Beach Week and back to Advent in the Dark

David with giant tortoise.

Paul wrote the last blog while hanging out on the beach in Zanzibar. It seems appropriate to follow up by letting you know more about our team retreat there. In fact, I’m going to let Oren take over here. He wrote about the experience for his grandparents and was willing to let this be his debut in blog writing. So, without any edits or alterations, here are the impressions of our 14-year old son:

“The trip to Zanzibar was a truly fantastical experience. The climate was not too extreme and standing on the sandy ground overlooking the ocean is always an unforgettable sight. The place where we were staying was called Promised Land Lodge, it had very nice drinks and food but their beach was very rocky and not the best. It was still wonderful nonetheless.

The trip getting there, however, was not as enjoyable. We had to wake up very early in the morning, around four, to be taken by a taxi to the airport and to fly away at daybreak. I think I may have subconsciously developed a light phobia of flying in airplanes. Once we landed in Zanzibar we were met by our tour bus and were driven down to the Zanzibar harbor where we got into a small boat and were maneuvered the waves across to Prison Island, it earned that name because it was meant to be a quarantine. While on the island we saw the astonishingly large Giant Land Tortoises, they are an incredibly endangered species, only existing in Zanzibar and Galapagos.

Following the tortoises, we waded back to our craft to begin snorkeling. Jumping into the water again was very refreshing, the view of the water from beneath the surface was infinitely different from the view from above the surface. The coral reef was breathtaking, many different types of coral, fish, and many other things of astonishing colors and shapes. We were out for around an hour and a half before everyone returned to the boat.

We then returned to the main Zanzibar island and back onto our tour bus to be taken on a long drive to the lodge. At the lodge, we slept in bandas, thatched houses, which were very comfortable and had indoor bathrooms. They had a beach bar which served delicious watermelon juice and had very comfortable hammock seats. The place was constructed on a small cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean. There was a warm pool where I frequently swam, and a volleyball pitch where most of the people on our team retreat came together to play a non-competitive game of volleyball. The meals consisted of things such as chicken leg, grilled calamari, and fried octopus. The cliff that lodge was built on was covered in sand, giving the feeling of constantly being on a proper beach.

The most phenomenal part of the retreat was swimming in the open ocean with a pod of dolphins. It was so incredibly magnificent, they were not uncomfortable around humans at all, they just right past you on their way. The closest I managed to get to one was about one and a half meters, I was gaining on it and would have been able to touch it if it had not chosen to dive at that moment. In conclusion, it was an incredible trip.

Thank you for reading, --Oren.”

I do want to add a few observations myself. Our MCC team includes 6 adults and 4 kids. We invited Alang, a volunteer from Laos serving in Kenya, to come and join us. In addition, we invited a couple to help us with some spiritual reflections on loneliness and community. In the end, our group included 3 Canadians, 1 French woman, 4 Tanzanians, 1 Laotian and 4 Americans. As far as team bonding, I felt like we got a lot further during this retreat than we had before. It was awesome that David had spent time with Lucia’s daughters at Thanksgiving because they consider each other friends now after the retreat and played really well. The three of them were old enough this time to entertain themselves doing crafts and painting during the times of spiritual reflection. I was really happy that Oren decided to join the adults during those times and seemed to really appreciate Tim, our speaker, and the way he presented on the problem of loneliness.

We had some amazing times of snorkeling, as Oren already described above. I found myself full of wonder at two things simultaneously: the undersea world we were able to explore, and the capability of my children to handle snorkeling skillfully in the open ocean. It was especially remarkable to watch each of them just tumble off our boat into the ocean and swim hard chasing after dolphins, without even needing to surface to adjust a snorkel or a mask. We were in and out of the water at least 8 times – pretty exhausting! – but they kept up with it as well as any of the adults. And David is incredibly good at diving while snorkeling; in fact, I’ve been learning from him and growing in the courage to do that, not simply stay on the surface.

