Anatomy of a Success (between the rain clouds)

I remember my first year of graduate school in Seattle. It was the only time I ever lived there, and in the winter of 1999 it rained for 90 days straight. It was the most continuous rain they had had from what I understood. I remember a weatherman saying that the following year could be worse! (I was trying to imagine what could be worse than 90 straight days of rain?..90 straight days of tornadoes??)

I am recalling that time now because we are experiencing something similar in what is normally the dry summer season here in Tanzania. I reported on the unusual weather over a month ago, and I am sorry I have to bring it up again. It is unnerving at this point, and most unwelcome, even for farmers who are now completely confused about when to plant corn. Normally the planting season is mid-February just before the big rains in March and April. But we have had no pause at all between the short October rains and the expected rains of March. Usually the rain starts in the evening and falls heavily through the night. There are brief showers during the days as well.

Sadly, the rain has interfered with the work of some of our partners. Step-by-Step Learning Center, the school for severely disabled children where our volunteer Jessica works as an OT has not been reachable by bus because the road going into it is a muddy swamp. They have had to cancel many days of school or try to get the children there with great difficulty. Last week teachers actually piggy-backed children over the muck to get to the schoolhouse. (See photo)

I am currently sitting in a hotel room in Karatu. I am up here for a training being done by one of our health partners. The training is for health promoters for our EbOO project in the Ngorongoro crater region. The topics are focused on early childhood development, to be shared with the aid of flip-cards by care group volunteers who will, in turn, teach mothers in their neighborhoods. The women gathered here are a mixture of traditional birth attendants, nurse midwives, and a few men from the partner NGO as well. There was an amusing discussion around the role of men in early childhood development.

The men who are participating seem quite open to male involvement in child-rearing, but the women generally complained that most of the traditional Maasai men in the community do not participate actively in the development of their young children, (often of several wives). During a hands-on demonstration of how to stimulate a young child, the men, taking turns with a bundle in a blanket brought peels of laughter from the onlooking women. I will be here for two days before returning to Arusha tomorrow night.

The past two weeks have been fraught at times, but not because of any further frustration with government bureaucracies. (for those who read the last entry). In fact, I have titled this entry Anatomy of a Success, because of Oren's accomplishment last week.

Many of you know that Oren went on a trek to summit Kilimanjaro as an option for his school activity week. Despite some reservations from Rebecca and me, as he is only 14, we did give him permission to go and encouraged him in his choice to try it. He was back by last Thursday and we asked him to recount the experience. Here is his story:
(as recounted to his mom)

To get us ready for the trip, they had us take a practice hike up a mountain called Longido which would only take one day. They claimed that the one-day hike would be harder than any single individual day on Kilimanjaro (except for the summitting day). Their score on that is 0% correct. Every single day on Kilimanjaro was worse than that day.

An accurate description of climbing Kilimanjaro would be the physical strain of a soldier combined with the stress of being sent to the gallows, combined with the hunger of a peasant farmer, combined with hospital-worthy illness and a normal winter’s day. In addition, you’re miles away from civilization.

The first day, we had to hike through a wet rain forest. It was a pretty steep incline. We started off all cheerful and happy – little did we know what was coming. Me and da boyz stayed in a cabin and laughed until very late at night. And then we went to sleep. And then someone woke up in the middle of the night and started yelling because he was cold.

The  second day, we hiked through a hilly area with large shrubbery. That day was worse than the day before because we had to walk for a longer time (more than 8 hours). It was cold and that was the last day I was able to eat an adequate amount of food. That was the day I learned that if you sit stationary, the temperature seems to drop by half within the first five minutes. It was much, much colder than the day before. We passed the time walking by talking to the people in the immediate vicinity because we were pretty spread out.

We stayed in cabins at Horombo Hut. It is one thing to lose one’s keys; it is another thing to lose one’s keys to one’s cabin on Kilimanjaro, with wet socks on, during the rain. The possession of the key was given to me by my cabin mates because they claimed I was the most “responsible.” In the end, people had to break the latch to the door because, if the spare key existed, it was part-way down the mountain and had to have a permission form to have it be carried up the mountain to our camp. Due to altitude sickness, I was unable to eat well that night. There was good cooked food on the trip – I was just too sick to eat much of it. Bear in mind, we were still only two days in.

