Rains on Birthday Week

David's friends at his birthday party. 

This final week of October has been framed by two key features: the arrival of the rains, and David’s 10^th birthday.

Arrival of the Rains
It was so interesting to realize how sensitive we have become to the climate here in Arusha. Generally, the weather here is more or less comfortable to the human body – maybe it’s a bit on the cold side at times, but we really don’t need climate control. We live without central heaters or air conditioning, with our windows open and a light sweater always on hand, to put on or take off as the weather shifts 20 degrees over the course of the day, from 60 to 80 F or so. So perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised when, on Sunday night last week, it was incredibly hard to sleep. It had grown very warm and claustrophobic. We all seemed to suffer from really bad, disturbed dreams; and then a terrific wind started up near dawn. Clouds began to blow in from the west, gathering and building up in big piles on the slopes of Mt. Meru. And by Tuesday night, Voila! the rainy season started in earnest.

Rain in this part of the world is always a blessing. Water for drinking, moisture for crops: none of these are a given here. But it did cause some personal complications. For one thing, we had just been celebrating the fact that the new East African highway, which will connect us perfectly to East and West parts of Arusha, is coming along nicely. I had used it several times in the week before rains to get to some friends. My 40-minute trip was cut down to 20, using a combination of paved, gravel, and dirt access roads. It’s hard for the construction company to finish off the unpaved gravel or mud portions in torrential rain, so we are hoping they catch some days of at least partial sun in the next few weeks.

Piñata adventures

On a more personal level, this was the week when we needed to create the annual birthday piñata for David. He had envisioned a huge fat spider, made from connecting two balloons with papier mâché. Paul and David worked hard on creating this terrible creature, which was at least 70 cm long when they were done. They left it out to dry all night. By morning it was…just as wet as the night before, after a full night of pouring rain outside. Paul waited until Thursday evening, but then he needed to take drastic action to dry out the papier mâché enough to paint. He decided to put the whole beast into our gas oven on low heat, with the door open.

First, the balloons inside started expanding with the heat, tearing the still damp newspapers that were stuck on. So then Paul got a pin and popped the balloons. Immediately the balloons began contracting, pulling the newspaper in along with them. It was pretty much a papier mâché disaster. But the sign of a great artist is his ability to take the materials given to him, however hopeless they seem, and to shape them into something marvelous! Thankfully, David was not too upset when the horrible big spider morphed into an equally terrifying large wasp, using the head and body of the Spider, with a cardboard thorax (containing the candy) glued on in the middle.

On Friday evening, we realized we had far too much birthday party work to do. We enjoyed a short time of play at Gymkhana and sat down for a quick family dinner at this awesome local barbeque place called Andrews. I am really happy whenever I hear my kids appreciating things about Tanzania, and comparing them favorably to things in the US. Oren was raving about how delicious the grilled chicken was, and David was happily gnawing on a goat leg for as long as we would let him. Then we headed home – Paul to paint the wasp piñata, and me to bake. David had passed out invitations at school with reckless abandon (in my view), and

David helped to decorate his cake.

though I was only just starting to get 1 or 2 RSVP’s for the party the next day, he told me that there might be, “…like 29 kids coming, or something.” I decided it was prudent to bake two cakes.

The Friends’ Party

We worked hard all morning, preparing snacks, cleaning the house, clearing surfaces, and closing off half the house. our experience last year at David’s birthday was that kids found their way up into the bedrooms, and the resulting combination of cake, juice, and piles of Legos was not something we wanted to see repeated. We also prepared a number of complicated games involving the theme of being nature explorers. I drew up a list of tasks that kids need to do, find, or act out for a photo scavenger hunt, to be played in teams. Paul created one of his epic rhyming fill-in-the-blank treasure hunts. We bit our nails as we looked outside at the extremely changeable weather, praying that the sun would come out definitively. We also decided that it would be good to have a craft for kids to do when they arrived, to keep them occupied in smaller groups. So every kid could decorate a paper bag, into which they would later put their candy from the piñata. 

Craft-making

When the kids arrived, we were really happy to learn that they were interested in making origami bugs and butterflies. They each took turns at the craft table, and then just jumping on the trampoline or wacking our tether ball around. But we began to notice a worrying trend. Just about every kid that David invited from his class brought along another sibling or cousin or friend (in the case of one kid, he brought 3 random friends from his church and a younger sister!!). No kidding, out of 7 friends from David’s school, there were a total of 9 kids who came along for the ride! And that’s not even counting the non-school friends who came as a family, because we know them all. By the time we really started all the games we had 21 kids to deal with, only 11 of whom David knew. I didn’t even have phone numbers for some of the kids who were dropped off. It was a situation that would be unimaginable in the US. Paul was saying, “Where is Chris Ballard when I need him?!?”

