Bad 'Car'-ma During Grandma Jean's Visit

Grandma Jean arrived this week.

The weeks of November seem to have fled. I try to get 3 entries per month and sometimes I can't tell if the problem is we are too busy or if the routine doesn't vary enough to warrant a report every 10 days. This seems to be the latter in terms of work. For the most part, our routine did not change much this month. We were not traveling anywhere for work or recreation, but even our normal weekly routine stretches into long hours of the day and leaves little time to just sit down and write.

It is usually on Wednesday that the daily 5am wake-up really begins to take it toll. The way I feel dragging myself out of bed, it seems unimaginable that I will be fully mobile by the time my swim is over at 8am. But those three hours in between are packed with activity from making breakfast and getting bags packed for school, to getting kids up, dressed in uniform, snacks, kits, and driving to meet the bus by 6:40. The swim is the last thing before the workday begins, but it feels like I have already done a half-day by the time I finish, shower and dress.

Returning home is always after 5 and sometimes later if we have any activity scheduled like choir practice. The evening is filled by the time we drive home, prepare and eat dinner, do dishes and finish homework (which still takes parental oversight). I am ready to sleep by 9:30pm, only to begin again, until Saturday. Fortunately, Oren and I have finally both recovered from our illness I mentioned in the last entry, but I did require a course of antibiotics. I still feel very tired and ready for bed early in the evening.

The work routine was broken slightly by our Annual General Meeting last week. It is a chance for us to sit together with our advisors and reflect on the year as well as plan the way forward. There was a lot to talk about this time with changes in the way the govt. is treating NGOs (and expat. workers). We now need to regularly involve lawyers in our discussions to help us navigate the new ever-changing political landscape. I am happy to say that our advisors are ever wise, experienced, and supportive.

On the home front, we seem to be saying a lot of goodbyes these days on the Joshua Foundation compound. Our next-door neighbors are leaving Tanzania to move to New Zealand. (They have been here for 8 years). It is sad because Josiah, their oldest (of 3) has become a good friend of David. The Thompson's, another family on the compound, are leaving for NZ as well (after a year). They have 4 kids who are also playmates from time to time as well. We had a going-away picnic for them on Saturday, then a last ultimate frisbee game afterward. It was a particularly good game this time (in that we were not rained out), very competitive, and everyone has improved significantly over the last 8 months of practice.

The short rainy season kind of restarted after being done for about 2 weeks. I suppose extra water is always welcome here, but it has meant a lot more mud. We had a notable downpour this past Sunday while we were in church. Rebecca was preaching, and fortunately, she was done by the time it began. She did a good sermon for Christ the King Sunday including a participatory time for the children who answered questions about what a real king is like followed by a dramatic reading of the crucifixion by some of the older kids.

It rained hard for the last hour of the service on the tin roof in the sanctuary. We could hardly hear a thing through a baptism, the offering, and prayer time. At the end of the service people just hung out in the sanctuary waiting for it to slow down before leaving.

Our family, on the other hand, ran out to the parking lot in the downpour because we had several appointments scheduled after church including lunch with our friends the Taylors (who led music that day at church), and then going to Arusha airport to pick up Grandma Jean! She decided to accompany David Sack on his work trip to Cameroon, Uganda, and Tanzania. She split off from him after a stop in Zanzibar to arriver here Sunday. (Papa Dave will join us on Thursday for Thanksgiving). We are thrilled they can be here this winter because they will not be joining us for Christmas as they have for the past 2 years.

Fortunately, the rain had cleared enough for air traffic and we found Jean waiting at the airport, laden with suitcases full of Christmas gifts as well as books for several worthy causes here. We had a nice Sunday evening meal with her before starting the morning routine on Monday, this time with her in tow. Jean had made arrangements to do some training for one of our former partners here on using a medical research platform (She is a medical librarian). I dropped her off at a rented office at our church to have a day-long meeting with Mr. Magiri, then went off to work myself.

I am glad she was in town Tuesday because there was a special event at St. Constantine's (kids school) that day. The primary school was having its end-of-term music recital and David was singing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'. Rebecca and I went with Jean and Oren and endured the 50 odd acts that preceded David. Truthfully he was one of the best and I am putting a link to his performance here (link to David performance). I was relieved he was able to perform because during an earlier rehearsal he had had his finger smashed between 2 tables and spent a part of the day in the nurse's office.

The kids have enjoyed having their grandmother here despite the fact that they are somewhat mired in homework as they approach the end of the term.

Wednesday was a harder day than expected, beginning with driving the kids to school and witnessing a horrific motorcycle vs. car accident right in front of us. The driver actually came to rest right in front of our car, (we were not the ones who hit his motorcycle), he had swerved in front of the car ahead of us as it was passing him. Somehow he survived and we left him with a crowd afer looking for a way to be of service, he was lifting up his head but clearly in shock. Fortunately, there were several there who knew what to do in that situation.

The bad car-ma did not end there that day. We finished work and then went together with Jessica and the kids to choir practice where Jean met us. After a decent rehearsal for our December Christmas program, we went to dinner at Khan's (nearby) with our friends Neil and Christie. From there we headed home with a full car (6 people) and planned to drop Jessica at her house on the way back.

