A Visitor in "Humorous" weather

Puppies born in a barn.

Phelgmatic. That is how I would describe the weather here this season-- cool, moist (or wet really). It is in many ways my least favorite kind of weather as I am more of a choleric (warm, dry) personality. (Why the medical profession gave up a theory of disease based on the interaction of the 4 humors in favor of germs, I don't know--although anti-vaxxers may want to take us back!)

The remedy that seems to work best to face endless weeks of rain, is homeopathic. Start a cold rainy day with a swim in a cold wet pool. After 45 minutes in the water, nothing will feel quite as cold and wet the rest of the day. Yes, we are still doing our morning swim, Rebecca began wearing the wet-suit yesterday but I am trying to hold out until June 1st.

It is a Saturday morning, the first full day of the beginning of the kids' half-term break. No matter how short the term, there is a week off right in the middle. We just started term 3 four weeks ago. To celebrate, Oren and David had a double sleep-over with the two boys from the Taylor family, our Australian friends from our small group. Today has been mostly absorbed by inside games, although David and Sammy did go over to the muddy barn in the pouring rain to play with a litter of puppies that were born to the guard dogs last month.

Dave on KP duty the morning after arrival. Such a mensch!

We actually have a full house as Rebecca's Dad, Dave Sack, arrived last night as well for a two day stay-over. He has several meeting related to cholera projects in the region. He arrived from Dar Es Salaam and is going on to Bujumbura, Burundi. We are happy to see him and took advantage of his sherpa capacity by loading up his suitcase with goodies from home to get us to our next home leave in July (chocolate chips, Crystal Lite, new swimming suits, and eye-glasses).

Moving backward, the past week has been quite out of the ordinary in terms of work. First, Sharon, our Representative is not in town and won't be for some time. So we are a bit smaller in terms of office staff. She is on email so we can communicate, but the office feels a bit emptier. Secondly, this past week was not spent in the office as we were hosting our annual partner meeting--  a conference, for which we booked a local hotel (Stereo) to have our meetings. So we were not in the office at all between Tuesday and Thursday.

The annual partner meeting is a somewhat unique MCC event: for 3 days, we bring all of the local organizations that currently have MCC grants together to do some capacity building, networking, professional development, and usually a field visit to one of our projects. Partners have really come to appreciate it, and it has fostered of atmosphere of cooperation and mutual support rather than competion.

We vary the themes every year and this year we had several modules. On the first day, we did some leadership and time management training. The partners enjoyed the latter thoroughly and the presenter, a Tanzanian advisory board member, did an excellent presentation. He both acknowledged and challenged the stereotype: "No hurry in Africa." The message resonated strongly with participants both in humor at situations where traditional and modern concepts of time are juxtaposed , as well as frustration where they see time wasted systemically in many bureaucratic processes that can be costly in time wasted and money spent.

Rebecca presented MCC values in a clever way, inviting groups to act out skits to demonstrate each value. Our partners seem to love acting and they hammed it up considerably. I did a unit on fundraising, which included some resources for finding appropriate grants to end the first day.

On the second day we had an all day training on Mainstreaming Gender in our programs. It was an excellent, very sophisticated, presentation, which provided several frameworks for doing gender analysis. Towards the end of the day,  partners worked in break-out groups to analyze case studies of projects that were strugging. The course ended with a certification ceremony where those who participated got a certificate to show their proficiency. The partners really  appreciated the chance to earn a professional development certificate.

On day three, we took a bus about 2 hours out of town to Longido where our partner Tembo Trust has a guest house and a large girls' empowerment program in several Maasai communities. (Tembo is a Maasai-run organization.) MCC's work wiith them has been focused on helping them advocate to end FGM (female circumcision) in the project region, where prevalence is quite high.

Tembo hosted us with lunch, then a presentation of their work including the testimony of two of their community animators, both traditional Maasai women, one a traditional birth attendant (TBA). Their presentations were powerful, even in Maa (language) and translated into Kiswahili. The TBA actually showed the way a traditional birth was done with the help of her colleague. They also spoke frankly about FGM and other challenges for girls in the community. We shared lunch, had a long question and answer session and feedback. The partners were effusive in praising each other's work and it was impressive to see what kinds of work are represented: A school for severely mentally disabled children, a deaf school, a project to train health officers to diagnose cancer in people with albinism, girls empowerment and education, maternal and child health in a maasai community, conservation agriculture, mental health counselling and awareness raising, peace-building, alternative discipline in schools. Many of them see opportunities for intersections in their work and I overheard several discussions between members exchanging ideas for collaboration.

We finished on Thursday evening, feeling that we had accomplished something. Our kids may have been a bit neglected and we actually had a cab pick them up from the bus on the day we went to Longido. They spent about an hour at home alone. Fortunately they are old enough to handle it and we found them at home content to wait for us playing Minecraft. (When we called them to make sure they were home Oren told us not to hurry ;-)  )

Other parts of life have been relatively smooth, work at the office has really picked up with me finishing a research project and Rebecca helping exchange program participants get visa applications together (some going to the US, and one coming to Tanzania.) It is always a complicated process, especially for Tanzanians who have to fill out a complex online form and have access to a credit card. Some barely have access to a computer! Rebecca is patient though (Sanguine!), one of her greatest vitrtues.

She is also keeping other balls in the air as chair of our church council, and occasional music leader. I continue to coordinate Sunday school and am trying to prepare for a big fieldtrip for our kids to visit an orphanage where they will give the offerings they have collected over the year. It is not my forte to organize a bus trip of 50-60 children, but I am doing my best and hope to have help from other teachers and parents.

Got to stop here, and play some family games. Tommorow we will be leading kids in singing and signing "Lord listen to your children praying" and "Day by Day" in church.

Bonus Photo:

David with a new hedgehog. He and his friend found 5 last Sunday.