By the grace of God, we survived the insanity of a 4 team tournament of gaga ball, played on our trampoline. Then, the kids actually settled down and did really well with the photo scavenger hunt in 3 teams – each team having an adult photographer (or Oren). The treasure hunt was sheer madness unfortunately – the kids heard the rhymes, completed them and then stampeded or charged or crashed from one location around our house to another. There were injuries. It was bad! At least no one fell off a ladder. But somehow, they found the keys to the outdoor container and found the basin of “Stolen” birthday gifts.

We decided it would be wise to move on to cake. That’s hard to mess up! I was really glad we had a table and a bunch of chairs outside. And then we had the kids smash up the piñata. The chaos was slightly more organized. Finally we showed the kids who were interested the results of the photo scavenger hunt, by the miracle of photos instantly downloading onto iCloud. Other kids just wanted to keep jumping on the trampoline and running around, which was fine. I will say that the kids had a very fun time, and most of them are very lovely children when you interact with them one-on-one, rather than as a noisy, revved up herd. I did enjoy the chance to get to know one or two parents as they picked up and dropped off kids – it’s not easy to meet other parents at my kids’ school since they go by bus.

The last child left around 5, which wasn’t too bad, considering that I’d scheduled the party from 2 – 4 on the invitation (I have learned about how to talk about timing in this context). And then it was time to clean up. While the damage to our floors was limited, it was still substantial. Paul and I sort of wandered around hopelessly from this pile of trash to the next, trying to sort it out, for almost 30 minutes. And then we realized that the only hope lay in taking a quick shopping trip together for essential cleaning supplies: a squeegee to wet mop the mess off the tile floors and out the door. And maybe a little something else to help cheer us up through the toil. We finally finished floors, dishes and dinner around 8 and were very happy to collapse on the sofas and enjoy our postponed family movie night, a reprise of Thor: Ragnarok.

Sunday was no day to slack either. I was leading music, and it was a family service, so the Sunday school kids were singing. I really enjoy making music with the youth adults at our church, and this past week we had a lot of fun. I was finally brave enough to play the piano and handed off my guitar to another young woman for about half the songs. The were wonderful as they sang a very fun calypso song (“Righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost”) and then the beautiful prayer song from Godspell: “Day by day.” I love the song, I love to see the kids doing movement in worship, and I loved how the congregation sang along-- those who still remember the 70’s! 

And the sermon was given in such a warm and winsome way by our pediatrician, a doctor from our hometown of Baltimore. He gathered all the kids around him and was so open to all their questions about his old and new frying pans and how that related as an object lesson, to the old and new forms of priesthood, made perfect in Jesus. It was such a warm, wonderful Sunday together. Both Paul and I also ended up napping for two hours when we got home – the effects of the birthday marathon were still working their way out.

Meeting Teachers

Monday – it was David’s actual 10^th birthday, and lucky for him, there was no school! Instead, it was a day for parents to visit the school with their kids and have one-on-one meetings with teachers. Staff of an American school would lose their minds over this situation – no Signup Genius appointments are made. Instead, you just show up outside the door of the teacher you want to visit, and probably wait in line behind 2 or three other families. But, this is appropriate technology. No one would show up on time for appointments, even if you planned them. So it works! Another good thing about the Cambridge system is that the student goes in to talk with the teacher together with the parent. It’s the kid’s education anyway, right? And part of the point is making sure THEY hear where they are doing well and where they need to improve. The school even provides two tea breaks and lunch for parents, which makes it possible to keep going for hours of conversation.

I really love these days. It is such a wonderful and unique opportunity to get to know, at least a little bit, the real human beings who are helping to shape my children’s minds and hearts. I think it is worth to it spend the entire day doing this, and my kids don’t seem to complain. In fact, they really were happy to have me meet teacher after teacher, who gave witness to the fact that, by the grace of God, we seemed to have raised children who are sensible, good students, who ask good questions and don’t seem to get in trouble. They could both expend a little more effort to express themselves fully, but they are on the right track. I am so incredibly grateful to hear this from teachers, and I also really want my kids to understand how to appreciate the teaching they are getting here.

