Year 2--Back into the Fray

Rebecca writing again:

No smiling faces at 6am breakfast for day 1 at school.

This morning, reality hit. Our alarms went off at 5 am. The school supplies had been assembled. Bags were packed the night before with water and a snack. School uniforms had been laid out in advance. We left the house at 6:45. Not everyone was happy about it. Some of the younger members of our family had been enjoying sleeping in until 7:30 up until yesterday. Thus, there is no “smiling, walking out the door on the first day of school” picture. Just to be sure things got off to a good start, we drove the kids to school this morning. And, as of today, we have completed the two months of school break and (in my mind) officially started the second year of our assignment with MCC.

mourners at Upendo's funeral

Let me step back to last week. The biggest event for the community where we live was the funeral for Upendo, which took place on Tuesday. All weekend, our neighbor’s house was packed with visitors, mostly outside on benches, keeping the young widowed father of 3 company. I went over late on Monday evening and sat for a while with an older aunt and several younger women. Some of them were just sitting silently and wearily. A few were teary. The aunt just seemed to want to chat about all kinds of things with me, and not just about Upendo’s death. I guess the point of such visits is being present with those who are grieving – it’s less about having something profound to say.

On Tuesday morning, a large group went to collect Upendo’s body and bring her back in procession from the morgue, as a way of honoring her. I was watching my kids and the young children of some other neighbors on the compound, as a way of enabling them to attend the funeral and grieve freely. Paul attended the funeral as the official representative from our family. He may have more to say about it here.

Rebecca and Godliving birdwatching

Wednesday happened to be a public holiday, and we made very good use of the day out as a family. Through our church choir, we have gotten to know a young Tanzanian man named Godliving Shoo. He is a member of a birdwatching club and offered to take us out on a birdwatching trip. So, we did something completely new and drove out to a nearby lake, less than 40 minutes away. Lake Duluti is fairly small at just 1 km across, but it’s a crater lake (the opening of a collapsed volcano) and is estimated to be 700 m deep! There’s a nice trail around the periphery of the lake, and one could probably complete it in an hour.

Black crowned night heron

We took almost four hours, however, because there were so many birds to look at along the way. Godliving and his fellow club member Lina were very skilled at spotting and identifying the birds we saw. I know a lot of the families of birds I see, from experience in Botswana and Burundi, but I am still learning to identify the different species here. I was also grateful for the patience of our guides as they would point out a bird and ask me what I thought I was seeing and help me sort through the options to come to the right identification. Godliving had one of those bird-call apps on his phone and a few times he played it loud enough to attract real birds of the same species so that we could see and identify them. It was a bit funny to see the puzzled looks on the faces of the Olive-gray greenbuls as they tried to understand who was calling!

We also saw some impressively large monitor lizards, both sunbathing and swimming. A pair of blue monkeys were hanging out in a tree as we passed. David enjoyed trying his hand at fishing for the first time in Arusha. He didn’t catch any fish, but did get a large crayfish that grabbed his bait and would not let go. Oren was a good sport through the walk and bird watching. He would probably have preferred to just hike at a steady pace, rather than stop and look at things, but he was relatively patient.

By the time we were finished with our outing, it was almost time for choir. We grabbed an ice cream for the kids and then went straight to church to practice our music for the upcoming Harvest Festival at the end of September. Again, the young guys weren’t so happy to go from one thing to the next, but they have learned how to entertain themselves around the church property.

On Thursday, Paul went to work as usual, while the kids and I drove out to my bible study group in the West part of town. I’m glad that David enjoys playing with the other little kids who come. He also had lots of fun collecting guavas from someone’s tree. Oren brought his book and curled up in a bedroom to read for a while. I enjoyed a more intimate time to catch up with some of the members of our bible study. One woman is expecting a baby any day now. We are praying fervently for a safe, healthy, complication free delivery for her. It was a poignant reminder of the realities of childbirth that most women in the world face, as we also prayed for Upendo’s bereaved family. The birth of a healthy new baby is a gift and grace, and not an entitlement – something we take for granted in the west.