Unfortunately, because of rain and work on a sewer pipe, Jessica's road was quite muddy and we could only get within 100 meters of her gate. We let her off but when we tried to turn around, the front tire went deep into a recently filled in trench which had turned into a mud hole. The wheel sunk down about a foot almost immediately. We got out and tried to push it while rocking, but it was basically sitting on the frame of the car it was so deep in the mud. I spent about 20 minutes digging under the wheel and frame in mud soup to try to get some rocks under the tire but it did not help. It was about 9pm and we were trying to decide what to do. We were not that close to home and could not leave the car.

We decided to call Andrew Thompson, one of the New Zealand volunteers who lives on our compound has a Landcruiser with 4WD. I asked him if he could come and tow us out, and he was happy to. Getting him to find the place was not easy. Rebecca and Oren had to walk out to the main road while Jean, David and I stayed with car. By this time I was caked in mud from bending under the car and digging.

Andrew arrived in about 15 minutes and said he had a lot of experience pulling cars out of mud, both at home, and in TZ. He hooked a tow line to the back of the car first and tried to pull it backwards to no avail. We switched to the front, and we were able to free the car. I backed cautiously down the road we had come in on and found a safe place to turn around, then everyone got back in and we made our way home. Got back about 9:15 pm. I was covered in mud and had made the inside of the car quite muddy as well. I showered off, Oren did some homework, Rebecca started preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. Then we all went to bed fairly late.

Today is Thanksgiving morning, although US Thanksgiving is not a holiday here so I went to work and the kids went to school. To add insult to injury to the last 24 hours of bad driving experiences, the police stopped me on the way to the school bus. One cop worked hard to find a violation and finally after much searching found I only had 1 reflector triangle in the back of the car. (We need to have 2). She gleefully wrote me a ticket. If bad luck comes in 3's then I hope it is done.

Looking forward to a nice Thanksgiving dinner with Lucia (MCC accountant) and her family, Jessica and her host family, and Pappa Dave and Grandma Jean Sack without further incident.

Bureaucratic Bewilderments and a Birthday

Kili, taken from our water tower last week. 

Looking back at the last two entries I am aware of how busy October was for us, and seems, thus far, to be in stark contrast to November which has been far more subdued. We have not had a lot of travel and most of our time during the week has been spent at the office while the kids have been in school. November feels like we are in our 'normal' routine, at least the first half.

One slight variation on the normal rhythm of life has been illness. Oren came down with a bug late last week and did not go to school Friday because of high fever, coughing, and aches and pains. He continued to do badly over the weekend and when he was not able to go to school on Monday I took him to the doctor. Unfortunately over the weekend, I started coming down with it too and it felt like a bad cold at first. The doctor eventually diagnosed influenza after ruling out malaria and dengue fever (we have to worry about some pretty bad stuff here).

I was disappointed to hear that as well because it meant I probably had it too. Sure enough by that afternoon, I started getting a high fever and have been sick in bed since yesterday. It seems a bit unfair as I got the flu shot last year AND this year AND still managed to get it very badly in February and again now. The doctor explained to me that equatorial countries, unfortunately, get strains from several different locations and are not as predictable as strains in North America, therefore the vaccines are not as effective. I am hoping I feel well enough by tomorrow.

At any given moment it seems we are, in our lives, ensconced in some bureaucratic process. One accepts it as part of life here. We spent the past 6 months getting our work permits and then residence permits. Now we are working on getting our national IDs. This is a new requirement but is not necessary for foreigners in and of itself. But if you want to have a mobile phone number in Tanzania, you need to have a national ID. We found this out when we were told to re-register our sim cards and the phone company told us passports were not acceptable. We needed a Tanzanian ID. We tried to get it last year but were told our residence permits had less than 6 months on them and we had to wait until we renewed them. so now after a 6-month process, we had the documents to get the ID.

We went to the NIDA (national ID) office with our forms and copies of our permits but were told that we needed additional documentation. We now needed to have the local officer of our neighborhood sign off, then the local officer at our ward sign off, then the immigration officer signs off, and we had to pay in advance and bring a bank receipt to show payment along with our fully signed and stamped forms (and copies of all our permits).

These were all separate steps that took visits to different offices and documentation to obtain these signatures. Rebecca and I took about 2 weeks to complete it all. We did luck out that the office of the local officers of the neighborhood and the ward happened to be in the same building in our neighborhood. Fortunately, Sharon had preceded us in this and was able to tip me off where to find the correct immigration officer to sign the form in the labyrinthian immigration building. It was literally an unmarked door. I was able to take my form as well as Rebecca's and Jessica's in and get them all stamped so I considered that step a big victory.

The final step was to return all our paperwork back to the NIDA office. I waited about half the day in line with about 300 people. The most disheartening part was when I was about 30th in line. Then all the officers left their post for about an hour and a quarter. We just stood there in line, no explanation, they eventually came back and we started moving again. I don't know how they will process everyone in the country.

There are still more steps. I have to go back to the NIDA office in 2 weeks to get the card. (They say 2 weeks but there is no way to confirm by showing up.) After I get the card I will have to go to each of the phone company offices where I have a sim card (I have 3) and register them. So when we have slow days, this keeps me busy.

The highlight of the past 2 weeks though was David's 11th Birthday. We had had a small party at home on his real Birthday, with some family gifts and a cake, but on the Saturday following that David invited about 8 school friends as well as Sammy from our small group and kids in our compound for a real party. David was also involved in the preparations, particularly the construction of the pinata which is a family tradition. He and Rebecca started by by papier macheing a balloon. I also added a layer, then we painted it white and stippled it with red. It was more abstract than some of our past creations but served well. Rebecca made a chocolate cake with gummy worms oozing out of it all over-- a great hit with the kids.