The third day was walking through a cold, depressing unending hellscape of rocky ground and cliffs. Kilimanjaro was so huge it could have declared its independence as a country. It contains massive valleys, smaller mountains upon the central mountain, hills, deserts, rainforests, savannahs. On this day, however, we were going through the desert, and not the happy, fun, yellow and red, bright colored sand kind of desert. Oh no, no, no. This was the communist-grey color scheme kind of desert, containing rocks and rocks and rocks and rocks. This was the day that we learned, even if something was only ¾ of a km away, it could take the best part of an hour to get to it. The incline was not even that steep. I have no idea why it took us so long to reach our goals. We had to take frequent breaks. And by this time, my back (which had given me trouble on the second day) was really getting to me. By this point we still had enough positive morale in us to have some conversation with other human beings. It is truly amazing what just three days on a mountain could do to some happy people – how it could completely turn around some unknowing happy person’s spirits. By this time, my appetite was almost dead and I was walking on a completely empty stomach. I barely even wanted any of the Hershey’s chocolate which was packed for me.

This hut (Kibo) was the highest hut we were going to get to before the summit. It was an entire 1,100 below the summit, which would be a 6 km walk, going at a 45-degree angle from where we were. That night, we were told that we were going to be woken up at 3 am and had to depart at 4 am.

Day 4: We were woken up at 3 am, got on our heavy layers and went to breakfast. The only breakfast I was able to eat was a cup of hot chocolate and a single biscuit, before climbing to the top. In the end, I started to ascend the highest peak in pitch darkness, with an empty stomach, nausea, recurring throbbing headaches, very low spirits, a heavy daypack, cold weather and very low energy to talk to anyone. The landscape between the third hut and the top of the mountain is even worse than the previous desert landscape. Unlike the desert landscape, there is not even a single scrap of grass in existence. It is just grey rocks for kilometers. I was in the front group and spent 3 or 4 hours walking up the mountain. After the three or four hours, at 5,150 m (16,800 ft), I decided it was not a wise idea to go all the way to the top.

The descent of the mountain was much, much faster. The 3 – 4 hours of hiking up was all undone in about 20 minutes of descending. Everyone in the second group was thoroughly scattered in different places up the mountain and I passed them on the way down. When I returned to the third hut, I packed my bag, and with two other people, hiked down to the second hut. The descent was kind of fun because of how fast it was in comparison to all the other days of climbing. When I returned to the second hut, I got to ride in the back of a pickup and get down to the gate. I was then taken back to school by a school car. My parents picked me up that evening and took me to Pizza Hut, where I had a large pepperoni pizza and a soda. After being in a completely barren oblivion for a few days, it was very nice to go back to civilization and see things like buildings, roads, people, vegetation that reached over a meter high. And breathing in oxygen which you don’t have to struggle with.

If you want some logistics, we had two bags –our daypacks (the stuff we would need during each day) and another big bag (containing everything else we needed for the week). We carried our daypacks, while the porters carried our big bags. You would be wrong to think that the hikers, the guides and the porters would all walk in the same group. The porters walked at their own pace, usually arriving way ahead of time. The hikers and guides hiked in a different group. The guides were very nice people, helping us and making us keep going along up the mountain. We had food prepared for us at each hut – it wasn’t bad food, but it’s just that I couldn’t eat much of it due to altitude.

I don’t feel much different about my life – I’m pretty unchanged. It didn’t really change me much in terms of confidence. I wish I could have submitted, but you know. I did what I could do. 

We were quite proud of Oren's effort and his ability to tell it as a ripping yarn! About half of his school group made it up. I was a bit concerned that they had taken a route that reaches the summit in about 3.5 days which gave little time for acclimatization. He is not a huge fan of 'the great outdoors' so it was a big step out of his comfort zone. (sorry, no photos, but he said his hands were too cold to take off his gloves to try to get the camera out of the bag and operate it. Hopefully his teacher/chaperones will send some later.)

I talked to him about the success of shooting beyond your reach. I remember doing that on a trek in the Himalayas in High School. We were hoping to summit a very high peek (Bundar Punch) but were not properly equipped to summit. We stopped at about 18,000 feet. I realized though that I had surpassed many lofty goals of others who would not even attempt such an ascent, even in failing to reach my final point. I would always encourage anyone to fail upwards, rather than downwards.

While Oren was gone, Rebecca and I took a day off from work together and had a very nice afternoon taking a hike to a place just outside of Arusha, heading up Mt. Meru called Themi Falls. It is the source of the Themi River and there is a very nice restaurant at a point just above the falls. It was a bit easier to take care of stuff at home with only one child going off to school each morning. It seemed like a fairly relaxing week for us, although admittedly on the day Oren was summitting I got up at 4am myself and found myself worrying and praying until late afternoon when we got the call he was coming down.

