Training Trainers and a Week Full of Events

David with "Cammo 4.0"

I am now fully in the habit of writing this weekly blog on a Monday, rather than a Sunday night. For some reason I am more exhausted on Sundays. Probably because we are out for most of the day and then need to work until late in the evening to be sure that Rebecca and I and the kids are ready to begin the week again at 5:30 am with uniforms, bags packed, lunches made, etc. There is little room for error as we live quite far away from school and work.

Last Monday, I had mentioned that I was in Karatu after a complicated process of leaving the house after losing my keys. I did end up traveling up by taxi and took a daladala back.

I was up there for a training-- a pretty common development activity. We call them TOTs or training of trainers, because much of the work we do in training is to create a multiplying or cascading effect as those trained will train others in their community.

The training I was involved in last week was for a recently launched maternal and child health program in Ngogongoro crater region. The training was meant to prepare facilitators to train traditional midwives to motivate women to have facility-assisted births, complete all of their antenatal care visits, and breastfeed exclusively for 6 months. It was my job to recruit the main trainer and approve the curriculum. I was happy to find a very capable community health person with an MPH who was really up to the task named Bernadetha. As a bonus, she herself was Maasai and although the training was in Swahili, she could speak Maasai as well. (This was especially good because the project is taking place in a Maasai community.)

She expertly led the group of 11 participants, some were nurse midwives others were members of the community, to think about what the particular barriers were in their context to women practicing "health seeking behaviors" like the kind of actions we were promoting. It was fascinating to hear the group share and reflect on their experience. It was also good to see Bernadetha not coming as an expert with all the answers, but truly a facilitator to help them solve their own problems.

The group was interested and enthusiastic. For them I think they see the particular challenge of bringing about changes in behavior in a community like the Maasai who strongly hold onto tradition, not unlike the Amish in the US. All of the facilitators are Maasai themselves and they live with a foot in both worlds in a way. They see the need for certain cultural practices to change, but they are also aware of the complex cultural institutions that keep them in place.

Among the participants was at least one Maasai elder, who serves on our partner's board of directors. It was good to see him listening and reflecting on what was being shared.

I stayed in Karatu for two of the five training days heading home on Tuesday afternoon. I got home in time to drive to a school play that David was involved in. It was an original script prepared by the drama teacher about the writing of Roald Dahl that the 3rd-5th graders have been reading. (David read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.) It was a very clever production with a fabulous backdrop. The story took a short journey through about 7 of his stories. Some, like "Matilda" I had never heard of, other like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and the BFG were familiar. The kids sang and danced. David had a few lines that to be honest he looked a bit petrified to be saying.

We enjoyed watching it, but ended up getting home quite late in the evening. We repeated the same routine on Wednesday. Thursday we were very happy to be home for dinner. On Friday the kids got out of school early but had to wait at work with us while we finished the work day then went to Gymkhana for a swim and dinner.

The weekend was fairly busy as well. There were competing events on Saturday. We were invited to a wedding of the son of the Mennonite Bishop of Arusha. I felt some obligation to have someone represent us there, but did not think the kids would be very well behaved if we all went. so I went in the afternoon alone while Rebecca took the kids to a Christmas fair. The wedding lasted about 2 hours and was a very lively event. There was a live band even out in the parking lot as the bride came out of her car.

The music inside was much more lively than we have in the US in a traditional wedding and the bride and groom actually danced down the aisle with their entourage. The choir also danced when they were singing. Despite all the movement, the bride and groom did their best to not smile at all. This is because, I was told, a wedding is seen as a solemn event and they should not look like they are taking it lightly. I still sensed that they were really into it though.

Once I was done, I took a rickshaw to meet Rebecca and the kids at the gigantic Christmas fair which is held at a coffee plantation called TGT. It is also a kind of club like Gymkhana. I had no idea how big it was, but heard it is considered the event of the year. It was gigantic! There were so many food and merchandise boutiques, art, handicrafts, performances, etc.

I arrived just on time to see an amazing dance performance by the dancers from the Ibuka Dance Foundation based in Arusha. A choreographer based in the UK (he was French named Johnny Autin) who did physical theater came and worked with the group for a week and created a piece that was nearly half an hour long. They used used tires as props and the dancers had a physical virtuosity that reminded me so much of the downtown dance I used to be into in New York City when I was dancing and choreographing myself. I wish I had a video to put up. It was as good as work I have seen by David Dorfman or Doug Varone(for those of you who are reading this with a dance background.) I was impressed that there is a group of Tanzanians that has familiarity and ability in this particular genre of physical theater.

We went from the fair to a big farewell dinner for some new friends at our church. It was a good chance to build community and talk to friends we have been getting to know as most everyone we know was there. Another night getting home late.

Sunday was actually a lot of fun because the worship team asked me to play djembe for some of their songs. I was happy to oblige. We were also officially welcomed into the church as new members. Rebecca was teaching Sunday school that day as well, so I feel we have been integrating and making ourselves useful pretty quickly.

Christmas break has already started for the kids, so they do not have school on Monday. We will be going as a family on an MCC team retreat, more about that next week.

David has been continuing to cycle through pets. We let his hedgehog go free on Sunday because of out of town events coming up when we knew we could not feed him. (Also, quite frankly, he was really stinky!) David is currently on "Cammo 4.0" his 4th chameleon that he is keeping on the tree outside our back door. The problem is, they tend to wander off after about 4 days. I guess there just is not the kind of bugs they like there. He is sad about losing the hedgehog but will get to dog sit next week. Hopefully that will cheer him up.

Christmas Preparations with a Smattering of Swahili Wisdom

The beginning of the past week seems like a blur to me. I do know that the kids had a short school week because Friday was a National Holiday (Islamic). The work week was also largely uneventful as we are in the season between reporting periods and partners are busy implementing activities and not in frequent contact. I am excited about a new proposal that is being finalized to implement a child protection program in 18 Lutheran schools. The program will provide instruction to teachers on alternative forms of discipline instead of corporal punishment -- which is frequently used here, despite some attempt by the government to limit it. To a great extent, I believe teachers are simply practicing what they have learned from their own experience as students. Some of the stories we hear make it seem shockingly arbitrary.

The project will also implement safe school clubs (modeled after peace clubs) in schools for students to address issues of bullying and harassment. The club meetings will provide a space for students to discuss issues with each other and with a trained adult mentor. The third leg of program will facilitate meetings with administrators and parents' associations to develop and disseminate a written child protection policy.

The other somewhat interesting work day event happened Wednesday, when we helped to empty MCC's long-used storage container. If you have not lived overseas, it might be hard to imagine how ubiquitous these enormous shipping containers are. Once they are not seaworthy, they end up being used in any number of ways, including as houses, smalls dukas (shops) on the side of the road, storage units for farmers, etc. MCC has had one for a while, but we will need to empty and get rid of it, because the property it is parked on belongs to some missionaries who are leaving town.

Sharon our Country Rep. was out of town, but the rest of us at the office went over Wednesday morning, emptied the container, and stored the contents at our houses. Rebecca and I have a shipping container next to our house which is available to us, so some of the stuff went in there. The really great part of this was that the family that was leaving was also selling an almost new trampoline, and Rebecca and I bought it as well. We helped take it down, and took it to our house during the move. We have not set it up yet, and are thinking of doing that as a Christmas surprise for the kids.

The best Christmas surprise though will be the arrival of Rebecca's parents, David and Jean Sack, who are planning to be out here at Christmas and will also go on our short vacation with us to the beach! (That story will have to wait until it happens.)

Back to this week...Having Friday off meant that we could finally begin preparations for Christmas. It is a family tradition to begin setting up the tree the day after Thanksgiving. This year, we decided to wait until the weekend of first Advent. We are really into Advent and Rebecca usually makes an Advent wreath with 5 candles and (if possible) we buy chocolate-filled Advent calendars for the kids. We were able to get some of these this year, even in Tanzania! Lots more imported goods are available here, than were in Burundi.

