Living across borders

Beauties of an Arusha shopping trip

Rebecca here: You may have already read about our Ethiopian reality from Paul, on the weekend. But a few words from the liminal space are in order: while Paul has been conveying the excitement about our new home-to-be and the work that we will do there, I have been back in Arusha dealing with a totally different reality. As much as possible I tried to join Paul by phone as he met with our new team members in Ethiopia and learned about them and their projects. Poor internet quality precluded a video connection, so basically everything was only audio. It was quite a surreal experience, sitting at Gymkhana or driving home, putting away dishes, and hearing the sounds of this group of colleagues sitting peacefully, discussing very interesting and distant work, with unseen birds calling in the background, and with me still going about by normal everyday life in Arusha. I think I must have been on the phone for at least 3-4 hours each day, just trying to listen in.

During the first week of Paul’s absence, I was also required to attend a three-day leadership training session on Zoom – it was very interesting content, dealing with conflict and critical conversations in the workplace. I was very interested and stimulated by the opportunities to think about how deeply our wrong assumptions about other people’s actions can work in our hearts to create conflict, if we don’t go back and check their intentions. We also had great opportunities to interact with other new MCC leaders, many of whom we’ve been able to meet in the past months, and many of whom are “repeat offenders” like ourselves.

David and I both doing homework

The complication of this training lay in the fact that it started at 4:30 pm and ended at 8 pm – yep, right through the time that I would normally spend checking in with the kids after school, supervising homework, and having dinner together. David, Oren and I had a serious conversation about the difficulties before this training started, and I was really thankful for the ways that they were willing to pitch in and get dinner ready. David tried to do his homework next to me while I was online. And we spent my 15-minute breaks together jumping on the trampoline.

On our first Saturday without Paul, both kids had extracurriculars at school on Saturday morning (drama practice for David, and extra math and art tuition for Oren). I decided to explore the coffee plantations around the school and took a long walk to try and unwind from the week. 

In the afternoon, the kids’ friends came over to keep us company and give me a bit of a break. And we enjoyed a great bible study meeting on Sunday afternoon, at the beautiful compound of a German friend, where our kids could play together in an extremely inviting pool. Paul was even able to join us for bible study by Zoom.

The next week held significant Arusha-based challenges. On Monday, I plucked up the courage to check on all the online portals of the government offices, to see if MCC had successfully been deregistered and removed from their systems, now that we are officially closed. My heart sank as I realized that all the work Lucia and I had put into closing properly in November has basically had no effect on the official record. There was also the question of our kids’ student visas for Tanzania. We had been attempting to renew them since last October. The lawyer at the kids’ school, who helps with this, told us that there were problems in the government system and that we should wait until January to apply. When I reminded him in January, he said that the system was now purely online, and that he could no longer lodge paper-based applications. But, in a perfect catch-22, the mandatory online application process was not yet fully operational online for student passes. And my kids’ visas expired that Thursday. There was also the question of registering for COVID tests for travel. And finally, a very complicated issue to deal with involving getting driving licenses for Ethiopia.

David has been handy in the kitchen in Paul's absence! 

So, Tuesday morning, I girded my loins to go do battle on multiple fronts. I started with the kid’s visas, as I dropped them off for school in the morning. When I went to see the lawyer, I was informed that he had lost his father to a sudden illness and would be out for a week = no help from him on the visas. His assistant gave me our kids’ files and I decided to go to immigration myself to see what I could do.

View from our watertower by David

Next, I went to the revenue authority to deposit a letter and see how we could get de-registered from their online system, which keeps claiming that we owe payroll taxes. At this present moment, with the rapid spread of “viral pneumonia” in the community, I absolutely hate going into that building. At least masks were required to enter (a new development as of last week). But in order to talk with someone, you need to go up into a large open-plan room, where at least 50 people are busy at work, and another 50 people are milling about waiting to talk to them. There are a few open windows at each end, but it is basically a super-spreader horror to even walk into that place. After going to an officer who had helped us in the past in the big room, I learned that I needed to lodge a whole new letter to the regional manager, which would take more work. So, I left.