We spent two morning hours meeting David’s teachers. We shared lunch with Oren’s best friend and his family. And then after lunch, Oren led me around to meet every single one of his 10 subject teachers. In retrospect, I was so moved by the warmth his science teacher showed towards Oren, urging him to study hard, get it straight, stick with his group of “smart kids in science.” He’s kind of a hippie looking guy from South Africa, but I noted a tatoo on his arm that I hadn’t seen before of a cross within the continent of Africa; I think I also sensed a whiff of the fragrance of Christ in that room. Oren excels in math, and his Math teacher really appreciates him, but was urging him to submit to the seemingly pointless task of showing his work. She even went on to say, “Who knows, maybe God brought you here to this place to show you how to have the discipline to do what you don’t really want to do because it’s part of our system. Maybe later in life you will need to have this skill, who knows?” I wasn’t anticipating a sermon from a teacher, but I’m glad to be in an environment where it is natural to express what is in one’s heart to a student, even if that involves religion. Not all the teachers are brilliant, but some of them are really wonderful human beings and moment after moment I really felt joy in sharing this time with my children and getting to know their teachers.

We finished off the evening by celebrating David’s birthday as a family, in the way he requested: an early pizza dinner at George’s. It was a quiet Monday evening in the restaurant and we had such a good time together as a family, giving David a present from each of us (a ball from Oren, a big exercise ball from me, and two UV lights from Paul, for hunting for scorpions and chameleons at night). We told the kids stories of funny things they did as kids, or of times they got sick and we worried. We laughed a lot. The boys played. We enjoyed each others’ company. For those of you who have known us for a while, you know we have struggled with sibling rivalry for years, and it has really taken it’s toll on our family morale. Looking back on last evening, I am just filled with joy and gratitude. Because it’s not the only time it’s happened that we have enjoyed one another; it’s happening more and more; it’s almost becoming the norm. I think this is maybe one of the greatest gifts of coming here, not having many (or any friends) to distract us from each other for months on end. We’ve had our lonely times, but we are better as a family. Thanks be to God.

A literary note:

I don’t think we’ve said much about our current family audiobook: the Once and Future King, by T.H. White. I’ve never read the entire thing, and parts of it are quite a slog, and thankfully we are almost finished -- though the chapters on Wild Geese qre quite uplifting at the end. But we felt it was important to educate our kids about the Arthurian legends. Beyond the legends are moments of breath-taking political philosophy. To those who need some perspective on the current toxic political climate in the USA, I commend to you the final chapter of Book 4, “The Candle in the Wind,” and Arthur’s final despairing consideration of his life’s work.

Unexpected Positive Outcomes

Hornbill sitting in the tree outsid our house.

Another week, another trip. Actually that sounds like I am complaining. The field visits in the past month have been very interesting and the most recent had several 'unexpected positive outcomes' as we call them in development work that made the trip all the more worthwhile. But I need to back up to last week to report all of the things that have happened since the last installment.

I had last written while I was in Dodoma visiting our school for the deaf partner. Sharon, our country rep. and I stayed through Wednesday and were able to watch Chrispin, our Ag. Coordinator do a training of lead farmers on how to manage conflict and advocate for conservation (low tillage) agriculture in their communities. We headed back Thursday morning. Unfortunately we took a wrong turn out of town and instead of heading straight back to Arusha we took a road that went due north to the town of Singida. (The roads look similar and the landscape is all dry savanah and small towns.) Long story short, we added an additional 3.5 hours to our 6 hour trip, but did get home by Thursday evening. It was good to be back, but I was quite sore after spending a long day driving the landrover.

I spent part of Friday, upon my return writing a sermon for Sunday as I was invited to preach.

Friday nights continue to be a highlight for our family. The kids are dropped off by the 'school bus' (actually a yellow dala-dala) at our office about the time we are done and we head over together to Gymkhana, our colonial era country club. (which looks like it has not had any serious renovations since Independence in 1960.) We don't really play golf, or snooker, or darts, or tennis, but we do play some squash and enjoy the swimming pool daily. In my opinion, their nearly unused 25meter pool is one of the best kept secrets in Arusha.

We swim together in the pool, play 'monkey in the middle', then usually have dinner catered from the Chinese restaurant next door (since Gymkhana has no working kitchen). After dinner we head home and watch a movie. We are going through the entire Marvel Avengers series and watch one each week. Last Friday was not exception and we watched Captain America Civil War. The one difference, however, is that last weekend preceded the kids' school midterm break, so they were looking forward to a full week off from school the next week. One sign of maturity I saw in Oren was his near compulsion to do all his homework while we were at Gymkhana Friday afternoon so he would not have to do it during the week. That is not the Oren I remember from many years of putting all homework off to the last possible minute.

Saturday's big project was painting a large acacia tree over a full moon in our kitchen. It is part of our 'home ownership' project. That is, making Tanzania our home since we have been here for more than a year and have at least 2 more. This personalization of the house is largely symbolic, but many things are feeling right at the moment, work, and looking at the kids' midterm grades, school is going well also. After practice on 2 trees in the living room, the acacia tree in the kitchen eating area was the most ambitious and successful effort to date. We are looking forward to having guests visit.

Sunday was a full day beginning with me preaching on Sunday morning. I did a teaching on the prodigal son with emphasis on the sacrifice the elder brother must make to fully restore his brother to the family. Elder brothers who slink about for years, harboring resentment become a bitter root that can ultimately destroy unity. I felt the message was understood and well received.

After church we had lunch with our friends Vance and Beth Marie 2 school teachers. We shared lunch then went over and visited their school--Christ Church International. It was good to get together with them as they are fellow folk (and swing) dancers and we are thinking of doing another folk dance at the church.

When we left Vance and Beth Marie we were near the compound where the weekly volleyball game meets and we went over and played. It was a lot of fun and both Oren and David joined in. Both did quite well. There are a large number of Scandanavians who play and the last game was a match of Finland vs. North America (US and Canada). We did squeek out a narrow victory thanks to a 6'5" Canadian on our team.

This past week the kids have been out of school because of midterm break. It is honestly not ideal for Rebecca and I as it means one of us must remain at home during the days. Since Rebecca is 1/2 time and I had a trip this week, she was the one who stayed home. I think they used the time well with Oren swimming laps and running on the treadmill several times during the week and David doing tennis lessons. They also visited our friends the Taylors on several occasions. (they have 4 kids around our kids' age and are becomming really stable family friends in our time here.)

Oren playing with Harry and Sammy.

I had a 2 day field visit to Ngorongoro conservation area where we have our maternal child health project. We are at the end of the first year and I wanted to collect data from the clinics in the ward to see the effect the project was having on increasing ante-natal care visits and facility deliveries.

A second hope I had was to talk to our partner about finding a person who could be a local PI (principal investigator) on a study we are proposing to do connected to the project. I did not hold out much hope, I had been told the day before that our 10 month ethical clearance process was at an end, but was then surprised (after all this time) that they said they would not issue it unless we had a local PI in addition to me as part of the study. It was frustrating but not entirely surprising that this request would come after I had been waiting nearly a year for their approval and it was never mentioned.

All that to say, I had a dim hope that the director of our partnership would know someone who might be qualified and interested. Given that he lives out in a village in a remote highland savanah, I was not optimistic.

I drove up on Tuesday, and arrived in the afternoon in the town of Karatu outside the conservation area. I usally stay the night here as there is a daily cost to enter for noncitizens so it is cheaper to stay on the outside and go in on a day trip. I met Laangakwa our local partner and we had a good meeting about evaluating the project at the end of year one. Near the end of the meeting I talked about the unexpected need to find a local PI. to my shock he said that one of his school mates from the village had gone on to become a professor of sociology at the University of Dar Es Salaam. He told me he was in the village now as they were on a term break and I could meet him. I could not believe the good fortune! I would call it miraculous.

The next day we went into the crater region together to the ward where the project is being implemented. We visited all the health facilities which are quite far apart on very bumpy roads. The season is so dry now that instead of mud puddles there are dust puddles up to 2 feet deep. I saw a landrover get stuck in one while we drove. The data from the clinics with regard to antenatal care visits was encouraging, showing mosest improvement, deliveries less so. The big surprise though was that one doctor reported that since the implementation of our project, use of the clinic had increased 3 fold for all services! He attributed this to the fact that when women came for ANC visits and received dawa (medicine) that worked--such as deworming for anemia, and iron and folic acid, they reported back to the community and through word of mouth clinical services in general had increased as more villagers began practicing 'health seeking behavior'. The doctor felt this was directly attributable to our program. (An unexpected good outcome.)

At one point along the way, we stopped at a field where a traditionally dressed maasai rancher/university professor met us. He was Laangakwa's friend and was very happy and committed to join the project as a PI. It is a blessing for me because he is right from the community but also has the qualitative analysis skills we need to do the study. The fact that he has the backing of the University of Dar Es Salaam was also essential to get our ethical clearance completed.

I returned to Arusha from the crater region that afternoon very pleased by the unexpected positive outcomes we had experienced in our project. Despite getting a speeding ticket on the way home, it was a very good trip!

On Fishing and Home Decorating

Hanging out around firepit at cookout at our compound.

After a week of being back in Arusha, I am back on the road again, so to speak. This time in Dodoma. I have come down with Sharon, our MCC Rep, and Chrispin, the Agriculture Coordinator. There were a number of things on the agenda during this trip only one of which directly concerned me: a visit to our partner Dodoma School for the Deaf, to check in on one of the projects I oversee in my role as health and education coordinator. Another reason we are here is to follow up on some changes to our NGO registration status, a thankless job which took us into the bowels of the Ministry of Community Development, Gender, and Children. (It sounds better than it is.)

Dodoma is the new capital of Tanzania, selected to decongest Dar Es Salaam and to find a more centrally located city from which to govern. It sounded good in 1973 when it was officially decreed. The movement of all govt. entities to the city has been in process for the past 45 years and is about half way there from what I can tell. The current President is committed to finish it by 2022. I am skeptical, judging by the size of the airfield.

As a city, it is hard to imagine a place with less character in which to locate the capital (except maybe Abuja, Nigeria, which was decreed along the same ideological lines). It kind of reminds me of somewhere like El Paso, Texas, without any good Mexican restaurants. It is very flat. The one rocky hill that rises in the center looks like a good vantage point from which to look down, but the prime minister's house was built there so no one is allowed to climb it. In this season it is windy, dry and dusty, like the plains states in the US.

We left Monday morning and drove about 7 hours, arriving in the afternoon. We had dinner on Monday evening at an Italian restaurant and went to bed early at our hotel, The Johannic, which sounded promising as its front sign claimed that it was "The next level in Jesus name". I assume they were talking about the service. (Ironically it had no running water, living or otherwise, most of the time we were there.)

Tuesday we made our foray into the Ministry mentioned above. We eventually found the cramped NGO office which was stacked with documents on every surface, having waited about an hour for the arrival of the officer that worked there. Not surprisingly, the mission to 'complete' the process of changing a sentence in our constitution (in process for a year) was no closer to being completed after being there an hour. We were told the original constitution was still in Dar as all paperwork had not been moved over. (They have only had 45 years to make the transition). They did not accept our old copy to show the change. Anyway, my experience with these things is that nothing is ever completed, you just push the process along until eventually you retire and someone else pushes it along for you. Franz Kafka couldn't make this stuff up.

The field visit to Dodoma School for the Deaf (DSD) was far more rewarding! The school looks great and we got to see Chrispin in action as he did a training in fish farming. It was very practical as they needed to move fish from one pond to another in a new location. Kids spent several hours lowering the water level with buckets, then catching fish in a big net and putting them in the new pond.

In the afternoon I was able to see some of the other classrooms including the preschool (modelled on the Montessori method) and the new computer lab that MCC helped equip. There are about 10 computers and most of the children in the school do a class about once per week. Both the fish farming and the computer training are part of what makes the school so amazing. The deaf children do well at the school academically, but they also get many vocational training opportunities to help them develop skills to enter into mainstream society. There are really no accomodations for disability in the adult world of Tanzania. Being at a disadvantage in any way can make working or finding a job extremely difficult. Deaf children in most schools would be presumed to be mentally deficient and often remain a burden on families. These kids by contrast are definitely above average, and are learning skills as well as creativity.

My favorite sight on the field visit was 7th grader Simon Eliabi's windmill he invented from plastic bottles (since it is so windy) when it turns, a small turbine inside another bottle behind it pushes water out and waters a nearby tree sapling that he planted. The invention is a small vignette of everything that is right about this school.

That is what has happened so far this week. It is Wednesday and Sharon and I will watch another training that Chrispin is doing, this time with an agricultural partner. He will be teaching lead farmers how to manage various issues as they in their communities to promote adoption of low-tillage agricultural techniques. It will be in Swahili, which is always a good work-out for me.

Rebecca stocked first aid kits at work this week.

I need to fill in the space between the last blog and this one, as the week between field visits to Musoma and Dodoma was very full of activities on the homefront, particularly over the weekend. It was very good to get back into the normal routine of school, swimming and work during the week I was back. The kids have been doing great in school and had relaxing evenings together, culminating in family move night on Friday to watch another chapter of the Avengers movies.

Satuday was a day packed with fun as we decided to return to Lake Duluti, about 45 minutes from our house. This has become one of David's favorite places (even though we have only been once before) because it is one of the few large bodies of water near Arusha, and you can fish! He spent the morning catching crickets and was hoping to catch some tilapia or catfish when we went. As it turned out, he caught about 2 dozen crayfish--nice sized red ones. They would just grab the crickets and ride up on the line. We weren't prepared to keep them, but next time, I think we will plan to bring a bucket and make some cajun food with them.

Rebecca and I enjoyed walking around and seeing the many birds. I also counted 4 monitor lizards hanging out on the banks sunning themselves on logs. (The Swahili word for them is Kenge, which also is used to describe a lazy person.)

When we returned, the team at the Joshua Foundation where live was having a huge cookout on a firepit in the back yard of the team leader. It was a goodbye for one of the team that was leaving, but was also a very nice time of fellowship and eating very tasty 'nyama choma' (roasted meat).

During the day, Rebecca and I had talked about taking more 'ownership' of the house. That is, personalizing it. Granted it has taken us a full year to really feel like it is a home. It has very nice features but the walls are pretty bare and uninteresting and we don't have much in the way of artwork. Oren has been particularly bothered by this since our return from the USA in August, and he was eager to make it feel more homey.

I decided on Saturday night to paint a large white circle on the wall that would double as a place to project movies. I drew the circle with a pencil on a string then painted it. Because of the size and texture of the brush stokes, I was surprised to see that it really looked like a huge full moon.

We got inspired to add trees and began by looking on Amazon for tree decals for walls. The ones we like best were very simple designs of birch trees. (But they were $99, and we would only every receive them in December with visiting family. And we were eager for some instant gratification. And there are no birches in Tanzania anyway, so why not go for jacarandas?) So we decided that we could probably paint them ourselves.

The next day after church (Rebecca and I both had Sunday school classes to teach), we had pizza at Georges then went home and began mixing paint for the trees. We made a very dark grey and she tried one on a side wall. (I did the tops because I am taller and the ceilings are 9 feet.). We like the results and did one on the front wall next to the moon. It turned out far better than we had imagined. The room has been transformed! And it is really feeling like our home.

I have a plan for one more tree/moon project on the main kitchen wall. Hopefully for this weeked.

Another little art project that I (Rebecca) and David have been working on for a few weeks was also completed this weekend. We'd made paper beads out of an old MCC calendar, bought a few glass beads from Shanga, gathered up some other random unused jewelry and old copper wire, and created a crazy wall hanging for our kitchen in the meantime. 

While Paul is away, we are having quiet evenings. I've had good walks with Oren each late afternoon, good time cooking with David, and we've been playing monopoly when homework is done. At dinner, we've been having those on-going conversations about respect and the rule of touching ("always ask first.") The funniest moment was when I brought up the issue of whether that rule changes when one is angry. The boys both chuckled and thought about a scenario in which they asked someone, "I'm really angry. Please, may I punch you in the face?" They could see the real potential for de-escalation there. And they also recognized that when we ask first, we always remember that the other person is a human being, who deserves dignity. Obviously, I'm not advocating punching, ever, but it's been a good thought exercise and good time of sharing.

The wide angle view of our living room by night...

Bonus Photos of Lake Duluti and painting

If you want to grow roses, don't plant potatoes!

Oren looking like Harry Potter in his uniform.

This blog begins with a new proverb! It was inadvertantly invented by our Country Rep. Sharon who was telling us about trying to plant some roses from rose cuttings, which according to a youtube video could be stuck into potatoes then planted and they would grow new rose bushes. She gave cuttings stuck in potatoes to her gardener who planted them in one of her gardens. Several weeks later he proudly presented the fruits of his labor. A verdant garden devoid of roses but full of potato plants. "If you want to grow roses, don't plant potatoes" I sagely observed, which sounded quite profound in a 'Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy' kind of way.

But in many ways, the proverb was apt to several of the activities I participated in this week, culminating in the harvest festival at church this past weekend which Rebecca will say more about later in this entry. I got back just a day before the multiple activities of the weekend began because I had spent most of the weekdays in Musoma, a town along the Eastern shore of Lake Victoria where I was visiting one of our partners to help them write a proposal to extend a project they are currently working on. The adage about wanting roses and not planting potatoes seemed particularly a propos advice as we worked on how to align activities and outputs with the outcomes we are hoping for.

Precision Air to Mwanza

I have been to Musoma twice before and although it is a charming town on the lake, I have no fondness at all for the trip. It is a classic 'You can't get there from here" situation in that there is just no good travel route between Arusha and Musoma. Either you take a horrific 12 hour bus ride straight through the Serengetti which is all dirt roads, or you fly to Mwanza, another town on the lake, not much closer than Arusha, but from where you can take a croweded bus for 4-5 hours that at least goes on paved roads. All in all it involves many transitions. From my house to the hotel in Musoma I took a taxi--airport shuttle--plane--taxi---bus--and taxi. The plane was the shortest and most expensive part of the trip.

I went with Lucia, our accountant, as one of the tasks we had was to do a bi-annual financial review of our partner, who happens to be the Tanzania Mennonite Church (KMT). We left Arusha about 6am and got to Musoma about 6pm. We stayed at the Grand Victoria Hotel which was built about a year ago and I stayed at it last year. It is already starting to look a bit dilapidated, but did have some amenities including internet.

We were picked up and taken to the church headquarters, a short drive away the next morning after breakfast. We spent about 3 hours with the project coordinator and accountant going over financial procedures before breaking for lunch. At that time Lucia packed and we took her to the bus stop so she could return to Mwanza and catch an early flight back to Arusha the next day.

I planned to stay another day for a field visit to some of the future project sites. I spent the afternoon with a local dermatologist talking about collecting data for the project on people with albinsim who are referred to the local health center for skin cancer treatment--cryotherapy or surgery. Our project involves training health workers to identify and refer patients with albinism for treatment when they present with suspicious lesions. (Sadly, many ground level health workers have limited experience diagnosing and refering patients with albinism who have skin cancer at treatable stages.) It is the leading cause of death among people with albinism in Tanzania.

I had a quiet evening but ended up working late since I was away from family and was trying to do some revisions on the research proposal I am trying to get ethical clearance on.

Field visit to local dispensary.

The next day I was taken on a field visit to some very remote dispensaries and health centers to meet some of the health workers that have been trained by our project. It was interesting but hours of driving. I also felt bad taking the time of nurses and health officers who often had a long line of patients waiting to see them. Some were running maternity clinics and had about 100 mothers with children waiting.

Alex and Specioza in front of clinic

As we walked up to one dispensary we found three men with rifles who were not wearing uniforms. They looked pretty intimidating. I was a bit nervous, and Alex my very understated Tanzanian colleague from our partner said casually, "Hmmm, looks like some trouble here." Fortunately the men left quickly as we arrived and zipped off in a motorcycle. When we asked the nurse what had happened she said they were trying to get the names of several pregnant school girls so they could find the men who impregnated them. I don't know what ever came of that, but it did not give me much comfort to think about the potential for vigilante justice of some kind.

We did have a good visit at the clinic and the nurse who was trained described the 8 albino patients she sees who have benefited from the training she received.

hotel view--Maribu storks on the roof of a building.

When we got back to Musoma town in the afternoon, I too caught a bus back to Mwanza so I could catch an early flight. Dividing the long travel into 2 days was a bit better and I got back to Arusha on Thursday afternoon.

Rebecca will tell about what she and the kids did while I was away and about the Harvest festival over the weekend:

Paul was away for just four days, so it wasn’t too difficult for the kids and I to keep on going with the normal routine. I will confess the hardest aspect of his absence was getting all of us out the door by 6:40 every morning. There are a lot of pieces to put together before we leave the house for the entire day. It’s also harder to get everyone to bed, since usually one parent reads a different book to each kid at night. We fell back on our current audiobook, The Once and Future King. Still, the kids were really helpful. Oren buckled down and did his homework independently. David helped me cook shrimp one day and burgers on another. We will have a lot of weeks like this coming up in the next 3 months, so we had better get used to it!

Paul returned just in time for one of the busiest weekends of the year: Harvest Festival at our local international church. Apparently this is a Lutheran tradition: once a year, the church holds a big fundraiser for a charitable cause. The weekend began with a special concert on Friday evening. We had to leave work with the kids, grab a take-away dinner, and get to church for choir warm ups by 5:30. Have we talked about our experience of the choir here? It’s really the most eclectic group of singers we have ever been part of:  African, Western, and Asian styles of music are so completely different! Some people read music, some find harmonies by ear, some are just learning to sing. Some love baroque music, others prefer folk and others contemporary Christian gospel. Trust me, singing together in unity is NOT EASY! But we have been learning to know and trust one another, working hard, practicing for heaven.

We sang together on Friday night and it actually came together fairly well, even with a few people joining us at the very last moment, having not rehearsed at all for the past 6 weeks! A wide selection of other musicians also brought gifts of music. A choir of Maasai girls sang and have already mastered all their traditional dance moves (wriggling the shoulders) at a tender age. A quintet sang wonderful a cappella hymns. We enjoyed a fiddle, a harp, a piano piece, a folk duo, and some very moving songs by a Moravian choir. It was quite wonderful how the director just danced with his baton and energized the congregation to join in.

After a quick break for tea and cake, most people returned to the hall for a bit of folk dancing. Paul led the whole group in an Israeli circle dance. The children were already light on their feet before Paul began teaching the vine step, but a wide variety of people of all ages joined in. And when the circle turned into a snake, with Paul at the lead, the little Maasai girls squealed in delight as they were pulled around the tight bends and in between the chains of people dancing in opposite directions. You really have to participate in this dance to know how fun such a simple set of steps can be. Sadly, our kids were not as engaged as the African kids, and so we headed home right after that, at almost 9 pm.

On Saturday I left the guys at home to go to a 3 hour Worship Committee meeting. This is what you need to do in a church without pastoral staff! When I returned home, we enjoyed a family game and then baked about 10 dozen gingersnap cookies to sell at the Harvest Festival auction. It’s always a fun family activity to make the little balls of dough, roll them in sugar, and then have one family member manning the ovens. I needed a little more time that afternoon to complete the sermon for Sunday, but we ended the evening with family movie night, postponed from our Friday night tradition. Since we watched Infinity War earlier in the year, we had to recognize that we were pretty much completely lost in the Marvel Comic Universe. We’ve been catching up a film or two every month, and we finally got to Captain America: Winter Soldier this past weekend.

We got to church early on Sunday and it’s a good thing because there was a lot to do! But the Sunday service was very uplifting. The Sunday school kids processed into the sanctuary carrying all kinds of produce. And then they sang a song that my kids had learned at a Valley Baptist VBS years ago – it’s still great for kids. The music team leading congregational singing was vibrant and uplifting. Our multi-cultural choir sounded better than I could have imagined, and we were really able to bring praises into the congregation. I gave the sermon for the day, so I really can’t offer a disinterested review. The text was Psalm 126, a psalm which invites us to look back and give thanks for God’s gracious acts in the past, and then look honestly at our current obstacles and pray for God to do it again. It ends with beautiful, mysterious harvest imagery: “those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.” I really felt called to help the church give thanks for the harvest we represent – a harvest of all nations, reaped from the sacrifice in tears of Jesus’ own life. It’s also a call to dig deep and plant, to invest in this community, even when it’s hard to be a multi-cultural church with no pastor. I hope that people were both encouraged and challenged.

When the service was over, people had another short break for tea and then we all started in on the auction. It was incredible to see the variety of gifts people donated: from bunches of fresh herbs and cookies, to farming implements, artwork, 100 lb bags of maize, a massage and a magnificent quilt. Many people came, prepared to spend generously, and it was a fun process (though a bit long in the end – we didn’t leave until after 3 pm). I was on the worship committee team, writing receipts for people who paid for their auction items. It was a bit much to need my brain cells again, that soon after preaching!!

Anyway, we ended the day with some time to catch up with our friends the Taylors, who just returned from home assignment in Australia. It was so lovely to sit on the veranda at Gymkhana, enjoy cold drinks, hear their news, and have our kids enjoy playing again. It was a good way to relax after a long, hard weekend of planting – enjoying the harvest of our efforts.

 Paul again, signing off with one last cautionary tale: Having had such great luck with dentist last week, I decided to try my luck at a local barber shop. There was a kind of high-end one at one of the 'muzungu' shopping malls (cinema complex). I went in and a middle age man, brimming with confidence invited me to sit at his chair. I told him what I wanted to which he nodded vigorously, then picked up a shaver and for the next hour or so, hacked at my hair with the abandon of  a 5-year old with a weed whacker. He never picked up a comb or scissors. My new hairstyle would have made Sid Vicious blush. I spent another hour at home with my own razor shaving down to a crewcut that at least looked even. So what I have learned is that Arusha is great for dentists, but barbers--not so much.

Bonus video: Moravian church choir at our shared concert