Rain, Monkeys, Blind Snakes, Etc.

David and his new blind snake.

Prior to the weekend I had a great introduction to this week's entry comparing the weather here to one of two winters I spent in Seattle. For those who read regularly you have seen that rain has been mentioned at least 4 times in the first paragraph or title. I spent the winter of 1998 in Seattle when I was in grad school and it rained for 90 straight days! I had never seen anything like it. Granted Seattle rain is more like a mist, but it seemed that nothing ever dried. I remember one weather reporter saying toward the end of the winter that 'Next year may be worse." I could not imagine what that meant--- 90 straight days of tornadoes?

Anyway, I would say that this rainy season has nearly succeeding in surpassing that 90 day rainy winter. It has been raining almost constantly for months, and until the weekend, there was no day in recent memory where I saw the sun for more that 30 minutes in a day. Fortunately, it has been confirmed through several friends who have been here long term that this is the worst rainy season they have ever seen. (So we can hope for better next year.) This much wetness though that does not dry has led to a number of problems.
1) A slick of 'black ice' style moss all over our back porch and driveway. Walking to the car is absolutely treacherous when it is damp. It is also deceiptive because it does not look slippery, and the temp. never gets below 60 degrees fairenheit, so it is not cold. All of us have slipped and fallen on our driveway in the past month.
2) The inside of any vehicle that is not used daily turns into mildew. I don't know why, exactly, they are closed up, but the two MCC vehicles that are not used daily (the landrover and pick-up parked at our house) have had their interiors turned into a green fuzzy mess. Fortunately I can pay someone to clean and shampoo them thoroughly. But how long will it last?
3) All of our woven baskets in our house are covered in mildew and we have thrown most away.
4) My leather shoes that I do not wear daily are also covered in mildew. They have never been worn out in the rain so I don't know how that happened.
5) Swimming in the pool has become an act of pure machismo when we have to drive to it in the pouring rain. It is 62 degrees in both the air and water. Overcoming the initial shock of the first plunge is an act of pure mind over matter. (Am I a better person for doing this? Not that I can tell.)
6) Finally, getting up at 5:10 every school morning to get the kids breakfast ready and their bags packed and them ready for school is hard, but when it is dark and the sound of a steady drizzle on the tin roof is perpetual day after day, the task becomes nearly unbearable by the end of each week.

And just when it seemed we could not take another day, we were shocked to find the sun out in full glory this weekend--both Saturday and Sunday. It felt really different, like maybe something was going to change for good. It is still a bit early to tell, but if the rains could be winding down, it would be a very welcome change.

Rebecca has been working on a synopsis of the past weeks since our return from Burundi. Here are some of the highlights:

These past two weeks, since we returned from Burundi, have been relatively uneventful. Perhaps we can offer just a few vignettes of ordinary life on ordinary weeks.

Bureaucracy: We have been driving here in Tanzania using our international drivers’ licenses, but this month, it was time to apply for official Tanzanian licenses. We had asked around and learned that we needed to dedicate an entire day to this project, and that it needed to be completed, from start to finish, on the same day. We were a bit intimidated, and put off going a few times, hoping the timing would be better for our Tanzanian colleague to come with us and help. But the stars did not align, and so Paul and I finally decided that we just needed to go try.

We turned up at the Tanzania Revenue Authority office, a few minutes after they opened. We got started quickly and so we weren’t sure what was going to take so long. Here is a short review of the process, more as a PSA for others coming after us.

1.       Go through security and write your name in the book (and never go through again during all your subsequent trips in and out of the office).

2.       Enter Office #1, speak to receptionist, almost get refused.  When you insist that your papers are in order, get sent to the back office to the license controller, who gives you a form to fill out, after accepting copies of your immigration documents.

3.       Take your completed application to Office #6, desk 1. Biometric data is taken (fingerprints and photo).

4.       Wait. Go back to Office #6, desk 1, and receive two identical receipts each.

5.       Leave TRA and go next door to the bank where you stand in line to pay twice for the same thing. What you are paying for is unclear.

6.       Come back with your receipt and report to Office #6, desk 3. Information is entered. Two new receipts are issued, both for driving tests.

7.       Leave TRA and go next door to the bank where you stand in (a longer) line to pay twice for the same thing.

8.       Bring the receipts back to Office #6, desk 3. You are now sent to see the police.

9.       Walk down the street in the rain, ask 3 strangers, and finally end up at the traffic police office. Wonder if you should join the line up of young adults who are preparing to actually get behind the wheel for a road test. Instead, knock on the door of the officer and somehow get access (and cringe at the privilege you just asserted). After he looks at your home country license, get his signature on your driving test receipt.