During the weekends on either end of the team retreat, we enjoyed some really lovely Advent times. Sharon, our MCC Representative, invited us all (including Jessica and Alang) to an Advent evening before the trip. We shared special foods as well as stories. We were all transfixed by some of the amazing stories Angelika told about her work with Maasai girls. And then we had some really good singing, including sight-reading a whole lot of new Christmas carols together.

On Friday after we returned from retreat, Jessica took Alang on a whirlwind tour of Arusha. Meanwhile, our boys welcomed their friends Harry and Sammy for a sleepover. Each set of boys mixed up and baked a batch of Christmas cookies – sugar cookies and ginger snaps. They played a bunch of long games. In the evening, we had a full house, with Jessica and Alang staying the night again. We introduced everyone to the stereotypical 60’s American Christmas gone awry in the movie “A Christmas Story.” After all the fun hosting, it was indeed a welcome change to have a quiet house by Saturday night.

This past week has offered its own challenges. The structural challenge is this: the kids are out of school, but we are not out of work! It is indeed a hardship for everyone concerned that the kids are not just on holiday, but also expected to do quite a lot of work. Oren has 3 major art pieces to work on, as well as math, geography and chemistry assignments. David has to write 5 different essays, along with several math worksheets. We have tried a lot of different approaches this week…bringing them to Gymkhana in the morning to exercise with us and then do homework and a golf lesson. Homework was not getting done. Leaving them at home in the morning to do work. Homework was also not really getting done. Finally, on Friday, we brought them to our office to plug away at homework under our watchful eyes while we also kept plugging away at reports and emails. Somewhat more successful.

The other challenge we faced was completely unexpected. After choir practice on Wednesday, we went out to dinner with Jessica at a favorite pizza restaurant near our office. We had a nice dinner with good conversation, and were just getting up to leave when Jessica said, “Where’s my bag?” She had been very careful not to leave her backpack containing her computer and 2 phones in the car but had brought it into the restaurant to keep it safe. (I must admit that we were not so vigilant and left our bags in the car). It had been sitting beside her the whole night, right at her feet, leaning up against a column.

The restaurant manager took the issue very seriously and allowed me to search the staff quarters and all around the edge of the restaurant, in case someone had slipped off with it and tried to hide it. But he assured me that there were CCTV cameras and that we would be able to find out what had happened. It took some time to figure out how to get the CCTV system to playback, and clearly a trip to the police station would be included in our evening. So I arranged for our trusted cab driver to come and get the kids and take them home. Meanwhile, a technician isolated a particular camera and was able playback the chilling 2 minutes in question: a young man entered the restaurant from the back and walked around the edge of the large group of foreigners gathered there that night, clearly casing the joint. He took the table next to ours and was joined by another young man. They sat there for just a minute, without ordering anything. And then, while all five of us were still seated at our table, somehow, unnoticed, one of them reached over, grabbed Jessica’s backpack, passed it under the table to his buddy, and then they got up and left. It was a completely professional job—it’s hard to see it happening on the camera, even when you know they’ve just done it.

If you want to see the CCTV video, click on this link. See if you can spot the moment of the crime!

We copied the footage and headed for the “Diplomatic and Tourism Police.” There was only one guy on duty and he couldn’t even find the form for us to fill in to file a police report. There was no way he was going to leave and do an investigation at the restaurant. We returned in the morning and made the report to a lady. We had heard that these police would be very professional, with the capacity to even speak multiple foreign languages. We discovered that this prediction was overly optimistic and I was glad that I had sufficient Swahili to explain the case to the woman officer because English wasn’t making sense to her. We remain skeptical that the police will pursue these thieves, even though there is good evidence available, and these guys are likely to be repeating the crime as often as possible. On the good side, Jessica emerged with a police report that allowed her to block her old sim cards and apply for new ones. She got a new phone and did a lot of work to protect her identify after the theft of her computer. It’s a very hard hit for her, especially during the holidays.