At immigration, at least I had the name of the particular individual who could help. And when my turn came, she had good news for me: the online system for student passes had just become active 10 minutes ago. So, I could go and apply for the visas myself. Maybe I would even be able to pay before my kids’ old visas expired! That seemed like good news to her, but I knew that I could not apply without the help of the school. And both the lawyer and his assistant were off work for the father’s funeral.

Burka coffee farm walk

On the driving license issue, it turns out that Ethiopia will only grant a new license if you can prove that your license from another country is valid. This takes a letter of validation from the issuing authority. I needed a lawyer to help with this, and so my next stop was to go see him. He had done some advance work for me and had found out that it would be necessary to actually go to the police to get a letter from them. I had picked up Paul’s license from DHL, and brought along mine, and so I the lawyer agreed to work on getting the correct document from the police. However, the Arusha police don’t follow up on anything without “facilitation” or “encouragement” and so I had to agree to a fairly large facilitation fee for the lawyer. I knew that I would then need to send our licenses to the Ethiopian Embassy in Dar, but there was also the problem of still not knowing exactly what the Ethiopian embassy would need from us, and there were problems with reaching the right person to get answers. So, three big issues were not entirely resolved.

And then there was the question of paying for the COVID-19 tests I had booked – it’s been hard to do that in the past and has taken hours standing and waiting for a government control number to arrive in time. I wanted to take care of that payment early, and so walked up to the government hospital – but even when I found the right people, they told me I would need to get the control number from the hospital actually doing the test. So, basically, I felt like I had lost pretty much every one of the fights I had gone out to wage that day. Ironically, that same week, I had stumbled into a book called “Burnout” by Amelia and Emily Nagoski (no time to read, so I’d been listening to the audiobook). They talk in a very compelling way about the fact that stress and feelings are actually biological – we hold them in our bodies – and how important it is to complete the stress cycle in a physical way, to burn all the way through the adrenalin and cortisol and return our bodies to a state of feeling safe again. They also talked about redefining success and developing an unconventional relationship with failure. These were timely things to consider!

David's homework

On Wednesday, I did some hard exercise before taking the kids to school and prepared to do battle again. I started with one big win: the lawyer’s assistant was back at work, and together we sat for an hour and managed to complete the online applications for my kids’ visas and even get receipts to pay for them. Next, I was finally able to reach the Ethiopian Embassy, but I learned that I would need to get additional stamps of validation on our licenses from the ministry of foreign affairs, before the embassy would validate them. This ministry of foreign affairs being in Dar es Salaam, it would be absolutely impossible for me to complete the process on my own. I needed an agent. We used to have a guy who did stuff for us in Dar, and I tried his number once, but it didn’t work. I went to the Orthodox church at the kids’ school for about 15 minutes to try and calm myself and pray. And then I tried a different number for the agent George, and I reached him! He agreed to help me out with the whole issue, as long as I could figure out how to do all the payments necessary. By the end of the afternoon, I had managed to:

1)     

Victory: payment for student passes! 

Pay for our kids’ visas – so at least I could arrive at the airport immigration with receipts showing they were in process

2)      Pay for our COVID tests in advance

3)      Lodge a new letter with the tax office, asking them to de-register us from the system

4)      Pick up our licenses from the lawyer, with stamped letters from the police, and send everything on to George in Dar by expedited mail

5)      Figure out how to automatically move money from our bank account to our mobile money app to be able to pay for all these ridiculous expenses remotely as they came up!

It was a tough day, but after a solid day of losing, I felt I had finally returned home with some wins. And we even enjoyed a nice dinner and conversation with our neighbors that evening.

