Field Visits (Bahir Dar and Debre Markos) and School Options

 Facebook once again blocked our blog entry on the Ethiopia blog so I am posting a link https://pamosleyet.blogspot.com/2021/05/new-blog-site.html 

Savoring the last few weeks of normal

Gloriosa rothschildiana
among weeds

In the past few weeks, I’ve been taking a lot of walks – mostly in the evening. Partially, I am working to make sure I am ready to hike for multiple hours in a day, and I want my hiking boots to feel great on my feet. Partially, I just want to savor the place where we have been living. 

Since I came back from dry Ethiopia at the end of April, the lush greens of Arusha have been intoxicating. Strong heavy rains have been soaking the earth since the end of March and have only just let up now. 

Oren on a walk, with tall maize

The maize seems super tall and strong this year. Fascinating lilies seem to pop up out of the weeds. Evening walks down the quiet main road include a soundtrack of Bongo Flava music floating over the small shops at Korona fading off to the bleating of goats crossing into another pasture and the jingle of cowbells and then silence at the end of the road. 

The clouds have been full and rapturous at sunset just about every night. Even the donkey droppings on the sidewalks seem just a bit charming. Every little side errand down a dirt track in Arusha makes me give thanks that this town is still just an overgrown village, and every cluster of homes has room for its own little local duka and restaurant. 

River through our compound
with Mt. Meru 

 Paul and I had about 6 days together here in Arusha, between the time when I got back from Addis, and when he flew off again. Most of that time was spent uneventfully, just trying to make sure we completed our reporting for MCC. At least we were able to take an hour here or there for a walk together. And it was nice to be able to do some hours of work together at Gymkhana. 

Over the past few weeks, Oren has been deep into taking his IGCSE (O-Level) exams. In fact, it’s a process that takes about 7 weeks from start to finish. He has been taking 9 subjects and every subject includes 2 – 4 “papers” or sit-down exams, each of which can be up to 2 hours long. The schedule includes intricate timing, to prevent international cheating. For example, Oren’s literature exam yesterday had to finish slightly after 4 pm in East Africa, so that by the time they left the exam hall yesterday, students in West Africa and Europe (2 hours behind) would already be safely in their exam halls and out of reach of any text messages about the exam contents. 

Oren's final independent work

It’s very old fashioned in some ways – they just have pens and maybe a math kit. Nothing is online. And they all sit in one big hall, guarded by proctors. If you’ve seen Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when he’s doing his OWL’s, you get the idea. Just no quills. His graded art project was sent at the end of April, with a portfolio of studies that he has been pursuing for the past 18 months in the effort to create a final piece. 

He also had some time to prepare for a set art “paper” following the theme “On the shelf.” For his exam, he had 8 in-school hours to complete the final work on this piece in a supervised setting. This past week was his third very intensive week of exams, with 7 – 9 exam papers over the course of each week. He’s just about done now, which is good because we didn’t want to plan too much activity while he needed a lot of time to study. 

"On a shelf" by Oren Mosley

In contrast, David’s social life has really improved over the past month. We have neighbors with kids again! Their two boys are younger than David, but really enjoy doing a lot of the same outdoor exploration as he does. They ride bikes and jump on the trampoline together and play hide and seek in a pretty wide ranging area, and get the guard dogs all worked up in the evenings with their howling. It’s been pretty great to see David be able to play and enjoy himself actively outdoors, without being his only playmate and instigator. 

In addition, our housekeeper’s 3 kids have come to play a few times in the past weeks. They all love the trampoline, but 6 kids are a few too many at one time so I have to send them off to play hide and seek as well. Whoops, now they are all back on the trampoline! Time to break out the badminton rackets! 

As far as events go, I was glad to be back in Arusha for David’s final swim gala of the year. The schools are being somewhat careful about sporting events that bring schools together, and so our school has only been interacting with the school the Taylor kids go to. It was nice to see our friends racing and talk with their mom. The competition was much stiffer for David this time, as he’s competing against kids who are thirteen. Sadly, I had to also be on a Zoom training conference for a few hours of the swim gala, but it is possible to attend things like this on my phone. 

