The Anti-Beatitudes

Rickshaw and taxi-motos under a jacaranda.

MATTHEW 5:  ¹Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, ² and he began to teach them. He said:
³ ‘Blessed are the rich,
    for they will dwell in kingdoms on earth.
⁴ Blessed are those who have never suffered loss,
    they will live in comfort.
⁵ Blessed are the mighty,

    for they will conquer the world.

⁶ Blessed are those who are pragmatic and willing to make a deal for their own sake,
    for they will always come out ahead in the end.
⁷ Blessed are the ruthless,
    for they will show no mercy to their enemies.
⁸ Blessed are the cynics at heart
    for they will see good times.
⁹ Blessed are the warriors,
    for they will be called children of kings.
¹⁰ Blessed are those who can stand up for their own opinions and beliefs,
    for their homes will be their kingdoms. 

¹¹ ‘Blessed are you when people fear you, respect you and never question anything you say. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in your nation, for in the same way they feared the great leaders who were before you.

I taught Sunday School last week. It is something I enjoy doing and I was teaching the 10-12 year olds this past Sunday. We were about 20 altogether, including David and about a dozen other kids from his school, most of whom are Tanzanian. Teaching the radical message of the Beatitudes is a challenge to that young age group, so I wrote a series of ‘anti-beatitudes’ for them to compare to the original and asked them honestly to tell me which sounded more ‘true’. Most had to agree that the Beatitudes of the world fit better with their experience. I don’t know if I completely got them to appreciate just how subversive the message is, but we did have a lively discussion.

It has been over 10 days since the last blog, and I partially blame the US elections for not getting one up earlier this week. It is not that work was particularly busy, but it seemed we were caught up in the excitement of the build up and election results. It is interesting that we are so far away and yet, thanks to communications technology, able to keep up with minute to minute results, and all the hype surrounding the elections.

Rebecca and I generally try to avoid using this blog as a forum to espouse political views, not because we don’t have them, but because we want this platform to serve a different purpose. It is interesting, living in a country where there is quite a bit of restriction on content one can put on social media. There is even a law now to require bloggers to pay a $900 annual tax to write about Tanzania. I am not sure when or how that will be enforced, but I have no interest in creating controversy and making us a target of enforcement.

But I digress… The other exciting thing that happened last Sunday was the second meeting of our newly formed small group!! It might be hard for those who are not used to being part of a small group to appreciate what an important and exciting thing this is. But for Rebecca and I, it has been a much-missed and needed part of our experience here in Arusha. For us, a small prayer and share group is a place to process our joys and challenges, successes and failures, and to have spiritually mature people pray for and with us. It has been a vital part of our lives since marriage and we still have life-long friends from groups we were part of in Poughkeepsie, NY, Burundi, Baltimore, and now Arusha. The problem is, it usually takes about a year of being in a place to find people who have the time and interest to commit to this kind of activity. We have been yearning for and tried to find such friends for a long time. It has been an answer prayer to finally find others who are like-minded about this. We began 2 weeks ago with our friends the Taylors who have 4 kids about the same age as our own, which means that when the adults meet, our kids have friends to play with. Two other families joined us this past Sunday and it was such a blessing to pray and share together.

Other things that happened in the past week included our tiny celebration of Halloween—this is very much a US holiday, and most people around here think of it as devil worship. But we did, as last year, let the kids make their own costumes then have them go from door to door in to all the bedrooms, bathrooms and closets on our second floor. Rebecca and I hid behind each door in turn and had candy ready. They managed to get treats from about 4 ‘neighbors’ hiding in the bedrooms. No jack o lanterns, which was a disappointment, but then again there is nothing remotely fall-like about this season. In fact, we are in late spring and expecting the rains to come back again very soon.

The weather has been mixed, in an interesting way; some days it is overcast and cloudy. We had several straight days of rain about two weeks ago, but it has been dry since then. The pool is generally warmer but last Monday it was very cold again and I thought nothing could be worse that day—until I went to the dentist and had a root canal. That is worse. I was hoping to avoid this after they repaired a cracked tooth last month, but it was too far gone and started hurting again. I am grateful that it can be done here by a good dentist. But there is no such thing as a painless root canal.

The last two work weeks have not been very eventful, in a blog-worthy way. We do have our small successes and failures, but they are hard to describe in a way that makes it interesting. But this past Tuesday, Rebecca and I actually made a field visit together for the second time! Although we work in the same office, our assignments are quite different, so they do not often overlap. But we both needed to visit one of our partners—about two hours out of Arusha in Longido—a town close to the Kenya border.

We’ve written about this partner, TEMBO trust, in the past. In general, they seek to empower Maasai girls and women in education and income generation. MCC supports their work to educate communities about the dangers and risks of female genital mutilation. We arrived Tuesday mid-morning after dropping the kids at the bus and taking a swim. We were met by Pauline, Mary and Simon, the three principle staff members and had a chance to see the new construction they are doing- a dormitory, to support their summer camp they do for girls between 7^th and 8^th grade. This is the time girls are most vulnerable to circumcision—between primary and lower secondary school. We had a long meeting with them and got updates on their activities and future plans. In the afternoon we were able to watch a training of their community animators—traditional Maasai women, all of whom have been circumcised who are now staunch advocates against the practice. One of the most outspoken was Mwalimu, a former circumcizor herself. She talked about her transformation as she learned about the harm it did to girls and gave her own daughters an ‘alternative rite of passage’ that did not include cutting.

It is inspiring to see their passion and dedication to transform this harmful cultural practice. When we talked to them they had many questions for us including questions about what kind of rites of passage existed for girls in our culture. I described a senior prom and debutante ball, which fascinated them. They also wanted to know about how and if we circumcised boys. I said it was usually done at birth. (Maasai do it around age 13.) The women thought it would probably be better to have it done earlier so they did not suffer as much. I don’t have an opinion on this, but it was interesting to exchange views.

Rebecca and I returned by midafternoon, in time to get the kids off the bus. I had a long internet conference call that evening so I did not go home with the family.

It is Saturday already and we had a divide and conquer day with the kids. I took David to Lake Diluti in the morning, then we took Oren to visit a friend in the afternoon. David was thrilled to have a morning alone with Dad at the lake fishing and caught about 20 crayfish and 4 small tilapia. He was dead set on eating them so we boiled the crayfish in old bay and water, and cleaned and fried the tilapia. They were all quite small so it was not much of a meal, but for David it was the principle that counted.

I leave for Kigali tomorrow (Sunday evening) for a week-long family planning conference. I am excited that my Dad will be there and will be returning to Arusha with me next Friday for the weekend. More on that next time.

PS> We saw the Nutcracker movie this week. As a former dancer that performed it in many versions multiple times, it was great to see this cleverly ‘inverted’ version. (Spoiler alert—the SPF is the villain!)