Christmas and a Brackenhurst Retreat

Puppies born on our
compound this month.

Looking back on the December 21 entry I realize it will take a while and some mental gymnastics to recount everything that has happened in the past 12 days. It could easily fill two posts, but in the moment, time did not allow any opportunity to sit down and write anything down before now.

We are back in Arusha, the first weekend after the Christmas/New Year's holidays. The kids are starting school again on Tuesday and they are doing the last of their homework assignments they were given over the break. I am a bit sympathetic to their complaints as I do not remember getting much homework over Christmas break in the past, but they get about a month off, so I guess it is necessary. David had a long math test and 5 essays, and Oren had Maths, Geography and a number of paintings and drawings to complete for Art.

Looking back from the last entry, I would note some of the highlights of the days leading up to and through Christmas. One of the big ones that took quite a bit of time as the day approached (Dec 23rd) was our Christmas choir concert, a lessons and carols service two days before Christmas. Despite practicing weekly since September, we still required several extra rehearsals in the last couple of days, particularly since one of the pieces involved a cello, trumpet, piano, speaker, and soprano soloist, none of whom had been able to practice with the choir until 2 days before we were presenting. Despite the fact that it felt a bit stressful and required a lot of extra work, it really seemed to pay off at the end. The music really sounded quite good. My particular favorite was a piece called "O Come Redeemer of the Earth" which had a Celtic sound, very haunting and beautiful.

Our involvement with the adult choir was only the beginning of our responsibilities in the service as Rebecca was also invited to preach. She did a powerful sermon on the Incarnation: "God was born!" a mantra she repeated numerous times in the sermon. It was a joyful message as well, and she began a light-heartedly recounting that she had told Oren she was preaching for this service and wanted his input. Oren responded by saying "Mom, most of the people coming to this service may only go to church once per year. So you'd better not be boring!!"

Oren was right. The church was packed to the rafters thanks to many general announcements through local community web forums and social media.

I had agreed to have our Sunday School children sing 2 songs as well and we had been practicing during Sunday School for the past 4 weeks. It is always a bit risky to know whether the kids would show up for an evening service with their parents, but I did give parents a lot of warning about the evening and the kids' participation. We prepared 2 songs: One Swahili one called Kristo Kazalewa (Christ is born). The other was a Calypso called "See Him Lying on a Bed of Straw". I took a chance on the second with two kids singing solos on two verses (David and his friend Sammy) and a small trio of girls singing on another verse. On the evening of the service they were all there without a minute to spare, so did not get to run through, but sung it beautifully none the less. (Here is a web link. Sorry my voice is a bit loud because I am right next to the camera).

Our final contribution to the evening was a large gingerbread church, we had made the prior afternoon. I am happy to say it was completely demolished and eaten within 15 minutes after the service. (It is great to make them but they are too big to keep around the house and nibble on through the holidays, especially with the ants.)

Making a gingerbread structure of some kind is a tradition for us. Last year we tried a train, but decided to go back to the more traditional building as sugar in the tropics tends to melt over time and run, and eventually fall apart. We made a very solid church and steeple using magnet blocks as templates for our patterns. I found a very good construction gingerbread recipe which made a good solid, non-leavening building material. We also improved the royal icing by mixing it with an electric mixer which stiffened it up very nicely. I made some improvements, the main one was the addition of treacle, instead of brown sugar, and chai spice instead of ginger, so there was cardamon, clove, and cinnamon as well in the mix. The gingerbread was actually delicious. We also use a trick to epoxy the sides together by using molten sugar for construction (a bit dangerous) but much sturdier than using icing for bonding the sides. David helped with the construction and all of us decorated it. It really looked great and we had a great time working together to do it.

 I was still going into the office even on the 24th, and there is a fair amount to do in December, unfortunately, because we receive reports about mid-month that need to be reviewed and processed. We also helped Jessica recover some things, like buying a new phone after her theft ordeal that was detailed in the last blog.

But by late afternoon we started our Christmas eve ritual. Rebecca worked with the kids to bake cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning and many to give away. She made several dozen with David and Oren's help. We also listened to the Festival of 9 Lessons and Carols by the Kings College Choir on the BBC. It was perfect timing for us, in the late afternoon. We also called family in the US to wish them Merry Christmas. When we had put all of our gifts under the tree it looked pretty full thanks to the visit of Grandma Jean and Papa Dave earlier in December who sherpa'd over gifts from family in the US.

The last thing before bed was to watch The Polar Express. I think the appeal is the look of a cold snowy Christmas. It is quite a contrast to the warm weather here. Although we continued to have heavy rains through the month of December.

Christmas morning was fabulous as always. Somehow I was the first down and awake, but David followed shortly thereafter. We had a great time opening gifts as a family and felt very blessed to have family members send us a number of excellent board games that we really wanted to play here including Bohnanza, Quacks of Quedlinburg, and Castles of Mad King Ludwig. We had played several rounds of each by the end of the day.

Christmas dinner was unique this year in that we did not go to anyone's house. Instead, our Bible study small group all met at a safari resort called Rivertrees. It has beautiful grounds and offered a buffet. A group of about 20 of us gathered on a table set on the lawn under a large tree. The scene was completed by a troop of colobus monkeys that decided to pass through above us. It was a great time to be together and it is amazing how much time you have to talk and do things with the kids when you are not spending hours preparing or cleaning up for a meal. It was a real treat and a great time of fellowship.

Oren and David's best friends are Harry and Sammy Their family is from Australia, and Mike and Katie are good friends of ours. It was great to see them having a good time together. Oren and David gave them a book of poetry by Shel Silverstein (A Light in the Attic) which they all sat around in twos and read at different times during the day.

This was not the last we were to see of our Australian friends over the holidays though. Thanks to their recommendation, we decided to go to a retreat week at a place outside of Nairobi called Brackenhurst. It is a large campus/convention center with places to stay, eat and meet. It also has beautiful grounds and lush flowering gardens. The whole place sits amidst a large tea plantation which is quite picturesque.

Our family left for the retreat a day early so we could spend a day in Nairobi. We had nostalgia for staying at the Amani Gardens (formerly Mennonite Guest House) which was a frequent waypoint when we traveled back and forth to Burundi and other places. We also wanted to see some of the new malls in Nairobi.

We decided to take a chance and drive. It would be our first time crossing an international border by private car since moving to Tanzania. We did some advance prep to be sure we had all the right documentation and only had a small issue at the border as we did not have the original registration document but instead a certified copy. they did let us through though. The time at the border took less than an hour. The whole trip to Nairobi takes about 6 from Arusha. We arrived in the afternoon and made our first stop at a mall called "the hub". It was actually very nice and our favorite place was the bookstore where we bought about $100 worth of books. Oren got most of the rest of the Tintin collection we were missing, and David got Diary of a Wimpy Kid series books. I picked up a copy of Hemmingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". (I had just finished Delia Owens "Where the Crawdads Sing", a great read!)

We continued on to the guesthouse and got there in the evening. Rebecca and I have both been there in the last year but it was the first time in over 5 years for the kids. David remembered nothing of it. Oren did remember the big swing. We enjoyed a relaxing evening and shot some baskets on the court they have, and had pizza from their pizza oven. We also played Bohnanza, one of our Christmas games.

The next day we got up and headed out to Brackenhurst. We did stop briefly at 2 Rivers mall to see how it compared. It was impressive because it has a large ferris wheel and other amusement park rides. We continued on to our final destination on got there around 3pm. We registered with many other arrivees and found our room.

There were about 4 families from Tanzania we knew as well as many other families with kids we did not know. Oren and David immediately found their own age-mates out on the main lawn and started hanging out and talking. They were thrilled to have so many new and old friends around. (They did not even miss having screens for the whole week!)

We made good connections with the adults as well. The retreat has programmed and free elements. There was a morning time of worship and hearing a guest speaker, then free time in the afternoons with optional activities. On day one, we participated in a high ropes course that was on the campus. Great fun and exercise. On day 2 we took a walk through the tea fields to the old plantation house and heard a lecture about the production of tea. It was fascinating and I was amazed how labor-intensive tea production is.

On the last day, the afternoon activity included camel rides and a giant blow-up water slide for kids. We also organized a great game of ultimate frisbee in the afternoon. That was new year's eve and we had a talent show, evening service, and then close to midnight we all went around a bonfire and roasted marshmallows. The fire was appropriate because the weather is quite cold in the morning and evening as Brackenhurst is at high altitude.

Rebecca and I really enjoyed all of it, especially because all of the lectures and times of reflection included a kids program, so we adults could have time away from them. That was probably one of the best parts of the retreat. Rebecca also brought her guitar and I brought my djembe and we participated in leading worship several times. It was great to have some adult interaction and serious spiritual reflection without having to parent at every moment. It was also great to be with our friends from Tanzania and to meet many other people doing similar things. It was a very encouraging experience.

We drove home on Friday, New Year's Day. We stopped at the Hub mall once more for some hiking boots, it has an amazing sports shop called Decatholon there where you can get very reasonably priced sports and camping equipment. Then we headed home. We hit the border in the early evening and there was no one going through at that time on New Year's day. It took us about 15 minutes to get through and we drove back to Arusha in the dark and got home by 8pm.

We will seriously have to decide if we want to make this an annual thing but it was appreciated and needed this year.

Beach Week and back to Advent in the Dark

David with giant tortoise.

Paul wrote the last blog while hanging out on the beach in Zanzibar. It seems appropriate to follow up by letting you know more about our team retreat there. In fact, I’m going to let Oren take over here. He wrote about the experience for his grandparents and was willing to let this be his debut in blog writing. So, without any edits or alterations, here are the impressions of our 14-year old son:

“The trip to Zanzibar was a truly fantastical experience. The climate was not too extreme and standing on the sandy ground overlooking the ocean is always an unforgettable sight. The place where we were staying was called Promised Land Lodge, it had very nice drinks and food but their beach was very rocky and not the best. It was still wonderful nonetheless.

The trip getting there, however, was not as enjoyable. We had to wake up very early in the morning, around four, to be taken by a taxi to the airport and to fly away at daybreak. I think I may have subconsciously developed a light phobia of flying in airplanes. Once we landed in Zanzibar we were met by our tour bus and were driven down to the Zanzibar harbor where we got into a small boat and were maneuvered the waves across to Prison Island, it earned that name because it was meant to be a quarantine. While on the island we saw the astonishingly large Giant Land Tortoises, they are an incredibly endangered species, only existing in Zanzibar and Galapagos.

Following the tortoises, we waded back to our craft to begin snorkeling. Jumping into the water again was very refreshing, the view of the water from beneath the surface was infinitely different from the view from above the surface. The coral reef was breathtaking, many different types of coral, fish, and many other things of astonishing colors and shapes. We were out for around an hour and a half before everyone returned to the boat.

We then returned to the main Zanzibar island and back onto our tour bus to be taken on a long drive to the lodge. At the lodge, we slept in bandas, thatched houses, which were very comfortable and had indoor bathrooms. They had a beach bar which served delicious watermelon juice and had very comfortable hammock seats. The place was constructed on a small cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean. There was a warm pool where I frequently swam, and a volleyball pitch where most of the people on our team retreat came together to play a non-competitive game of volleyball. The meals consisted of things such as chicken leg, grilled calamari, and fried octopus. The cliff that lodge was built on was covered in sand, giving the feeling of constantly being on a proper beach.

The most phenomenal part of the retreat was swimming in the open ocean with a pod of dolphins. It was so incredibly magnificent, they were not uncomfortable around humans at all, they just right past you on their way. The closest I managed to get to one was about one and a half meters, I was gaining on it and would have been able to touch it if it had not chosen to dive at that moment. In conclusion, it was an incredible trip.

Thank you for reading, --Oren.”

I do want to add a few observations myself. Our MCC team includes 6 adults and 4 kids. We invited Alang, a volunteer from Laos serving in Kenya, to come and join us. In addition, we invited a couple to help us with some spiritual reflections on loneliness and community. In the end, our group included 3 Canadians, 1 French woman, 4 Tanzanians, 1 Laotian and 4 Americans. As far as team bonding, I felt like we got a lot further during this retreat than we had before. It was awesome that David had spent time with Lucia’s daughters at Thanksgiving because they consider each other friends now after the retreat and played really well. The three of them were old enough this time to entertain themselves doing crafts and painting during the times of spiritual reflection. I was really happy that Oren decided to join the adults during those times and seemed to really appreciate Tim, our speaker, and the way he presented on the problem of loneliness.

We had some amazing times of snorkeling, as Oren already described above. I found myself full of wonder at two things simultaneously: the undersea world we were able to explore, and the capability of my children to handle snorkeling skillfully in the open ocean. It was especially remarkable to watch each of them just tumble off our boat into the ocean and swim hard chasing after dolphins, without even needing to surface to adjust a snorkel or a mask. We were in and out of the water at least 8 times – pretty exhausting! – but they kept up with it as well as any of the adults. And David is incredibly good at diving while snorkeling; in fact, I’ve been learning from him and growing in the courage to do that, not simply stay on the surface.

During the weekends on either end of the team retreat, we enjoyed some really lovely Advent times. Sharon, our MCC Representative, invited us all (including Jessica and Alang) to an Advent evening before the trip. We shared special foods as well as stories. We were all transfixed by some of the amazing stories Angelika told about her work with Maasai girls. And then we had some really good singing, including sight-reading a whole lot of new Christmas carols together.

On Friday after we returned from retreat, Jessica took Alang on a whirlwind tour of Arusha. Meanwhile, our boys welcomed their friends Harry and Sammy for a sleepover. Each set of boys mixed up and baked a batch of Christmas cookies – sugar cookies and ginger snaps. They played a bunch of long games. In the evening, we had a full house, with Jessica and Alang staying the night again. We introduced everyone to the stereotypical 60’s American Christmas gone awry in the movie “A Christmas Story.” After all the fun hosting, it was indeed a welcome change to have a quiet house by Saturday night.

This past week has offered its own challenges. The structural challenge is this: the kids are out of school, but we are not out of work! It is indeed a hardship for everyone concerned that the kids are not just on holiday, but also expected to do quite a lot of work. Oren has 3 major art pieces to work on, as well as math, geography and chemistry assignments. David has to write 5 different essays, along with several math worksheets. We have tried a lot of different approaches this week…bringing them to Gymkhana in the morning to exercise with us and then do homework and a golf lesson. Homework was not getting done. Leaving them at home in the morning to do work. Homework was also not really getting done. Finally, on Friday, we brought them to our office to plug away at homework under our watchful eyes while we also kept plugging away at reports and emails. Somewhat more successful.

The other challenge we faced was completely unexpected. After choir practice on Wednesday, we went out to dinner with Jessica at a favorite pizza restaurant near our office. We had a nice dinner with good conversation, and were just getting up to leave when Jessica said, “Where’s my bag?” She had been very careful not to leave her backpack containing her computer and 2 phones in the car but had brought it into the restaurant to keep it safe. (I must admit that we were not so vigilant and left our bags in the car). It had been sitting beside her the whole night, right at her feet, leaning up against a column.

The restaurant manager took the issue very seriously and allowed me to search the staff quarters and all around the edge of the restaurant, in case someone had slipped off with it and tried to hide it. But he assured me that there were CCTV cameras and that we would be able to find out what had happened. It took some time to figure out how to get the CCTV system to playback, and clearly a trip to the police station would be included in our evening. So I arranged for our trusted cab driver to come and get the kids and take them home. Meanwhile, a technician isolated a particular camera and was able playback the chilling 2 minutes in question: a young man entered the restaurant from the back and walked around the edge of the large group of foreigners gathered there that night, clearly casing the joint. He took the table next to ours and was joined by another young man. They sat there for just a minute, without ordering anything. And then, while all five of us were still seated at our table, somehow, unnoticed, one of them reached over, grabbed Jessica’s backpack, passed it under the table to his buddy, and then they got up and left. It was a completely professional job—it’s hard to see it happening on the camera, even when you know they’ve just done it.

If you want to see the CCTV video, click on this link. See if you can spot the moment of the crime!

