So in an inauspicious place at an inauspicious time, I arrive at entry #100. After 3 years since beginning this blog, we now have 100 entries, and the timing is fitting as we have just this month officially moved into a new role in our assignments in Tanzania, moving from more technical 'service worker' positions to Country Representatives. I say inauspicious because of the fact that we have not been in Tanzania since our departure at the end of March is disheartening. But we do have our flights booked to return on August 10th on Qatar Airways (barring any further disruption to air travel).
Oddly, we actually just started our official 3 weeks of home leave on Monday. I say odd because we have been in the US for 3 months already, and yet none of this has resembled a vacation despite the rustic water-side setting.
But the past week has finally felt like a change. The biggest driver of change has been the end of school and the grueling parental task of coercing the children into their google classroom assignment pages to complete their day's work. I will say it started our fairly well for Oren and he was motivated to keep up for the first 6 weeks or so, but the last 4 weeks we could hardly get him to go through his task list in each class to see what needed to be done. The fact that we were 7 hours behind meant that the kids missed most of their live sessions and I think it just felt less and less like real school.
David never even pretended to be motivated by online lessons and rued every moment on the computer doing assignments. Most of the time one or the other parent (usually Rebecca) had to sit beside him to be sure he completed his work. The deepest of ironies was the award ceremony on the last day when David was given the 'online learning award' for term 3. (Rebecca claimed that prize for herself.) Oren also was able to eke out all As and Bs on his report card, and I suspect that averages went down for most everyone in term 3 and a generous curve was applied.
With the end of school, this past Friday felt like a huge burden off our shoulders, and that coupled with improvement in the COVID-19 curve in Maryland gave us the confidence to expand our horizons a bit. We have a number of friends that have wanted to come by and pay us a visit and we finally said yes in the past 10 days.
The first to come by was Jennifer P. She was one of our service workes when we were MCC Reps in Rwanda/Burundi. Our team was very close-knit and many of us have remained fast friends over the years. Jennifer now works in Kinshasa with Mercy Corps, but like us, she was evacuated during the COVID-19 crises. She has been based in DC, but drove out to our Bay house (just 1.5 hours up highway 95) to visit us. Jennifer is one of the most vivacious people you will ever meet and it was really fun to catch up with her and hear all the news and gossip of old friends. She did stay a night with us, we talked, walked on the beach, canoed, and she taught us a new game of cards called Kobo that we all enjoyed playing together.
Another DC resident that dropped by was Margaret, a friend of Rebecca's from her choir at William and Mary, who was also a bridesmaid in our wedding. She, her husband, and kids have been friends over the years and have joined us at Charter Hall in the past. On this occasion, Margaret came alone for an afternoon and we had a nice time catching up with her.
We also celebrated Father's Day with a visit from the grandparents on both sides and enjoyed a meal together. Rebecca's mom brought a feast of ribs, crabcakes, and chicken parmesan from a local crab house. We had a great time together watching the sunset. Right at the end, the wind picked up suddenly and David ran in the garage and got a kite we had somehow ended up with. It was a picturesque ending to our time together. As a father, I got some nice gifts from my family including another 1000 piece puzzle (we have done about 10 since our arrival). We completed it in about 3 days. We also gave Rebecca's dad a birdbath which we brought out to their house for their new garden.
Oren and David have enjoyed visits to Rebecca's parents' house (Papa Dave and Grandma Jean) where they get to earn money for chores including lawn mowing and berry picking. David is particularly enamored of picking berries and making jam! (All of us profit from these endeavors.)
The big surprise this month, however, was the visit from my brother Jonathan's family. We had planned, much earlier in the year to have a Mosley family vacation in July in Chatanooga Tennessee with my parents and two brothers' families. When COVID-19 was in full outbreak we realized that this would need to be canceled as travel for a number of us who are high-risk, particularly my parents, would be impossible at this time.
We were not sure what to do but had considered driving out to Nashville where Jonathan lives (with his wife Emma and cousin Fletcher). This would have been a smaller gathering than we planned though. Last week Jonathan had a brainstorm of coming up for a week right at the end of school. We agreed to host them and they drove out in one shot from Nashville to our house on the Bay. They arrived after midnight, but without incident.
Having a cousin in the house significantly changed the dynamic for our kids who I think had almost forgotten what it was like to have real-life friends. With the end of school responsibilities, we, the parents, have also felt far less stressed and more inclined to relax and have fun.
The fact that Jonathan's family came here meant that my parents were able to see them as well, even though they did maintain social distancing and came and sat around outdoors with us. Our family has taken the moderate risk of sharing the space here recognizing that all of us have been very diligent about wearing masks and not going out to any large gatherings of people, restaurants, etc. It is interesting to talk to them about the culture of mask-wearing in different contexts. In Maryland, it is required everywhere when one goes out and not a point of contention. In Tennessee, distinguished as one of the most mask non-compliant states in the country after Texas and Arizona, wearing a mask is, sadly, a political statement.
Jonathan is a health professional so being diligent for him and his family is essential but does not find much community support for masks when he is needing to leave home.
We had a great time together and the festivities really began on the weekend after their arrival. My parents and Jonathan's family had a huge picnic on the lawn by the Bay in the back of our house. They also returned on Saturday for an early Birthday Party for Oren who is now 15. (He has been enjoying getting to try to drive on the dirt road that leads to our house.) The Birthday festivities continued on Sunday with Paul and Gwendolyn Sack and cousins Miriam and Gabriel coming over. We were able to go back over to Charter Hall and use the kayaks and canoes as well as swim in the pool and bay.
On Monday we had Oren's official Birthday and Jonathan's family, and both sets of grandparents came out to celebrate. One of the highlights was a game of croquet with a really nice set of official size croquet mallets, wickets and balls. We set up the field under a large shady tree. Papa Dave (Rebeca's Dad) is quite a croquet shark and slaughtered us all with great ease. (He finished about 6 wickets ahead of second place.) We had a birthday cake (this was a Coldstone Creamery ice cream cake) after having a traditional cake the day before. I think we had enough American cake for all we missed in Tanzania in the past year.
I had to take Jonathan to the airport Monday evening as he had a clinic and needed to return for Tuesday. Emma and Fletcher will stay through Friday.
So that it is the end of the school year and the beginning of summer vacation. It has been a long strange trip thus far, and I am not sure what we will do with so many changed plans in the weeks ahead.
Here are some bonus photos from the past 2 weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment