A Visitor in "Humorous" weather

Puppies born in a barn.

Phelgmatic. That is how I would describe the weather here this season-- cool, moist (or wet really). It is in many ways my least favorite kind of weather as I am more of a choleric (warm, dry) personality. (Why the medical profession gave up a theory of disease based on the interaction of the 4 humors in favor of germs, I don't know--although anti-vaxxers may want to take us back!)

The remedy that seems to work best to face endless weeks of rain, is homeopathic. Start a cold rainy day with a swim in a cold wet pool. After 45 minutes in the water, nothing will feel quite as cold and wet the rest of the day. Yes, we are still doing our morning swim, Rebecca began wearing the wet-suit yesterday but I am trying to hold out until June 1st.

It is a Saturday morning, the first full day of the beginning of the kids' half-term break. No matter how short the term, there is a week off right in the middle. We just started term 3 four weeks ago. To celebrate, Oren and David had a double sleep-over with the two boys from the Taylor family, our Australian friends from our small group. Today has been mostly absorbed by inside games, although David and Sammy did go over to the muddy barn in the pouring rain to play with a litter of puppies that were born to the guard dogs last month.

Dave on KP duty the morning after arrival. Such a mensch!

We actually have a full house as Rebecca's Dad, Dave Sack, arrived last night as well for a two day stay-over. He has several meeting related to cholera projects in the region. He arrived from Dar Es Salaam and is going on to Bujumbura, Burundi. We are happy to see him and took advantage of his sherpa capacity by loading up his suitcase with goodies from home to get us to our next home leave in July (chocolate chips, Crystal Lite, new swimming suits, and eye-glasses).

Moving backward, the past week has been quite out of the ordinary in terms of work. First, Sharon, our Representative is not in town and won't be for some time. So we are a bit smaller in terms of office staff. She is on email so we can communicate, but the office feels a bit emptier. Secondly, this past week was not spent in the office as we were hosting our annual partner meeting--  a conference, for which we booked a local hotel (Stereo) to have our meetings. So we were not in the office at all between Tuesday and Thursday.

The annual partner meeting is a somewhat unique MCC event: for 3 days, we bring all of the local organizations that currently have MCC grants together to do some capacity building, networking, professional development, and usually a field visit to one of our projects. Partners have really come to appreciate it, and it has fostered of atmosphere of cooperation and mutual support rather than competion.

We vary the themes every year and this year we had several modules. On the first day, we did some leadership and time management training. The partners enjoyed the latter thoroughly and the presenter, a Tanzanian advisory board member, did an excellent presentation. He both acknowledged and challenged the stereotype: "No hurry in Africa." The message resonated strongly with participants both in humor at situations where traditional and modern concepts of time are juxtaposed , as well as frustration where they see time wasted systemically in many bureaucratic processes that can be costly in time wasted and money spent.

Rebecca presented MCC values in a clever way, inviting groups to act out skits to demonstrate each value. Our partners seem to love acting and they hammed it up considerably. I did a unit on fundraising, which included some resources for finding appropriate grants to end the first day.

On the second day we had an all day training on Mainstreaming Gender in our programs. It was an excellent, very sophisticated, presentation, which provided several frameworks for doing gender analysis. Towards the end of the day,  partners worked in break-out groups to analyze case studies of projects that were strugging. The course ended with a certification ceremony where those who participated got a certificate to show their proficiency. The partners really  appreciated the chance to earn a professional development certificate.

On day three, we took a bus about 2 hours out of town to Longido where our partner Tembo Trust has a guest house and a large girls' empowerment program in several Maasai communities. (Tembo is a Maasai-run organization.) MCC's work wiith them has been focused on helping them advocate to end FGM (female circumcision) in the project region, where prevalence is quite high.

Tembo hosted us with lunch, then a presentation of their work including the testimony of two of their community animators, both traditional Maasai women, one a traditional birth attendant (TBA). Their presentations were powerful, even in Maa (language) and translated into Kiswahili. The TBA actually showed the way a traditional birth was done with the help of her colleague. They also spoke frankly about FGM and other challenges for girls in the community. We shared lunch, had a long question and answer session and feedback. The partners were effusive in praising each other's work and it was impressive to see what kinds of work are represented: A school for severely mentally disabled children, a deaf school, a project to train health officers to diagnose cancer in people with albinism, girls empowerment and education, maternal and child health in a maasai community, conservation agriculture, mental health counselling and awareness raising, peace-building, alternative discipline in schools. Many of them see opportunities for intersections in their work and I overheard several discussions between members exchanging ideas for collaboration.

