So Much Winning!

Kilimanjaro golf course on a short sabbatical. 

This week has involved a lot of winning – many, many satisfying accomplishments. It’s the end of the academic year, and so there have been many ceremonies and recognition of a time of completion

The very first big one was the Confirmation Service at our church. Over the past year, Oren has joined 8 other kids in taking a confirmation class, preparing them for a more mature understanding of their Christian commitment. It was a bit of a funny situation for him – he’s quite a bit older than his classmates. And as a Mennonite, he hasn’t been baptized yet (he was dedicated as a baby), so confirmation as a rite really makes no sense for him. But the teacher is a very kind man and a good friend, and we felt like it would be good for Oren to have some spiritual input from someone besides his parents. Anyway, on the confirmation day, we had to figure out some way for him to participate with his classmates and celebrate the completion of this year of studies.

He was nervous, but he agreed to wear the white robe with the rest of them, and to make his affirmation of faith with them. I was on the schedule to lead worship music for that service, which was really fun for me. The confirmands had worked together to choose all the music for the service, and they chose well. The amazing music teacher from our kids’ school,  Mr. Kalule (most of the confirmands also attend St. Cons) played piano with me, and it was a joyful service to participate in. Vance, the confirmation teacher, gave a really thoughtful sermon about how this step of confirmation is one step in a continuing journey of growth in faith. And as these kids grow up into maturity, it will be good that they face challenges and grow stronger through them. He used the analogy of the failed biosphere experiment. Trees grew and matured in a controlled environment, which seemed to have the perfect balance of water, oxygen and nutrients. But eventually they simply toppled over and died. Why? Because there was no Wind in that protected space. And without the challenging force of the wind, the trees never developed strength and resilience in their roots. It’s a good way to see difficulties and setbacks –as a way to grow in strength so that we can stand tall.

After the service, we were so blessed to share lunch with Vance and his wife Beth-Marie, along with another church friend Fitsimt, at a local Ethiopian restaurant. This was actually Paul’s choice for Fathers’ Day – but we all loved the food. And we ended the day with a really good discussion with our bible study group.

On Monday – more winning. Our persistent colleague Chrispin had driven back down to Dodoma to deposit our work permit applications for the second time. We had made sure to comply with every additional request of the labor office. And on the second try, our applications were accepted. In our experience, getting papers accepted is more than half the battle. So now we wait hopefully to hear of a possible approval.

Even the best weeks must have a certain amount of difficulty to keep things interesting. Even weeks of so much winning!

On Wednesday afternoon, I got a call from the school nurse, who told me that Oren had fallen hard on his hand while playing soccer and injured his wrist. He was definitely in a lot of pain when I picked him up from school and couldn’t use his hand. Our regular pediatrician is back in Baltimore currently, but thankfully the other pediatrician was willing to take time from his busy schedule to see Oren in the morning.

So, Oren and I started off the day in the hospital, waiting to see the doctor. He was very kind and thorough but felt that it was very likely fractured. He sent us with a prescription to get an x-ray done at a different hospital because it would be faster. So, we waded through traffic to get down to the other place, waded through all the procedures of registering, paying, etc, and left within an hour with x-rays. We headed back to the original hospital to then see the orthopedist. He is a busy man and was in meetings, so it turned out to be quite a long wait. And then a longer wait. We talked with other patients, and with a doctor friend who passed by to greet us several times. I guess we saw him after 2 hours. Oren was very mature about controlling his impatience in a busy waiting room. In the end, there didn’t seem to be a fracture, but the doctor recommended getting a brace to protect his wrist.

So, our next stop was a good pharmacy – not an easy place to get to either. We were about to walk out with a good wrist brace in hand, when one of the younger pharmacists burst in, asking who was driving the Harrier, a wheel clamp had been put on it. Yep, that was me. Apparently, it is illegal to park on one side of the street – though there are no signs posted about that. A private company enforces that law and collects the fine, and apparently, they don’t like the pharmacy, who tries to warn customers ahead of time! The pharmacists all joined in on coaching me about how to get out of the situation in the most efficient way. (Don’t go with them to their office! They’ll lock you in and charge you 80,000 Tsh! Make them come with you to the central police station! Say you have no more money and offer them a small bill!) In the end, the head pharmacist, a devout Muslim, very kindly walked us out and dealt with the wheel-clampers, on his way to midday prayers. It was stressful and I was very thankful for his help.

After that, it really felt like a fast food pizza lunch was in order before I dropped Oren back off at school – just in time to take his very last final exam of Year 9. The teacher had agreed to let him take it whenever he finally got to school that day. And Oren had to suffer through writing the exam with his very sore right arm. But he pushed through and did it!

On Friday afternoon, all the primary music students performed in a recital after school was out. There were about 60 kids who each played some short piece – many of them were very nervous and had a tough time. But others played nice selections on the drums, or duets with a teacher on guitar. There were even a few who are taking voice lessons and who sang for the recital. After that wrapped up we went out for some supper and then to see the new release of Men in Black. It was a pleasant family evening out, and we were returning home on the new bypass road by a little after 9 pm.

Suddenly, our Toyota Harrier started making a very odd rattling sound. We thought it might be a plastic bag stuck to the bottom of the car, but when we stopped and looked under the hood we realized it must be something in the car itself. But what? Nothing was obvious. And at 9 pm at night, no garages are open. There is no place where you can just leave your car parked and empty where it will be safe. Even having people around just increases the likelihood of becoming a target for crime somehow. We realized there was nothing for it but to get home, and the fastest way home was to take the bypass. The long, dark, deserted bypass. We continued driving. The sound became more pronounced. We passed the halfway mark home, and needed to climb a hill. The engine was clearly struggling, so as soon as we crested the hill, Paul put it in neutral and started coasting down the other side. The engine actually cut out completely, and he couldn’t get it started again. And so there was nothing to do but let gravity take us as far as possible. Finally, we just had to stop, and pulled off the road as far as possible. It was completely, utterly dark – no lights of houses or anything nearby. We were on our phones, trying to reach someone who could come out and help us – at 9:30 pm. It wasn’t easy to get anyone to answer. Finally, Paul got hold of our neighbor Ephraim, who agreed to come out. And it was a wait that felt really long. I didn’t want us to wait inside the car because of the possibility that our car could be struck from behind by a careless passing vehicle. And it was cold to wait outside. An elderly man approached us eventually, and it was clear he had already had a few too many. He offered his services as a night watchman, but his whole affect didn’t inspire confidence. I left him chatting with Oren in Swahili (Oren understood nothing) while Paul and I tried to think what we could do, even when our neighbor arrived.

Thankfully, when Ephraim arrived, he came with a (sober) nightguard from our compound. So we felt better about leaving the car for a few minutes and bringing the kids home. Back on the base, Ephraim also offered invaluable help in finding a decent tow rope, because we had nothing adequate to the task. And then Paul and I returned to the Harrier and strung it up behind the Land Rover. I hopped in the Land Rover with the night guard, and we towed the broken down car back home. I’ve never done anything before like tow another vehicle with a rope, but I guess now I know how to do it. It’s much better at night without a lot of traffic on the road. So, all of that was a less than fun end to the week.

We needed a good sleep-in on Saturday to recover from that stressful late night. But on Saturday afternoon we headed out for some social time. Our first stop was a farewell open house for our Norwegian friends Anne and Roger. They have led the Sunday school program at our church for several years, and they will be dearly missed. They had a really lovely garden party including such a nice mix of people from all facets of their life here.

And then we drove on to a nice hotel in the center of Arusha, where we met Paul’s cousin Matt Calavan. Matt and his son had just finished climbing Kilimanjaro that day and had arrived in town, just in time to meet Matt’s wife Katy and their daughter, who joined them from Kenya. We make many good and amazing friends in this environment, but generally none of us have any history with each other. We see each other during a deep but narrow cross-section of life. It is a very special thing to spend time with someone with whom you have a long, shared history. Paul and Matt shared crazy memories of childhood together, telling story after story, as well as catching up years of life since then. Oren and David were quite astonished to see their dad in this light, so animated as he told tales of visiting the exotic Calavan cowboy life in Oklahoma.  They came away saying, “Why don’t you tell us more about our extended family?” It was a really joyful evening together with all of them!

