Preparations and Departure

Dulles arrival and meeting Papa Dave and Gramma Jean

Last Friday evening, we bid farewell to Jonathan’s family after a fun and satisfying time of Tanzania vacation, showing them around some of our favorite spots. We had one quiet evening in between, family movie night and sleeping in, before we needed to turn around and dive into a final week of work and preparation for our own departure.

Nai (center), with her younger sister and her son Ezra

But first, there were a few social events to attend to. We now have a tradition of bringing a birthday cake for each of the birthdays of our housekeeper’s children. We had missed 7-year old Leah’s birthday while we were in Zanzibar. So, on Saturday morning, I made a cake for her and David helped me decorate it. Then, the kids and I drove over to her place to go spend some time with Nai’s family. They are so incredibly kind and hospitable when we go. We enjoyed some spiced chai and freshly roasted corn, right out of their field. Then we had rice and sauce made with little tiny salted fish (ndaga). 

David really enjoyed running around outside in their farm with Nai’s kids and their neighbor friends. Apparently, they ran to see a relative, who gave them 500 shillings (about 20 cents), and they each came back with a tiny frozen sleeve of juice. 

Oren was a bit more at a loose end, but he sat inside with the adults as we talked about life, farming, school, etc. Finally, we got to the birthday cake and Leah was so pleased to blow out candles and share the sugary cake with jellybean decorations. Paul bowed out of this visit, as he needed to concentrate on preparing a sermon for the following day.

Leah, in pink, in front of her cake.

Later that afternoon, we picked up our good friend from Burundi days, JJ Ivaska. He was in town for some work meetings and it was a real pleasure to bring him back to our house for dinner. We had a lot to catch up on, now that his family is settled back in the US, he has a new job, and we’ve had a lot of changes in the past 5 years as well. We had shared a lot in our international bible study in Burundi, and it was a sweet time to just dive back in to sharing with him again. Here’s a repost of the photo from last weekend.

Rebecca, Paul and JJ

On Sunday morning, it was great to be back in our church, after missing a week. Paul preached a thoughtful sermon on the Good Samaritan. Since Sunday school is on break, he started out by inviting some of the kids in church to act out the Gospel reading as he read it. But his preaching was focused more on the adults, really pushing us to consider how Jesus placed a most unexpected and offensive person in the starring role of his story. Paul took time to explore what it is like to put ourselves into the place of each of the characters but concluded that the place we mostly belong is in the role of the man who was in need of mercy. The parable calls all of us as Christians to be people who show mercy, because we ourselves received mercy.

We rounded out our Sunday afternoon with a meeting of our bible study group here. Many of our members are currently traveling, but we were able to still gather with 6 people. Indeed, being part of the formation of that small group has been one of the highlights of our past year in Tanzania. There is nothing so precious as having a group where one can share and pray together.

In-country orientation for IVEP

And then, by 8 pm that evening, we were hosting again! This time, we welcomed two young men who will be participating in the International Volunteer Exchange Program (IVEP) with MCC. They are from Tanzania, selected from the Tanzanian Mennonite church through a rigorous interview process, and they will be serving for the next year in placements in Illinois and Virginia. As part of their preparation for this year of service, I asked them to come to Arusha for a few days of in-country orientation. And as I got to know them more this week, I realized how much they needed orientation. One of them has never left the country (and the other traveled briefly to neighboring Kenya). Neither has flown on a plane. They have spent very little time with people from cultures outside of Tanzania. In fact, one of them eventually confessed a lot of fear at the idea that he was going to stay in the home of Americans for 3 days, wondering if he would really be able to do that. I felt very affirmed then that it was a good idea to have them stay at our home, eat with our family, and observe American family culture, as well as to have all the formal orientation sessions we went through in the office. They will be staying with host families, and this 3 day stay with us was like a brief taste of a homestay. I think they felt much more confident in their ability to relate to Americans by the time they left on Wednesday morning.

We had so many interesting conversations over the course of the two full days they were with us. We did our best to stretch their taste buds, introducing them to spaghetti Bolognese, Mexican beef burritos, and even taking them out for a Chinese lunch. And the learning was two-way. As we spent time talking over meals, they helped us realize how novel it was for them to have mealtime conversation. We discovered that in Tanzanian culture, it’s exactly the opposite: it’s good manners to remain silent while you eat, and in fact, you are considered selfish if you are chattering away over a meal! WHY WASN’T I TOLD?!!? That explains a lot of the awkwardness I’ve often felt trying to make conversation when I’ve shared meals with more traditional Tanzanians. I thought that somehow, I just couldn’t figure out the right questions to spark a good conversation. Now I realize they must have thought that I was being rather annoying to distract them from their food!

Chinese lunch with Lucia and the 2 IVEPers

There are many other less tangible differences in culture that these young men needed to know about: the very different culture of the American church (including the issues that divide us—so foreign to Tanzanian Christians); differences in social relations in terms of less formality and hierarchy, and the possibility that men and women can be simply friends; differences in work culture, in terms of how readily we in America can ask questions and give direct feedback, but we need to be timely, not on the phone all the time, and take initiative when we don’t have direction. They were surprised to hear that there are virtually no internet cafes or good public transport – because almost everyone has her own device and car. This will be a challenge for them on their small stipends. They were even shocked to hear that you can drink water straight from the tap! I certainly couldn’t prepare them for everything, but they are open, friendly, engaging young men and I think they will be very successful in making friends and continuing the learning process as they arrive in the US next month.

Even as we finished the in-country orientation for them, one IVEP candidate returned home after his year of service. I had a chance to talk with him, and it sounds like it is quite a rough transition to come back home to a place where people really can’t relate to his experience and have unreasonably high expectations about his ability to now solve the economic problems of everyone in his network. Going abroad is an amazing opportunity for these young people, but there are also high emotional costs to broadening one’s worldview.

Birthday cake with bible study group

My birthday was on Wednesday, and I got to experience many, many hours of that day 😉, since I woke up with our visitors at 4:30 to get them into a taxi and head for the bus. And when you’re awake at 5 am, there’s no going back to sleep. So, it was a good moment to catch up on a bunch of other computer work. We also had an early morning conversation with our supervisor (currently in Canada), to make sure everything was in order before we left. It was a full workday after that. But we ended the day in a truly celebratory way. Our friends the Taylors very kindly invited us over for a delicious curry feast, including chicken, beef, vegetable, lentil and potato curries. It was amazing! Along with birthday cake. And some very good conversation with Mike and Katie. And a fun game of Colt Express. And our boys were super happy to have more time to spend with their age-mate friends. We polished off the evening by bringing home the Taylor boys to have one final sleepover at our house. And as I needed to be at home, sorting, packing and preparing on Thursday, it was great that Oren and David had friends to hang out with for much of the day.

Everyone was able to have an afternoon swim (evening in my case, since I still needed to do a few more hours of work before leaving for a month), to get the wiggles out and prepare for the long journey. Our suitcases were packed by 9 pm. And we even got a little rest before the alarm rang at 2:15 and we hopped in a taxi to the airport by 3 am. Let me tell you, it’s a quick trip to KIA at that hour! And now we are on board Turkish airlines and headed for Istanbul. God willing, we will arrive in Washington by 7:30 pm EDT, and maybe in bed by 11 pm. It’s going to be a long, long day! But we’re on our way to a month in the US, bringing closure to our second year in Tanzania. It's good to have this time to reset!

Mt. Kilimanjaro at our dawn departure

A Confederation of Ostriches, and Other Wonders

One of the really great things about living in a tourist town is the number of visitors we have dropping by spontaneously, as well as ones we invite because we have a once in a lifetime opportunity for them to enjoy.

We have just finished a two week visit from the family of my brother Jonathan with his wife Emma and son Fletcher. Having family visit us from the US (Tennessee to be precise) is a real treat. We had been planning this visit for nearly a year and had exchanged many emails to coordinate school and vacation schedules as well as planning flights and the best economical sight-seeing opportunities here. Rebecca and I had decided to take a short safari followed by a longer visit to the Zanzibar archipelego for beach activities and snorkeling, as well as exploring the history of Swahili culture in Stonetown.