Friends playing at Kili Golf Clubhouse

 We have had a few really lovely times out with the Taylor family – at one of our favorite local BBQ chicken restaurants after church one time, and then at a somewhat remote, picturesque golf course last weekend. We are very thankful for these good friends, for good conversation with them, and for the fellowship all our kids enjoy. 

We’ve also been able to keep meeting as a Bible study group, and even while he’s in Ethiopia, Paul has been able to join us on Zoom. See the photo of him relaxing in his lawn chair at our most recent bible study. 

Paul @ bible study

Ladies looking for birds in the forest

It’s also time to start the farewells. I’ve been part of a women’s bible study group since 2017, and they very thoughtfully planned a day out for all of us at a local lodge on the slopes of Mt. Meru. It is 100 years old, an historic German “castle” from pre-WWI colonial days, with a small pond, lovely gardens and even horses to ride. I invited a bird guide friend from church, Godliving, to spend a few hours with us in the morning, spotting whatever birds we could find in the forest there. 

jacanas on the pond

Even the non-birders among us decided to walk along and see what they could spot. And then after a swim, we enjoyed good conversation over a delicious healthy lunch in our own private tent overlooking the pond. We finished off with a light-hearted game of croquet. 

Only in Arusha do you find
dining rooms like this!

It was a very relaxing and meaningful day to remember and mark the time we’ve spent together over these years, even with all the comings and goings. 

Croquet!

Lena, Rebecca & Jodi

The one difficult aspect of the past few weeks involved some bad news about next year’s school situation. Master Oogway would say, “Oh, Shifu. There is just news. There is no good or bad.” So here it is, and you decide: Oren was accepted into the 11th grade at Bingham Academy, but David did not get a place. (“That IS bad news…”) There was too much competition for spots at his grade level and so he is on a waiting list (albeit short) for a place in a class of 18 or so students. 

morning glory and heavy clouds

We had been told that there was really only one school that was a good option for our kids, in terms of quality, location and cost. So, we had not looked any further. But when we got that news, we started a flurry of investigations, checking with every possible contact we could think of in Addis. In fact, there are some other good quality schools – it’s a big city – but all the other options would involve 4 hours of driving per day across rush hour traffic to the other side of town or else cost far more than we could in good conscience pay for the 7th grade. (I mean literally, you could go to college for a year for less money than this one school charges!) The only other viable option is homeschooling, which is also not really viable for us. Both of us have full-time roles to play in the MCC work in Ethiopia. It’s really difficult to imagine how we will give David the time and energy he would need for a decent year of homeschooling, without also losing our minds and much sleep, trying to keep up with the demands of our job. Never mind self-care. And we are also worried about David finding friends, without being in a school class. It will no doubt also take a lot of time for me to arrange social outlets and activities for him. 

David fed that cricket
to the spider...

But we don’t see any other decent option right now, and so we just pray that David might get into the school soon, and that this home school period will be ask short as possible. And maybe there is some reason why we need to deal with this unexpected spanner in the works. We are trying to be open to that possibility. But it’s hard to have a whole new project—figuring out how to educate David—set in our laps in the midst of all the other work of transition. 

On the other hand, it has been good that Paul is there in Addis, to visit alternative schools and meet with a few people in the home school community to get ideas about how to do it. Paul will fly back on Thursday, giving us a final month all together in Arusha. We need to really start putting our farewell activities on the calendar.

18th hole at Kiligolf is on an island

Actually, we do have a significant voluntary challenge planned for early June. It’s been a long year for Paul and I, with lots of time of separation and all the faults and frustrations of trying to talk over WhatsApp. We thought it would be very nice to have time to switch off our email and phones and take a very long walk together, to get our heads and hearts in the same place as we leave Tanzania and start a new chapter in life. And so we’ve planned for a seven-day walk together, up and down the slopes of the mountain that has crowned our clearest days. And if we manage to summit Kilimanjaro (the mountain in question), then all the better. The kids will spend that week in boarding. 

They grumble a little but understand we need the time as a couple. 

That’s probably all the news that is worth printing right now.

Here are a few bonus photos of Oren's art work, starting with the preparation of "on a shelf" and then the preparation of his final work which is untitled