Finding a nice Christmas tree was a bit harder but Rebecca did manage to get one during a shopping trip in town. It is not real, and really does not look very real, but we were happy to have it to decorate (Charlie Brown would be proud). We did have a friend bring out a Christmas suitcase filled with all of our Christmas stuff (Thanks, Rebecca H) and on Friday afternoon we decorated the tree, put up lights and other decorations including stockings and 4 creche sets. Rebecca also got the kids to make some paper cut-out wreaths that we hung on the door. Oren and David were both into decorating and it was a nice thing to do on our day off.

In the afternoon we met some friends at Gymkhana. I also brought our squash rackets and played with Oren and David. (It was their first time.) I used to love the game and the squash court is old but well maintained. Reminded me of childhood at the American club in Bangladesh. David and Oren both really enjoyed it as well.

We ended the day with a family game of "7 Wonders". It was the first time we ever played it as a family because we thought David would be too young. But he actually won it! (We also played Settlers the day before which is what you see in the photo.)

Saturday we got off to a slow start, but then did some adventurous visiting. We had met a family at our church and decided to go out to their place which was nearly an hour away. We were interested in connecting with them because they have 4 kids and one is Oren's age and one is David's. It was nice to visit them despite the somewhat treacherous driving conditions on unpaved roads. They are definitely a missionary family (which mainly means they get a lot less screen time than our kids.) But Oren seemed to hit it off with Harry and David had a blast on their trampoline with the 3 younger kids.

Sunday was church as usual and I was helping in Sunday School. After church we met a number of friends for lunch, followed by another social event-- Oren invited his classmate Abraham, and his younger brother Barack (yes, he was born in November 2008) to come over to make Christmas cookies.

It would have been fun for me to participate in the festivities after church as well, but it was at that moment that I realized I had lost the keys to the pick up and needed to leave early the next morning to Karatu for a training session. I searched for hours, then went to our office, where we have a box with spare keys. Sadly, the spare key box was locked. That key was locked in the desk of the office manager, and the keys to her desk were with her at home. All this happened in the two days while we are getting a new key system in place at the office.

Since I was bringing all the curricula and supplies to a training, I could not afford to be late. With plan A and plan B thwarted, I decided to get a taxi to drive me there, for $100. (I had way too much stuff for a daladala trip.)

When Rebecca got to work the next day she called me from Arusha to say the guard at our office had found the truck key in the parking lot. She also tole me that Lucia, our finance officer, shook her head and offered a bit of Swahili wisdom with the proverb: Kifu cha nyani, miti yote huteleza --- which could be translated: When death comes for the monkey, every tree is slippery.   I think it is about the inevitability of fate (or else it is about avoiding dead monkeys falling out of trees:-)

First Thanksgiving

'Quiver,' David's new hedgehog

It certainly does not feel like we are entering the holiday season here. That is--to a great extent--due to the lack of change in weather. More precisely, the weather has actually become warmer, albeit wetter, and everything is turning greener--not drying up and dying.

But even more than that, I think the absence of commercialism or even acknowledgement of Halloween, and most recently Thanksgiving, makes this time of year seem less like the increasing crescendo of Holiday activities moving in a frenzy toward Christmas that we were getting used to again in the US. On the good side, some of the excesses are absent as well.

We did manage to wrangle an invitation to an American Thanksgiving dinner, although it was not quite like any I have been to in the past--probably because it was packed with people, most of whom I did not know. 

Truck we drove behind on the
way to Thanksgiving dinner

Thanksgiving is not a holiday here (obviously) but after work and school last Thursday our family went to the house of Dr. Mark and Linda Jacobson. They are medical missionaries associated with the Lutheran church. He is the founder of the Arusha Lutheran Medical Center, a large hospital in Arusha that does amazing work. Interestingly, they are also both MPH graduates of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and were students of my father! (They were surprised to find this out--and he had visited us just a couple months ago.)

