Phases of 60 Part 1

Our "jellicle" Tramp.

Happy Leap Day everyone! I am glad there is one extra day in February to allow me to get in two entries this month. That is my theoretical minimal amount of documentation I am trying to do of our life here in this blog. There is, in fact, quite a bit to say about the last two weeks which is one reason I have not had the chance to sit down and write. 

Among the many events of the month, I did have a milestone Birthday, the festivities of which I have included in here. But chronologically there were many other things that happened, especially the arrival of several very special visitors who stayed at our house as guests. 

I have talked about our one year YAMEN volunteer, Jessica, who is here serving our partner Step-by-Step Learning Center as an Occupational Therapist. She is from France, and her family came to visit her last week to say Hi and to take the opportunity of her working here in TZ to do a safari and a trip to Zanzibar. Her father, mother and youngest sister planned to make the trip together.

Rebecca and I were pleased to offer to host them as we are French speakers and also curious about what French Mennonites are like. Jessica further enticed us with the promise of a fondue dinner with ingredients brought from France by her mom.

They arrived on a Sunday and I picked them up at their guesthouse on the way to church. Her family accompanied us there after which we went to Andrew's a local Tanzanian restaurant, and good tourist introduction to Tanzanian food. After lunch we went on to our own house and got her family settled in. It was not long after that they came down to begin preparing dinner. 

Jessica's parents are no strangers to experiencing new cultures, they had worked in the past in both Laos and Chad. They were, however, not entirely comfortable speaking English, which was fine by us as we have not had the chance for extensive communication in French since leaving Burundi.

The meal the first night was like going to a five star French Provincial restaurant. We joked that such a meal in the US would cost upwards of $50 for the main course alone. They prepared a fondue dish, a specialty of the Alsace region where they grew up. It required a precise mixture of 3 cheeses from the region as well as herbes de province and other ingredients. Their family worked together to prepare the feast and even provided bottle of French wine to accompany the meal. 

It was, in brief, exquisite. Even David and Oren (not connoisseurs of haute cuisine), ate it all with enthusiasm. Her family, true Mennonites at heart were also first at the sink to wash the dishes (beyond the call of duty after their fabulous cooking in my opinion) After dinner we did play a game they introduced us to before retiring to bed.

The week was a bit complicated by the fact that David and Oren were out on mid-term break, but Rebecca and I still had work. Jessica’s family did some sight-seeing in Arusha, including the place she volunteers, and a day safari to Tarangire park. On Wednesday they left for Zanzibar for several days to enjoy the beach as well.

While they were out, Rebecca and I had an interesting work day on Tuesday as a team of students from Goshen College on a one semester cultural tour of Tanzania came to Arusha. Rebecca and I met them at their hotel and did a presentation of MCC’s work in Tanzania. After that, we took them to see the innovative work of ECHO, an NGO that has been doing a lot of innovative agriculture including developing new ‘climate smart’ seeds and technologies to help subsistence farmers here. Erwin Kinsey, a good friend and member of our church, who directs ECHO here did a great tour and explanation of conservation agriculture to the students.

After the visit to ECHO, as an extra treat, Erwin took us all up to a ‘parasitic crater’ basically a mini crater that is part of the geological features of this area. It was a short drive, then we hiked up a medium ‘hill’ which we found to be a huge hollowed out crater about a half mile across. We had brought David and Oren along for this long day, much of which they did not find terribly interesting, but they were very happy to walk around the rim of the crater, which takes a bit less than an hour to hike the circumference. From the lip there are quite spectacular views of the surrounding savannah (quite green from the excessive rain of the past few months) as well as some giddy views looking down into the crater itself. (a bit like the ‘sarlacc’ in Starwars!)

When we finished our field trip with the Goshen students, we had a synchronous visit from another Mennonite friend from our church in the US who was here doing some research, Rebecca Hiedekamp. She has visited us once before during a trip here about 2 years ago. We spent a pleasant evening with her catching up on our church in the US (North Baltimore Mennonite Church).

Volcanic rock.

Although Tuesday was my official Birthday, we had our first of several celebrations the following day, Wednesday with our Country Rep. Sharon. Rebecca and I, along with Sharon and our kids went out to George’s restaurant and had pizza, and a Birthday cake (with a raucous chorus of ‘Jambo Sana’ from the wait staff.) Some of our staff were out of town at the moment but it was lots of fun and Sharon had some very funny, quirky gifts for me from the MCC TZ team.