We finished on Thursday evening, feeling that we had accomplished something. Our kids may have been a bit neglected and we actually had a cab pick them up from the bus on the day we went to Longido. They spent about an hour at home alone. Fortunately they are old enough to handle it and we found them at home content to wait for us playing Minecraft. (When we called them to make sure they were home Oren told us not to hurry ;-)  )

Other parts of life have been relatively smooth, work at the office has really picked up with me finishing a research project and Rebecca helping exchange program participants get visa applications together (some going to the US, and one coming to Tanzania.) It is always a complicated process, especially for Tanzanians who have to fill out a complex online form and have access to a credit card. Some barely have access to a computer! Rebecca is patient though (Sanguine!), one of her greatest vitrtues.

She is also keeping other balls in the air as chair of our church council, and occasional music leader. I continue to coordinate Sunday school and am trying to prepare for a big fieldtrip for our kids to visit an orphanage where they will give the offerings they have collected over the year. It is not my forte to organize a bus trip of 50-60 children, but I am doing my best and hope to have help from other teachers and parents.

Got to stop here, and play some family games. Tommorow we will be leading kids in singing and signing "Lord listen to your children praying" and "Day by Day" in church.

Bonus Photo:

David with a new hedgehog. He and his friend found 5 last Sunday.

Mud is the New Snow

Oren growing hair out. After school Friday.

We are definitely entering into the winter season here. It is always a bit odd to feel temperatures cooling off as we near the end of the school year and start thinking about summer vacation plans. Winter in Arusha is not freezing cold, but it does warrant sweaters or fleece jackets, and we have space heaters in our office. We also do not have snow at our altitude, although we have a good substitute in this season: mud. 

During the rainy season here, which has finally arrived in full force (better late than never) turns the savannah green, but turns the roads and the entrances to our houses brown. Arusha's main arteries are paved, which is great, but once you go off a main road, almost nothing is paved. The last 300 meters to our house from the main road turns into a sloppy mess in the rainy season and driving can be treacherous. Like a blizzard in the US, a good hard rain can make driving to parts of the city, nearly impossible, even with a four-wheel drive. We come in the house and shed our shoes in the anteroom at our entrance which becomes a repository for muddy shoes and socks. 

Our daily swim is the best metric for changing temperature. The rains usually start at night and end around 7:30 am, which means Rebecca and I are swimming in a cold misty fog (air temp around 60F). The water temp has not dropped below 68 yet and I can still dive in. But I expect that in the coming weeks I will need to make a slower transition and eventually start wearing a wet suit. 

I still contend, as I once told our country representative, "If you start your day by swimming a mile in an ice-cold pool, nothing worse is likely to happen to you the rest of the day." 

(Rebecca taking over here) Along with the changing seasons, we have moved into Term 3 at school. Oren will be completing Key Stage 3 and will be selecting his course of study for O-levels (ICGSE exams) within the next week. Starting in year 10, he needs to select 8-9 subjects which he will study for the following 2 years, and then take some pretty serious exams. The school hosted an “Options Evening” for his year group, and I was especially impressed with the way that Oren circulated to talk with almost every faculty teacher. I remember a recent time when he would have had trouble asking a single question of a teacher. Now he has confidence to inquire about his options and make a good choice. Math and English are compulsory, along with a computer science course and a foreign language. He is leaning towards taking History, Chemistry, Art and Geography as his electives. It has been really interesting to watch him become more and more comfortable studying in the Cambridge system, to the point that he would dearly love to complete his education at this current school.

In Third Term, David has decided to join the swimming elective and he has found it very interesting. He is back to voluntarily swimming laps during recreational swim time with our family. This is great to see.

We also have had a new start to our Bible Study group, after the departure of the Gingerich family. Another family with a bunch of kids will be getting more involved, along with a couple and a single woman. It was wonderful to meet together a week ago, and begin to study Philippians with a new group of people. Our kids continue to really value their friendships with the Taylor kids, as we value the times we have with their parents.

Some friends who came for games when
ultimate frisbee was rained out.

Yesterday, we had planned for another Ultimate Frisbee game with team members on our compound, as well as bible study friends. Right on the dot, at the scheduled hour of 4 pm, the heavens opened. There was absolutely no question of playing frisbee in that much rain – but thankfully we had told our friends to bring games. So, instead, we had an impromptu game afternoon/evening with a whole assortment of people of all ages. Many people got to learn Codenames, and some old favorites were enjoyed by various assortments of people who didn’t necessarily know each other (Settlers, Kingdomino, Bohnanza, Clue, Kingdomino, Sleeping Queens and Ticket to Ride.) We shared supper and good conversation with our friends and were glad to share that time. Maybe by June, we’ll have a dry enough afternoon for frisbee again!