We had a number of activities planned beginning with making masks out of paper plates. We also had some team building games such as having teams of them stand on a small piece of canvas and try to flip it over without stepping off. (Hint: it works best if two teams work together so you can all step onto one canvas while flipping over the other). There was another game trying to cross the 'lava' driveway on cardboard squares as a team. If you lose contact with a piece, it is taken away--the team has to keep trying to go on, but sharing a smaller number of pieces. It was quite amusing to watch. We also had our traditional treasure hunt and ended games with smashing the pinata.

This year's pinata was particularly satisfying to smash because it came apart in pieces so a few candies were released at a time. Everyone got to hit it before it came down. The cake was also a big hit and having learned from past years, we kept all the food outside, so clean up was much easier.

Other aspects of life have been pretty normal. We continue to work quite a bit at church. I have been leading the Sunday School program and we have about 70-80 kids per week coming. We split them into 3 groups so it is manageable. Rebecca continues to lead the church council, lead worship from time to time, preach and take on other responsibilities as they arise. Our small group continues to be a source of strength and we are happy for our bi-weekly gatherings to read the Bible, share our concerns and prayer needs, and pray together.

Oren and David have been busy with school and both seem to have found a rhythm. Amusingly, their pictures were in the national newspaper last week as the school was featured in an article called: "Why the Rich and Expatriates Choose Private Schools". David, however, was also in a swim meet recently and had the second-fastest backstroke time in a 5 school competition. Pretty impressive!

Rebecca and I are looking forward to a visit from Dave and Jean Sack around Thanksgiving time as Dave will be on a work trip in the region and Jean is coming along. Needless to say, many packages from Amazon arrived at their house in the past 2 weeks, for them to bring with them. We will update after their arrival.

Small Oases of Rest in a Month of Work and Travel

David spoon-feeding a baby rat.

This month has been very full. Too full at times, and it has been easy to let two weeks slip by without a post. In the last post, I had described a visit from our leaders and a busy two weeks of field visits. That was followed shortly thereafter by a trip to Nairobi by Rebecca to meet with some professional colleagues from the Great Lakes Initiative (that is the Great Lakes of Africa not North America). It is a peacebuilding network that meets annually and several of its leaders have wanted to develop a course of study on a theology of reconciliation. Her report on her experience is here:

It was such a joy for me to be invited to this consultation -- a follow up from our annual gathering in January. I am always grateful for the times I get to meet again with these amazing leaders and theologians who have become friends over the years. Two of the men, Emmanuel and Acher, are pastors of our old church in Burundi, and I really love being in their presence. We had the task of taking the five themes of the movement towards reconciliation, and distilling them down into a coherant flow that could be taught over a 13-week course. How would we evaluate students' academic progress, but also engage their hearts? We worked hard in small groups on specific pieces of the curriculum and finished our work after 2 days. Our venue was the Mennonite Guest House in Nairobi -- a place I had been longing to visit since we returned to the region, with its peaceful gardens and beautiful flowers. The travel by shuttle bus went smoothly as well, thankfully.

I was home with the kids during her 3-day excursion, and I would say it was fairly smooth sailing. Fortunately, it was a pretty normal week with the kids going to school and me to work. Since I am the morning person in our family, I did not have much trouble getting us all out of the house by 6:40am every morning. It was good to have her back by Wednesday night though, and she had a lot of catching up to do at work on Thursday and Friday.

For me and our MCC director Sharon, Friday was a bit stressful because we were awaiting the arrival of our residence permits to Arusha so we could get exit permits in our passports which we needed for travel over the weekend. We sweated it out while Lucia our finance officer spent several hours at the immigration office waiting for them to be signed. She succeeded shortly before the office closed for the weekend. It was a major relief since we had made travel plans to attend a conference in Nairobi, leaving on Sunday.

The weekend seemed cut short by the fact that after I taught Sunday School, I had to get on a bus and head off to Nairobi myself. Actually Sharon and I were both going to the same conference and rode together to Nairobi. The conference was a global gathering of organizations working in the field of community health. It is called the CORE Group, and this was the first regional conference they had organized (outside of Washington DC),

Sharon and I arrived in Nairobi at 8pm and parted ways as she was staying in the Amani guesthouse, but I had found an Airbnb that some people from World Renew had rented close to the hotel where the conference was being held (Safari Park Hotel). Actually finding the location of the Airbnb after dark with a cab was about as difficult as I expected it to be, especially since I did not have a Kenya sim card so could not call anyone while we were on route. After unsuccessfully looking for the place for about an hour, I went into the Safari Park Hotel and managed to call the owner. He directed us more precisely (it turns out we had passed it about 4 times). Despite the delay, I was the first of the group to arrive as the other renters had took nearly 3 hours to get there from the airport because of a major traffic jam. Faye and Lemon from World Renew in Malawi were my suitemates for the conference.

Fortunately the place was walking distance to the hotel and we headed over Monday morning to register and attend the plenary. The conference as a whole did not disappoint at all. There were at least 400 in attendance, and many break-out groups with diverse topics. There were representatives from all the major donors like USAID, as well as many local Kenyan NGOs, as well as the Kenya Ministry of Health. I saw many people I knew from other networks, and was glad my colleague Paul MCC's global health coordinator, as well as Sharon were both there to appreciate it as well. I saw several friends from the Christian Connections in International Health network and that was useful because we had a chance to meet and discuss the Mother and Children's working group I co-chair for them.

I heard many fascinating presentations and tended to focus my selections on community interventions in maternal and child health, people with disabilities, and mental health, since we have several projects focused on these areas. One of the most impressive presentations I heard was by CRS who have introduced some mental health modules into care groups for women post-partem. they have found that the introduction of mental health awareness and coping strategies shared by community health workers improves a mother's mental health, AND reduces infant mortality! I am trying to think of ways we might do some mental health modules in the care groups we are managing in our partner's Ngorongoro crater project.

There were also some presentations on gender-based violence, intimate partner violence, and child abuse It was inspiring to learn about some good evidence-based interventions to try and reduce this through community health programs. A key question was raised about what capacity a community health worker might have to provide strategies to reduce family violence, such as providing training on alternative forms of discipline for children.

On the first afternoon we had options to go on a number of field visits. I opted to go to a place called "Maker Space". It is an experimental lab at the University of Nairobi where they build appropriate technologies to address clinical needs for maternal and child health. They had many very cool prototype inventions, built with local materials for local application, The best example of this was a birthing station for use in clinics where women, culturally, prefer to kneel or squat rather than lie down for delivery. The chair in the photo allows for women to deliver in a position they are more comfortable with and will hopefully encourage them to come to a facility for delivery from a skilled provider.

It is very inspiring to be around many people who are impassioned about community health and it gave me a lot to think about in our programs here, but also to appreciate that we are doing some good work in our current projects. I am hoping I can share an abstract or poster in the future.

I returned on the Wednesday afternoon shuttle, like Rebecca the week before. She had had the kids home for the past 3 days as they were on mid-term break for the whole week. We had planned to take a few days off when I got back, so after getting home that night, we repacked for a camping trip. (I am glad Rebecca had done much of the packing before I returned.)

We had planned to head to Simba Farm Lodge which is on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. Unfortunately, it had begun pouring rain that week and we were warned that it was terrible for camping that week. We made a quick change of plans and headed West, away from the mountains toward Ngorongoro crater. We stopped at a camp called Migumbani, right near Lake Manyara game park, where we had stayed once last year. It is a very nice place and generally gets less rain than around Kilimanjaro.

We arrived in the late afternoon and pitched one tent, and rented of their safari tents so we had a place to stay if it really poured. It was wise because it did rain most of the two mornings we were there until noon. It is a very relaxing place to be with a lot of outdoor space, a pool with a view, some places for short hikes, as well as a covered cooking area and running water in kitchen sinks and bathrooms. It also has a semi-covered restaurant where we could play games if it rained.

We enjoyed the time there despite some rain. David, Rebecca and I took a hike down to a mountain river and saw quite a few blue monkeys. Oren did some of his art homework while we were there since he was quite loaded up for the week off. The first year of O levels means school is a lot more serious than the past years. He is doing art as one of his 'majors' and gets quite a bit of time-consuming homework in it. David was very happy to find a baby rat, that looked like it had been abandoned he fed it milk from a spoon and kept it alive for several days before it finally died. Probably a small mercy considering we have a cat at our house.

We returned on Saturday afternoon, on time for Rebecca to lead worship that Sunday. I was involved in Sunday school as usual and don't get to see her lead often. We also had our small group that week at the Taylor's house.

The following week was blessedly normal with Rebecca and I dropping the kids at the bus then swimming and going to work. Sharon was out of town still at regional meetings in Nairobi. That did not mean the office was not busy. We had a lot of MCC work to catch up on. This is the season when concept papers are coming in, as well as completing proposals for approved concepts.

The week seemed to go buy quickly because it was so busy. We did relax on Saturday by going to lake Duluti with some friends from small group (Joerg and Kathryn) as well as Jessica. I took David and their young son Luka fishing while the parents walked around the lake. Between the 3 of us we caught about a dozen tilapia. Although we threw them all back. It was a very pleasant afternoon.

Saturday was relaxing but I had to prepare a sermon on that busy week before as well, as I was preaching on Sunday. I had the text about the prayer of the Pharisee and the tax collector. I thought I handled it pretty well, especially the children's sermon which preceded. As an improvisation, I asked them on 3 to think of one of the two postures of prayer, Pharisee, or tax collector and make an instant statue. When I said 3 each on either knelt and bowed, or stood and raised their hands in the air--then froze. The adults cheered because it was quite impressive, like standing in a museum. We examined each shape and determined whether they were praying like the Pharisee or the tax collector. The sermon for the adults went very well also.

This past week, Sharon was back in the office and the busyness seemed more focused around family events. Rebecca went to school one day for parent's day to watch David in class. She took some photos of him and his classmates working on different subjects. She also has had several evening meetings involving church council or the school Parent Association. She has responsibilities in each of those.

The end of the week has been devoted to preparing for David's Birthday party. We had a small family celebration on his real Birthday, but have a big party with piniata planned for this Saturday.

More about that in our next installment.

Bonus Photo: David having breakfast in his costume before school. They had a non-uniform day so kids could wear cosumes if the wanted. He painted the head piece and the shirt, mostly himself.