The Jacobson's Thanksgiving party has been a decades-long tradition and is open to most any American who is looking for a place to celebrate this distinctly American holiday. It is done potluck style, and it brought together over 60 people by my estimate. There was all the expected food--turkey, stuffing, many pumpkin pies and potato dishes, (although not much in the way of cranberries). The festivities began after 5 and went well into the night.

We left sometime after 9pm, and felt like we had at least whetted our appetites for turkey for the near future. On the way home, what would have otherwise been an uneventful drive to our compound in Njiro, became exciting as we neared our gate. My headlights caught a small animal crossing the dirt road. It looked like a mole and I told David to look (since he is an animal lover.) Then Rebecca said excitedly "It's a hedghog!" By this time I had stopped nearly right at our gate and David jumped out in time to see it run under a bush...then back out the other side. He reached out for it and it curled into a little ball of quills. David picked it up and took it to the house.

For the next several days the hedgehog slept during the day in David's closet and ran around in the living room at night. David gave it slugs and hotdogs which it seemed to fancy. There is an old playhouse outside our house that we turned into a little enclosure over the weekend. We have been watching it to be sure it does not look sick, but it seems quite healthy and surprisingly friendly. It seems content to let David pick him up. David has named it Quiver.

Having a pet for David is a good thing because we are not allowed to have a dog on the compound. David was supposed to get a hedgehog from some people who were leaving when we arrived, but it escaped the day before we got there. He is thrilled to have a pet at the moment.

Besides Thanksgiving, the work week was fairly busy even though I never left town. We had a team meeting on Tuesday, so our whole team was together for the day to go over MCC business. Zoe was in town from Longido. The rest of us live in Arusha. (There are 3 Tanzanians, and 3 North Americans working at our office.) We celebrated a double Birthday at the end of the meeting for Neema, our Program administrator, and Zoe.)

Thursday was also a busy work day with a meeting of MCC's Advisory Board. While we weren't part of the whole full-day event, we did have lunch with the advisory committee and then presented some of our projects in the afternoon.

The rest of the week was more normal, although Black Friday is not a holiday here so we were at work for all 5 days. We are still enjoying our Wednesday evening choir practice and have been working on a difficult Magnificat by Stanford, as well as the Pentatonix arrangement of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah-- which is kind of doo-wop. It's got a new Christmas text now. (I am singing baritone and also doing some of the beatbox effects).

HAPPY belated THANKSGIVING!

Bonus Photo: Kids at our church singing Father Abraham for the congregation. 

(David is in the back row.)

Ngorongoro and Embakaai

Baboons by the road on the way up to Karatu

I think it must be a sign of aging, that the beginning of a week seems like the distance past. Actually, I feel more the distortion of time when I am traveling. I feel very present wherever I am, but thinking back to a place I recently left, can seem like a memory from a decade ago. Maybe this is some kind of 3rd culture kid survival mechanism--being very present in the moment but having almost an amnesia about other places and relationships.

Long introduction to say that I was traveling between Monday and Wednesday. I was up in the Ngorongoro crater region in a ward called Nainokanoka where I was visiting the project site of a maternal and child health program  one of our partners is kicking off this month. Although I have met with the partner several times in the past in the nearby town of Karatu, I had not had a chance to go up into the Ngorongoro conservation area itself. One reason is that it is fairly expensive to enter as a non-citizen, about $70 per day. The crater itself is a huge tourist attraction, and now having been there I can see why.

love birds on Karatu motel

I left Arusha Monday morning after Swahili and drove up to Karatu a town just outside the conservation area. I stayed the night there at a place called the Karatu Motel, and met Laangakwa, the director of our partner NDI early the next morning. The hotel was OK, looked new, and I seemed to be the only one staying there. One thing I liked about it was all the love birds hanging out on the roof.

I rode in NDI's landrover into the Ngorongoro district, which was good because we drove over 200 km on very rough and sometimes muddy roads over the course of the day. The first part of the drive was spectacular. We climbed to the edge of Ngorongoro crater and drove around the east side, heading north. I have looked into a few craters in my life and thought I knew what I was going to see, but I was not prepared for the sublime vastness of this crater. It looks like it is 50-100 miles across. The amount of terrain one can take in from the lip of the crater is staggering.

Maasi women at Bulati village market

The only people who inhabit the Ngogongoro crater conservation area are Maasai. They are the only ones allowed to live in here, and they have to agree not to have any permanent dwellings or do any farming. (They live on the outside of the crater itself.) They receive food supplements from the government and get milk and meat from their cows and goats. Our program is meant to help 3 Maasai villages in the ward improve their maternal and child health outcomes. The purpose of the visit was orientation to the 3 villages where the project would be based. I especially wanted to see the 2 dispensaries and health center that were located in the villages. (One of our program activities is to help prevent stock-out of ante-natal vitamin supplements such as folic acid, iron, and vitamin A, so I was curious to see what kind of supply was kept on site at the clinics.)

Frederica, a midwife at Kerpusi dispensary

Over the course of the day, we visited all 3 villages. I was encouraged to see that all 3 clinics offered antenatal care services, although I found one of them had no vitamin supplements in stock. The nurse midwives at the dispensaries and the doctor at the health center were all very interested in the project and were happy to share information on challenges they face in providing antenatal and delivery services. They did say that women often do come to antenatal care visits but most will not come in for a delivery. (Our project supports neighborhood care groups that encourage women to have facility-asisted deliveries). They also told me that women do not normally exclusively breastfeed for 6 months. From what I learned, I felt encouraged about the objectives of our program.

pharmacy at health center

I was also impressed to see, despite very minimal offerings, that there were some alternative technologies that greatly improved their capacity. 2 of the 3 facilities had solar powered refrigerators where vaccines were stored. (There is no electricity available through the grid in the ward.)

delivery room at Kerpusi dispensary

The delivery facilities were very minimal, although they all had oxytocin on site. I have a picture of one of the rooms--no specialized delivery bed, or any electronic monitoring equipment.

Besides visiting the facilities I was quite struck by the landscape of the place where these villages were located. It was not like anything I have ever seen, but might compare somewhat to Montana. The vastness of space was remarkable, but it was not flat open savannah, it was mountainous with pastureland in vast impressions 20 or more miles across, like someone had dropped a gigantic bowling ball in the region which had left concave valleys and raised jagged hills.

I did see some wild animals--baboon, zebra, ostrich, but most of the animals are in the crater. At the end of the visit to the villages we were deep in the ward and Laangakwa (NDI director) took me an extra 10km to see another crater called Embakaai. It was like nothing I have ever seen as well. Not as big as Ngorongoro, but filled with water! a giant lake, far below the ridge where we stood. I noticed that the water all around was trimmed in pink dots. Then I realized they were millions of flamingoes! I tried to take a few pictures to capture this, The second picture is a close up of the bottom right corner of the first picture.

flamingoes, close up of lower right of previous photo

It was a perfect end to a great day. From there we drove the 100km back to Karatu where Laangakwa left me for the night. I went back the next morning to Arusha, in time for Swahili. Admittedly driving off at 6:00am made the rest of the day at work seem quite long.

Since I got back on Wednesday, Rebecca, the kids, and I went to our Christmas choir practice. We have been enjoying being part of this the past few weeks, rehearsing about an hour and a half once per week for special music at Christmas. The choir director is a very nice woman who doubles as a surgeon. (Actually that is her real job.) We had just started rehearsing when she got a text saying there had been a small plane crash that killed 11 people. Two of the choir members turned white with fear and immediately got on their phones because they had loved ones flying at that moment.

We were relieved to hear that no one connected with the choir had been on that plane (Coastal Air), which was traveling from Arusha to the small airfield in the Serengetti. It sounded like a tourist flight.

The next day Rebecca and I went to the pool to find one of the old women who works as a cleaner there weeping (We often chat with her when we see her in the morning). She had lost 3 family members on the flight. Then the man who usually swims in the pool with us who drove for the safari company said he knew 3 people who were lost. When we left the pool and got to the office, our Swahili teacher cancelled our lesson because he was going to the funeral of one of the victims-- a friend and classmate of his.

As it turned out, 7 of the people on the flight were Tanzanians who worked as staff at some of the Serengetti hotels and were returning form Arusha (There were 2 Germans and 2 Americans on the flight as well). I also learned the following day, from news reports, that the plane had crashed in Ngorongoro region into a mountain at Embakaai because it was flying low.

It was very sad and sobering to think that only hours after I had stood looking at that staggering beautiful and sublime venue, it had become the scene of such tragedy for several friends and acquaintances we have come to know and care for here.

Trimming our Wicks and Replenishing our Oil

Cordon Bleu Rebecca and I saw on a walk

This short rainy season is heavy. Some days it is overcast most of the day and it can rain for several days without ceasing it seems. This rainy season is not like the short afternoon showers I remember in Burundi. But I have been pleasantly surprised, as the rain has washed away the curtain of haze that seemed to hang in the air since our arrival, that we have a view of Mt. Kilimanjaro from our house. Not from our window, but when I climb to the top of our water tower, it stands majestically to the east of Mt. Meru, which looms much larger in the foreground and frames the background of most of our views in in Arusha.

As a side note, our water tower stands about 40 feet tall (since we have a 2 story house) and is quite a substantial structure. Not a light metal framework, but more of a large square minaret made of brick and mortar. There is a metal ladder on one side and a guard rail around the top. It rises just above the canopy of trees around our compound and it feels like you are popping up over the Amazon rain forest. The view is quite spectacular now that the air is clearer.

Mt Meru behind Gymkhana golf course

This week had a more-or-less normal routine except Monday when the kids were not in school because it was parent-teacher conference day. We started out at work and brought the kids to our Swahili lesson in the morning. We were hoping they might try to join in,  since they are both taking Swahili classes in school, but they were not interested in trying. Sadly, Oren seems to be at a disadvantage, because Swahili is offered based on one’s grade level. Thus, David is getting an intro course in Year 4 but Oren has to be in a more advanced class in Year 8. Consequently, he is learning very little and has been given a book to ‘self-teach’ by his teacher.

I feel of two minds about my own progress in Swahili. On the one hand we seem to be learning the rules of the language in leaps and bounds and I can construct complex sentences to say things like: "When I arrive, we will go see the project together.” Nitakapofika tutakwendana pamoja kuona miradi. But when I listen to the radio, or read something, I am aware of just how little I comprehend because I can identify all the parts of speech, but do not know the vocabulary. Despite this, I do get some satisfaction comparing English, French and at least 2 Bantu languages which I know. One of the things we take for granted in English is how broadly we use the concept of ‘being’. In English you can ‘be’ at a place, you can ‘be’ a state of mind, you can even ‘be’ an age. In Bantu languages, the word for being in a location is not the same as ‘being’ happy, for instance. In fact being in a location has several words depending on whether it is particular place or a general place. It's fascinating how much language reveals worldview.

The most challenging aspect of Bantu languages though is the concept of noun classes, of which there at least 12 in Swahili, I would compare them to masculine and feminine nouns in French (2 classes) with which all adjectives have to agree in a sentence. Only imagine having 10 more classes all with different agreements for adjectives, direct objects, pronouns, etc. (If I could try to give a hypothetical example in English imagine a sentence like: The chi-two chi-red chickens chi-are chi-mine.) It is not that simple because it is not really the first letters of the noun that make the agreement, but you get the idea. I won’t even get started on the fact that suffixes in English that tell us number or verb tense are always prefixes in Swahili.