All that to say, it’s a reminder that we live in a dark world, involving poverty, crime, anger, frustration, incompetence and loss. We are still in need of a Savior, and thanks be to God, we celebrate the birth of the light next week. But we need more light. Even so, Lord Jesus, come.

A Weather Phenomenon and a Walk in the Park

Serval cat at Arusha National Park.

I have recently found that there has been international reporting on the weather phenomenon we are experiencing. I thought it was just some kind of major 'last hurrah' of the short rains--trying to show-off its staying power. But as we have had nearly endless torrential rains in the past 2 weeks, I decided to do some research. In fact, it is part of the pattern that is creating the drought and wildfires in Australia on the Eastern side of the Indian Ocean. A large cyclical current is pulling moisture onto the West side of the Indian Ocean and at least one cyclone has hit over here near Somalia. Farmers are delighted to have some extra rain, but at this point, they are more worried about extensive flooding.

In the midst of this, our MCC team flew to Zanzibar for our annual team retreat. I was worried that it would be pouring here as well, but for some reason, it is quite hot and sunny once you leave the mainland. I will say more about our retreat in a future entry. We are enjoying some free time by the pool and I am taking the opportunity to do an update of the past 10 days.

Actually, the past 10 days seem more like 3 months, with the number of activities that have happened. In the last update, I had said that Grandma Jean had arrived to visit us for a week, and Papa Dave arrived the day before (American) Thanksgiving. I have to say Thanksgiving dinner was one of the best I have had this year. Rebecca and Jean both spent the day at home and prepared very dish one could want for a traditional Thanksgiving, including cranberry sauce (smuggled in a can last summer). We opted for 2 large fresh chickens to trying to track down a turkey, but they were at least as good with the stuffing and gravy that was prepared from drippings.

The greatest improvement to Thanksgiving was an apple rhubarb pie prepared by Rebecca. I don't know why I have not had the before. Strawberry rhubarb, yes, but that is not a good combination in my opinion compared to the texture and tang of apples. It was superb with fresh whipped cream.

The invited guests were the real highlights. Besides our family and Dave and Jean, we invited some members of the MCC team including our YAMENer Jessica, and Lucia, our accountant, with her two daughters Novella and Esperanza. They have become friends of David's from past years of MCC team retreats. We also invited Marie, Jessica's host mother. It is always nice to have guests that are not familiar with American Thanksgiving. (Although it is currently not too politically correct to highlight the mythology behind the celebration, it is interesting to those who are trying to understand American culture. We did also provide some context about the more tragic aspect of relations between native people and Europeans in American history that followed.)

After dinner, the adults chatted and David played some board games with Novella and Esperanza. Since Thursday and Friday are not holidays here, we did end before 9pm so kids could go to school. All in all, it was a memorable Thanksgiving dinner this year and we were happy to have friends from work as well as Dave and Jean here.

Papa Dave's visit seemed especially short, but we did pack a lot in. After a full day of work on Friday, in which Dave, Jean, and Rebecca went to Moshi to see some of his colleagues, we prepared for a safari at Arusha game park on Saturday.

We hired a guide and safari vehicle and our family went with Dave and Jean and Jessica for a day of game viewing at Arusha National Park. This park is about an hour from our house, which is convenient so we left from our house early in the morning and were at the gate by 8am. The Arusha Park has one very nice perk in that they offer a walking safari (with a ranger carrying a loaded gun). It is great to be able to get out of a safari vehicle during a long day.

Because of the extensive rain, we worried that it might be a very wet trip, but somehow the skies cleared when we arrived (in a dense fog), and we had an exceptional day of game viewing.

The walking safari is limited to a small area of the park and as we walked through a very verdant savannah we came upon a herd of Cape Buffalo, considered quite aggressive and dangerous, but only watched us curiously. I got a nice picture of the bull eyeing us lazily with 2 oxpeckers sitting on his head. We also came very close to a pair of giraffes and a number of warthogs.