On Thursday morning, I decided to take a little time to emotionally recover from bureaucracy (so strange how gutting it can be do deal with these processes) and so I parked at a friend’s house to do a little morning birdwatching after dropping off the kids at school. From her place, it’s possible to take a lovely walk into deserted hills and spot all kinds of birdlife not found in the urban center. I was breathing deeply and really enjoying the acrobatic flight of the white-fronted bee-eaters. And then there was this other yellow bird…I had my binoculars up and was stepping back to get a better look, and suddenly there was nothing under my feet and I was falling down and backwards. When the dust settled, I realized that I had fallen into a porcupine hole, about a meter deep and slanted down under the road from the edge of the verge. I had walked 20 minutes to get where I was and so I hoped adrenaline would carry me back to my friend’s house because I could tell I’d twisted my left knee. Thankfully, she checked in with me and then came to find me with her car.

My first hospital card!

From that point in the day, I somehow just kept finding one kind person after another to provide me with an ice pack or a bag of ice, since I needed to stay on the school side of town all day until evening. I was very thankful for their care! Oren had an important event at school: he received the results from his O-level (IGCSE) mock exams and had the chance to talk with teachers about his options for A-level courses next year. He was pretty pleased with the progress he’s made in a number of subjects, and I will just say that the number of A’s far outweighed any other letter on the list.

Beautiful view

After a quiet Friday, trying to keep weight off my leg and keep it iced, I was able to get a doctor’s appointment on Saturday at a private hospital. It was my first actual medical visit on my own account in Arusha, so I guess I was proud (?) to finally get my own hospital card. 😉 The orthopedic doctor felt that I didn’t have anything torn, just strained ligaments that would take 6 weeks to heal and gave me a good brace. I was able to see a PT the following week, who gave me an even more promising assessment and some exercises to speed up healing. But that extreme birdwatching accident definitely slowed me down for the rest of the week.

Kids enjoyed being dignified too!

Other highlights of our weekend included a beautiful sunset evening on the rooftop of Arusha’s newest and most prestigious hotel. The occasion was to say a sad farewell to our friend Beth Marie. We have really enjoyed her friendship and did our best to just enjoy each other’s company, together with our friends the Taylors. The fun on Sunday mostly involved early morning COVID-19 tests with the kids. I then took them back home so that they wouldn’t have to stay with me through a long church morning and Annual General meeting, where I officially ended my term as a church elder.

The remainder of our short week in Arusha mostly involved packing – trying to figure out things we treasure and want to have with us in Ethiopia, but that we don’t really need presently in Arusha. David especially did a phenomenal job of packing up his favorite things all by himself. I’m holding back on bringing our camping gear, hoping that we will be able to do some more camping still in Tanzania. Finally, we flew out of Arusha with minimal difficulty on Thursday afternoon, eager and ready to join Paul in Addis and to start getting to know what will become our new home.

Packing up

 

Latest update from Ethiopia

 Facebook for some reason does not allow me to share updates from my Ethiopia blog, so the only way I can post the link is on this blog. Here is the latest: https://pamosleyet.blogspot.com/2021/02/family-reunion-and-ministry-of.html 

First blog post from Ethiopia

I am posting a link to our new blog post in Ethiopia. I am having trouble connecting directly to it on Facebook. Here is the link if you want to visit. You can click on it or paste it into your browser.  https://pamosleyet.blogspot.com/2021/01/first-week.html 

Out with the old, in with the new

Rebecca writing today. 

January 20, 2021 was a momentous day for transitions…On the personal level, that morning, our official positional email address was redirected to the new Kenya/Tanzania Representatives for MCC. So, no new official Tanzania email will come to us. In fact, we found out that we also lost access to all old emails, written or received from that address. We had helped set the date for “email migration” and knew it was coming. Nevertheless, it was still somewhat difficult and painful to relinquish that role entirely.

staff and volunteers of TEMBO Trust

This clear moment of
transition took place during the mid-point of a week-long official handover visit for the remaining aspects of the Tanzania program. We knew it would be a very long and full week, so we took half a day to intentionally do some restful activity. After our regular exercise, Paul invited a friend to play 9 holes of golf with him at our club, while I took a long and satisfying walk with the friend’s wife around the edge of the golf course. We really enjoyed having time to sit and catch up with these good friends afterwards, with no interruptions from kids.