The weekend following Oren's return we had a huge game of ultimate frisbee. We try to do this monthly with moderate success, but this week there was a fairly large group of guys from New Zealand staying on the compound for a short-term mission trip and they all joined in, as well as 3 families who were with us at the Brackenhurst retreat. It was a very exciting and aggressive round-robin with three teams rotating in 15-minute heats for an hour and a half. Amazingly, we did not get rained out! After the game, several families stayed around to play board games. Oren and David traded sleep-overs with our friends the Taylors that night as well.

Despite the rain, we are kept spiritually buoyed by our small group and involvement in the church. I am still leading the Sunday School program which is quite rewarding. Also many of us at MCC are involved in music, both in the choir or leading morning worship. Sharon our Country Director and Jessica led worship last Sunday as you can see.

Bonus Frisbee Photos

Anatomy of a Failure (and the start of an adventure)

Eagle owl sleeping outside our porch window.

It has been a full two weeks since my last entry, and honestly, after over a month of nearly continuous news of adventures during the holidays, we have hit the nadir of early January and returning to work and school. I am happy to say that the second term began without incident and the kids went back to school last Tuesday.

Work also started routinely enough although we have been mired once again in a bureaucratic morass of trying to get national identity cards. The quest has, once again, all the trappings of Kafka's 'The Trial' and really began 12 months ago, in January 2019, innocently enough, with a new national govt. requirement that everyone get a 'biometrically' registered sim card. That is to say, there was to be a requirement to put one's thumbprint on record with one's sim card for their mobile number. That seemed simple enough and I remember going in Jan 2019 to the phone office to complete the task. I was told there, though, that the only acceptable form of identity to add the biometric data was a 'National ID card.' It was a bit perplexing that our passports were not considered sufficient ID as we are not citizens of TZ.

There is no mechanism for asking for an explanation of the thinking behind this requirment for non-citizens. So we began the process of getting a national ID at that time. Our first attempt later that month, when Rebecca searched out and went to the national identity office (NIDA), was to be rebuffed because she was told we must have at least 6 months left on our residence permits. (We had 5.5 months left). This meant we had to table the issue until we completed the process of renewing our permits later that year. As it turned out the process of getting a new residence permit, which requires a renewal of the work permit took about 6 months. We started in April and finished at the end of September. The fact that the residence permit is separate from the work permit is a bit of an anomaly in TZ, and some can find themselves in the ironic situation of getting a work permit (through an elaborate process of providing extensive documentation to the Labor office) only to be rejected by the Immigration office for a residence permit (after providing the exact same extensive documentation to them along with a valid work permit). In fact, it took us an extra 2 months to get the residence permit after the work permit because they had switched to an online process, but the website was not up to speed when we started to apply.

Matching outfits from Christmas gift kitenge.

All that finally done, we started the national ID process at the beginning of October. This was now 3 months from a scary deadline, as January 1st was D day for registering one's sim card or your phone number would be canceled and you could not get a new one without an ID.) The process of the national ID also required extensive documentation, several trips to the NIDA office, a visit to and signature of the ward officer, a visit and signature of the neighborhood officer, a payment at the bank, submission of all paperwork at the NIDA office that now had lines several hours long to turn in paperwork and get a picture taken.

Rebecca got her paper work completed and turned in on Oct, 31 and me on Nov. 1. We were told the IDs would take 4 weeks to make. In the meantime, we had been hearing that there was a national budget shortage to buy laminating paper for IDs but we were assured that we would be issued the number without the card which we could use to register our phones. (the card itself may never be issued a this point.)

The first week of January, after hearing nothing, Rebecca went back to the NIDA office and was happy to find her number was ready, but mine was not. She was able to register her phone number with the biometric ID. I went back to NIDA a week later and was told that the payment receipt was missing when they sent in my application to the Dar Es Salaam office. They had a copy of the receipt and re-sent it from the Arusha office and 'promised' that it would be done in the next 24 hours. (I knew it was a lie, but I could tell that it was told of compassion and a desire for me not to lose hope.) In the meantime, it was becoming clear that the NIDA office was utterly overwhelmed with the national ID crunch for citizens and non-citizens and the govt. moved the phone shut-off deadline to Jan. 20th.

