carrots and other things.

In the process, a young teenager came up and was very assertively poking me and taking my bag to help me carry it and guide me around. I didn’t much appreciate the way in which he completely glommed on to us, but there was really nothing for it: you pretty much have to take on someone as your porter, so he was as good as the next kid. He led us further on in our search of tasty tiny bananas, mangoes, papaya and other fruit. I just said out loud, “Now, the last thing we need is tomatoes…” and some other kid was thrusting tomatoes into my face. It was quite funny! There were some less pretty moments as we headed out of the market. At one point, it looked like our teenage porter was about to bolt across the street with all our produce; in fact he was just running into traffic in order to look at a wedding procession passing by. When we got to the car, he started asking for a lot more money to pay for all the plastic bags he had (unnecessarily) added to hold my veggies. I gave him a tip 4 times what he had first asked for, but he was still not happy and was trying to block my way into the car. Anyway, we were able to leave eventually without a fight. So it was all the good and bad of the market: wonderful fresh produce to take home, a good workout for my Swahili, and complete mental exhaustion at the end! Julie really enjoyed the experience I think, and I will keep taking visitors there to have the experience with me. But I don’t think I’m quite ready to make it a weekly trip.

Another wonderful part of Julie’s visit has been the ways she has reminded us of family traditions we share. She brought along a couple of decks of cards and taught us how to play “Spite and Malice,” a game I now clearly remember playing with the Sack grandparents. I’m so glad to know the rules again now, and David can play it just as well as any of us at this point. Our kids are really enjoying have her around, and it’s also a blessing that she’s eager to help us cook, wash dishes and do other things around the house.

Bonus Photo:  This is something amazing that the rain did to a pile of constuction sand in the parking lot at church. If you read the entry last month about our trip to Iringa and the gigantic amazing natural pillars we saw, you'll appreciate this. These are miniature natural pillars formed in exactly the same way!! The rain washed away the sand under the small rocks and left little pillars. They are about 2-3 inches tall compared to the ones that were several hundred feet in Iringa, but the landscape of them looks the same!