On Sunday, I preached at the local Mennonite church. It is always an interesting experience to go and worship in Swahili and I do enjoy hearing all the choirs sing their various numbers. Because of translation, I ended up preaching about half the sermon I had planned – things just take so much longer when you say them twice! Paul taught a final Sunday school class for the term. And then we rejoined after church, for small group – one more before many people head out on “summer” travels.”

The final week of school was incredibly and positively intensive. The Year 5 and 6 classes in primary school (David’s level) worked very hard over the final term to prepare and present a full-fledged piece of musical theater: Beauty and the Beast. They modeled their script and music on the Disney movie. The kids did phenomenally well – considering that they are only 10 or 11. The lead actors sang all the real ballads, acted, did their blocking perfectly and handled lapel mics with a nearly professional ability. And then each set of classes performed a large ensemble number. The set was beautifully done and the student stage crew worked tirelessly to prepare countless scene changes. It was really remarkable to see what this set of students has achieved. They have some incredible teachers (including that amazing music teacher that contributes at our church also) and lots of support from the administration. In fact, the head of Primary is the same person who runs the lighting for the theater productions – only in a international school. So, we had two late nights, as we enjoyed the play in the evening.

On Tuesday, more winning:

·       The two Tanzanian young men who are accepted to an exchange program to serve in the USA with our organization received their visas to go to the US – that’s a great hurdle to cross

·       Paul’s really good camera, which had been broken somehow, was repaired, just in time for safari.

·       I heard about 3 more host families I could interview about hosting a French exchange volunteer next year.

·      

Paul and I had a day off together to review the past few months. We enjoyed a really nice buffet breakfast together. And then we drove out to a huge golf course out of town and took a very long walk around just part of the perimeter. It was a really good day to think and process and enjoy time together and explore a new place.

On Wednesday, Oren brought home the results of his Cambridge Checkpoint Exams. These are international standard exams, given around the world, to assess the level of students before they enter Year 10 preparation for O-levels. We were very interested to know how Oren would do. He gets good grades in school these days, but you never know – is the school just grading on a curve? Or is he really actually doing well, compared to education in the world?

Well, it turns out, Oren is being very well prepared academically at St. Constantine’s. He got a really good mark in English (5 out of 6). In science he did excellently (5.8 out of 6). And when I saw his marks in Math, I just burst out laughing. He got a perfect score. Absolutely perfect. 6 out of 6 in every area. 

The next day was the Secondary Awards Ceremony. We had been warned in advance that he would be getting some awards. In fact, he got four, which was almost an embarrassing number of awards for one student. He got the awards for highest academic achievement in his class for Math and Computer Science. He also got an award for best effort in Geography, and another for receiving the most merits (house points) in his house, Athens. And his house actually won the overall award for the most House Points.

(This is Paul cutting in)-- I was at the awards ceremony and was quite stunned to see him going up 4 times to get awards including some impressive academic achievements. I couldn't help but think of Harry Potter stories and how Gryffendor would pull out just ahead of Slytherin as Harry was awarded one hundred extra house points but Dumbledor for defeating Voldemor once again. Oren actually had 105 merit points which helped lift his house into first place this year. I think they are Gryffendor. Sparta is Slytherin and Olympia is Ravenclaw (since they are the brainy ones who won the debate competition). Actually Oren is a bit more of a Neville Longbottom than Harry Potter, but he definitely seemed like the hero on that day. 

School ended on Friday and we took Oren and some of his friends out to Pizza Hut for an end of school celebration. His best friend in school, Abraham, is from Benin and will be gone the whole summer. We met he and his brother, sister, and mom for pizza before returning home. 

I dropped the family off and then headed out in the landrover to the airport to meet my brother Jonathan and his family (Emma, and son Flether), who were arriving to spend the next two weeks with us. They were right on schedule and it was exciting to pick them up and bring them back. As you can see, we put them straight to work washing dishes. We plan to do some vacation with them, a safari in Tarangire Park and 5 days in Zanzibar, starting next week.

Fletcher going for the frisbee.

Saturday, we had a big day planned. It was Oren's 14th Birthday AND we had an ultimate frisbee game planned as well (which we do once per month with friends and people living on our compound.) It was great to have several families from our small group, Jonathan's family, and a number of Tanzanian teachers from the compound here join us. We had a particularly competitive game and it was a lot of fun!

Afterwards, we went over to our house and the kids smashed a giant ant piniata I am made for Oren. (It took about 3 days with balloons and paper mache to build.) It was tough and I finally threw it off our water tower to demolish it after they beat it with a bat for a while. This was followed by Birthday cakes, Rebecca made 3. It was a nice group and Oren got some nice gifts that Jonathan and family sherpa-ed from the US. 

That should bring us up to the present, and finished this blog before the end of June! We will report on our adventures on safari and Zanzibar next time. 

Behavior Change Communication and Practicing what you Preach

Saturday morning is a good time to catch up on our activities of the last two weeks. Rebecca is at a worship committee meeting and the kids are having their Saturday morning free (screen) time. A lot has happened since I wrote last, especially since I was away the week before last and Rebecca wrote about activities at home. June has a feeling of rushing. We are in the home stretch of finishing school, with exams coming up, and long reserved 'summer' vacation plans now in sight.

I say 'summer' in quotes because seasonally, Arusha in June feels a lot like early fall in the US. The weather has turned chilly. We regularly wear fleeces to work and school and have even turned on space heaters near our desks at work. Wet suits are de rigeur for our morning swim. The water temp has dropped to about 62F and will go down into the high fifties in the next few weeks. I have, in the past, compared our morning swim to a 'religious experience' or spiritual discipline as it were. But it does prepare one for any adversity for the rest of the day.

I need to back up one full week to catch up on our activities. I left Rebecca and the children for six days the past week, to go to Nairobi for a conference for MCC Health Sector workers in Africa. I left Sunday after church by bus, which only takes 5 hours (if the border is not too crowded). I arrived at Amani guest house at about 8pm.

It is very professionally satisfying to be in a gathering of colleagues from all over Africa who are doing similar kinds of projects in Africa. There were colleagues from South Africa (Lisutu), Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, NIgeria, Chad, and Burkina Faso. It was inspiring to hear about the work they are doing.

The week long workshop was focused on implementing and evaluating BCC (behavior change communication), projects into our health programs. Behavior change communication, for those who are not familiar, are strategies to get people to change, often long standing reinforced habits that are adverse to healthy living, and to adopt new practices. In the US you have certainly experienced this from everything to washing hands, wearing seat belts, not driving drunk, not smoking, using condoms, or getting vaccinated. The challenge BCC addresses is the reality that most people do not change behavior because they know better (Knowledge of risk does not usually change behavior). Strategies to change attitudes and practice need to go beyond just telling people about risk and what good behavior looks like.

Paul Fast, our facilitator made this point cleverly by pointing out that almost everyone in his country (USA) knows the importance of washing hands, but only about 3% do it correctly on a regular basis. He reinforced this point poigniantly at the end of the week by asking us to rub some 'simulated germ' lotion on our hands right before a break. The lotion is clear, but under a black light it glows. He then told us to have tea then wash our hands as we usually do. When we came back we looked at our hands and were surprised to see how badly we had done. The point was well taken as many there do teach hand washing as part of our WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) projects. It ran home the fact that getting people to adopt and continue to do a practice regularly takes knowledge as well as cues to action and other incentives or disincentives to reinforce it.

We had an interesting side discussion on the ethics of 'shaming' for a positive behavior change. It is not a practice in any MCC programs, but some West African colleagues talked about some govt. campaigns to end 'open defecation' involving a 'walk of shame'. This involves all the residents of a village, walking through the village and surrounding grounds together to find any open defecation, then identifying the person who likely did it and publicly 'outing'  and shaming them and making them clean it up. Is it justified if it saves lives?? While it may be effective, it was not something anyone in MCC could advocate for.

Although, even as most of us disavowed shaming as a BCC tool, I did point out that we do use it in our culture to change behavior, especially on social media. I gave the example of the #metoo campaign which used public shaming as a way to stop sexual harassment. It was interesting to debate situations where shaming might be appropriate and situations where it would not be. I think people finding out that they more tolerant of this practice in their own context then they expected was an interesting revelation.

Barrier analysis was another topic of discussion in the seminar. This is a tool or framework to analyze barriers that cause people to resist adopting a practice. It is done in an interview/focus group format to understand all the dynamics around a particular practice that one is trying to change. Often factors are quite complex-- a woman may not take her child to a clinic because of the opinion of her mother-in-law. A campaign to change behavior may need to involve the mother-in-law, and not just the mother. That is somewhat simplified, but understanding barriers is essential to changing behavior.

I was invited to share some researh in our maternal child health project that we have been doing and is almost complete. We are trying to understand why women in our Maasai community go regularly to antenatal care, then refuse to go to a health facility to deliver their babies. After extensive interviews and discussion we are beginning to get a picture, and have found that traditional birth attendants TBAs play a very significant role in deciding where she will give birth. And many have a deep mistrust of clinics because of a negative experience where someone was turned away---that may have happened only once. The lesson is, no amount of educating women about the risk of home delivery will change her practice if her TBA is against it.

The second to last day, we made a visit to a maternal and child health project that one of MCC Kenya's partners runs in Kibera slum. I had the opportunity to see this in November and it was quite unforgetable then. The program, which runs care groups (peer education) to promote antenatal care, breast feeding, and skilled delivery is highly effective. This seems amazing when one enters this place which can appear like total squalor at a glance. Filty water runs down small alleys between rusted tin shacks, like row houses, only smaller than a backyard tool shed.

We visited several women at their home to ask what they had learned. It was amazing and sobering to see them making a life in a tiny home, and here how they sanitize water, vegetables, and care for their infants. I think what is most stunning is seeing people making what is a 'normal' life there. People making repairs, selling things, doing work, going to care group meetings etc. This is not a refugee camp. The only true sign of hopelessness I saw was the number of men who were staggering around drunk at 9 in the morning. They came to the city with their wives to find work and a better life, and ended up here. It seems like it would have to be worse than the village, but people come and come and come.

We wrapped up on Friday and I returned to Arusha in the afternoon, and was picked up by Rebecca and the kids at around 9pm from the shuttle stop. I was lucky that they were out in town until then. They had gone to our church for a choir concert with a number of guest choirs celebrating Pentecost. Sadly our choir was not a part as many of us (including me) were out of town. But apparently it was quite beautiful and they all enjoyed it. It was also serenipitous that they were finished when I arrived in town.

There was no day of rest over the weekend as we had some big events scheduled for Sunday. As coordinator of Sunday School, we had planned a field trip for the Sunday School kids to visit an orphanage in town. This is connected with their offerings. We collect Sunday School offerings over the school year, then they are given away at the end to a charity we select. We arrange a field trip for the kids to visit the place we are making the donation. Samaritan Village orphanage had about 50 childen in it and seemed a good place to take our offerings. Logisitics for this is fairly elaborate including scheduling a bus, getting permission slips, buying refreshments, cutting a check for the donation, etc. I spent a good part of Saturday morning getting ready for this.

Rebecca was helping Oren at the same time getting ready for a bake sale at church hosted by the confirmation class as a service project in preparation for their graduation. Oren will complete his confirmation class this coming Sunday, it was a year long process. Oren made chocolate chip cookies to sell for the fund raiser which also took much of Saturday morning to prepare.

We went out Saturday evening to the kids school (St. Constantine's) to a sort of music concert. A bit more like a Kareoke night with many kids performing. It was an opportunity to build community with other parents since we do not always get opportunities to see them.

Sunday was the big day and I am glad to say that despite the complex preparations, the field trip went off without a hitch. We left reasonably on time, about 50 kids and 10 adults and arrived at the orphanage. Our kids were great and sang several songs (Rebecca played guitar) and taught them hand gestures. I did a participatory message on Pentecost then we shared refreshments and gave them our gifts. They were very well received and the kids from the orphanage really seemed to appreciate the visit. We got back shortly after our church service ended and in time for the bake sale and a church buffet luncheon featuring some international dishes. Rebecca and I were exhausted by the time it was all over, but thankful that all went well. After a week of travel and a busy weekend I collapsed and slept through most of the evening while Rebecca and the kids went and saw the new release of 'Aladdin'.

After the weekend it was good to be back to a week of more normal routines. As Rebecca wrote last week, the kids were home from school for two days during Eid, so having a full week of school of work actually felt like a bit of a break. We braved cold swims with our wetsuits every morning before going to work. We have needed to focus on getting work permits and residence visas for ourselves and a SALT volunteer this week as ours are expiring at the end of August and the process has become complex. Not all the expats we know have been successful at renewing their visas, so we are praying. One of our staff went down to Dodoma (the new capital this week) to deposit our paperwork and ran into a number of obstacles and had to come back unsuccessful. We are regrouping for another try this coming week. More updates as things progress.

Lunch after church.

Holidays (again!)

David and the newest calf in the barn

 Eid Mubarak!

It’s another holiday in Tanzania, finally officially announced last night at 7:42 pm. That’s the trick with Muslim holidays: you really can’t make serious plans around them because they could always be delayed if some imam somewhere doesn’t get a sight of the moon. Anyway, we’ve got two more days with kids home from school (right after a week of half-term holidays last week!).

I just came in with the kids from a good activity that David came up with: we carried a soccer ball and frisbee down to the field on our compound to play a bit. On our way, a bunch of the Tanzanian teachers’ kids who live on the compound also spotted us. It was fun to just kick the ball around a bit with some of them and lend the frisbee to the others to help build their Ultimate Frisbee skills. We don’t often have good ways to connect with these little kids but playing with them in the field was a good activity for all of us.

Petting puppies

And then there’s spending time in the barn: another thing that David has been loving during his holidays. For now, there are six funny looking puppies being kept in one pen. They are flea-ridden and kind of dirty, but still a lot of fun to cuddle and pet. The two older cows and three younger heifers are also fun to interact with – as much as you can with cows! And then there’s a month-old calf who has stopped being so skittish and loves David to get in her pen with her, so that she can lick or eat his clothing. The three older guard dogs sleep in another part of the barn during the day but are happy to wake up to have their ears scratched. And there are also chickens. And large rats. And the smell of a farmyard in the clothing that follows us home. 😉

Last week during the holidays, I was able to take two lieu days to be with the kids. Poor Paul was in the office all week, trying to finish up a research paper on Maasai women’s delivery decisions. 

Lego robots

One morning I picked up the boys’ friends Sammy and Harry and took them to do two hours of coding and building Lego robots. Then they had some time hanging out at our house, playing games. 

On another day, Oren went to visit his school friend Abraham while David came with me to a ladies’ bible study. 

And on Friday, we met some of our family bible study friends at a great local playground. It was so nice to have a time to talk with the ladies here and there, in between tending to the toddlers. 

Our kids really like the fried fast food they can get at IBES. and I was also able to take some measurements of the safari car we hope to install in our church playground, in memory of the Sunday school teacher who died suddenly last December. 

Lake Duluti

Our past weekend also included a nice afternoon trip to Lake Duluti. Oren and I opted to walk around the lake.

I always enjoy just getting to talk with Oren without pressure. I learn a lot from him about movies and video games, and what he does during his electives at school. He asked me to explain the origins of ISIS. 

Meanwhile, David and Paul bought some worms and fished for tilapia. They caught many, up to 6 inches long, but released them all.

On Sunday, after a busy morning at church, we took Paul to catch the shuttle bus to Nairobi. He is there all week, attending an MCC conference for staff involved in health projects. We are a bit jealous of him getting to stay at the Mennonite guesthouse there – a location we love! But it’s also not bad to be here and just keep things going on the home front.