Von der Decken's Hornbill

The decision was practical in many respects. Kilimanjaro is also an attraction but still beyond the age requirement of the kids (and it is grueling). Safaris are generally more expensive than going to the beach so we booked an overnight at a safari lodge in Tarangire Park and 5 nights at a hotel in Zanzibar on the Eastern coast.

We also had a few places of interest in Arusha that we planned to take them to on days when Rebecca or I had to work.

As mentioned in the last entry, they arrived on the last weekend of June and were treated to several of our favorite activities, such as our monthly ultimate frisbee game, as well as Oren's Birthday. They also went to church with us and had Sunday lunch at Andrew's (for Tanzanian food) with some friends from small group.

Lesser striped swallow

Rebecca and I worked on Monday morning. Our guests had some time to catch up on sleep, relax with a swim and beverage in the afternoon at Gymkhana, and enjoy the festive outdoor urban chicken barbeque at Khan's "Chicken on the bonnet." On Tuesday, we loaded up in the early morning in a safari vehicle (driven by 'Paul,' a professional guide, who is the father of our MCC finance officer). We arrived at Tarangire about 10 am and after some processing at the front gate, we drove in to begin our game sighting.

Superb starling

Tarangire park does not disappoint as there are an abundant number of animals starting right at the gate. It is also famous for bird watchers as there are hundreds of bird species that live or migrate through the park. We spent the morning until lunch looking at game, mainly zebras and other antelope as well as several herds of elephant.

We checked into Tarangire Safari Lodge at lunch time and were treated to their beautiful lunch buffet. We got three rooms with Jonathan and Emma staying in a small bungalow and Rebecca and I in another with David. Oren and Fletcher were booked into a luxury safari tent. Tarangire Safari lodge is probably one of the most well appointed gorgeous places one can stay in the Arusha region. It is also incredibly environmentally friendly using solar power when possible, and avoiding any kind of plastic bottles (refills for water bottles are available from filtered reserves). It also has a pool that is crazy deep (14 feet.). The best part is a lounge and a deck that overlook hundreds of acres of savanah, as the hotel sits on the edge of a ridge in the park, leading down to the Taragire river. One can see herds of elephants, gazelle, giraffe, buffalo and many other animals walking around below from the comfort of a chair. It also affords a beautiful view of the rising sun.

After lunch and a swim, we took an evening game drive, and thanks to Paul (the guide's) keen sense of tracking he found a tree with vultures roosting above a kill. Since the vultures were not on the kill, he concluded that lions were nearby and would be returning. Sure enough within 5 minutes 2 lionesses and 2 cubs arrived to eat. It was great to see them, and even discover them as other vehicles began to arrive within 15 minutes. We got some great photos. As we drove back we saw a beautiful sunset and many herds of animals. Paul told us the names for gatherings of different species. Our favorite: a confederation of ostriches.

We returned in the evening to another delicious buffet and spent the evening playing games and reading. David had brought his black light and did find quite a number of scorpions on the walking path to our bungalow. After dark we were escorted to our place anyway as the hotel is right in the park and any number of predators can amble through at any time. It was a bit unnerving, as the guard flashed his light up into the overhanging branches of large baobob trees, just to ensure that no leapards were waiting there.

This was clearly evident the next morning when I found a herd of elephants right around our path to the lodge. There was also evidence, from their spoor, that they had been tramping around the tents and cabins earlier that morning.

We had breakfast then did another longer mid-morning game drive. No cats, but we did see a herd of eland, of which I have not seen more than one at a time in the past. Around the safari lodge there were a huge number of unusual birds as well, and it was not difficult photographing them as they tended to hang around. My favorite was an emerald spotted wood dove because like the superb starling, it is a species bird that is fairly plain looking and common in the US, but its cousin here has irridescent green on its wings.

We ate lunch one last time at the safari lodge and headed back to Arusha where we spent Wednesday and Thursday night. This was just the right amount of turn-around time to get ready for an early Friday morning flight to Zanzibar.