I actually was able to take the whole day off from work on Wednesday (besides our lunch together) and took a day with the kids so Rebecca could get some office work done. We went to Gymkhana in the morning and played a game of golf (David, Oren and I). It was a lot of fun, although not one of our better games since we have not played at all since our return to Arusha this summer. I think we lost about 10 balls between the 3 of us and I almost felt sorry for the caddies. Despite that, it was a very good day all told.

Rebecca was the main planner for a large Birthday celebration scheduled for Saturday. We had a big event planned with many friends from work, our small group, and church. Rebecca planned a caterer to bring Indian food, baked a cake, and sent out invitations. The plan was to begin with a big ultimate Frisbee game in the afternoon, followed by dinner, then folk dances on our driveway, and finally cake.

It was every bit as great as it sounds. We began with Frisbee and a good turn-out. We did get rain at the end of our 3^rd of three periods of play and ran back to the house and had dinner. The rain stopped soon and the driveway was dry enough in the evening to do our folk dancing. We planned for but did 3: A Ceilidh “Dashing White Sergeant”, a South African dance “Pata Pata” and an American Dance “Virginia Reel”. It was great to see the inter-generational participation in all the dances.

After that we all went back in and had cake before people left. It was #60 for me, although, in my experience, aging seems to happen in fits and spurts and not as a steady change. I don’t feel particularly old and I feel more surprised than anyone that I have crossed this milestone year. On the other hand I do feel a slowly emerging desire to be able to share my ‘wisdom’ from many years of experience, but have not felt particularly sought out for this frequently. I think having made some very big shifts in life from a career in performing arts, to international development, and now public health makes it difficult to know what field I may have ‘wisdom’ in.

One area I seem to be developing increasing skill, is in overseeing the Sunday School program at our church. Last week we had our monthly family service and our kids did a rousing version of “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” and another song.

Our choir has been busy as well with weekly rehearsals on Wednesday. We sung 3 songs at our Ash Wednesday service which was a fitting beginning to our season of Lent. We are working on family rituals to recognize the season. Time seems to be flying this spring and we are already looking toward Easter and planning for summer vacation. Like ‘60’, time can rush past you when you least expect it.

More Successes, Celebrations, and Adventures

Oren, ready for Valentines
Dance.

Perhaps my 'kvetching' on this blog is really a case of 'from this computer to God's ears'. In the last two entries, I have complained about bureaucratic inefficiencies and the weather, both of which have resolved themselves satisfactorily in the past 2 weeks. I did, in fact, eventually have my NIDA ID number sent to me and was able to register my phone number (albeit 13 months after I began the pursuit), and in the last 10 days, the weather has been clear and warm, the way one would expect this season to be. I dare not test this theory too intensely though, for fear of losing readers who would tire of my many complaints.

There has been a two-week gap between entries because early February can be a slow time of year at work. We are right between reporting periods and the time of actively developing new concept papers for the coming fiscal year is still a month or so away. Despite that, a number of things have happened, primarily around kids and school, but I want to note one major success for me at work which could be a follow-on to my Anatomy of a Success entry. After a long and sometimes arduous process, I have succeeded in getting an article published based on research I did with some colleagues on one of our projects. The citation and link are below in case you would like to see it:

Mosley, P.D., Saruni, K. & Lenga, B. Factors influencing adoption of facility-assisted delivery - a qualitative study of women and other stakeholders in a Maasai community in Ngorongoro District, Tanzania. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth 20, 100 (2020).

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-020-2728-2

The problem that led to the eventual publication of this study, came from the work in our maternal and child health project in a Maasai community in Ngorongoro. Our partner was trying to promote the practice of attending ante-natal care (ANC) for pregnant women, and getting them to go to a facility for a safe skilled delivery. While there was acceptance and uptake of the former, women really preferred to have a birth at home with a traditional birth attendant. We wanted to better understand what aspects of a home delivery made it preferable to a facility and whether those benefits could be duplicated at a facility. 

To pursue the question we began by writing out a proposal to address these research questions and submitted it to a funder around Jan of 2018. By April 2018 we were approved for funding. From there we sought ethical approval from the government of Tanzania ethics board (National Institute of Medical Research) who took about 7 months to approve us (end of Nov. 2018). We did the surveys in December of 2018 and had them all transcribed and translated by Jan 2019. I did the data analysis in Feb. 2019 and began the process of coding and sharing results with key stakeholders until the end of April 2019. I submitted the first manuscript to BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth in June 2019. Over the next 7 months I went back and forth through 4 revisions requested by peer reviewers and editors. In Jan. 2020, the manuscript was accepted for publication and it came out on Feb. 12, 2020. From start to finish, it took a little over 2 years. There were times during the revision process that I could barely stand to look at the paper again and almost wanted to just give up. (There were times in our prayer group that I just prayed for the perseverance to even dive back in again when a major revision, like rewriting the results section was requested). The accomplishment does feel good though and is quite humbling when you have to listen to extensive criticism of your hard work. 