A Flurry of Field Visits with Our Leaders

Maasai women's group in Longido.

Rebecca contributed her stories in the last entry from the past 2 weeks in Arusha. I was notably absent because, as she said, I was out of town during much of the previous week on visits to our partners in the field.

The visit from MCC leadership was a particularly significant event in the life of our program this year. Not only did we host the Area Representatives, Ken and Laura L. but also the International Program Director from Canada, Mark E came for a visit as well. It is not often we get senior leadership from Canada coming to visit our program. In expectation, we had been planning a series of field visits to partners to show a good cross-section of our program.

Our guests arrived the day before the weekend of the choir concert and harvest festival at church Rebecca wrote about in the last entry. The timing was good in terms of giving them a chance to see the choirs, but unfortunately, it meant that those of us who were going out to the field for several days had to leave on Saturday morning and would be gone for the harvest festival.

Our first and furthest destination was Dodoma, in central Tanzania. We have two partners there, a food security partner doing conservation agriculture and a school for the deaf that we support with various inputs to improve the success rates of students. Historically MCC has had other projects in the area as well, including several sand dams. There is also a Mennonite Church there that has partnered with MCC in the past. That said, there were plenty of things to do when we were there for a visit.

We left on Saturday morning, six of us, Sharon our country rep. Ken and Laura, Mark, Chrispin, our food security coordinator, and me, as health and education programs coordinator. We piled into the landrover, which is not very comfortable as the seats are hard and very vertical, there is no AC, and the engine tends to heat the floor of the car quite a bit. Fortunately, the roads down are all paved and quite good, so despite the discomfort mentioned, the 8-hour trip down was not too bad.

We arrived and checked into our hotel then began our official duties of our visit with dinner. We met two young men for dinner, Deus and Peter. They are currently living in Dodoma and had recently returned from MCC sponsored education opportunities. Peter had gone to the Africa Peacebuilding Institute (API) for a month last summer in South Africa. It is a very good opportunity to learn about techniques for conflict mediation and transformation, and consistent with Mennonite theological values of being a historical peace church. He seemed very excited about what he had learned and had even recently submitted a proposal to do peacebuilding in the context of church leadership.

Deus is someone I had met before, in the summer of 2018 just before we left for our vacation. He and another young woman stayed at our house in TZ as a cultural experience as they prepared for a year abroad in the US as part of MCCs IVEP program. It was nice to meet him then and I remember being very curious about what he thought of living in a host family and working in the US for a year. It was good to get feedback. It had been quite an awesome experience, and he had worked at an environmental center at Goshen College. He did confide that coming back was a challenge. He really experienced quite a bit of reverse culture shock and some unrealistic expectations from friends and family that he would be bringing many expensive gifts with him. (He was not paid while he was there.) He seemed to enjoy sharing with us as we enjoyed hearing about his adventures.

After dinner, we returned to the hotel, The Johannic (a new level of service in Jesus' name according to the sign on the front). The room was not bad, and we have stayed here before. Despite the fact that Dodoma is on the savannah it is not too hot because of the wind. Sleeping was not bad at all.

We woke up early Sunday, our program, set by the Mennonite church we were visiting that day was to begin with a service from about 8:30 to 1:00. It sounded long, but we were guests and showed up dutifully at 8:30. As we expected, we were pretty much the first people there, but by 9 am we were joined by 15 to 20 others and the choir, nearly outnumbering the congregation began their songs. The service was not unlike other Swahili services I had attended there were periods of singing, sermons, a Bible study, the culmination interestingly was the offering. I don't know if this was planned for our visit but they did an elaborate hard-sell multiple offering event aimed at building a new church in a neighboring ward. They were trying to raise about $1000 from about 30 people in the congregation, so I imagine they were hoping we might contribute substantially toward it. The whole thing is culturally quite jarring for those of us from the 'right hand should not know what the left hand is doing' kind of anonymous offering giving. Several made load pledges of large some and we were encouraged to do the same. They may have been disappointed that we were not so inclined to do so on our first visit.

After church we had a meeting with the new diocese general secretary and his team. Deus and Peter were there as well as they will be helping with some of the church programs, especially in peacebuilding and development. We had a cordial meeting and talked about past and possible future partnership with MCC on projects. We left for lunch about 2 pm.

That was not the only agenda for the day. MCC had supported some sand dam projects with the church in the past, and there was interest by the ADs and Mark, to see the extent to which they were still being used after 5 years. (Part of our focus on sustainability). Sand dams are low dams put in seasonal rivers that collect sand, so when the river is dry, they maintain a high water table. A shallow well can be dug to continue to access water in the dry season. They can be a land transforming water security intervention, but they are not a magic bullet and are not always successful.

Our visit was in the heat of the day and we drove a ways out of town to an area that is currently in the height of the dry season. It was hot but did eventually arrive at the sandy bed of a dry river where there were a series of 3 sand dams. We visited 2 of them and found quite a few wells where people were drawing water as well as at least one well-watered fruit and vegetable garden in the 'desert'. Generally, the dam seemed to be working well in terms of trapping sand. What was harder to assess was community engagement in maintaining shallow wells for all to use. It appeared more that people dug their own wells and were not working in coordination with each other.

We returned in the evening and had dinner in an Italian restaurant in town. We got a night's sleep then headed out the next day (Monday) to visit some other food and water security projects in the same area by a partner from the Anglican church.