10.   Walk back to TRA in the rain and through the mud and report to Office #6, desk 3 once more. Show the signature on your receipt. Receive a third receipt for your license.

11.   Leave TRA and go next door to the bank for a third time, where you stand in the very same line (which has now become much, much longer) to pay the exact same teller for the fifth receipt from the same office. This is where you have plenty of time to talk with your companion and salute the diabolic cleverness of a system that works with carefully calculated inefficiency. There are no real line ups inside the TRA office, but everyone ends up in this same line at the bank, multiple times, for various reasons.

12.   Return to Office #6, Desk 3, waving your final receipt in triumph. Hope for a real license to carry out with you like a trophy. Instead, receive a half-sheet paper provisional license and instructions to return in a month for your little laminated card. Sigh.

In fact, we managed to go through the entire process before 11:30 – which we counted a great victory. 

Mona and David

Hosting: A colleague from the US visited us over the weekend, during a long work trip to the African Continent. Mona Bormet works for Christian Connections in International Health, and it was truly a pleasure to talk with her about the projects she is overseeing and to share about the work that Paul is involved with at MCC. MCC is a member of this networking organization, so Mona welcomed the opportunity to learn more about MCC in this region.

We also had some fun. Normally we have a family movie night at home on Fridays, but our kids were keen to go see Avengers: Infinity War in 3D before they heard too many more spoilers from their classmates. We were pleased when Mona said she would love to go with us. In the end, we realized that she was far more at home in the Marvel Cinematic Universe than we were, and she was able to explain a whole lot of backstory to us afterwards. Good thing! Mona was also so fun with the kids, and happy to play a game of Apples to Apples that she had brought as a gift.

Monawith MCC Rep.and friends.

Monkey invasions: I think I’ve mentioned that monkeys are sometimes seen at the kids’ school. According to David, last week, a troupe of 6 vervet monkeys actually organized and staged an attack on the kids sitting at the picnic benches outside the cafeteria. Many kids were so startled and frightened that they dropped their food as they ran. The monkeys then retreated. Since then, David has seen many more guards walking around with slingshots. A vervet monkey was also spotted on our compound yesterday. Perhaps this is a trend.

Studying: Exams are also coming up in just 6 weeks. Oren’s teachers have told him to start studying, because these are comprehensive exams covering the entire year. To us North Americans, this is a foreign concept. But in any case, we must help Oren learn to study this way. We’ve been reviewing the geography of South America with him and trying to help him conjugate his French verbs. On Saturday, we helped Oren get together with a classmate for some studying in the afternoon. I relentlessly drilled them on facts about tropical rainforests, but then they asked me to leave them alone. I guess they studied science for a bit before having some time to walk around the lodge gardens and play in the playground with David.

Back to Paul. One of the things we have been working on at the MCC office this week is preparing to host all of MCC's partners for a 3 day capacity building meeting. We are covering a variety of topics to help them improve the way the plan, monitor, and evaluate projects. I am teaching two modules in the retreat, one on Do No Harm, which is a framework for planning and monitoring development work in a conflict setting to try to avoid bad outcomes resulting from provision of foreign aid. The main premise is that 'Aid is not neutral,' it has an impact and can have as many or even more negative consequences than positive ones.

I am also doing a module on project management, focusing on scheduling, including doing a work breakdown structure and a Gantt chart (for any project managers out there.) We will also do a field visit to an NGO that does some innovative ag. projects. All of us in the office are working to be logistically prepared for this gathering which begins on Wednesday evening.

The last bit of news worth mentioning is Mother's Day. I was lucky to have some time to prepare and to have the kids do something special for Rebecca. She had a meeting on Saturday morning so the kids stayed and worked on very artistic cards. David did a very nice painting of a field of poppies (he learned about Flanders field at school) and Oren made a detailed illustration of characters from his new favorite video game (Five Night's at Freddies) all wishing Rebecca Happy Mother's Day.

I was able to sneak out of work during lunch on Friday and go to a local jeweler who specializes in Tanzanite and got Rebecca two small circle cut studs for her ears. They go perfecly with her eyes. She was quite surprised by cards and gift. We went to church, where Oren started his first day of Communicant's class, and then out to George's for pizza afterwards. When we got home we were delighted to find the sun shining and we all went down to the trapoline to play "Monkey in the Middle."

Bonus Photo:  David holding his new (temporary) pet, a Brahminy blind snake which he caught when he threw a baseball at an owl in a tree next to our house. He missed the owl, but it dropped its prey anyway and David caught it, still very much alive.