Bad 'Car'-ma During Grandma Jean's Visit

Grandma Jean arrived this week.

The weeks of November seem to have fled. I try to get 3 entries per month and sometimes I can't tell if the problem is we are too busy or if the routine doesn't vary enough to warrant a report every 10 days. This seems to be the latter in terms of work. For the most part, our routine did not change much this month. We were not traveling anywhere for work or recreation, but even our normal weekly routine stretches into long hours of the day and leaves little time to just sit down and write.

It is usually on Wednesday that the daily 5am wake-up really begins to take it toll. The way I feel dragging myself out of bed, it seems unimaginable that I will be fully mobile by the time my swim is over at 8am. But those three hours in between are packed with activity from making breakfast and getting bags packed for school, to getting kids up, dressed in uniform, snacks, kits, and driving to meet the bus by 6:40. The swim is the last thing before the workday begins, but it feels like I have already done a half-day by the time I finish, shower and dress.

Returning home is always after 5 and sometimes later if we have any activity scheduled like choir practice. The evening is filled by the time we drive home, prepare and eat dinner, do dishes and finish homework (which still takes parental oversight). I am ready to sleep by 9:30pm, only to begin again, until Saturday. Fortunately, Oren and I have finally both recovered from our illness I mentioned in the last entry, but I did require a course of antibiotics. I still feel very tired and ready for bed early in the evening.

The work routine was broken slightly by our Annual General Meeting last week. It is a chance for us to sit together with our advisors and reflect on the year as well as plan the way forward. There was a lot to talk about this time with changes in the way the govt. is treating NGOs (and expat. workers). We now need to regularly involve lawyers in our discussions to help us navigate the new ever-changing political landscape. I am happy to say that our advisors are ever wise, experienced, and supportive.

On the home front, we seem to be saying a lot of goodbyes these days on the Joshua Foundation compound. Our next-door neighbors are leaving Tanzania to move to New Zealand. (They have been here for 8 years). It is sad because Josiah, their oldest (of 3) has become a good friend of David. The Thompson's, another family on the compound, are leaving for NZ as well (after a year). They have 4 kids who are also playmates from time to time as well. We had a going-away picnic for them on Saturday, then a last ultimate frisbee game afterward. It was a particularly good game this time (in that we were not rained out), very competitive, and everyone has improved significantly over the last 8 months of practice.

The short rainy season kind of restarted after being done for about 2 weeks. I suppose extra water is always welcome here, but it has meant a lot more mud. We had a notable downpour this past Sunday while we were in church. Rebecca was preaching, and fortunately, she was done by the time it began. She did a good sermon for Christ the King Sunday including a participatory time for the children who answered questions about what a real king is like followed by a dramatic reading of the crucifixion by some of the older kids.

It rained hard for the last hour of the service on the tin roof in the sanctuary. We could hardly hear a thing through a baptism, the offering, and prayer time. At the end of the service people just hung out in the sanctuary waiting for it to slow down before leaving.

Our family, on the other hand, ran out to the parking lot in the downpour because we had several appointments scheduled after church including lunch with our friends the Taylors (who led music that day at church), and then going to Arusha airport to pick up Grandma Jean! She decided to accompany David Sack on his work trip to Cameroon, Uganda, and Tanzania. She split off from him after a stop in Zanzibar to arriver here Sunday. (Papa Dave will join us on Thursday for Thanksgiving). We are thrilled they can be here this winter because they will not be joining us for Christmas as they have for the past 2 years.

Fortunately, the rain had cleared enough for air traffic and we found Jean waiting at the airport, laden with suitcases full of Christmas gifts as well as books for several worthy causes here. We had a nice Sunday evening meal with her before starting the morning routine on Monday, this time with her in tow. Jean had made arrangements to do some training for one of our former partners here on using a medical research platform (She is a medical librarian). I dropped her off at a rented office at our church to have a day-long meeting with Mr. Magiri, then went off to work myself.

I am glad she was in town Tuesday because there was a special event at St. Constantine's (kids school) that day. The primary school was having its end-of-term music recital and David was singing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'. Rebecca and I went with Jean and Oren and endured the 50 odd acts that preceded David. Truthfully he was one of the best and I am putting a link to his performance here (link to David performance). I was relieved he was able to perform because during an earlier rehearsal he had had his finger smashed between 2 tables and spent a part of the day in the nurse's office.