On our way back towards home, I attempted to get a few new uniform pieces for my kids. Sadly, the uniform shop at school had still not received the new stock. So, our kids went to school in their old uniforms – a bit tight, worn and untidy, but at least they had something to wear. I noted that this afternoon, the new uniforms still hadn’t come in! 

On Friday after work, we enjoyed sharing conversation and dinner with our friend Prof. Wilfred Mlay. He has served as the ambassador of the Great Lakes Initiative for Reconciliation among Christian leaders. I’ve known him since 2010 and have really valued any time we get to share together. He’s officially retired from the GLI but still very busy with it and it was lovely to catch up on the news of what is planned for next January. He had never been to Gymkhana before, so I was glad we could show him our verdant little get-away.

Most of my Saturday was taken up with church activities – a worship committee meeting, and then rehearsal for leading worship music on Sunday. I guess I’m crazy for enjoying church committees, but I find it stimulating to think through how things can be done well and faithfully in the Christian community. The drawback of this activity was that Paul was left alone with the kids for most of the day. I think they wore him out, because he really wasn’t feeling well by late afternoon when I got home.

I’m also so grateful for the young adults who have been willing to join me each time in being part of an ad hoc worship team. In the end, on Sunday, two women joined as singers and two young men played guitar and drums. It was a family service, and we’d picked songs the children had learned in Sunday school. Paul even led motions for the whole congregation on two songs. We had fun!

The one snag in our Sunday was that Oren also started feeling very unwell. It is still unclear to us whether he is sick with a parasite, or whether the start-up of school is taking its toll on his nerves. We would appreciate prayers for the anxiety he feels in starting this school year.

Bonus Photo:  Oren painting 'Foxy' on his wall to give make his room more his own.

Grounding and grief

Nasturtiums, cilantro and german flowers

Rebecca writing this week: We have been back in Arusha for a week now. Since we arrived in a state of complete exhaustion, jet lag was not such a big problem for us, although there was one night when Oren woke up around 4 am and couldn't get himself back to sleep. If it's only one night, that's not so bad, I guess. I was glad to see that my flowers in pots actually grew while we were away, and the gardener had done a good job helping a nice crop of beetroot to thrive. 


Paul immediately went back to work on Monday morning, after taking his freezing cold swim. He had a lot of reports to receive and read over, and didn't waste any time getting through them all by Wednesday. I needed to greet our housekeeper Nai and make sure things were OK with her on Monday morning. So I worked from home on Monday morning, and tried to keep the kids going on unpacking and cleaning their rooms in the meantime. It was a real joy to talk on the phone with one of our International Volunteer Exchange Program participants, right before he got on the plane to head to an assignment in Goshen, Indiana. Our second participant is still waiting for her visa to come through from Canada. It's a real nail-biter in her case.

Nai outside our house

In the early afternoon, I dropped the kids off at the Alliance Francaise, where I signed them up for French tutoring three afternoons a week. The kids were not very pleased to hear about this strategy for me to get some more work hours in the office and for them to get ready for school. However, we promised them a movie and slushie at the end of the week if they cooperated. And Oren really needs a little extra help. Despite having learned to read and write in French, back at the Belgian school in Burundi, he was able to completely forget everything he ever knew. It was the most difficult subject for him last year (not counting Kiswahili) and he will need to continue with it in Year 9. We are hoping that 12 hours of study and conversation wtih a real Swiss Francophone in these two weeks might begin to unlock the deeply buried knowlege that we trust is somehow still inside his brain... and at least make his life a little easier for the year to come.