DKT, our partner, has been doing very effective work promoting food and water security in the area. We spent most of the day in an area called Chamwino visiting a series of key-hole vegetable gardens, shallow wells, conservation agriculture and innovative storage facilities to keep seeds from spoiling so they can be sold at a time after harvest when the market rates are better. Chrispin was our leader through these visits and gave us background on the work. We ended up seeing 2 wells that were truly 'streams in the desert' (kind of a theme of our trip it seemed.) One of the wells was just opened the day before and there was quite a large crowd of dancing women to greet us. We also met a very animated lead farmer named Elizabeth, who proudly showed us the way they were gardening using water from the well, as well as her own keyhole gardens and those of her neighbors.

We stopped by a school that was also using a kitchen sack garden technique and students proudly showed us their sacks. One of my favorite sites was an underground seed storage space in someone's house. It was quite clever, a big rectangular hole like a grave lined with plastic, filled with seeds, then covered with sand. A mat is put on top then table and chairs like a dining room. The storage is deliberately difficult to access to make sure that it is not accessed at any time, but saved for a time it will be sold. (Also avoids people coming by to borrow food, or husband selling some for beer?)

We spent the whole day there and had lunch in the middle of nowhere under a not to shady beobob tree. I would describe the day as whole as very hot dry and sunny. But very interesting nonetheless.

Tuesday was our last day in Dodoma and we stopped by the Dodoma School for the Deaf in the morning. I have not been there for about a year and it was good to see the many ongoing improvements. They have been building a vocational school for kids who choose not to, or fail to continue to secondary school. They offer an array of skills including sewing, carpentry and I believe auto maintenance in the future. We were all happy to see the computer facilities, dorms, and fish pond in good repair. Kennedy the director gave us all a tour of the whole place as this was the first time Ken, Laura or Mark had been there.

We did not spend too much time as we had a long drive back. We got on the road before noon for 8 hours of driving. We stopped in the town of Babati for lunch and while we were there at an open air restaurant we looked in the distance and saw what looked to be a huge brown haze. We realized that a dust storm was appoaching with a lot of force. It was quite a shock, all of the plastic furniture was suddenly blown across the floor of the restaurant and we had to dive for cover behind a low wall. It was a mighty wind that lasted for about 45 minutes. I called Rebecca to tell her about it and she said it had hit Arusha about an hour earlier. It was quite a sight. I am posting a picture of what it looked like on the savannah, although our view was a bit more up close then this one.

We did get back to Arusha that evening and after dropping everyone off I got home pretty exhausted. We did have plans for some visits in Arusha as well though and went to the Step by Step Learning Center the next morning with Mark, Sharon and Laura. It was a great visit and always inspiring to see Margaret's work with these kids. It was also great to see Jessica at work. She is definitely a natural is very gentle and professional with the children. She will be a great asset to the teachers there with her skills as an occupational therapist. The place looked great and the income-generating projects are impressive. Goats, bees, fish, chickens, eggs, vegetables, and beads.

We used the afternoon for Mark to do a presentation of MCC strategic planning at the higher level and to see how ouf global priorities will shape our programs over the next 5 years. There willl be more focused on displaced people (refugees and IDPs) but also peacebuilding.

The next day was the last day of visits for our guests. We went to Longido and visited our partner TEMBO. They always offer a fascinating opportunity to see their work as it is in with Maasai in several rural communities. They do a lot training and sensitization around the danger of FGM and encourage families not to circumcize their daughters. We started with a discussion and meeting with community animators at their office/guesthouse, then, after lunch, we went out in the field and met a women's group. It was a fascinating opportunity to talk with these women directly. There were about 40 of them decked out in full Maasai fancy dress regalia with tons of beadwork around their necks
and hanging from there ears.

I asked them at one point how many children Maasai women wanted and they said 11 or more. They aske me how many kids I had and I said 2. They were quite surprised and asked why so few. I explained that children were expensive in my country and I could not afford to raise more than 2. Then they wanted to know how we avoided having too many. I talked about family planning and a husband and wife deciding together how many children to have. They thought it was all quite funny and wanted to know if there were any male contraceptives where I lived or was it all up to the women. I told there were condoms. They seemed to be having a great time discussing all of this. Before we left they showed us their beadwork they had for sale, and we were happy to buy some from them. It was a very interesting day.

We drove the 2 hours back to Arusha in the afternoon. Rebecca and I invited Ken, Laura, and Mark over to our house for dinner. I had intended to have some board games to play, but we were all pretty exhausted and I took them back to Sharon's where they were staying not long after dinner.

It was kind of a relief to have a normal day of work on Friday and I had a lot to catch up on. A paper I had submitted to a journal for publication came back from peer-review with a number of significant revisions requested in a short time frame. It was a busy day as was the entire following week.

We did have some social highlights in the past week. Small group meeting at our house, and this past Saturday we hosted another ultimate frisbee game. Sadly we had only played about 30 minutes when a torrential downpour ended the game. It was very muddy at our house afterwards with many guests coming by for cake and snacks. The small rainy season has come early this year.

The kids are out of school this week and I am out of town in Kenya for a CORE Group conference, but I will say more about that next time.

Typical house in Chamwino, the place we visited near Dodoma.

Patience, Flexibility, Harvest

Maasai choir at our Harvest Concert (Ron Eggert photo)

Patience and Flexibility:

two key words that came up frequently over the past month, as I have been orienting our new MCC volunteer Jessica. (this is Rebecca writing for a change) Here are a few humorous examples of practical learning. And one more on the serious side. 

Vignette 1: Finding fabric

Jessica needed to get some local fabric to make a skirt which would be more suitable for church and visits to rural Tanzania. I took her on a long walk through town to get used to the hectic feel of the area around the market and to look in whatever fabric shops we passed. I wasn’t finding the fabric stores I wanted, so I stopped by the tiny back-alley workshop of a tailor I often call. We walked in and saw a teenage boy and a woman in a burka, but not Juma, my tailor. I thought, well, perhaps he shares this business. So, I let them know my problem. The boy took Jessica and I straight to the hidden indoor market with countless small fabric shops. There were some complex relational negotiations (shouldn’t we buy from his relatives?), as well as monetary haggling, but we found a beautiful green print for Jessica. And then of course had to have the boy’s mother be the one to take measurements and sew it for her. And then, the boy ended up jumping into the 3-wheel taxi that took us back to the office, seizing his opportunity to perhaps find a foreigner who would help sponsor his education. Not a relaxing outing!!

David's first swim gala

Vignette 2: Picking up the skirt

We needed to return for the skirt, of course. This time, I drove and parked the car closer to the woman’s workshop. The seamstress knew we were coming, but as soon as she saw us arrive, she threw on her burka, grabbed a bundle of some fabric in a bag and rushed out the door, leaving Jessica and I with another woman (A customer? A friend?) to sit and wait. And wait. And try to make conversation. And wait. About 30 minutes later, she returned, pulling the skirt out of her bag and searching frantically for a zipper and the hooks. Apparently, her over locker was broken and she needed a friend to finish the seams for her. And then she finished the skirt right before our eyes. Flexibility. Patience.

When it came to getting a top sewn for Jessica, I called Juma and he came straight to our office to do measurements and to return the finished garment. One has a limited budget of flexibility and patience, as it turns out. At least, if one is a mzungu.

yesterday, today and forever -- fragrant flower

Vignette 3: moving in with a host family

In June, I had made an earnest search for a good host family for Jessica. I found Mary, a widow in her 60s who was very kind and open and ready to receive Jessica. She seemed to have a settled, peaceful life. She has a beautiful garden. She has a beautiful heart. I was grateful to have found her.

But in early August, Mary received the kind of call one can’t refuse. Her older sister was seriously ill in another city and needed her help. Mary left town for about a month to take care of her sister and bring her to doctor’s appointments. She wasn’t able to return at the scheduled time for Jessica to move in with her host family. She delayed another 2 weeks, and then finally returned so that Jessica could meet her. But then we learned that Mary needed to go back to Dodoma again. It was another 10 days before she finally returned to Arusha, together with her sister.

Even on the day that Jessica was planning to finally move in, we found out that Mary had to take her sister to a doctor, and she was very late getting home. It was hard to just keep waiting, building up to this big emotional transition. Finally, at 7 pm, Jessica and I were able to drive over. We spent about 2 hours there, getting a few piece of furniture moved in, setting up the filter, and then having a very sweet time of prayer and singing with Mary, her middle aged cousin and companion, and her sister. I have no doubt that the coming months will actually be quite difficult for all of them: this was not the situation Mary envisaged, when she agreed to host Jessica. Please do pray for wisdom, patience and flexibility as all of us go forward.

Vignette 4: Searching for bible study

Last Sunday, Nina invited us to gather at her home for Bible study for the first time. She warned us that it was a bit far, and then sent directions and a google pin. We planned ahead and had lunch near the town where she lives, and also joined up with another bible study member to ride together, cramming 6 in the car (together with Jessica). Once we got off the main road, we were following directions like this, and I quote: “you come to a funny little dam with two big trees right and life…you’ll pass a bar on your right…and a small wooden stall on your left with tomatoes and grains…take that left hand turn.” (what if they were selling avocados instead, that day?)

The road was just terrible – we should have brought a 4WD! We kept saying, this better be a really nice place! Why would someone live out here? This is the middle of nowhere! But when we arrived – it was truly a peaceful oasis, a German-built home surrounded by a gorgeous garden full of beautiful birds. We enjoyed sitting in the afternoon light on the veranda, kids playing with dogs all around us, studying the book of Ruth together.

And I’ll add a few more vignettes, not necessarily regarding patience or flexibility, but because the past few weeks have not really followed a theme for me but have been more like contrasting beads on a thread.

David's classmates preparing for the clean up

Creation care

I am so thankful to any of you who participated in a climate strike or demonstration, somewhere in the world. Here in Arusha, I learned too late that we could have joined a march in the city center (thanks Naja!). Still, the school participated in World Cleanup Day, and David really wanted to go, and so I decided to take him last Saturday morning. 

And yes, I did feel conflicted about driving to his school, burning gasoline, to help him participate in picking up litter. But I chose to honor my child’s good impulses, hoping that this will encourage him to keep doing even more important things later. The head of Primary spoke to me, saying that he was surprised that no students went on strike the day before, but that this year was a record turnout for the Cleanup Day. Even in Tanzania, momentum is building among young people to take the climate crisis seriously. Jessica took part in an MCC volunteer virtual effort to encourage all of us: “We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.”