Our colleagues from Kenya were scheduled to arrive in the early afternoon but met some delays along the way. Originally, we were hoping that both members of each couple would be able to join us for this visit. But the difficult reality of crossing borders in the time of COVID made us all realize that at least one parent from each couple needed to stay behind and be with the kids. What if both parents somehow couldn’t get clearance to cross back over the border and were stuck here for two weeks? So, we welcomed our Area Director Wawa and our fellow Representative Scott around 4 pm (too late to get the COVID test needed to cross the border at the end of the week) and then Paul showed them the way back to our house.

Lunch with Lucia, Chrispin and Wawa

I was beginning another transition that same evening: I attended my final church council meeting at Arusha Community Church. I have truly enjoyed being part of the leadership team at our lay-led church. I know that I must be weird, but even the monthly Monday evening meetings have been a joy (most of the time!), as I continued to get to know others in the church, and as we wrestled with tough questions about how best to manage the practical and spiritual realities of shepherding a church through the unfamiliar landscapes of a pandemic. We will hold our AGM in February and new elders will be elected, so it’s time that I release that particular role in our community.

First thing on Tuesday, Paul took our colleagues to the regional hospital to get tested (which turned out to be a very difficult, long, bureaucratic process as public health officers work to roll out a new system). Meanwhile, we realized that we had a serious problem with the battery of our car (and were very thankful for guests to offer a jump start so I could still get kids to school on time), so I added “buy new car battery” to my morning task list. The men took long enough that I was able to accomplish this, with guidance from our former colleague and “fleet manager” Chrispin.

One World staff in Arusha office

Our first official meeting of the handover visit was to share lunch and conversation with Chrispin and Lucia. Both Wawa and Scott were eager to meet them in the flesh and to express thanks for their faithful service with MCC for so many years. They have both found new positions with an MCC agriculture partner, and so Paul took the visitors to meet with that partner for the rest of the afternoon. We have found that it is vitally important to have face to face meetings with partners as Scott and his wife Anne Marie get to know their work. I know we have come to rely heavily on Zoom, and it was handy to “zoom in” Anne Marie during the week, but so much clear communication is lost when tone and body language are not as easily visible.

Circle time at SSLC

On Wednesday morning, we woke up bright and early and it was my turn to lead our guests to a partner visit – this time to Step by Step Learning Center. It had been almost a year since I had last joined them for circle time, and in fact, they were just entering their third day of in-person school since March. Over the period of the pandemic, the founder initiated home-based education for the special needs students at the school. In fact, this approach turned out to be incredibly fruitful as teachers made better connections with parents and were able to mentor caregivers about the best ways to guide and educate their special children. But the kids were clearly happy to be back in their loving, safe school environment. Some things about circle time haven’t changed: getting oriented to the date and weather, singing songs with sign language, recognizing each individual child. But now all the kids wear masks, spacing is observed and the teachers cannot offer the morning reflexology practice. In the past, teachers went around the circle, massaging the hands of every student, which was very helpful particularly for the children with cerebral palsy whose muscles can get so knotted up. It was also a special moment to show care and attention to each individual. 

SSLC Class room

Scott and Wawa had lots of questions for the Director about how she runs and supports her school. While we talked, we noted that the young adult students quietly filed into the other half of the room and organized themselves to start their beading work. Creating beautiful jewelry is one of the most calming and focused parts of the jobs skills program for the older students. Later, we took a visit of the site, touring the chicken and goat projects, stepping into each classroom and interacting with some of the students.

In the afternoon, we needed an extended time to talk through some of the aspects of this transition and how our successors will relate to partners, projects and the Mennonite church from across a border. After three intense hours of deep, detailed conversation, we took a break and then reconvened for an inauguration party. The power went out, but we still enjoyed our American burritos in the dark and had enough power in our little projector and speaker to carry us through the whole moving and inspiring ceremony. I won’t lie. I was quite overwhelmed by the inexpressible relief of having a new president who is focused on working for the good of all Americans. As someone said, I finally felt welcome in the United States again, and I think a wide variety of people from various backgrounds saw that welcome demonstrated on Wednesday night. Clearly that was the most joyful transition of a momentous week. 

Dark house, bright inauguration 

I remain somewhat conflicted by the feeling that after the inauguration, I felt like I had just been to church. I know that is not appropriate for a political ceremony to co-opt faith as a tool to gain power. But how about when speakers were calling us dig deep into the best aspects of our faith – humility, truth, service, hope, faithful commitment, sacrifice, brotherly love, repentance, forgiveness – calling us to draw on our faith for the inspiration to be better tomorrow than who we are today? Somehow, I find this to be a much different tone than invoking the Christian nationalist spirit of the god of America.

Working lunch with KMT leaders, Wawa and Scott 

On Thursday, we spent most of the day with key leaders from the Tanzania Mennonite Church, getting to know them personally and then discussing the best ways to continue working together with MCC. The conversation felt like a very helpful, mutual exchange of ideas, and a great start for a new set of church relations as we prepared a new partnership agreement together. I was starting to reach a point where I could feel content to be a convener, offering background information when needed, but not needing to oversee the conversation. I was delighted to hear more details from Scott about their past experiences in Tanzania and all the connections that tie them in with the Anabaptist church and theological education in East Africa. They are well-placed in this new Rep role and will likely be gifted in helping the church relationships to thrive.

Both Scott and Wawa wanted to bring back souvenirs from Arusha, and so I helped them locate some nice picture frames, jerseys and beaded items in town, while Paul collected the kids and made sure they had done some homework. (Have I mentioned that it’s hard to make sure kids get their homework done, while you’re having such good and interesting conversations with work colleagues who are staying with you?) A hectic drive through town, pointing out key landmarks and helpful locations, brought us out on the other side to the green peaceful grounds of Arusha Coffee Lodge, where we all met other MCC colleagues Neil and Christy for dinner. They had just returned from 10 months in the US, and I was personally delighted to see them again and catch up. It was also a strategic meeting to learn more of the nitty-gritty on food security and agriculture work in Tanzania.

Meeting with TEMBO staff

On Friday morning, Paul and I realized we needed to divide and conquer. I helped Scott pack the car with books and files to take to the MCC office in Nairobi and then we headed north to the town of Longido, close to the Kenya border. Meanwhile, Paul stayed behind to chase down the COVID negative certificates our visitors would need to leave the country. (Results should have come by Thursday night, but they didn’t, so we had to just trust they would turn up on Friday and we should make our way on the planned schedule). In fact, he ended up spending four hours, staring into the window of the health officer who kept making calls to Dar, trying to get the certificates to load on the system.

Meanwhile, I was having much more fun, frantically trying to go through the remainder of the transition manual with Scott, as Wawa took the wheel. So many small changes in the schedule and lengthy in-person visits had made it difficult to find the leisurely time to talk through all the details of the program I had documented. Well, they know where to find us, as questions come up!

cultural role play

TEMBO Trust in Longido is always a fascinating partner to visit, as they grapple with tricky cultural tensions. The staff of TEMBO are all Maasai themselves and believe deeply in their work. But how does one affirm the good and beautiful aspects of Maasai culture, while at the same time question harmful practices such as FGM and early, forced marriages for young girls? How does one support girls to get a high school or college level education, without tipping the balance in culture and community towards the urban international monoculture? They work hard to demonstrate that rites of passage are possible without cutting, that girls can be well educated and still return home to work as doctors and teachers. In our visit with them, Paulina (director) and Simon (finances) shared about the various projects they carry out. Mary, their community mobilizer, worked with Marykinwe, Kesia and Naiyani (3 women trainers of trainers) to demonstrate the kinds of teaching and testimonies she offers to communities to work on changing harmful behaviors. They were very hospitable, offering us chai and lunch, and plenty of light-hearted jokes along the way.