The kids have enjoyed having their grandmother here despite the fact that they are somewhat mired in homework as they approach the end of the term.

Wednesday was a harder day than expected, beginning with driving the kids to school and witnessing a horrific motorcycle vs. car accident right in front of us. The driver actually came to rest right in front of our car, (we were not the ones who hit his motorcycle), he had swerved in front of the car ahead of us as it was passing him. Somehow he survived and we left him with a crowd afer looking for a way to be of service, he was lifting up his head but clearly in shock. Fortunately, there were several there who knew what to do in that situation.

The bad car-ma did not end there that day. We finished work and then went together with Jessica and the kids to choir practice where Jean met us. After a decent rehearsal for our December Christmas program, we went to dinner at Khan's (nearby) with our friends Neil and Christie. From there we headed home with a full car (6 people) and planned to drop Jessica at her house on the way back.

Unfortunately, because of rain and work on a sewer pipe, Jessica's road was quite muddy and we could only get within 100 meters of her gate. We let her off but when we tried to turn around, the front tire went deep into a recently filled in trench which had turned into a mud hole. The wheel sunk down about a foot almost immediately. We got out and tried to push it while rocking, but it was basically sitting on the frame of the car it was so deep in the mud. I spent about 20 minutes digging under the wheel and frame in mud soup to try to get some rocks under the tire but it did not help. It was about 9pm and we were trying to decide what to do. We were not that close to home and could not leave the car.

We decided to call Andrew Thompson, one of the New Zealand volunteers who lives on our compound has a Landcruiser with 4WD. I asked him if he could come and tow us out, and he was happy to. Getting him to find the place was not easy. Rebecca and Oren had to walk out to the main road while Jean, David and I stayed with car. By this time I was caked in mud from bending under the car and digging.

Andrew arrived in about 15 minutes and said he had a lot of experience pulling cars out of mud, both at home, and in TZ. He hooked a tow line to the back of the car first and tried to pull it backwards to no avail. We switched to the front, and we were able to free the car. I backed cautiously down the road we had come in on and found a safe place to turn around, then everyone got back in and we made our way home. Got back about 9:15 pm. I was covered in mud and had made the inside of the car quite muddy as well. I showered off, Oren did some homework, Rebecca started preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. Then we all went to bed fairly late.

Today is Thanksgiving morning, although US Thanksgiving is not a holiday here so I went to work and the kids went to school. To add insult to injury to the last 24 hours of bad driving experiences, the police stopped me on the way to the school bus. One cop worked hard to find a violation and finally after much searching found I only had 1 reflector triangle in the back of the car. (We need to have 2). She gleefully wrote me a ticket. If bad luck comes in 3's then I hope it is done.

Looking forward to a nice Thanksgiving dinner with Lucia (MCC accountant) and her family, Jessica and her host family, and Pappa Dave and Grandma Jean Sack without further incident.

Bureaucratic Bewilderments and a Birthday

Kili, taken from our water tower last week. 

Looking back at the last two entries I am aware of how busy October was for us, and seems, thus far, to be in stark contrast to November which has been far more subdued. We have not had a lot of travel and most of our time during the week has been spent at the office while the kids have been in school. November feels like we are in our 'normal' routine, at least the first half.

One slight variation on the normal rhythm of life has been illness. Oren came down with a bug late last week and did not go to school Friday because of high fever, coughing, and aches and pains. He continued to do badly over the weekend and when he was not able to go to school on Monday I took him to the doctor. Unfortunately over the weekend, I started coming down with it too and it felt like a bad cold at first. The doctor eventually diagnosed influenza after ruling out malaria and dengue fever (we have to worry about some pretty bad stuff here).

I was disappointed to hear that as well because it meant I probably had it too. Sure enough by that afternoon, I started getting a high fever and have been sick in bed since yesterday. It seems a bit unfair as I got the flu shot last year AND this year AND still managed to get it very badly in February and again now. The doctor explained to me that equatorial countries, unfortunately, get strains from several different locations and are not as predictable as strains in North America, therefore the vaccines are not as effective. I am hoping I feel well enough by tomorrow.

At any given moment it seems we are, in our lives, ensconced in some bureaucratic process. One accepts it as part of life here. We spent the past 6 months getting our work permits and then residence permits. Now we are working on getting our national IDs. This is a new requirement but is not necessary for foreigners in and of itself. But if you want to have a mobile phone number in Tanzania, you need to have a national ID. We found this out when we were told to re-register our sim cards and the phone company told us passports were not acceptable. We needed a Tanzanian ID. We tried to get it last year but were told our residence permits had less than 6 months on them and we had to wait until we renewed them. so now after a 6-month process, we had the documents to get the ID.

We went to the NIDA (national ID) office with our forms and copies of our permits but were told that we needed additional documentation. We now needed to have the local officer of our neighborhood sign off, then the local officer at our ward sign off, then the immigration officer signs off, and we had to pay in advance and bring a bank receipt to show payment along with our fully signed and stamped forms (and copies of all our permits).

These were all separate steps that took visits to different offices and documentation to obtain these signatures. Rebecca and I took about 2 weeks to complete it all. We did luck out that the office of the local officers of the neighborhood and the ward happened to be in the same building in our neighborhood. Fortunately, Sharon had preceded us in this and was able to tip me off where to find the correct immigration officer to sign the form in the labyrinthian immigration building. It was literally an unmarked door. I was able to take my form as well as Rebecca's and Jessica's in and get them all stamped so I considered that step a big victory.

The final step was to return all our paperwork back to the NIDA office. I waited about half the day in line with about 300 people. The most disheartening part was when I was about 30th in line. Then all the officers left their post for about an hour and a quarter. We just stood there in line, no explanation, they eventually came back and we started moving again. I don't know how they will process everyone in the country.

There are still more steps. I have to go back to the NIDA office in 2 weeks to get the card. (They say 2 weeks but there is no way to confirm by showing up.) After I get the card I will have to go to each of the phone company offices where I have a sim card (I have 3) and register them. So when we have slow days, this keeps me busy.

The highlight of the past 2 weeks though was David's 11th Birthday. We had had a small party at home on his real Birthday, with some family gifts and a cake, but on the Saturday following that David invited about 8 school friends as well as Sammy from our small group and kids in our compound for a real party. David was also involved in the preparations, particularly the construction of the pinata which is a family tradition. He and Rebecca started by by papier macheing a balloon. I also added a layer, then we painted it white and stippled it with red. It was more abstract than some of our past creations but served well. Rebecca made a chocolate cake with gummy worms oozing out of it all over-- a great hit with the kids.

We had a number of activities planned beginning with making masks out of paper plates. We also had some team building games such as having teams of them stand on a small piece of canvas and try to flip it over without stepping off. (Hint: it works best if two teams work together so you can all step onto one canvas while flipping over the other). There was another game trying to cross the 'lava' driveway on cardboard squares as a team. If you lose contact with a piece, it is taken away--the team has to keep trying to go on, but sharing a smaller number of pieces. It was quite amusing to watch. We also had our traditional treasure hunt and ended games with smashing the pinata.

This year's pinata was particularly satisfying to smash because it came apart in pieces so a few candies were released at a time. Everyone got to hit it before it came down. The cake was also a big hit and having learned from past years, we kept all the food outside, so clean up was much easier.

Other aspects of life have been pretty normal. We continue to work quite a bit at church. I have been leading the Sunday School program and we have about 70-80 kids per week coming. We split them into 3 groups so it is manageable. Rebecca continues to lead the church council, lead worship from time to time, preach and take on other responsibilities as they arise. Our small group continues to be a source of strength and we are happy for our bi-weekly gatherings to read the Bible, share our concerns and prayer needs, and pray together.

Oren and David have been busy with school and both seem to have found a rhythm. Amusingly, their pictures were in the national newspaper last week as the school was featured in an article called: "Why the Rich and Expatriates Choose Private Schools". David, however, was also in a swim meet recently and had the second-fastest backstroke time in a 5 school competition. Pretty impressive!

Rebecca and I are looking forward to a visit from Dave and Jean Sack around Thanksgiving time as Dave will be on a work trip in the region and Jean is coming along. Needless to say, many packages from Amazon arrived at their house in the past 2 weeks, for them to bring with them. We will update after their arrival.