Mt Meru from Gymkhana golf course Tuesday evening

I don't generally work on Tuesdays, and so the kids and I were able to have a more relaxed day. We started a game of Monopoly which we have yet to finish. Oren began work on a big artistic project which will involve transforming his room and making it more homelike for him. It was a truly glorious day, in terms of weather, maybe a bit like a crisp clear fall day on the East Coast, and so we took a few walks around the compound. David has really enjoyed reconnecting with our young neighbor Josiah and they've spent quite a bit of time playing around outside. In the late afternoon, we met Paul at Gymkhana and enjoyed some exercise there: David jumped in the pool (crazy kid!) and Oren and I used the treadmills. I was so proud of Oren for running a 5k voluntarily!

women's bible study

On my other non-office day, I took the kids along with me to Bible study. David was really happy to play with a few other kids who hadn't yet started school. It was really good to catch up with the other women after 6 weeks. Sadly, we were saying goodbye to yet another longtime member of the group. At this point I think there are only 3 people who are part of the group who have been in Arusha more than a year. This is a very transitory community! On the way home, we picked up three of Oren's school friends. They had a really great time reconnecting, talking a lot about video games, and just enjoying being guys together.

baptismal pool from our balcony

Alan and Simon baptize Adam

There were a few other fun things that happened on the compound this week, apart from the really refreshing walks that Paul and I (and sometimes the kids) have been taking every evening. On Thursday afternoon our little swimming pool was cleaned and filled with water for the first time, for the purpose of baptizing two people on the Joshua Foundation team. One young man was from the US and really felt the call to be baptized as an adult believer (he had been baptized as an infant). The other person was a team member from the local community. As renters, we are not quite on the team, but it was really nice to observe the baptism and celebrate with them.  After that, we all enjoyed a big potluck team dinner together and again, it was good to catch up with our neighbors. 

Playing cards at George's after church

In other news, we enjoyed our typical Friday evening at Gymkhana. We even all got into the pool. I was really happy to try out my new wetsuit and to find that it is just as wonderful as Paul promised! It's warm and bouyant! I hope I'll be able to swim laps again soon, as soon as the kids are back in school. On Saturday evening we invited another new family to come share dinner with us. They are starting a Young Life ministry here for third culture kids at the International Schools in town. I've been getting to know the woman, Mary Beth, in bible study, but it was great to spend time talking with both of them. Our kids enjoyed being with their little girls, too. Today, we enjoyed church again, and then a nice lunch at George's with former MCC friends here in town, Neil, Christy and her brother Dan. 

All of these good and grounding events have been taking place during a week of great sadness. On Wednesday, I learned that one of the women who cleans our office block had lost her husband. He was a young man, who happened to have a motorcycle accident. His injuries didn't seem that severe, so he didn't go to the hospital until two weeks later. By that time, he had developed some sort of serious complications and he died within two days. I have known far too many people already this year who have been killed or seriously injured after a boda-boda accident.

Even more shocking was the news we received on Friday at noon. The week before we returned, our neighbor Upendo had given birth by c-section to their third child. She worked as an accountant and her husband Archbold is the principal of the teacher training college here at Joshua Foundation. We would often talk with him early in our stay here, as he brough his 4 & 5 year old kids to play on the trampoline on the base. And then Friday morning, about 10 days after delivering, Upendo suddenly didn't feel well. Her husband got her into the car and they were on their way to the hospital but she died on the way. No one really knows the cause, but it was almost certainly a complication related to the c-section. I had to break the news to Nai, and she was absolutely devastated, along with all the other staff here on base who had known and loved Upendo. She and another housekeeper usually share lunch outside, but that day they shared only tears. 

Since Friday afternoon, there has been a steady stream of friends and relatives walking past our house and going to sit and spend time with Archbold and the extended family. Paul and I went over yesterday to pay our respects, and I think there were at least a hundred people there, just sitting and grieving together with the family. Sometimes we have been hearing wailing. Other times, fervent and loud prayers are drifting over the hedges. We didn't know Upendo well personally, and so I guess it's a wierd feeling to be immersed in so much communal grief without a deep personal connection. But it is just so horrible to think of Archbold now needing to raise 3 little kids (including a newborn) on his own. And it makes me very angry to know of yet another needless death, due to an inadequate medical system. 

Since coming back, Oren has asked several times: Mommy, why do we always have to go live in a developing country? I've tried the bigger picture: because development is the kind of work we do. The problems are big and complex here, and it's good to try to think through with our kids all the layers of development that need attention. Oren and I had a long talk about how if you need better education, you need better-trained teachers, and better salaries and resources to attract more qualified personnel. Classrooms size should be 30 not 200, which also means limiting family size, which requires changes in cultural expectations and behavior.  But maybe it's better to be more specific: we're here to help prevent the kind of suffering Upendo's family is going through now, if there is any small way we can do that. 

Vacation's End: Reflections on a High School Reunion and Charter Hall

David fishing at Charter Hall.

It's about 11pm here in Arusha. We have been back for a bit less than 24 hours and I want to get a blog posted before starting back to work tomorrow morning. A whole new set of activities will start then--more the feel of another beginning, and I want to savor the events of the final 2 weeks of our time in the US. I could say vacation, but returning home for an annual visit does not have the contours of a vacation. Often, a home leave after any amount of time away involves much relationship maintenance and rebuilding. Catching up with friends and family can be both physically and emotionally exhausting, yet the work put in, like cultivating a good vineyard, yields fruit over time for many years, and generations to come.

I don't think I can sum up all of the individual reunions we had. The time however, divided itself into four fairly even segments. As I mentioned in the last post, we spent the first week and Rebecca's parents' house and had time with my brother's family who came up and saw us from Nashville. The second week, we housesat for Rebecca's brother who lives in our old neighborhood and we had many opportunities to catch up with our 'homies'.

 The third week was a special treat as I had made plans for Rebecca and I to go to North Carolina for my highschool reunion. This was to be a trip for the two of us to Black Mountain and we were looking forward to having a little time together without the kids. Our parents very generously agreed to watch them for four days. Most of the time they were with Rebecca's parents, but twice they took turns visiting my parents and apparently had a blast and helped out with many chores and activities including, mowing lawns, making melon balls and jam, and picking apples and tomatoes.  We drove down in my dad's Honda fit. It would be about a 7 hour drive but we added a stop at a town near Winston-Salem to see my brother Mark's family. We got there in the late afternoon and saw Mark, Christine, and their daughter Grace. It was good to catch up with them albeit briefly. They made us beef brisket which
kicked off a long string of tasty Southern dishes that we partook in during our visit.

We headed on to Black Mountain in the evening and got there by 10pm. The reunion spanned 5 days at this very cool old YMCA resort. I will not forget walking into the lounge that connected most of the rooms and seeing over dozen older but familiar faces sitting around chatting. (No one had gone to bed.)

It might be a good time to answer the question of why a high school reunion would go beyond a single afternoon or evening. Or why people would come quite literally from all over the world to be at their 40th reunion. The answer is that I graduated from a school called Woodstock, located in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains in a town called Mussoorie in Northern India. It was a mission boarding school that is now a well known International school. My classmates were an amazingly eclectic group of people from all over the world. I think 50 of us represented about 20 different countries. We were diverse in terms of social classes as well, missionary kids, diplomatic and military kids, kids of oil company execs, many children of Indian businessmen, pilots, doctors, statesmen. And kids of every faith-- Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim. We all lived together, and I believe that the time spent living together in this remote place without our familes, built us into a cohesive community. We were all family to each other, and going to this reunion, the fourth one I have attended, felt like coming back to see one's favorite childhood cousins. We don't keep up much beyond Facebook but when we are together, it is a special time.

We usually have reunions in India on the 5 year marks and in the US on the 10 year marks to accomodate as many as possible. I can only describe the time together as deeply renewing. One of the really fun things was cooking together. One of the alums from the class below us, James Hackney, offered to coordinate all meals and be head chef if we would be prep cooks and cleaners. It was fun to work together and James made some amazing meals including one of the best Indian meals I have had in the US, as well as a North Carolina barbecue, smoked for about 10 hours that was to die for.