We copied the footage and headed for the “Diplomatic and Tourism Police.” There was only one guy on duty and he couldn’t even find the form for us to fill in to file a police report. There was no way he was going to leave and do an investigation at the restaurant. We returned in the morning and made the report to a lady. We had heard that these police would be very professional, with the capacity to even speak multiple foreign languages. We discovered that this prediction was overly optimistic and I was glad that I had sufficient Swahili to explain the case to the woman officer because English wasn’t making sense to her. We remain skeptical that the police will pursue these thieves, even though there is good evidence available, and these guys are likely to be repeating the crime as often as possible. On the good side, Jessica emerged with a police report that allowed her to block her old sim cards and apply for new ones. She got a new phone and did a lot of work to protect her identify after the theft of her computer. It’s a very hard hit for her, especially during the holidays.

All that to say, it’s a reminder that we live in a dark world, involving poverty, crime, anger, frustration, incompetence and loss. We are still in need of a Savior, and thanks be to God, we celebrate the birth of the light next week. But we need more light. Even so, Lord Jesus, come.

A Weather Phenomenon and a Walk in the Park

Serval cat at Arusha National Park.

I have recently found that there has been international reporting on the weather phenomenon we are experiencing. I thought it was just some kind of major 'last hurrah' of the short rains--trying to show-off its staying power. But as we have had nearly endless torrential rains in the past 2 weeks, I decided to do some research. In fact, it is part of the pattern that is creating the drought and wildfires in Australia on the Eastern side of the Indian Ocean. A large cyclical current is pulling moisture onto the West side of the Indian Ocean and at least one cyclone has hit over here near Somalia. Farmers are delighted to have some extra rain, but at this point, they are more worried about extensive flooding.

In the midst of this, our MCC team flew to Zanzibar for our annual team retreat. I was worried that it would be pouring here as well, but for some reason, it is quite hot and sunny once you leave the mainland. I will say more about our retreat in a future entry. We are enjoying some free time by the pool and I am taking the opportunity to do an update of the past 10 days.

Actually, the past 10 days seem more like 3 months, with the number of activities that have happened. In the last update, I had said that Grandma Jean had arrived to visit us for a week, and Papa Dave arrived the day before (American) Thanksgiving. I have to say Thanksgiving dinner was one of the best I have had this year. Rebecca and Jean both spent the day at home and prepared very dish one could want for a traditional Thanksgiving, including cranberry sauce (smuggled in a can last summer). We opted for 2 large fresh chickens to trying to track down a turkey, but they were at least as good with the stuffing and gravy that was prepared from drippings.

The greatest improvement to Thanksgiving was an apple rhubarb pie prepared by Rebecca. I don't know why I have not had the before. Strawberry rhubarb, yes, but that is not a good combination in my opinion compared to the texture and tang of apples. It was superb with fresh whipped cream.

The invited guests were the real highlights. Besides our family and Dave and Jean, we invited some members of the MCC team including our YAMENer Jessica, and Lucia, our accountant, with her two daughters Novella and Esperanza. They have become friends of David's from past years of MCC team retreats. We also invited Marie, Jessica's host mother. It is always nice to have guests that are not familiar with American Thanksgiving. (Although it is currently not too politically correct to highlight the mythology behind the celebration, it is interesting to those who are trying to understand American culture. We did also provide some context about the more tragic aspect of relations between native people and Europeans in American history that followed.)

After dinner, the adults chatted and David played some board games with Novella and Esperanza. Since Thursday and Friday are not holidays here, we did end before 9pm so kids could go to school. All in all, it was a memorable Thanksgiving dinner this year and we were happy to have friends from work as well as Dave and Jean here.

Papa Dave's visit seemed especially short, but we did pack a lot in. After a full day of work on Friday, in which Dave, Jean, and Rebecca went to Moshi to see some of his colleagues, we prepared for a safari at Arusha game park on Saturday.

We hired a guide and safari vehicle and our family went with Dave and Jean and Jessica for a day of game viewing at Arusha National Park. This park is about an hour from our house, which is convenient so we left from our house early in the morning and were at the gate by 8am. The Arusha Park has one very nice perk in that they offer a walking safari (with a ranger carrying a loaded gun). It is great to be able to get out of a safari vehicle during a long day.

Because of the extensive rain, we worried that it might be a very wet trip, but somehow the skies cleared when we arrived (in a dense fog), and we had an exceptional day of game viewing.

The walking safari is limited to a small area of the park and as we walked through a very verdant savannah we came upon a herd of Cape Buffalo, considered quite aggressive and dangerous, but only watched us curiously. I got a nice picture of the bull eyeing us lazily with 2 oxpeckers sitting on his head. We also came very close to a pair of giraffes and a number of warthogs.

We ended the walking safari at a beautiful waterfall coming down off Mt. Meru. We stopped for snacks and photos there before continuing in the car. Arusha National Park has other interesting features including a giant parasitic ficus tree that completely suffocated its host and left an enormous hole through which one could drive a landrover. We stopped there for some photos.

We had lunch beside one of a series of 10 very picturesque small lakes. There is a path that weaves through them which we drove and saw many birds including two types of bee-eaters up close, a buzzard, Egyptian geese, and several flocks of flamingoes.

Other animal highlights during the day included many waterbuck with huge horns, dik-dik, zebra, bushbuck, several herds of giraffe, colobus and blue monkeys as well as baboons.  My personal favorite, a serval cat who slinked around not far from our vehicle, jumped on a rodent, then crossed the road in front of us. It was great to get some pictures of that as I have never seen one in the wild. There are no lions in Arusha National Park, but there are leopards and serval cats, so I felt we had a lot of luck that day.

We got home in the evening and felt very good about having a great guide and vehicle at a reasonable price. This is one of the benefits of living in Tanzania.

Dave and Jean left on Sunday after church. We had our small group at our house that day and saw Dave and Jean off as small group guests arrived. We were pretty tired by the end of small group and were not able to start decorating for Christmas, even though doing so on Thanksgiving weekend is a tradition.

Fortunately we did get to it on Monday evening and had a very nice time as family getting out the tree and ornaments, creche set, lights, the advent candle set, and other Christmas paraphernalia. It is hard to believe we are at this point in the year.

The other thing about the end of the year, which can be hard, is saying goodbye to friends. Summer and the end of the year are transition times for many individuals and families who come out for short, or even long-term assignments. This has been particularly true at the Joshua Foundation (the compound where we live) where we just said goodbye to our next-door neighboo\rs who had been here for a decade as members of the Joshua Foundation team. Josiah was a good friend of David's and we went over last Saturday to say our final goodbyes and take a picture with them. It will seem emptier here without them, especially because Josiah and his brother often stopped by at our house unannounced to play with David on the trampoline.

Then, no sooner had we finished saying good-bye to them, we were bidding farewell to our other neighbors, the Thompson's. Andrew and his wife Nicola were regular players of ultimate frisbee with us along with their daughters Lara and Emma. Andrew also did a ton of project management in the short year he was here and built a kitchen and meeting center complex for short term mission teams, as well as remove the old bridge that was washed out earlier this year and install a new one. Things will definitely slow down here without his energy. They were quite a courageous family with all their kids attending the local (English speaking) school here, and them very involved in the life of the local community near the Joshua Foundation compound. They will be missed by us and others.

The weekend before the departure to Zanzibar was as busy as the last one with packing on Saturday. We also picked up a YAMEN volunteer working in Kenya from Laos. His name is Alang. He was going to join us on our Zanzibar retreat. He stayed with us and joined our activities for the weekend.

Rebecca lead music in church on Sunday and me doing Sunday School. Afterwards, we met some friends from our small group and did a day hike at a friend's house on the slopes of Mt. Meru. A small group of adults and large group of kids hiked to a neighboring farm where a guy does beekeeping using local forest bees. He gave us a tour and showed us the tiny bees, who make small pots of honey in beeswax. We got a taste as well, very unique, not really that sweet but strongly floral and citrusy. Afterwards we returned to our friend's house where the kids made 'Chris-tingles' a kind of candy decorated orange for Christmas.

Jessica and Alang both stayed the night at our house on Sunday so we could make a 5am departure to the airport for our Zanzibar flight.

It is very relaxing to have these 4 days in Zanzibar before going back for one more work push (finishing quarterly reports from partners) when we return.

More about that next time.

Bonus Photos of Safari:

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.