To make a long story short, I realized on Friday, Jan 17th this year (2 weeks of waiting for 24 hours), that they were not going to process and give me my NIDA number by the deadline. We had a plan B. Rebecca would register my phone and internet sim cards in her name with her NIDA number. We set off to do that this past Friday, 3 days before the deadline. The lines were long at the phone company and when we got to the front the woman let Rebecca scan her thumb print, then told us the NIDA verification network was down so it probably did not work. Sure enough later we got an SMS saying the registration had failed. We tried again and were told to come back later that evening or the next day to see if the NIDA network was up.

Until now, Rebecca went back to the phone offices 3 times over the weekend and failed to register my main number because the NIDA network is overwhelmed and cannot process the many requests it currently has. I don't know, but I will most likely lose my phone number, Whatsapp, etc. tomorrow. I do have a backup number that she did manage to register by luck, but will have to re-establish all my contacts. Or maybe the govt. will extend the deadline. Or more likely, millions of people will have their phones shut off tomorrow and there will be a national uproar and they will be turned back on again.

I feel somewhat philosophical about this abject failure to get a national ID over a period of 13 months despite all of our due diligence to protect my phone number. It is hard, from the perspective of a person from a 'customer service' oriented culture to see so many ways in which a bureaucracy can so completely work against itself. It is not corruption, it is a pathological inefficiency coupled with massive redundancies, arbitrary deadlines without thoughtful planning, that make it nearly impossible to complete a task. And worst of all, if something goes akimbo there is almost no way to correct the problem. I don't know if they will ever resolve the problem with my application now stuck in NIDA office purgatory, but I do not have access to anyone who can help. I can present myself to the low-level functionaries who have no authority to do anything but falsely assure me optimistically that they are aware of the matter and it is being processed and I should have a successful resolution in the next 24 hours. The frustration leaves more sad than angry, because I want it to work, and can see so many solutions to the problem, the most simple being let us use our passports to register our sim cards with biometric data.

Despite this, I do have some pending, very exciting good news from work that I will save for the next entry!

Oren trying on summitting gear.

On the good side:
One of the exciting things that happen in this term, which is supposedly summer weather here in Tanzania, is school activity weeks. In past years Oren and David have had week-long adventures organized by their classes. Every year it is different, and the activity weeks do not happen at the same time for the two kids.

Selection can be a challenge because there are several offerings for each class. This year, Oren surprisingly chose one of the most difficult challenges: summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was a bold choice for him, and we were surprised but encouraging. Since his decision, Rebecca and I have been looking out for hiking gear, which is available here used, as many former climbers sell it off when they complete the trek. It is also available for rent. We found most everything he needed over the last month, the trip to Kenya over Christmas was helpful for some specialty items like gators, and gloves.

Oren photo from Mt. Longido.

Oren was told to wear his boots with his uniform at school the past two weeks to break them in. Last weekend, the group that was going to climb did a practice trip up Mt. Longido to test out gear. Oren was gone all day last Saturday on the trip. Rebecca and I were very keen to go with him as we wanted to climb it as well. (It can be summited in a day). Oren was mortified that we wanted to come along and the prospect of being the only kid with his parents coming along. We respected his wishes and realize that at 14 he is differentiating and does have independent social relations with friends. (I remember being that way at his age as well.)

Oren came back satisfied with the trip and did not seem to think it was too hard, and liked his companions and chaperones. They did not summit as they ran out of time, but that was not the point, it was mainly to test out boots, backpacks, etc.

The climb up Kilimanjaro will include a caravan of porters and guides and Oren will only need to carry a day pack on his back. It is a 6-day hike to the summit and return on the Marangu route. So this morning at 7am we drove Oren to the pick-up point at his school, before church. It rained hard all night, but in the morning the sky was clear and we could see Meru and Kilimanjaro clearly on our way to school.

Loading up for Kilimanjaro.

So he is off. We are a bit nervous, mainly about the amount of waterproofing he has. This is supposed to be the middle of the dry season. Dusty and dry, but we are still in the midst of heavy nightly rains, which can make hiking more treacherous. Surprisingly, when I looked a Kilimanjaro this morning there was not a lot of snow on the top, so maybe the rains are lower.

We are praying for him and will report on his experience (or let him do that in the next entry.) I am expecting the next entry to be more positive overall. Until then...

Christmas and a Brackenhurst Retreat

Puppies born on our
compound this month.

Looking back on the December 21 entry I realize it will take a while and some mental gymnastics to recount everything that has happened in the past 12 days. It could easily fill two posts, but in the moment, time did not allow any opportunity to sit down and write anything down before now.

We are back in Arusha, the first weekend after the Christmas/New Year's holidays. The kids are starting school again on Tuesday and they are doing the last of their homework assignments they were given over the break. I am a bit sympathetic to their complaints as I do not remember getting much homework over Christmas break in the past, but they get about a month off, so I guess it is necessary. David had a long math test and 5 essays, and Oren had Maths, Geography and a number of paintings and drawings to complete for Art.

Looking back from the last entry, I would note some of the highlights of the days leading up to and through Christmas. One of the big ones that took quite a bit of time as the day approached (Dec 23rd) was our Christmas choir concert, a lessons and carols service two days before Christmas. Despite practicing weekly since September, we still required several extra rehearsals in the last couple of days, particularly since one of the pieces involved a cello, trumpet, piano, speaker, and soprano soloist, none of whom had been able to practice with the choir until 2 days before we were presenting. Despite the fact that it felt a bit stressful and required a lot of extra work, it really seemed to pay off at the end. The music really sounded quite good. My particular favorite was a piece called "O Come Redeemer of the Earth" which had a Celtic sound, very haunting and beautiful.

Our involvement with the adult choir was only the beginning of our responsibilities in the service as Rebecca was also invited to preach. She did a powerful sermon on the Incarnation: "God was born!" a mantra she repeated numerous times in the sermon. It was a joyful message as well, and she began a light-heartedly recounting that she had told Oren she was preaching for this service and wanted his input. Oren responded by saying "Mom, most of the people coming to this service may only go to church once per year. So you'd better not be boring!!"

Oren was right. The church was packed to the rafters thanks to many general announcements through local community web forums and social media.

I had agreed to have our Sunday School children sing 2 songs as well and we had been practicing during Sunday School for the past 4 weeks. It is always a bit risky to know whether the kids would show up for an evening service with their parents, but I did give parents a lot of warning about the evening and the kids' participation. We prepared 2 songs: One Swahili one called Kristo Kazalewa (Christ is born). The other was a Calypso called "See Him Lying on a Bed of Straw". I took a chance on the second with two kids singing solos on two verses (David and his friend Sammy) and a small trio of girls singing on another verse. On the evening of the service they were all there without a minute to spare, so did not get to run through, but sung it beautifully none the less. (Here is a web link. Sorry my voice is a bit loud because I am right next to the camera).

Our final contribution to the evening was a large gingerbread church, we had made the prior afternoon. I am happy to say it was completely demolished and eaten within 15 minutes after the service. (It is great to make them but they are too big to keep around the house and nibble on through the holidays, especially with the ants.)

Making a gingerbread structure of some kind is a tradition for us. Last year we tried a train, but decided to go back to the more traditional building as sugar in the tropics tends to melt over time and run, and eventually fall apart. We made a very solid church and steeple using magnet blocks as templates for our patterns. I found a very good construction gingerbread recipe which made a good solid, non-leavening building material. We also improved the royal icing by mixing it with an electric mixer which stiffened it up very nicely. I made some improvements, the main one was the addition of treacle, instead of brown sugar, and chai spice instead of ginger, so there was cardamon, clove, and cinnamon as well in the mix. The gingerbread was actually delicious. We also use a trick to epoxy the sides together by using molten sugar for construction (a bit dangerous) but much sturdier than using icing for bonding the sides. David helped with the construction and all of us decorated it. It really looked great and we had a great time working together to do it.

 I was still going into the office even on the 24th, and there is a fair amount to do in December, unfortunately, because we receive reports about mid-month that need to be reviewed and processed. We also helped Jessica recover some things, like buying a new phone after her theft ordeal that was detailed in the last blog.

But by late afternoon we started our Christmas eve ritual. Rebecca worked with the kids to bake cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning and many to give away. She made several dozen with David and Oren's help. We also listened to the Festival of 9 Lessons and Carols by the Kings College Choir on the BBC. It was perfect timing for us, in the late afternoon. We also called family in the US to wish them Merry Christmas. When we had put all of our gifts under the tree it looked pretty full thanks to the visit of Grandma Jean and Papa Dave earlier in December who sherpa'd over gifts from family in the US.

The last thing before bed was to watch The Polar Express. I think the appeal is the look of a cold snowy Christmas. It is quite a contrast to the warm weather here. Although we continued to have heavy rains through the month of December.

Christmas morning was fabulous as always. Somehow I was the first down and awake, but David followed shortly thereafter. We had a great time opening gifts as a family and felt very blessed to have family members send us a number of excellent board games that we really wanted to play here including Bohnanza, Quacks of Quedlinburg, and Castles of Mad King Ludwig. We had played several rounds of each by the end of the day.

Christmas dinner was unique this year in that we did not go to anyone's house. Instead, our Bible study small group all met at a safari resort called Rivertrees. It has beautiful grounds and offered a buffet. A group of about 20 of us gathered on a table set on the lawn under a large tree. The scene was completed by a troop of colobus monkeys that decided to pass through above us. It was a great time to be together and it is amazing how much time you have to talk and do things with the kids when you are not spending hours preparing or cleaning up for a meal. It was a real treat and a great time of fellowship.

Oren and David's best friends are Harry and Sammy Their family is from Australia, and Mike and Katie are good friends of ours. It was great to see them having a good time together. Oren and David gave them a book of poetry by Shel Silverstein (A Light in the Attic) which they all sat around in twos and read at different times during the day.

This was not the last we were to see of our Australian friends over the holidays though. Thanks to their recommendation, we decided to go to a retreat week at a place outside of Nairobi called Brackenhurst. It is a large campus/convention center with places to stay, eat and meet. It also has beautiful grounds and lush flowering gardens. The whole place sits amidst a large tea plantation which is quite picturesque.

Our family left for the retreat a day early so we could spend a day in Nairobi. We had nostalgia for staying at the Amani Gardens (formerly Mennonite Guest House) which was a frequent waypoint when we traveled back and forth to Burundi and other places. We also wanted to see some of the new malls in Nairobi.

We decided to take a chance and drive. It would be our first time crossing an international border by private car since moving to Tanzania. We did some advance prep to be sure we had all the right documentation and only had a small issue at the border as we did not have the original registration document but instead a certified copy. they did let us through though. The time at the border took less than an hour. The whole trip to Nairobi takes about 6 from Arusha. We arrived in the afternoon and made our first stop at a mall called "the hub". It was actually very nice and our favorite place was the bookstore where we bought about $100 worth of books. Oren got most of the rest of the Tintin collection we were missing, and David got Diary of a Wimpy Kid series books. I picked up a copy of Hemmingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". (I had just finished Delia Owens "Where the Crawdads Sing", a great read!)

We continued on to the guesthouse and got there in the evening. Rebecca and I have both been there in the last year but it was the first time in over 5 years for the kids. David remembered nothing of it. Oren did remember the big swing. We enjoyed a relaxing evening and shot some baskets on the court they have, and had pizza from their pizza oven. We also played Bohnanza, one of our Christmas games.

The next day we got up and headed out to Brackenhurst. We did stop briefly at 2 Rivers mall to see how it compared. It was impressive because it has a large ferris wheel and other amusement park rides. We continued on to our final destination on got there around 3pm. We registered with many other arrivees and found our room.

There were about 4 families from Tanzania we knew as well as many other families with kids we did not know. Oren and David immediately found their own age-mates out on the main lawn and started hanging out and talking. They were thrilled to have so many new and old friends around. (They did not even miss having screens for the whole week!)

We made good connections with the adults as well. The retreat has programmed and free elements. There was a morning time of worship and hearing a guest speaker, then free time in the afternoons with optional activities. On day one, we participated in a high ropes course that was on the campus. Great fun and exercise. On day 2 we took a walk through the tea fields to the old plantation house and heard a lecture about the production of tea. It was fascinating and I was amazed how labor-intensive tea production is.

On the last day, the afternoon activity included camel rides and a giant blow-up water slide for kids. We also organized a great game of ultimate frisbee in the afternoon. That was new year's eve and we had a talent show, evening service, and then close to midnight we all went around a bonfire and roasted marshmallows. The fire was appropriate because the weather is quite cold in the morning and evening as Brackenhurst is at high altitude.

Rebecca and I really enjoyed all of it, especially because all of the lectures and times of reflection included a kids program, so we adults could have time away from them. That was probably one of the best parts of the retreat. Rebecca also brought her guitar and I brought my djembe and we participated in leading worship several times. It was great to have some adult interaction and serious spiritual reflection without having to parent at every moment. It was also great to be with our friends from Tanzania and to meet many other people doing similar things. It was a very encouraging experience.

We drove home on Friday, New Year's Day. We stopped at the Hub mall once more for some hiking boots, it has an amazing sports shop called Decatholon there where you can get very reasonably priced sports and camping equipment. Then we headed home. We hit the border in the early evening and there was no one going through at that time on New Year's day. It took us about 15 minutes to get through and we drove back to Arusha in the dark and got home by 8pm.

We will seriously have to decide if we want to make this an annual thing but it was appreciated and needed this year.