One final note on developments in our church in this rainy season. We have started a series on a Theology of worship, the first time we have had a series of services and sermons in a theme. The preachers have been carefully selected to speak to their themes, the worship leaders are working extra hard to bring the services together as a whole, and it has been a real joy to be part of that energy. We are even trying a new thing: posting sermons (audio and print) on the church Facebook page! I know that’s not a big deal for most churches these days, but for a volunteer only, very transient congregation, it’s a big step.

Not many photos this week – the rain doesn’t lend itself to grabbing one’s camera to go out and snap photos. Maybe more next week…

Circular Reasoning on Kilimanjaro

Our family at Shira 1 basecamp with Uhuru peak in background. 

The rainy season came in earnest in the past week with some help from the tail end of cyclone Kenneth. Yesterday early morning, we had such a torrential downpour that there was extensive flooding in Arusha. The small stream in a deep gorge at the back of our compound--spanned by a sturdy steel bridge of about 15 meters--had a flood tide rushing down about 6 am and completely oblitered the bridge. The waters have gone down and the remains of the bridge can be seen at the bottom of the gorge about 20 meters downstream. This will be a challenge for teachers living at Joshua Foundation to get to the school which is on the other side. The next closest foot bridge was also demolished so walking to school will now require several extra kilometers of travel--on muddy roads as the rainy season continues. These issues seem like minor inconveniences, compared to the extreme suffering in Mozambique, where the cyclone hit directly. 

Where the bridge and gate used to be.

That was not even the biggest adventure of the week for our family, though...

 April seems to be a season of holidays here. I am currently home from work for International Workers Day. But last week we had a long weekend as well for Unity Day, right on the heels of the 4 day Easter weekend. We were in town for Easter because of our many engagements at church and enjoyed Easter Sunday with our friends the Gingeriches and Taylors at a local nyama choma (BBQ) restaurant. It was our last goodbye with the Gingeriches who started their return to Canada the following day. We will really miss them in our small group.

Oren on the fairway.

Easter Monday was a holiday and we spent a good part of it at Gymkhana playing golf. (For our family, 9 holes can take about 4 hours.) We had a good time, and I thought we had improved significantly since our first outing with Dave Sack earlier this year. David is particularly good at driving and at hitting long shots off the fairway.

The kids were out of school the rest of the following short work week and Rebecca did a good job keeping them out of trouble with some play dates with friends (Taylors and Halters). One of the highlights was a robotics/coding camp run by a Korean woman who has a mission for giving kids in Tanzania computer literacy and coding skills. David and Oren went and met up with several friends from school (Abraham and Ezekiel). David built a lego robot with programmable sensors. Oren also programmed a lego robot and coded a video game. They came home very excited about doing more.

On the following weekend we planned a special family get-away before school started again this past Monday. We left Thursday evening after work to a place called Simba Farm Lodge on the slopes of West Kilimanjaro. It is a guest house on a very old dutch farm that is still active today. The children of the original owners run a lodge in the old farm house and some other cottages on the property. It is a bit pricey but includes some wonderful amenities like 4 course meals made from freshly harvested vegetables, dairy and meat products from the farm. We were served directly on the private veranda of the guesthouse where we were staying and every bite was delicious. The kids never enjoyed healthy meals so much!

Private candlelight dinner

We arrived after dark after a 2-hour drive from Arusha and had a bit of difficulty finding the place, but managed to get there before 8pm. We had our first meal there, but could not really see what kind of views we had from the cottage since it was after dark. We knew we were about 6000 feet or higher on the slopes of Kilimanjaro so were anticipating some great views in daylight.  We went to bed fairly early because we had planned a day trip up to gate of Kilimanjaro National Park for a hike on the Shira Plateau, which is about half way up Kilimanjaro. Friends of ours told us there is a nice loop trail up there with some spectacular views of the mountain.

Simba Farm cottages and gardens

When we set out that morning driving up, we were a bit worried about weather as it was quite foggy. We registered at the gate and then took a guide with us to the start of the hiking trail on the Shira Plateau. I could see a map set up on a display plaque, showing several circular trails between 7 and 23 kilometers. I asked the guide (who only spoke Swahili) which one we were taking, and he only smiled. We had told the rangers at the base camp who chose him we wanted to do a 4 hour 10 kilometer hike. But I was not sure which loop that would be as we started walking at 10 am.

I was glad we brought our rain coats because about 20 minutes into the hike it began to drizzle, then started pouring hard after an hour. I was a bit worried because the kids were already complaining. Rain had soaked through their coats into their fleeces and they were getting very cold. I swapped rain coats with Oren, since mine was gortex and completely water proof. We trudged on for another hour and were about to turn back when we looked ahead and saw the Shira 1 basecamp. This is a camp for hikers who are climbing to the top and where they stay on day 2 (of 7). We had not started from the base so it was not a long hike for us. As we arrived, the clouds began to clear and the sun peeked out -- a relief because we were all drenched to the bone and our shoes and socks were full of water. The camp is at 11,500 feet, so we could feel the altitude and the cold.

We stayed there and got a great view of the Kibo dome (where Uhuru peak is located at the top), when it popped out of the clouds for a few minutes. We did snap some pictures of our family at the camp in front of the peak. It did not look 5 days away. At this point, the guide asked us if we wanted to continue (tuendelee?) or turn back (turudie). We were surprised by the question because we wanted to finish the loop and said we would continue.

As we walked another 5 kilometers we started drying off, which was good. David, however, was starting to get altitude sickness. He had a bad headache, nausea, and was needing to urinate every 2 minutes or so. This was concerning because I could see we were still ascending, probably close to 12,000 feet at this point. I was anticipating veering left and cutting down to the car any time. But since there were clouds hiding the peak it was hard to tell which way we were going.

At one point when we crossed an emergency access road the guide told us we would be back to the car by 11 (saa kumi na moja) which is 5pm in our time. We were confused about that as we continued up the trail. David was really suffering after another 2 kilometers and we asked the guide where the car was. We were expecting to arrive at it at any minute. He looked surprised by the question and pointed very far down the hill in the opposite direction, toward the first base camp and said 'pale' (there). "How far?" asked Rebecca. "9 kilometers," he replied.

We were stunned and realized in horror that he had not been going in a circle path at all. Instead, we had hiked almost to the Shira 3 basecamp! We were quite upset, having walked 12 kilometers already and realized we had 9 to get back to the car, with all of us exhausted from the thin air and David getting sicker by the minute. But we simply had to get back. There was no easy way out of this. We stumbled down the 2 kilometers of rough path to the access road then walked along it for 7 more kilometers, having to cajole, bribe, coerce, and sometimes carry David along.

Rebecca and I were muttering the whole way about how irresponsible the guide had been, thinking that a family of wazungu out for a jaunt on Kili for the first time would want to take a 21 kilometer hike above 11,000 feet! We realized that he had never assumed we were going in a circle and when he was asking if we should continue or return, he was going in a straight line toward the summit and not a loop. I had not realized that our assumption that we were looping and our request to continue (to get back) was actually taking us further from the car. (We debated if this was a cultural misunderstanding, or just starting with the wrong premises.) I would normally expect a guide to play more the role of the expert and advisor rather than deferring judgment to us, when we clearly were not equipped to do a 21 kilometer trip at high altitude. But power imbalances being what they are, he just let us be in charge.

We got back to the car dead tired at about 5:15pm. Rebecca could hardly walk another step. Oren was kind of a machine that did not stop walking, and David, weirdly, got a second wind in the last 2 kilometers despite the bad headache. We did thank God that it did not rain hard again on the way back because I don't know how much more difficultly we could have endured.

We drove back out the gate and signed out. The rangers had been worried about us and were about to send out a rescue vehicle. Fortunately, we were out the gate before 6 or we would have been fined. We drove the short descent back to Simba Farm and crashed in our room. Dinner never tasted so good. (Fortunately they had also sent a bag lunch with us when we went up. We did not run out of food or water.)

The next day we were all incredibly sore, but did take a short hike from our cottage down to a stream. It was a good thing to do to get the lactic acid out of our legs. Surprisingly the kids were quite resilient and had no complaints about going on another short hike.

We stayed at the lodge until late afternoon, and even took a dip in their freezing pool before heading back. It is great to see the kids interact when there are no options for screens. They had a great time playing together at the cottage when we were not out hiking. David also enjoyed seeing the livestock that they kept at the farm.

We headed back toward Arusha and could see heavy rain on Mt. Meru. We are glad to see the rainy season is finally here although we did not appreciate it on our hike, or the destruction it wreaked on the bridge on our compound.

Some Bonus Photos from the past week.

Dying Easter Eggs with our next door neighbors

With Gingerich's on Easter Sunday