Other activities we did included a hike--since hiking in the Himalayas was our 'screen time' at Woodstock. (That was the main activity we did when we were not in school.)  We found, however, that we were not as young as we used to be and ascending 2000 feet in two miles was far easier than going down, and many of us were staggering down with very sore knees. But we did have a great time doing it.

The best part were the 2nd and 3rd evenings (over the weekend) when most everyone was there. There were about 20 of us of our class of 50, and on thos nights we sat around a campfire and shared one-by-one what we have been doing, our successes, failures. It is probably anathema to most people to imagine going back to your graduating class to be completely vulnerable and share your heart. But with this group it was possible. I cannot describe what a moving and renewing experience it was.

I made one observation about our 40th reunion during my talk. It was that the past 2 I had attended, 20 and 25, we were all still looking at the arc of our lives and seeing that we were still on the side of it that was rising. (I used an image of us as arrows shot from bows in 1978.) Now at 40, we seem to have generally crested. The top of the arc is somewhere behind us. And that does not mean we are at the end of our life, but I think part of the capacity to be vulnerable comes from the fact that we are not in the phase of 'striving'. We are mature and able to 'take stock' as it were, of what is good, and what is not, and talk about it. In my own time of sharing I compared my life to a very ambitious hike a group of us did in our senior year to the source of the Jumna river, and then tried to summit a peak called 'Bundarpunch', which is 20,700 feet. It was on a glacier and we tried 3 times to climb it with only 1 pick ax between about 6 of us. It was crazy and we never made it, but we did get to around 18,000 feet on a glacier. In my life I feel like I have always been a striver. I generally have the perseverence to aim high--to summit, albeit ill-prepared and somewhat naively--a high peak. I had the courage to try again and again despite several failures, and like our ascent to Bundarpunch, I never made it to the top. But I do not regret the exhileration I feel from having stood at 18,000 feet.

My life continues to feel like an adventure and that climbing experience at Woodstock was a good metaphor for it. It was good to be in the company of some of those who were with me on that trip-- Mits, Mark Liechty, Stuart Gelzer, and remember it as well. It was also good to hear about the successes and challenges of classmates. Many have accomplished impressive things in their careers, several teachers, artists, engineers, academics, diplomats, policy makers, faith leaders, authors, nurses, health professionals at NIH and CDC, corporate executives, a radio personality, one even ended up in Hollywood--all of them shaped by their experience of being third culture kids. That is probably another thing that gives us such a feeling of family.

Rebecca even felt included in that group for that reason.  She has known some of them from past reunions, but also shares the experience of growing up out of one's own culture. Rebecca and I did have some time to do some hiking and swimming together without the group. I also was happy that my brother Mark came down for one afternoon as he was a graduate of the class of 1980 and knew most everyone there.

I left feeling very joyful, like I had had a faith renewal. And it was that although I don't think I can fully explain why. Perhaps because it is good to laugh and cry with people who you love and have not seen for a very long time. I look forward to going back to Woodstock for number 45 in 2023.

Rebecca and I retuned home on Monday of our third week and had to do a number of doctors appointments and other errands. It was busy. We also spent some time with our parents again going between homes for different meals including a Maryland crab feast! Dave and Jean joined us one evening at my parents retirement home and we had a great time with the kids playing bocce ball. There is a very nice court and we played for a few hours. It was good to this with both sides of our family. The children also did some outings with Rebecca while I attended a conference in DC one day. They went to the Baltimore zoo which is another old haunt we used to enjoy. I don't know if seeing the safari animals they see in the wild here was as satisfying this time around though.

On the following Sunday, our last in Baltimore, I did a presentation of the MCC program in Tanzania, then Rebecca preached a sermon. It was a very poignant message, I believe, that captured the challenge of what identity in Christ means in our country at this cultural moment, when identity itself has become somewhat of an obsession. She treated the subject thoughtfully and gently using a text from James 1. I am attaching a link to the sermon below if you are interested in hearing it. It will also be available in higher fidelity from the North Baltimore Mennonite Church website.

The last week, we returned to Charter Hall. I don't know if I can do this place poetic justice because I have described it in so many past blogs and cannot muster the metaphors at this late hour. But it is a retreat center on an estuary of the Chesapeake Bay of which Rebecca's parents are part owners. It has been a part of her childhood, a part of our whole married life, and the entire life of our children. It has a dock house and a lodge. We usually stay in the former and enjoy the simple pleasures like canoeing, kayaking, fishing, swimming, watching wildlife-- bald eagles and otters this year. To our children it is magical and one of the few things for which they will happily give up days of screen time.

We went up on Sunday afternoon with Rebecca's parents and stayed the night. On Monday we hosted my parents and some very old family friends (Louise, and Charlene) along with Rebecca's folks. It was good to spend time with them and remember our youth (since Rebecca and I grew up in the same circle of friends.) David spent every moment divising ways to catch minnows which he then used to catch bigger fish. Oren was content to be indoors more and we played, off and on, a 3 day game of Axis and Allies-- a WWII game that is quite involved. Each round of turns can take an hour. (I'm happy to say that the Allies did win that game.)

On Monday night through Wednesday we invited another family, Bill and Ashley, with their kids Liam and Oz to join us. Liam is David's age but Oz is only 4. Oren, however, really hit it off with him as Oz is very extroverted and quite funny. They spent much of one afternoon on a kayak with Oren paddling and Oz sitting crosslegged on the bow with a supersoaker which he used to squirt anyone in a boat who came near.

We had a nice time having some adult time with Bill and Ashley as well. The weekend was not complete without a campfire and smores on the last night. We departed in the afternoon on Wednesday and got home for dinner at Dave and Jean's that evening. (We wisely got the latest flu shot on the way home at a pharmacy since we can't easily get it in Arusha.)

Thursday was mostly dedicated to packing. We had to distribute the weight of all our new purchases for ourselves and friends between 8 suitcases. Rebecca is the master logician at that. (I pack them all into the van.) We had our last supper with Rebecca and my parents on Thursday night. It was a sweet time but it really felt like we had transitioned from vacation back to our life in TZ when we left Chareter Hall and started packing. We spent the time thinking ahead, rather than back in our conversations that night.

We went to bed late despite the fact that we had to get up at 5am and leave for Dulles airport at 6. The flight back was somewhat grueling. Again, the giant A380 was packed full and I was not sitting together with Rebecca and the kids. Fortunately the person next to me did get up frequently which allowed me to move and walk around. I watched many movies from the Marvel comic series in the 13 hours back to Dubai. We had a short layoover there but about 6 hours in Dar Es Salaam.

Dar was as bad as we feared it might be. Since it was our first stop in TZ we suspected we would have to retrieve all of our bags and go through customs-- we did. (Despite the fact that at Dulles we were assured that bags would be checked to Arusha, in our experience, you have to go through customs and immigration at first port of entry.) What was worse was the switch to the domestic terminal to get a small airline (Precision) back to Arusha. They were not able to check us in more than 2 hours before the flight so we had to hang out in the terminal by the gate where there was no seating, no restaurants, and 8 bags and two very tired cranky kids. (Hooray for computers and internet!) We spent about 3 hours on the dirty concrete floor sitting among our bags before could check in. The plane was slightly delayed to arrive but we left about 8:30 pm for Arusha and arrived and out of the airport by 10pm. Our taxi driver was waiting for us, and took us the last hour and 45 minutes home. We arrived around midnight, dead tired and slept easily through the night.

We did get up and go to church (because we never miss church;-) and then had lunch at George's Tavern so David could have seafood pizza. The kids have 2 more weeks without school, and I cannot say Oren was thrilled to be back. He really misses America. But I am ready to be back to work tomorrow, so I am signing off now. Thanks to all of you who read this blog and especially those who we were able to see in the past month in Baltimore and North Carolina.

Bonus link: Rebecca's sermon here