Among the major activities of the past two weeks, was participation in Chinese New Year which was celebrated as a school-wide event on a Saturday at St. Constantines. The school uses a 'round-square' approach which embraces a number of values, including 'internationalism' and this day was an example. It was designed to give participants a taste of what celebrations in China of the new year is like. (This is the Year of the Rat and Rebecca, David, and I are all Rats!). 

The celebration was huge and well attended by members of the community, despite some irrational fear that such a celebration would spread the coronavirus. Sadly, a number of Chinese special guests were not in attendance, perhaps from fear of creating some anxiety among attenders that they may be infected. Despite that, there were many Chinese themed activities including a parade, dragon dance, fireworks display, martial arts demonstration, 'dragon boat' races (which I will elaborate on), and in the evening a karaoke-style music performances by a number of students. 

The weather was miraculously clear as it had been pouring right up until the event opened at noon, then began pouring again just at it ended around 8pm. I took many pictures, but the highlight event that I enjoyed most was the dragon boats. For those not familiar, these are wood and cardboard constructed 'vessels' that look like long boats with a dragon head prow. There is no bottom, so 7 people can get inside and walk in single file carrying it while they are inside. The real challenge is that they wear a long set of skis with 7 loops on each side so they must all slide their feet together left, then right, without getting out of step. It does not sound too hard, but some found it nearly impossible. There were also a number of spectacularly funny capsizings when people got out of stip, tripped up and keeled over sideways. 

They had races for every age group, then a race of faculty vs. 'fundis' (maintenance crew). The fundis won by a nose, but it was really quite a spectacle and passionate cheering from everyone watching. We had a very good time, and Rebecca is sort of a celebrity as a member of the leadership of the parents' association. I am also well known by many of the kids who come to Sunday school at our church. We definitely feel a part of that community.

Speaking of church, we had our Annual General Meeting last week after church on Sunday. It seems that every non-governmental institution of Tanzania must have an annual general meeting of members at least once a year, and our church is one of those. It also serves other purposes for us of course including getting new people on our Church Council (elders groups) as well as recruiting new committee members. It is a bit dull for the kids though and fortunately our friends the Taylors took our kids home with them so Rebecca and I could participate fully. We had our small group later that day which continues to be a blessing in helping all of cope with challenges of life here. Quite a number of prayer requests are around successfully completing and being approved for work and residence permits so people aren't kicked out of the country in the middle of their jobs.

David had a number of activities in the past 2 weeks including an assembly where his class did a skit about one of the round/square school values, followed by a swim meet. David continues to accel in swimming particularly the backstroke where he easily took first place in his race. 

Also last week was David's turn to go on a school activities week adventure. His class went to a place in Kenya called Savage Wilderness, which is basically an adventure camp with ropes and rock climbing, ziplines, mountain biking, white water rafting, paddleboarding and other water activities. I took him to the bus at 5am last Monday and he returned this past Friday afternoon. While he was gone we did some activities with Oren that were special to him, including playing different board games in the evening, and went and saw the film 1917, as Oren is quite a World War I and II buff. It was very interesting, and he liked it. 

Oren also went to a Valentine's day formal dance at his school this past Thursday. It was a mixer for year 10-13 (high school). He did not take a date, but hung out with friends. While he was at the dance, Rebecca and I were able to have a date night of our own and went to coffee lodge for a very nice Valentine's dinner. We picked up Oren after the dance and he gave us a middling report saying that there were not many kids from his class and he felt like a bit of a wallflower. I told him it would probably get easier each year when he is more of an upperclassman in that context rather than a freshman. He did look good in his black suit though. (I went out and bought him the black jacket for about $7 at a store in town for the occasion.)

David came back on Friday completely enthusiastic about what a great place Savage Wilderness was. He loved white water rafting the most and really wants to do it again sometime. We were very happy to see him back and this week the kids will have their one week mid-term break. That is always a bit challenging for parents as we negotiate child care and work. 

We came home from work on Friday to an exciting construction project on our property as a leaky water tank on our water tower meant a group of men lowering down a 10,000 liter tank from our very high tower, and raising up a 5000 liter one. It was quite a project and took many workers, rope, and sticks. Happily we have running water again. We are also getting a covering over our front porch which should make it more usable in the rainy season. It will be nice to be able to put some furniture out there. 

Bonus Photos:

Me trying out early Birthday gift,(more later.)

Oren getting icecream at Chinese New Year festival