We ended the walking safari at a beautiful waterfall coming down off Mt. Meru. We stopped for snacks and photos there before continuing in the car. Arusha National Park has other interesting features including a giant parasitic ficus tree that completely suffocated its host and left an enormous hole through which one could drive a landrover. We stopped there for some photos.

We had lunch beside one of a series of 10 very picturesque small lakes. There is a path that weaves through them which we drove and saw many birds including two types of bee-eaters up close, a buzzard, Egyptian geese, and several flocks of flamingoes.

Other animal highlights during the day included many waterbuck with huge horns, dik-dik, zebra, bushbuck, several herds of giraffe, colobus and blue monkeys as well as baboons.  My personal favorite, a serval cat who slinked around not far from our vehicle, jumped on a rodent, then crossed the road in front of us. It was great to get some pictures of that as I have never seen one in the wild. There are no lions in Arusha National Park, but there are leopards and serval cats, so I felt we had a lot of luck that day.

We got home in the evening and felt very good about having a great guide and vehicle at a reasonable price. This is one of the benefits of living in Tanzania.

Dave and Jean left on Sunday after church. We had our small group at our house that day and saw Dave and Jean off as small group guests arrived. We were pretty tired by the end of small group and were not able to start decorating for Christmas, even though doing so on Thanksgiving weekend is a tradition.

Fortunately we did get to it on Monday evening and had a very nice time as family getting out the tree and ornaments, creche set, lights, the advent candle set, and other Christmas paraphernalia. It is hard to believe we are at this point in the year.

The other thing about the end of the year, which can be hard, is saying goodbye to friends. Summer and the end of the year are transition times for many individuals and families who come out for short, or even long-term assignments. This has been particularly true at the Joshua Foundation (the compound where we live) where we just said goodbye to our next-door neighboo\rs who had been here for a decade as members of the Joshua Foundation team. Josiah was a good friend of David's and we went over last Saturday to say our final goodbyes and take a picture with them. It will seem emptier here without them, especially because Josiah and his brother often stopped by at our house unannounced to play with David on the trampoline.

Then, no sooner had we finished saying good-bye to them, we were bidding farewell to our other neighbors, the Thompson's. Andrew and his wife Nicola were regular players of ultimate frisbee with us along with their daughters Lara and Emma. Andrew also did a ton of project management in the short year he was here and built a kitchen and meeting center complex for short term mission teams, as well as remove the old bridge that was washed out earlier this year and install a new one. Things will definitely slow down here without his energy. They were quite a courageous family with all their kids attending the local (English speaking) school here, and them very involved in the life of the local community near the Joshua Foundation compound. They will be missed by us and others.

The weekend before the departure to Zanzibar was as busy as the last one with packing on Saturday. We also picked up a YAMEN volunteer working in Kenya from Laos. His name is Alang. He was going to join us on our Zanzibar retreat. He stayed with us and joined our activities for the weekend.

Rebecca lead music in church on Sunday and me doing Sunday School. Afterwards, we met some friends from our small group and did a day hike at a friend's house on the slopes of Mt. Meru. A small group of adults and large group of kids hiked to a neighboring farm where a guy does beekeeping using local forest bees. He gave us a tour and showed us the tiny bees, who make small pots of honey in beeswax. We got a taste as well, very unique, not really that sweet but strongly floral and citrusy. Afterwards we returned to our friend's house where the kids made 'Chris-tingles' a kind of candy decorated orange for Christmas.

Jessica and Alang both stayed the night at our house on Sunday so we could make a 5am departure to the airport for our Zanzibar flight.

It is very relaxing to have these 4 days in Zanzibar before going back for one more work push (finishing quarterly reports from partners) when we return.

More about that next time.

Bonus Photos of Safari: