Surviving Adverse Seasons

Fox kit near our driveway.

At the quantum level, a body can be in two places at once. In ordinary life, however, that is exceedingly difficult... at least for me. We have been out of Tanzania and making life in an entirely new setting for a bit over a month, and it is beginning to feel hard to believe that we have a fully furnished home in Arusha, complete with cat. I don't know how long it will be before we can go back, and what the new normal there might look like. We have tickets for early August, but it is hard to know what restrictions will be on travel then.

Tanzania has active community spread of COVID-19. The Govt. is working hard to control disinformation or create panic about the spread by making it illegal to report any numbers that do not come from the Ministry of Health. I understand the desire to keep information as accurate as possible, but I am also aware of how limited the capacity of the Ministry of Health is to test and track all cases in the country. Thus far, most of the cases are in Dar Es Salaam. I do not know how severe the virus will be in a country with such a wide population pyramid (more than 50% of the population is under 16). Could it be less severe? Unfortunately, we will probably have the answer to that question in the next few months as it will not likely be contained. Social distancing and lockdowns are even more severe in such a resource-poor setting and may not even be possible for more than a few weeks.

Life at Charter Hall has settled into a sustainable routine. Rebecca and I are very committed to daily ritual and having had to give up swimming, we still get up early but either walk, run, or do a high impact interval training youtube video to start the day. Starting out vigorously is helpful to both of us, as Rebecca spends much of the morning overseeing the school work of David and Oren, and I go to virtual work with MCC on my computer.

Things that are not replaceable, even with virtual technology is the sense of community we have been building the past three years. Rebecca and I have both been very active in our church in TZ. She has been on the Church Council and the Worship Committee, while I have been very involved in Christian Education and head of Sunday School. I realize now how traumatizing the precipitous ending was. We were there one week, then school was cancelled, church was closed and we were gone the next. This is just as true of our small group and our home. We really had no time to say goodbye, and of course, there is nothing to replace those things where we are, in isolation.

And yet, surviving an adverse season requires stillness, I believe, and the capacity to forget as well and fully experience the present. Nietzche said it more poetically:

We immediately conclude that no happiness, no serenity, no hope, no pride, no enjoyment of the present moment could not exist without the possibility of forgetting.

In the present, there is much for which to be grateful. Watching spring come in has been a rare gift out here in the marshlands by the Bay. We have a regular cadre of visitors who pass by our windows in the morning. Two geese, a mated pair who occasionally even bring their goslings down for a swim by our dock. A piliated woodpecker, looking for bugs in a tree stump in front of our house. A mated pair of bald eagles, who roost between fishing expeditions in the tree over our chimney. A highlight is the fox family, a male and female and four kits who have a den by the drive. We see them frequently and can often get within a few meters of the kits when they are resting in the sun on one of the few warm days. Other animals include a herd of deer, a rat snake, box turtle, field mice, toads, great blue herons, ospreys, cormorants, and merganser ducks. (Pictures all over the blog.)

David likes to take walks along the rocky beach at low tide, or into the woods when the water is high. Fishing is also a pastime that David and I enjoy. He has been scavenging many old lures and bobbers on his beach expeditions and we have tried several out. Spring is a good season to fish because the watermilfoils (grasses) are not overgrown so it is easy to cast a line. David and I catch bass off the dock every day on worms and salvaged plugs, and have eaten some of them.

Weather in April was hard. We had a bit of a tease in March with a warm couple of days on our arrival (around 70F). It gave us hope that we had missed the worst of winter, but were disappointed to find most of April very cold. We had fires in the fireplace in the evenings, but getting out for exercise in the morning, or even in the living room required a sweatsuit and a hat. Many days were grey as well, which added to the sense of melancholy that seemed to hang in our suspended lives. We were able to go out in canoes about once the entire month, and there was no room for error in terms of tipping over into the frigid water. 

We had one exciting weather day, a squall, about two weeks ago. One of the risks of living 20 feet from the shoreline is a high wind and flood tide. The morning of the storm we could tell something was different. There was a warm wind coming up from the South. Not the cold North wind to which we are accustomed. The wind became more and more intense all morning and pushed the tide higher than we have ever seen. Our front yard was underwater, as well as the dock which usually sits about 6 feet over the low tide mark. Another foot and it would have been at our front door. There was a tornado warning as well, but for the most part, it was mainly windy with high water. Very little rain, and weirdly warm, like a hurricane. After rising for most of the day, the water began subsiding in mid-afternoon. By the time the water went back down we found a number of trees and driftwood lying on our lawn and we spent several hours cleaning it up. By evening the weather was clear and we had a beautiful sunset that seemed to be gaslighting us. (Storm, what storm?)

We have gone to Rebecca's parents house twice since being here. We make some effort at social distancing with them and do wear masks. Most of our time together is spend outdoors. We helped them pick up several trash cans full of horse manure for their garden. Oren and David helped with weeding and lawn mowing. This past weekend they came out to Charter Hall and we went out on canoes together, took a hike, and had dinner together. I think it was great for them to get away from the house.

The last thing I will mention this month is the loss of a dear family friend, and the first virtual memorial service I have attended. Charlene was a family friend of both Rebecca and I for nearly 50 years. She was also a great lover of the outdoors and used to bring her kayak out to Charter Hall quite a bit. When we came back she was in the final stages of cancer and died in our third week here. Sadly we could never go visit her in hospice during this time of coronavirus. Fortunately, her children were allowed to be with her at the end.

We had a memorial service for her on Zoom. Someday there will probably be a funeral service for her. It is a reminder of the unique challenges this virus poses. Dying alone, and grieving privately. These are difficult times.

Life Interrupted Part 3: A Fell Spring

I am aware, by the calendar on the computer, of passing time, but the similarity of the days has not been terribly inspiring to sit down and write a blog entry. That is not to say, that our situation here is intolerable in any way. To the contrary, it is idyllic in many ways. Rebecca and I have also been very intentional about setting up a daily rhythm to make this time in isolation as life-giving as possible.

There is actually a lot of marrow to suck from life at Charter Hall. Rebecca and I both get up just before 7am. We have coffee then she goes for a long walk to pray. I prefer to run, and take a gentle run while listening to the Daily Audio Bible for about an hour. We come back and make breakfast for the kids. At 8:30 am our day starts.

Oren in 'school'.

David and Oren are now 'in school'. Which is not unlike a regular school day in many respects, except it is all online. They go to their computers and open Google Classrooms and follow each class's daily assignments in the order of schedule for that day. They finish at about 3:30 pm so it is a full school day. Oren is able to do this almost entirely independently (except when we need to scan or photograph certain assignments. David on the other hand basically needs an executive secretary (Rebecca) by his side at all times. This is partly because of his lack of executive skills at this point in his development, but just as much because teachers at St. Cons are very new to online teaching and create many challenges in trying to access and complete work. (Ex: No, a pdf is not an editable document).

View from the dock.

For the most part, there are no sessions in real-time as our children are 7 hours behind Tanzania time. But each of them has had occasional sessions with teachers who are willing to meet with them in the evening (their time).

Rebecca and I are also trying to keep up with MCC work. I am able to do that for most of the day, but it is far more challenging for Rebecca when 'homeschooling' and keeping David focused. This was especially true in the past week as we had several important meetings with our country rep. Sharon who is currently in Alberta, Canada, as well as with our team in East Africa, and our Area Directors there as well. We have a narrow window of time when we can all meet together on Zoom. It is about 9 am our time.

Needless to say there has been a scramble at the local and global levels as MCC manages the health and economic fall-out of the pandemic. All of the health and education partners I oversee have had to suspend project activities, but are also needing to send in their year-end reports. At the same time, MCC is dealing with the grim reality that the severe economic downturn in the US and Canada will have significant consequences for the main income streams of the organization. That is: thrift shops, church giving, private donation, and large fundraising events, (especially this year which is MCCs Centennial). With all of these income streams in jeopardy for the foreseeable future, we are already testing 15% and 25% budget reduction scenarios for our program in the coming year. It is hard to believe that this was not imaginable even a month ago.

All that to say, there is work to keep us both busy, although I definitely have more time for it. Working remotely from our country program is a bit of a challenge as far as communication, but for the most part, our work with partners does not require much face-to-face time for the time being. (There is a nagging feeling in the back of our minds about when we will be able to return. We have tickets booked for early August but do not know what the reality will be then. For the time being Tanzania has suspended ALL international travel in and out of the country. So we would not be able to go there foreseeable future even if we wanted to.

When we are not in a school/workday, we do try to take full advantage of the place we are in. Nature walks are the easiest diversion, and at low tide, David loves to take daily walks on the rocky beaches looking for old fishing lures and bobbers among the flotsam and jetsom that washes along the marshy and rocky shoreline. We have been enjoying watching the sputtering beginnings of spring, with many perennials now in bloom including daffodils, wild violets, dandelions, and tulips. Leaves are budding on trees. The temperature is not at all stable with some days approaching freezing while others have been as high as 80F. On some of the warmer less gusty days, we have even taken out the canoes. One can almost feel that this is a kind of self-imposed 'Waldenesque' retreat for the purpose of spiritual renewal. But we cannot retreat from the slow drumbeat of tragic news, coming from the urban centers on the East Coast. I feel guilty imagining the nightmarish reality of health professionals in New York, some close friends, who are risking their lives to try to save others or at least those who are dying alone. And yet, we are told (even by them) that the best thing we can do is to stay home and stay healthy. Don't risk making it worse.

Our daily routine also includes times of family exercise, which seem a necessity. Besides my morning run, we also to 40 minutes of high, or low-intensity interval training (HIIT, LIIT) using a youtube video. It keeps us from going stir crazy on cold rainy days. We have also done multiple puzzles while listening to Harry Potter (again), built models, played games, and done a number of crafts. (But screen time still remains the favorite pastime of the kids when they are not under adult supervision.)

church

We also have been able to participate in our church  (North Baltimore Mennonite) via Zoom. This has been a blessing during Holy Week. It is amazing to see over 100 people participating live. I am hearing more and more prayers for those suffering with coronavirus, but the community feels good.

Our family celebrated Maundy Thursday with a family foot-washing ceremony and a communion meal. Then we shared in a Tenebrae service with our church via Zoom. We listened to a Good Friday service put on the Facebook page of our church in Tanzania. On Saturday we dyed some Easter eggs and made Easter baskets by cutting up cereal boxes into strips and weaving them together. It was a good activity as a family.

Easter Sunday was quite special because we got up very early to be able to have a meeting with our small group who are currently spread in: Australia, Tanzania, Germany, the US, and Canada. There is about a 15 hour time difference between all of us so we were able to catch the Australian family just before bedtime. It was fantastic to see everyone together on Zoom and we had a nice time of sharing that seemed way too short. We followed this with an Easter Sunday service at our church.

Somehow, all of these Zoom calls and contact with our parents by Skype in the past 2 weeks has made us feel we are not really isolated.

I have thought about ways to be intentional about using this time for some spiritual growth. One way has been to think carefully about reading. I do listen to a part of the Bible every day that is part of a one-year reading. I have also decided to listen to an audio version of the Lord of the Rings because it seems like the right kind of story to hear right now. A story about a long hard journey, with much wisdom about enduring suffering and still seeing what is fair. I hope to be able to keep that perspective for the many days we are likely to be isolated from each other.

Other Photos from the past week: