Recap Before Return to Tanzania

Just like that another month is coming to an end. Rebecca wrote the last time 3 weeks ago and left us at a short vacation during our official home leave in Virginia where we spent about a week with my brother Jonathan's family. We did finish that vacation together which was a highlight of our break. We are down to the last 36 hours in the US as I write this entry, and I will run through a few highlights of the last several weeks and reflect a bit on the return and some of the unusual preparations we have done to get ready. 

 Among the celebrations we have had in the past weeks,  was Rebecca's Birthday. We had a small celebration at the cabin we were staying with Jon and Emma in Virginia, which included a 'corn hole' tournament on the back porch. (Corn hole is a kind of horseshoes only using beanbags--quite popular in the Southern US). Cousin Fletcher also baked a kind of chocolate chip cookie/brownie confection (called a brookie?) We said goodbye to my brother's family the next day and headed back to Baltimore. 

We did stop in for a visit on the drive home, with a former MCCer from our Burundi days who lives in Virginia as well. We spent about an hour outdoors chatting with Melody and her husband Alexis (and their one-year-old son). We are now used to the new protocol of not visiting indoors because of COVID which is ravaging the Southern US. The precaution was apparently warranted as we got a call from Melody about 4 days later saying Alexis who is a health worker tested positive for the virus after getting a test result 5 days after he took the test. (One of the insane challenges we are facing here in the US is the inability to get tests back quickly enough to do any contact tracing or isolation). By the time Rebecca and I had been told we were exposed (albeit minimally as we had taken precautions), we had been staying with Rebecca's parents for 4 more days and had attended a socially distant church picnic.

We contacted our doctor with whom we had an appointment for an annual physical the next day. She told us we could not come in if we had been exposed to someone and ordered COVID tests for us. That was the first COVID test Rebecca and I had and it was a strange experience, profoundly unpleasant, but not exactly painful. Like having a moth fly up into your sinus cavity. (Happily, we were negative and were able to go for our physicals two weeks later.) 

While we waited for results we did have one more chance to spend a weekend at Charter Hall. This was the place we had spent two months in March and April upon our arrival from Arusha to isolate during the lockdown. It was quite a contrast from the early spring days when things were just coming to life. The bay at this time is very lush and overgrown at this time. This is particularly notable in the water which is so overgrown with milfoil that it is hard to fish or canoe in many places. Despite this, we did go up to our favorite fishing spot under a railroad bridge about a mile paddle away from shore and David caught two large striped bass which we brought back and ate, and shared with Dave and Jean and my parents. (Dave and Jean stayed with us over the weekend and my parents visited us outdoors for a day.) 

 The deal we made to stay was that our family would clean the larger lodge when the group that was staying there left. We did so with the help of the kids on Sunday afternoon, then Dave, Jean took the kids and returned to their house, where we were staying. Rebecca and I had one more long canoe trip before returning ourselves which was a nice time to reflect on the many months we had spent by the bay. It was certainly an unforgettable time, even though the circumstances that led up to it were so catastrophic in terms of disrupting our normal life. 

Another interesting socially distant adventure was a family trip to the Potomac river in Southern Maryland near Calvert Cliffs, a place that draws visitors who want to dig for fossilized sharks teeth along its sandy banks. This had at one time been a shallow sea about 50 million years before. It is not hard to find these teeth with some digging and sifting of sand. Our family spent about half a day there and came home with about 120 of them of various sizes. Needless to say, this was a huge adventure for David who loves to find things in nature. 

The next week, we had another change of scenery. As part of taking our new MCC assignment as Country Representatives, Rebecca and I had a short leadership orientation in Akron, PA, about 2 hours away from where we were staying in Maryland with Rebecca's parents. We took the kids as well, as MCC had made accommodations available at The Welcoming Place, a charming residential and meeting facility in a campus-like setting. There are a number of guesthouses on the property, and this year most of the participants were joining by Zoom and not meeting in person. They did, however, offer some limited, socially distant, options to stay there for a few couples that were in the US. 

 Our family stayed in one entire wing of one of the guesthouses and had a kitchen to ourselves. No one ate in the cafeteria, but once a day we were allowed to go in and pick up food for dinner. Breakfast and lunch were left in the kitchen or in brown bags at the meeting building. For the actual meetings, all of us met through zoom and we sat in separate rooms in the large meeting center. It was a bit odd but nice to be back in the place where Rebecca and I had done several orientations in the past when we were Rwanda/Burundi reps. and service workers to Tanzania. 

 

Serendipitously, our successors to our Rwanda Burundi assignment were there as well, because they had accepted an assignment as Representatives to the Kenya program (and will be taking over Tanzania as well in Jan. 2021). Their successors to the Rwanda Burundi role were on campus as well! So three generations of MCC Reps were together at the same time. It was very nice to reminisce with them and also talk a bit about their new assignments and changes to the Kenya/Tanzania programs because of the consolidation. Scott and Anne-Marie's kids were there as well (Sam and Luke) which was good because there was a kids orientation as well, and Oren and David finally had some friends to hang out with. 

We did have time between meetings and in the afternoons for leisure during the 3 days we were there and enjoyed going to the park in Akron which we remembered from many previous visits. On the last day, our whole family went on a zip-line and ropes course that was offered as an adventure to the kids. It was quite a challenge with 5 ziplines that went from tree to tree in the forest. Happily, we all survived! Afterwards we went out for ice cream before getting back on the road to Dave and Jean's house for our last week. 

Finding socially distant activities for social events has been an interesting challenge. It seems we finally settled on croquet, which allows one to be in proximity close enough to talk without being out of breath, but is outdoors and does not involve sharing common equipment. We have had several games with friends and family. Rebecca's brother's family most frequently. 

We have also made several return trips to the Gunpowder river for swimming and inner-tubing, again another opportunity for socially distant interaction, and much less crowded than a swimming pool. Most recently we were with Chris, a high-school friend of Rebecca's and Ella his daughter who is a good friend of David. 

Getting ready to return has challenges of its own. We have several friends who have asked us to bring quite a bit of 'swag' back from the US that is difficult to get in TZ. We might have to take an extra suitcase. More problematic, though is the ever-changing protocol for travel during this time of COVID-19. We have been in crisis mode when we found out that TZ is requiring a negative COVID test result to be presented on arrival taken within 72 hours of departure. This is extremely difficult to get in the US where there are virtually no facilities that offer rapid tests, and results for the other kind can take more than 7 days to get results. Getting a 72-hour test is next to impossible.

We spent days doing research and finally found a place in Baltimore that can give results in 3 to 5 days. We scheduled an appointment and hoped for the best, that it would come on the early side. The test site, in downtown Baltimore at the Convention Center, was quite an experience. It is all outdoors with dozens of stations for check-in and testing. Our whole family went through the process. I have to say again if you have not had the nasal swab test before, I hope you never have to get it. Profoundly uncomfortable. I was impressed that David and Oren handled it so well although they both said it was one of the most disgusting things they had experienced. (Less painful, but worse than a shot!) 

We are finishing packing today and are saying final goodbyes to parents and cousins. Surprisingly our test results came back last night, only 24 hours after we got them. We also got a message from the US embassy in TZ that said that they are no longer requiring a COVID negative test for entry into the country. So it looks like the barriers are clearing and we will be able to start our return trip tomorrow. We expect to be in Arusha on Wednesday morning. 

It has been a long, strange trip. It is possible to see the many blessings in the time of isolation by the bay, despite the very difficult news about the closing of our country program and the challenges of school and work done remotely. 

It has been a sad time to be in the US. Our country is in a profoundly bad place right now. The failure at the national level to aggressively address the coronavirus pandemic is a tragedy, largely because it became far worse than it ever needed to be. The false choice over addressing the seriousness of the virus, vs saving the economy, or the use of masks for prevention of spread vs.  'freedom' demonstrates the profound lack of vision and competent leadership we are currently facing here. Added to that has been the conflagration of the issue of racial injustice in policing long overdue for redress and represented by the Black Lives Matter movement, which is being treated as a senseless revolt by the current administration. Immigration is another issue that has impacted us in our work as the President's executive order to end J-1 visas during the pandemic has effectively ended MCCs one year abroad IVEP program for young people to spend a year in the US. (Ironically of course, the real risk of the virus is the one incurred by volunteers coming to the US and being exposed here where it is more prevalent than anywhere in the world.)

I won't lie, I am not sad to be leaving at this moment, although going back to Tanzania is not much better and the govt. response to the virus had been equally inept. The race issue has led me to do some reading in the past month through audio books on my morning runs. I finished a book by James Baldwin (The Fire Next Time), and Tanhesi Coates (Between the World and Me). The best so far, however is Michelle Obama's Becoming Me. If you have the chance to listen to her read it, it is beautifully written and a reminder of what we had, and can hopefully aspire to again.