Ordinary Time

David and others in Sunday school becoming Seraphim, during Paul's lesson

Rebecca here: There are some weeks when we are just here living life, like we would any place. We went to work, went to church, hung out with various friends. I’m not sure any of this is really blog worthy. But, for the sake of posting something and keeping our families up to date, I’ll write a little something. And perhaps it is fitting to have an ordinary week as we have now fully entered Ordinary Time in the Christian calendar.

Nai, hard at work

The highlight of this past week was our MCC team meeting on Friday. It was actually a school holiday, and the kids were along for the ride, so we offered to host the meeting at our house. We were especially glad to do this, since not all of our team members had visited our house before. We were also very happy that our housekeeper, Nai, was here to help us prepare a Mexican burrito lunch for the team, with her fresh, homemade tortillas. It was also extremely helpful to have her here to help wash up.

Team meetings offer our team the time to be on the same page in terms of what we are involved with in program, to share highlights and challenges personally, and to have discussions about policies and procedures. During this meeting, Sharon also blocked out some time in our agenda to think about and experience some of the issues of working cross-culturally. I've been assigned to this task of "orientation" and so I had the challenge of thinking up some activities that would be more active. 

Fun with friends

We broke up into two teams, and did a photo scavenger hunt, trying to think of problems in life that all humans have, which have very different solutions, depending on the context. Getting drinking water, drying clothes, bathing, and cleaning the floor are all accomplished in very different ways in Tanzania than in North America. It was interesting and fun to think about these issues together. I will add the photos and explanations into my orientation materials, to help any new team members adjust to the context here. We also enjoyed a couple of interesting role plays, looking at different cultural understandings of money and relations between women and men. Overall, it was a good day together, and during each team meeting, it feels like we are all able to relax and share a bit more.

need power to get water...

Our one significant challenge of the week was our electricity. A few months ago, some major rewiring was done to our house, so that we could be in control of paying our electric bill directly. Since then, the power seems to overload every now and then. But we lost power midway through our team meeting. A “fundi” (local repairman) came and fixed something, but sadly the power failed 20 minutes after he left. And due to our meeting, all our power banks were already depleted. We waited and hoped for another electrician to come, but he was apparently out of town. We passed the time as darkness fell, with Paul teaching us all to play poker, and it was fun for a while. But at about 7:30, we decided that we were sick of sitting in the dark. We drove back into town to Gymkhana for a very late Chinese dinner, bringing all our power cords with us and charging up all our computers and phones while we watched half a movie. The electrical problems continued through Saturday. Then we started running out of water, because we need electricity to run the pump to pump the water to the top of our water tank, so that there is water flow into the house. Finally, on Sunday night, the whole business seemed to be repaired, hopefully for good.

Oren with friends at IBES

Our kids were off school Thursday as well, and so we met Australian friends a little way out of town at a beautiful playground facility. It’s located at an organization which trains early childhood educators, builds and sells playground equipment, and offers burger fast-food restaurant training through a working burger joint. The kids all really enjoyed playing with their friends (ok, the 12-year-olds enjoyed hanging out) and having lunch together. I enjoyed talking with my friend, their mom Katie, as well. Later in the afternoon, one of Oren’s school friends came over to have some study time with him. There was also a bunch of horsing around 😉.

Abrahams and Oren

Saturday was similar. Both of Oren’s school friends named Abraham came over and there was a much higher ratio of horsing around to studying. But I suppose a full and worthwhile life includes having fun with your friends. They really enjoyed our Mexican burrito leftovers for dinner (the boys had requested this specially). The trouble is that it is tough to drive them home at night – It was almost 2 hours round trip for Paul in the dark with blinding lights coming at him the whole way. Arusha is just a little too spread out for frequent visiting outside of daylight hours. 

On Sunday after church we invited our Australian friends to join us for carry out pizza at Gymkhana. It was a really good time for all of us. Paul and I really enjoy talking and sharing thoughts and experiences with Mike and Katie. Oren and their son Harry played two rounds of chess; it was a draw both times. David really enjoyed playing with the other 3 younger kids on the playground. We are sad that these friends will be away on home assignment for the next 3 months. But that is just how one must roll in this expat life.

Kilimanjaro from our house again

I'll add a word on my work activities here since I’ve been writing this week. The MCC Tanzania program hasn’t had a lot of written orientation material. I’ve spent a lot of time in the past months writing up various kinds of handbooks and in-country resource guides to try to help people new to MCC or new to the context get their bearings and figure out how to live here. Luckily, I have a lot of old material and experience to draw upon. It’s been fun to try to think of what people need to learn and know right when they arrive. I’m close to being finished with this work in progress. But I am realizing that we need similar materials, but in reverse, to help the Tanzanian young adults who go to serve in North America each year. There are many quirks of life that would be strange or inexplicable to someone from here, and I’m hoping to prepare something helpful for them as well. In fact, we have two young people preparing to go this summer; I have spent a long time on the phone with them almost every week, working on their visa processes with them. We are just waiting for each visa to be approved at this point. The other major part of my work is supporting our SALT volunteer, who is wrapping up her term of service in July. Sharon and I made a visit to her partner organization on Tuesday, to have a final debriefing.

butterfly hunting...

...and catching

Well, I’m going to stop trying to make a mundane week sound extra interesting! There will be many more interesting things to report in the next week, as Paul will be facilitating a folk dance on Saturday and preaching on Sunday.