Trimming our Wicks and Replenishing our Oil

Cordon Bleu Rebecca and I saw on a walk

This short rainy season is heavy. Some days it is overcast most of the day and it can rain for several days without ceasing it seems. This rainy season is not like the short afternoon showers I remember in Burundi. But I have been pleasantly surprised, as the rain has washed away the curtain of haze that seemed to hang in the air since our arrival, that we have a view of Mt. Kilimanjaro from our house. Not from our window, but when I climb to the top of our water tower, it stands majestically to the east of Mt. Meru, which looms much larger in the foreground and frames the background of most of our views in in Arusha.

As a side note, our water tower stands about 40 feet tall (since we have a 2 story house) and is quite a substantial structure. Not a light metal framework, but more of a large square minaret made of brick and mortar. There is a metal ladder on one side and a guard rail around the top. It rises just above the canopy of trees around our compound and it feels like you are popping up over the Amazon rain forest. The view is quite spectacular now that the air is clearer.

Mt Meru behind Gymkhana golf course

This week had a more-or-less normal routine except Monday when the kids were not in school because it was parent-teacher conference day. We started out at work and brought the kids to our Swahili lesson in the morning. We were hoping they might try to join in,  since they are both taking Swahili classes in school, but they were not interested in trying. Sadly, Oren seems to be at a disadvantage, because Swahili is offered based on one’s grade level. Thus, David is getting an intro course in Year 4 but Oren has to be in a more advanced class in Year 8. Consequently, he is learning very little and has been given a book to ‘self-teach’ by his teacher.

I feel of two minds about my own progress in Swahili. On the one hand we seem to be learning the rules of the language in leaps and bounds and I can construct complex sentences to say things like: "When I arrive, we will go see the project together.” Nitakapofika tutakwendana pamoja kuona miradi. But when I listen to the radio, or read something, I am aware of just how little I comprehend because I can identify all the parts of speech, but do not know the vocabulary. Despite this, I do get some satisfaction comparing English, French and at least 2 Bantu languages which I know. One of the things we take for granted in English is how broadly we use the concept of ‘being’. In English you can ‘be’ at a place, you can ‘be’ a state of mind, you can even ‘be’ an age. In Bantu languages, the word for being in a location is not the same as ‘being’ happy, for instance. In fact being in a location has several words depending on whether it is particular place or a general place. It's fascinating how much language reveals worldview.

The most challenging aspect of Bantu languages though is the concept of noun classes, of which there at least 12 in Swahili, I would compare them to masculine and feminine nouns in French (2 classes) with which all adjectives have to agree in a sentence. Only imagine having 10 more classes all with different agreements for adjectives, direct objects, pronouns, etc. (If I could try to give a hypothetical example in English imagine a sentence like: The chi-two chi-red chickens chi-are chi-mine.) It is not that simple because it is not really the first letters of the noun that make the agreement, but you get the idea. I won’t even get started on the fact that suffixes in English that tell us number or verb tense are always prefixes in Swahili.

Back to the report—After Swahili, Rebecca took the kids to the meetings with their teachers and gave me a full report. Essentially both boys are doing well in school. For Oren, the exceptions are his foreign languages. He has to take Swahili and French. I admit I am extremely disappointed that he has seemed to retain none of the French he learned in 6 years of going to a Belgian school in Burundi. He makes up for it in math where he is currently getting an A+.

Flame-tree flower in bloom next to our house

During the rest of the week, we enjoyed our normal routine of dropping kids off at the bus then going swimming and to work. Generally we are settling in well into our projects and for me, a full week at the office without travel was a welcome change. (This week that we are starting, I am already off in Karatu, and Ngorongoro to see one of partner projects but will say more about that next week.) We went as a family again this Wednesday to choir practice. The kids are happy to let us enjoy our hour and a half for an Indian meal on the way home. It is actually a blessing since we would get back around 7pm and would not want to start a meal then. (Our day starts at 5:30 to get out of the house by 6:45am)

The weekend was pleasant with our family doing our Friday afternoon swim followed by kuku na chipsi (roast chicken and French fries), which is the basic fast-food of Arusha. Zoe, the MCC SALT volunteer was down in Arusha for the weekend and stayed at our house on Saturday and Sunday.

Rebecca giving the Benediction

Sunday was special because Rebecca preached at our church! She was also on the music team and it is great to see her involved in worship! She preached an excellent sermon on the passage about the 10 virgins who prepare their lamps for the arrival of the bridegroom to his house. Since the church follows a liturgical tradition, she was not given a choice about what to preach on, and she said she really appreciated being stretched to understand this parable. She did an amazingly good re-telling of a traditional marriage where a young groom goes to meet his future bride then spends a year preparing a home for her and brings her back to his home village for the wedding. I actually recorded it on my phone and I have put a link here if you would like to hear it. The quality is not bad. Definitely worth the 30 minutes to listen to it!! ( Rebecca Sermon Link 11-12-2017 )

(Shout out to North Baltimore Mennonite Church folk! Since the service here has a somewhat traditional feel, the ordained pastors usually preach in their robes. Rebecca, as you can see, is wearing the stole she was given by NBMC at her ordination. She looked very reverent—and was introduced as the Reverend Rebecca Mosley:-)

We had lunch after church with Zoe and two young German women who were volunteering for a year at the Mennonite Church in Arusha. (Rebecca wanted to find out more about their program.) It was a pleasant afternoon. The evening was spent doing homework and Oren and I played an epic game of chess. Sadly he ended the evening with a bout of diarrhea which is keeping him out of school today.

Rebecca Sermon Link 11-12-2017