Back to the report—After Swahili, Rebecca took the kids to the meetings with their teachers and gave me a full report. Essentially both boys are doing well in school. For Oren, the exceptions are his foreign languages. He has to take Swahili and French. I admit I am extremely disappointed that he has seemed to retain none of the French he learned in 6 years of going to a Belgian school in Burundi. He makes up for it in math where he is currently getting an A+.

Flame-tree flower in bloom next to our house

During the rest of the week, we enjoyed our normal routine of dropping kids off at the bus then going swimming and to work. Generally we are settling in well into our projects and for me, a full week at the office without travel was a welcome change. (This week that we are starting, I am already off in Karatu, and Ngorongoro to see one of partner projects but will say more about that next week.) We went as a family again this Wednesday to choir practice. The kids are happy to let us enjoy our hour and a half for an Indian meal on the way home. It is actually a blessing since we would get back around 7pm and would not want to start a meal then. (Our day starts at 5:30 to get out of the house by 6:45am)

The weekend was pleasant with our family doing our Friday afternoon swim followed by kuku na chipsi (roast chicken and French fries), which is the basic fast-food of Arusha. Zoe, the MCC SALT volunteer was down in Arusha for the weekend and stayed at our house on Saturday and Sunday.

Rebecca giving the Benediction

Sunday was special because Rebecca preached at our church! She was also on the music team and it is great to see her involved in worship! She preached an excellent sermon on the passage about the 10 virgins who prepare their lamps for the arrival of the bridegroom to his house. Since the church follows a liturgical tradition, she was not given a choice about what to preach on, and she said she really appreciated being stretched to understand this parable. She did an amazingly good re-telling of a traditional marriage where a young groom goes to meet his future bride then spends a year preparing a home for her and brings her back to his home village for the wedding. I actually recorded it on my phone and I have put a link here if you would like to hear it. The quality is not bad. Definitely worth the 30 minutes to listen to it!! ( Rebecca Sermon Link 11-12-2017 )

(Shout out to North Baltimore Mennonite Church folk! Since the service here has a somewhat traditional feel, the ordained pastors usually preach in their robes. Rebecca, as you can see, is wearing the stole she was given by NBMC at her ordination. She looked very reverent—and was introduced as the Reverend Rebecca Mosley:-)

We had lunch after church with Zoe and two young German women who were volunteering for a year at the Mennonite Church in Arusha. (Rebecca wanted to find out more about their program.) It was a pleasant afternoon. The evening was spent doing homework and Oren and I played an epic game of chess. Sadly he ended the evening with a bout of diarrhea which is keeping him out of school today.

Rebecca Sermon Link 11-12-2017

Sweet routines; sudden tragedy.

tricks

Rebecca taking a turn at blogging this week:

About 2 weeks ago, we began a new innovation in our family routine. Having looked at all the options, we decided to engage the private school bus company that takes many kids to St. Constantine’s school. When we tried this option early in our time, the kids had to leave home at 6:10 am to get on the bus (we were the end of the line) and didn’t get home until after 5 pm. This time, we arranged to meet the bus at our office at 7 am. In this way, we leave home as a family at the same time in the morning (6:45) and then the kids are dropped off to us at the office at 4:15. 

This new arrangement is revolutionary. We still have some drive time together (with audiobooks!) It saves us/me at least 2 hours of driving time each day. And Paul and I are able to start our morning swim at least 30 minutes sooner, and then get to the office earlier. It allows me to put in long, concentrated days of work, so that I don’t have to leave early to pick up kids. Finally, we can all leave work together at the end of the day, rather than Paul getting home much later than us, using public transit.

We wanted to try out this possibility in order to see if it would make our house situation feel more sustainable – since we live so far from the kids’ school. So far, it is really helping us to feel much more positive about the house and the compound where we live. We continue to enjoy some family time around the communal trampoline on most evenings (when it’s not too wet!)

treats

We’ve been able to join the Joshua Foundation community for a few more events as well – an ice cream social farewell for one gentleman, and the biweekly team potluck dinner on Thursday nights.  We are getting to know our neighbors better and having good conversations with them more often as we know what to talk about. Most of them are teachers at the Joshua School, but a few are part of the community outreach team. Oren in particular enjoyed talking with the Ugandan pastor, Simon, who heads up that team. He’s a really nice guy, and I’m glad Oren is finding another good adult to talk with.