Imperfectly, and Jessica wearing her new skirt.

A lesson in biography

This term, David has been learning about different genres of literature. Last week, they studied biography, and so his class teacher invited a few parents to come as surprise guests, one on each of 3 days. We were to be prepared to answer any and all questions the children would pose, in their efforts to collect information and write a biography on us.

I was so happy to accept this extraordinary invitation, knowing that it would give me an opportunity to meet David’s new class teacher and his new group of classmates. And I suspected that it could be an incredibly meaningful time to share back with them, so I prayed quite a lot that morning before I stepped into their room. David’s surprised, pleased, embarrassed face was priceless, when he realized his mom was that day’s surprise guest.

There were a few boring minutes as we figured out how to spell Iowa, the state of my birth, but then they started to ask me more interesting things. A birth story? My mom having malaria when she was pregnant with me. Who was influential in my life? My father, and his calling to help prevent so many deaths in the developing world through vaccine development – and the kind of dedication he had to his work and the people around him. I was able to talk to them about being a third culture kid, something many of them can identify with. I cited Tintin as a favorite character. And of course, when they started asking me about my career, I talked to them quite freely about being both a pastor and a development worker. They asked: “what are some benefits of your career, besides your salary?” What a beautiful question! As a pastor, I get to see God at work in other people’s lives and I am able to know more of who God is. There is nothing more meaningful in life than that! One of the kids summed up my career like this: “So, you’re saying being a development worker and a pastor go together like a milkshake and biscuits?” Yep!

ACC choir (Ron Eggert photo)

Overall, it was a precious hour that I spent with David’s classmates. And after they all left for their next lesson, David’s teacher came to me, just glowing, and said, “I could tell that there was something special about David, but now I know his mother is one who loves Jesus and prays for him.” I assured her that there were many people praying for him. It was a delightful surprise to learn that she is a Christian (she’s of South Asian ethnicity) and I’m so thankful that David has her as his new class teacher this year.

Harvest Weekend

In Tanzania, people celebrate the end of the harvest with a big service at church. Our international church started the weekend with a concert on Friday evening. Jessica joined Paul, myself and about 10 other singers to make up the ACC choir. We’ve been practicing for the past 5 weeks and sang our three pieces about the best we’ve ever managed! But the five other local choirs were truly the highlight. We enjoyed a children’s choir of 40 kids, led by a child director; an enormous women’s choir; two excellent mixed choirs; several small ensembles; and a cultural Maasai choir, who sang Christian worship chants in the traditional style, with dancing, shield-brandishing, and horns, made of…horns. I think people were really inspired by all the music, and we had an excellent turnout from our congregation.

Our Sunday service was extra special and designed to be on the short side. As people arrived for church, they brought some of the fruits of their labors up to the front of the sanctuary, as an offering to the church and a praise of thanks to God. Jessica and I participated in the music group, which was a veritable orchestra! 2 violins, cello, flute, piano, guitars, percussion. We sang many old hymns which our Tanzanian congregants know by heart in Swahili and sang with gusto.

Harvest worship (Ron Eggert photo)

Right after the service, I dashed outside to set up a movie and snacks for the children in a Sunday school room, so that they would be settled during the auction – the next part of our Harvest Festival. Traditionally, all those offerings of first fruits are auctioned off to the highest bidder after the service. There was also a side table of baked goods, fresh veggies and other items for fixed prices. The auction itself was actually a lot of fun, as congregants waged bidding wars, and others took turns modeling and holding up items for auction. It was a joyful way for the community to contribute towards the external giving of our church, towards mission and mercy. We commit to giving 50% of our budget each year, which is quite a challenge in the economically challenging times in Tanzania right now. But this auction took us a long way towards meeting that goal.

Firstfruits

After the auction was finished (in record time, at 1:15) we shared in a huge potluck meal outside in the courtyard. Potlucks are not really a Tanzanian tradition, but our members rose to the occasion—another way of showing things was giving food to share. And there was plenty of food for all!

The downside of Harvest weekend was that Paul missed most of it -- he departed on Saturday morning for field visits with our Directors. So, the kids and I did our best on our own, making cookies Saturday to donate the next day, having a friend over, and then having a really tough time leaving on Sunday morning without another parent pushing us all out the door. The cookies got left behind. Thankfully, someone bought them, sight unseen and they were delivered the next day.  

Finally, a pet!

We have lived here for two years, with our pet-loving David, always hoping that we would have some kind of pet walk into our lives. But hedgehogs are too prickly, smelly and shy. Chameleons always creep away. We are not home enough to, in good conscience, be dog owners. So, finally we sought permission to adopt a cat.

Tramp (the name he came with) is a mature male who was not able to leave Tanzania with his expat owner. Her friend had tried to adopt Tramp, but found that he did not co-exist well at all with the cat she already had. And so I found Tramp on the Arusha FB page, and we offered to take him. Aside from the nightmare of getting him into the cat carrier and bringing him home for the first time, he has adapted really well to our family. He is super social and cuddly, and really loves our company. David has fun playing with him. He really likes to snuggle up to one of us at night when we sleep. However, he is also a dedicated predator of any toes which twitch under the blankets at night, and we’ve all been woken up in the night, with claws sinking into our feet! We will need to work on that behavior. But he is very fun and it’s really nice to have an animal around the house. Paul will load a photo and edit this post. 

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