Rebecca actually did a full and important day of work on the Thursday between our trips as she has been working hard to identify a host family for a one year volunteer that is arriving in August. She had visited several families and was about to decide but on the last visit found the perfect one. It was quite a relief to do this as we will be going out of town between mid-July and mid-August and needed to get this settled.

I took the day off to take Fletcher, Oren and David fishing at Lake Duluti not far from our house. It is gratifying to fish for tilapia there because they love worms so much. We caught and released about 25. Emma took an adventure coffee tour on her own and learned a lot about the community and the delicious Arabica we enjoy here.

We left for Zanzibar early on Friday morning. The Tanzania Air flight is about 50 minutes in length from Arusha to Zanzibar, so we were there before noon. Because we would have to wait to check into our hotel anyway, Rebecca arranged for a spice tour that was organized by our taxi driver/tour guide Job. He was really great and took us to a place where he had arranged for us to have a spice tour as well as traditional Zanzibari meal.

Despite the fact that David was a bit cranky and anxious to get to the hotel and the beach, the tour was quite interesting and humorous. While we walked our guide made numerous items out of coconut palm leaves, and adorned us with hats and ties woven from the leaves by the end of the tour.

Watching a man climb a high coconut palm by tying a rope between his big toes was impressive. We were offered the opportunity to try it for ourselves, but none of us took him up on the opportunity.

We finished the tour with the meal as promised. It featured a rice pilau as well as cooked bananas and other vegetables as well as fried fish. Then we were given slices of various lucious fruits to try for dessert. It was quite good and we enjoyed a chance to sit down and eat before the 1.5 hour drive to the hotel.

The Ras Michamvi beach resort is located at the Eastern edge of Michamvi bay on the tip of a narrow penninsula. It is incredibly ideally located about 150 ft up a cliff overlooking the point. There are paths going down to beaches on the left and right. On the left side you can watch the sunrise, and on the right side you can watch it set.

Within minutes of arrivng at the hotel, David and Oren headed down to the beach, shortly joined by Fletcher. It seemed like we were in high tide in the afternoon and were wondering how far out the water would go in low tide.

The beach had white sand which met the bottom of the cliff where the hotel was located. The bottom of the cliff was hollowed out coral rock worn down by millenia of surf washing against it.

We enjoyed the seafood heavy menu that evening which featured numerous fish dishes including squid and octopus. The fish curry was a favorite.

The hotel had two swimming pools. One was quite large overlooking the beach but raised about 50 feet up the hillside. It was an infinity pool on the beach side which afforded a great view overlooking the ocean.

The second pool was a shallower infinity pool in the middle of the restaurant. It was about 150 feet above the beach and had spectacular views although we mainly waded in it.

When the tides were down mid-morning we generally went out snorkeling. All of us enjoyed it although it was new to Emma and Fletcher. David was the most avid and went out with Rebecca or I for extensive exploration of coral during low tide.

Zanzibar is like other coral reef beaches along the East African coast. There is a barrier of coral about 1-2 kilometers from shore which keeps out the really big waves. During low tide, the tide can go out a kilometer leaving 1000s of tide pool and shallow channels exposed. You have to walk out past this set of tide pools (loaded with sea urchins) to get to water deep enough to snorkel in. There are many coral formations teaming with small tropical fish.

We enjoyed seeing anemones, moray eels, clown fish, parrot and box fish as well as many others. We also saw quite a few venomous lion fish. I used to think this was a rare find during our snorkeling trips, but we ran across a half dozen during each of our dives. We also saw stone fish, and had to avoid sea urchins whenever we put our feet down. It was too dangerous to go barefoot and we all had beach shoes on during our outings.

Sometimes the kids would play on the beach, building sand castles, or burying their cousin Fletcher in the sand. We also enjoyed taking long walks and looking in tide pools during low tide.

When we were not in the ocean, we enjoyed sitting in an upstairs lounge overlooking the ocean and playing board and card games or reading. Although this is getting into high season, we felt on several days that we were alone at the hotel. A large group of North African Parisiennes were also staying there, but other than that we had the place to ourselves.

There was also wildlife in the forest area between the hotel and beach full of blue monkeys who came up into the restaurant once a day on average. Red colobus monkeys traveled with them which was a surprise since they generally do not leave the Jonzani forest.

We loved every day and were sorry that it was coming to an end on Wednesday. We had a night flight on Wednesday back to Arusha so we planned an all day visit to Stonetown, including a trip to prison island to see land giant tortoises native to the Seychelles (cousins of the Galapagos Land Giant Tortoises). Once again, our taxi driver/tour guide picked us up from the hotel and drove us to the peer at Stonetown where we caught a motor boat for prison island which is a few kilometers off shore from Stonetown. He told us the story on the way, how the island was conceived as a place to harbor prisoners but never did so. It did serve as a quarantine spot for people with cholera during an epidemic in the late 19th century. It seems that many people died there of the disease.

Today it has a resort hotel on it and a tortoise sanctuary, as well as some of the old buildings built to be prison cellblocks. It has an old Swahili look about it and takes about 45 minutes to reach by boat.

Once there we went to the tortoise sanctuary which was quite impressive. Especially since the rangers and caretakers let people walk among the turtles. They are gigantic, some weighing more than 600 lbs. You can feed them spinach which they love. But you need to be careful that they don't step on your toes! The oldest one is 193 years old and was one of the original 4 brought from the Seychelles in the 19th century. What that tortoise has seen!

We took a tour of the rest of the island after feeding the turtles then several of us did some snorkeling from a boat about half a kilometer offshore. There was a much greater variety of live coral out there, but the fish were not much different than what we had seen near the beach at our hotel and it was deeper and on the edge of an impressive drop-off that looked quite spooky.

We returned around noon to Stonetown and took a three hour walking tour of the historic city. I was glad for the opportunity as I have been there on several occasions but never heard the whole story. It was originally a Portugese settlement but later taken over by the sultan of Oman. It functioned as a major center for the slave trade for the far East. We toured an old Portugese fort, a slave market site and even past by the house where Freddie Mercury, the band Queen's front man was born.

The slave market was the most impressive and disturbing place. There is a detailed display explaining the slave trade from the Swahili coast to the middle east and India. On the site were the dungeons where slaves were held. It was frightening to imagine 150 people crammed in there for a week at a time without food or water. A trough through the middle which filled in high tide was the place where people could defficate as well as throw out dead bodies while they waited to be sold.

There was also a slave memorial statue that memorialized the many peoples in East Africa that were captured as slaves to be sold in the market in Zanzibar. There was also a large Anglican Cathedral that was built when slavery officially ended. It was built by a priest who was instrumental in ending the slave trade in Zanzibar, bought out the site of the slave market and transformed it.

From the former slave market we walked to the current central market and walked through the enormous fishmongers section. The smell was something to turn your appetite, but was impressive to see. I was also struck, while walking, that the Stonetown skyline is filled with steeples and minarets, a reminder that Christians and Muslims live together in peace in this city.

We had dinner on the rooftop of a hotel and watched a beautiful sunset while enjoying our last Swahili meal featuring fresh fish curry (the smell of the market lingering in our noses not withstanding). After dinner we did some shopping then got in the cab for the airport. Our short 50 minute flight got us back to Arusha and our house around 10pm.

Jon and Emma were in town one more day before they left. Rebecca took them to the Cultural Heritage Center and Shanga, a social enterprise employing people with disabilities, while I went to work. We all gathered for an evening at our club Gymkhana while the cousins took a golf lesson. Fletcher was especially eager to try out his golf drive in Tanzania.

Jon and Emma left the next day. It was an epic mini-vacation with them.

We are now in our last week of work before we depart for the US. It is busy, but we were happy to receive a brief visit from an old friend from Burundi, JJ Ivaska, whose wife Courteney and family were good friends of ours. It was nice to get an update from him.

I am preaching on Sunday, then we are hosting 2 Tanzanian young men for 3 days in preparation for their year abroad in the US (a mini cultural experience). The next installment will probably be posted from the US.