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.