On Tuesday evening, I was anticipating a normal evening at home, but David asked me, late in the afternoon, “what shall I use to collect candy? I don’t have my pumpkin. Maybe my pillow case?” I realized that he did NOT realize that there IS NO Halloween here. No neighbors would be waiting with candy for him. We had a period of the kids grieving this move again bitterly, as they mentally considered how many pounds of candy each we were asking them to give up by being in Tanzania. Finally, I scrounged up a selection of treats I had brought and saved for special occasions. We told the kids to get together some costumes. Then Paul and I went upstairs and hid behind all 7 doors in succession, handing out candy or scaring the kids. The candy they received could not compare with the haul they would have gotten in Pine Valley, but at least It was a token.

Snake eyes! (playing Monopoly)

We have been trying to think of ways to get more involved in our local church, and last weekend, we heard about the Christmas choir needing singers. So on Wednesday, we decided to try to go to the choir practice after work as a family. We were expecting protests from the kids, but actually, they were quite amenable to this. Oren stayed outside and did his own thing. David actually agreed to sing soprano along with me, and it was such a sweet time! He stood right beside me, often holding my hand, and doing his best to read the music and follow the parts. He lasted for an hour and then I sent him outside to catch lizards for a bit. We had sweetened this deal with the promise of Indian dinner afterwards, and the kids were so excited to return to get some chicken tikka masala at the Impala hotel. They both kept exclaiming about how delicious the food was, and we had really nice conversation together.

The week was overshadowed by very tragic events at the kids’ school, however. A 16-year old student named Nolan collapsed on the school field at the end of last week. The school informed us that he had been rushed to the hospital and then evacuated to Nairobi for brain surgery. Sadly, he had suffered a cerebral aneurism from a pre-existing condition and was in a coma; the damage to his brain was irreversible and total. He died Monday night. On Tuesday, the secondary school students were informed about Nolan’s death and then given a free hour to pray and process, either in the chapel or in their tutor group rooms. On Thursday, the school held a huge memorial service for Nolan – he was apparently a star student, a prefect, played on the football team, and was loved by all. And on Friday, school was closed so that students were free to attend the massive funeral at the Anglican cathedral (where MCC rents office space). Throughout the week, the school did an outstanding job of communicating with parents about what was going on, and letting us know about counselors being available, etc. Oren came home on Tuesday, saying that nothing like this had ever happened at the school, but in his opinion, the school had done an amazing job of helping kids cope with their emotions and find some sense of calm. Oren had never met Nolan, so he didn’t feel the need to go to the funeral, but he was very impressed by the way this young man had lived his life and also how the school recognized the tragedy for the community. I don’t think a US public school would have had as much freedom to respond in such spiritual ways.

The kids and I did some things at home over the long weekend, including playing an epic 3-day Monopoly game. We ended our work week at the pool, where we got in to swim just as a gully washer swept through. It was still very fun times! 

I also was able to join 6 other women from my ladies’ Bible study for an overnight retreat at a local safari lodge. I’m grateful for the time to get to know them better, and for more intimate worship and prayer together. Also, for the time to just be with other ladies for good conversation, not worrying about the kids. 

Paul drove me up to the hotel and then took the boys on their maiden voyage to our local movie theater. They were actually able to watch Thor Ragnarok in 3D! Arusha certainly offers more options in entertainment than we had imagined.

Paul finishing:
We went and picked up Rebecca after church on Sunday afternoon, then went to a semi-monthly fellowship of some ex-pats who live on the far side of town. I had gone to church early with the kids for a Sunday School meeting where I committed Rebecca and I to help organize a children's Christmas program on Dec. 17th. In the activities this week I feel we are very intentionally finding a niche in some communities here, particularly at the church.