As we ate and talked, I was checking my messages nervously, hoping that something would come through from Paul on the COVID-19 certificates. When he had given up all hope on Scott’s ever coming, it suddenly appeared at 12:55, just a few minutes before they planned to head to the border. So, we all breathed a sigh of relief and sent them on their way. I got a local taxi guy to drive me back home, to enjoy a very quiet evening with my family.

On Saturday, there was a lot to do to make sure Paul was ready to go (his Friday packing time was spent waiting for COVID certificates, and luckily his own came through while he was waiting there). There were a few nerve-wracking last-minute questions regarding the visa he should get and what documents he should bring. But we sorted most of it out. In the late afternoon, we squeezed in an ultimate frisbee match, to which just two families could come, and one Pakistani family was brand new to the sport. But they learned fast, and even their two-year-old pitched in as a “pani wallah” for her dad (water fetcher). Fortunately, a few of the children on base joined us and then later, a few young adult teachers joined. It turned out to be a very competitive and strenuous game, but one in which we could involve everyone on each team. And I was sore on Sunday morning!

frisbee match

So, right after church, Paul finished packing his bags and headed to the airport. We stayed behind, thinking to host bible study, but it turned out no one could come. Maybe that was a gift. We were all very tired and needed some down time. We did a shopping trip for the week together, and had a gelato treat as time to prepare ourselves for the new regime of mommy needing help to keep the household running.

And so far, the kids have been very cooperative (minus a few spats), pitching in with cooking and washing up. We got to bed on time and got to school on time this morning. But still, Oren woke from a nightmare at 2:45 am, and once he got me up, I found it impossible to fall asleep again. I am a very good sleeper and NEVER have insomnia. So, I guess there must be a fair amount of underlying anxiety about all this transition in our life. Out with the old and in with the new. But a seed dying to raise up a new plant – well, all that breaking and cracking for new life to break out -- it isn’t comfortable. So, I gave up on sleeping at 3:45 am Monday morning to write most of this blog and document the day of one of our most tumultuous transitions, as Paul begins to explore the new life we will take on in Ethiopia, and I remain here in Arusha in a liminal space.

The road back to Arusha

 With gratitude to Scott Stoner-Eby who provided most of the work photos in this blog.

 

Dancing in the Promised Land, and a Repose in Zanzibar

Another update is long overdue if I am going to get two entries in this month. Truthfully, the events in the larger world, particularly in the US post-election have dwarfed our events and seem to be claiming a ton of our mental space. The insurrection at the US Capital (and that expresses my political point of view on the matter) was shocking. It seems surreal to witness the level of delusion around the outcome of a free and fair election--especially having lived in many countries where there is never a presumption of 'free and fair' in an election. 

By comparison, life for us has seemed almost mundane in the past 2 weeks, despite several adventures we have had since Christmas. I believe I wrote the last blog during our first or second day in Kenya where our family had gone to join other MCC Representatives from Sub-Saharan Africa and the Sahel along with our Area leaders in a regional gathering. This meeting was one of the first in person meetings we have had since COVID, and it was actually scheduled well before the recent surge of cases in Kenya. In hindsite it seemed higher risk than we expected it to be, and the cost of COVID tests to cross and return across international borders became a significant cost factor. 

Nonetheless, despite a need to observe strict protocols and having all of our meetings in an outdoor pavilion and all of our meals outdoors, it was a very productive and enjoyable time. We were able to share quite a few experiences and help new reps. find their way. The meeting place, a large resort/camp, gave us all separate bungalows but plenty of common outdoor meeting space. It was located in the middle of a small game preserve so one could see a number of antelope and giraffe within walking distance of the entrance to the resort. (The only slightly dangerous animals were hyenas who came out at dusk.) There were many fascinating birds to see and bushbabies and tree hyraxes in the branches above the campsite. 

There were several highlights including a socially distanced social dance organized by Rebecca and I. To be safe we taught several line dances that could be done at a safe distance from each other. The most popular one was "Jerusalema"-- Master KG's viral hit of the past year. Our team did it pretty well, and I have put some footage of it here. 

We also did 'Cotton-eyed Joe' and 'Pata Pata'. All of them were popular with the adults and kids who were in attendance. Actually the kids program was great while the adults were in meetings. David and Oren participated in organized games, hikes, visits to the giraffe sanctuary, did archery, and other activities. Adults also had a chance to test their analytic and practical skills in Team Building activities organized by a group that came in and led us through them. 

Our last night was New Years Eve and we had a great time socializing with our group. We even did a spontaneous performance of 'Jerusalemu' when the hired keyboardist for the resort restaurant played it at about 9pm. I was surprised to find that our family and the staff were the only ones who made it until Midnight. Although in fairness, most of the other MCC team members were parents of young children. 

The next day we had a final meeting and then went our separate ways. Our family drove back down to Arusha. It was a lot faster than coming up because we left earlier in the day and arrived well before dark. The border was better despite a small hassle about not having a receipt with our new COVID tests to show we paid for them and they were not forgeries. We worked it all out though without much delay.

We wanted to get back relatively early because we had an ambitious plan of going to Zanzibar early the next morning. We wanted to have a short vacation because the Nairobi meeting had taken all of our normal vacation time between Christmas and New Years. We repacked our bags with swim stuff and warm weather clothes (Nairobi had been quite cool). We left our house at 6am the next morning for the airport. It always seems amazing that we arrived at our hotel in Zanzibar by 10am. The flught is less than an hour from Arusha. In fact the drive to the airport is much longer than the flight.

Zanzibar, a Swahili tropical paradise which we try to visit at least once per year, is one of the hardest perks of living in Tanzania to give up. I say this because having residence permit to live here means we don't need to purchase a visa to travel, and we can usually get residence rates at hotels. 

We had chosen a fairly economical hotel called Ananda Guest House in Bwejuu, on the East Coast of the Island. We knew beaches around there would be good for snorkeling in low tide. Since Zanzibar sits on a coral reef shelf the tide goes out about 2 kilometers every day, so you can walk out quite far to see tide pools of tropical fish, anemones, starfish, etc. It is great to snorkel out there in a few feet of water and you are never disappointed by what you see. (Warning: One must always wear beach shoes as the tide pools are full of sea urchins which can deliver a painful venomous stick if you step on one.)

One thing we were not sure of was how busy the island would be during high tourist season during COVID. We were actually pretty surprised to find most hotels fully booked with Russian tourists who flock to the island in winter and were not deterred by any travel warnings. (Consequently Zanzibar has seen surging COVID cases in the past few weeks). We did our best to stay away from crowds and fortunately the restaurant where we ate was outdoors. 

The room we had was a suite, and enormous. It was in the Swahili style with a made bed covered with flower petals and towels twisted in swans. I love coming into a clean room here! The hotel also featured a large pool that felt great after hours in the salty tepid ocean water. While the hotel was not on the first row of beach hotels, it was only about 50 feet away from the beach, so not inconvenient. 

David is always in paradise on the beach and spent hours collecting shells and identifying marine life. He also knocked down coconuts out of trees on the beach and brought them back to the hotel gardner to split open with his machete. 

We did several special snorkeling trips, one of the best was on a beach in Michumvi, a town up the road where we had stayed at a hotel with my brother's family the year before. There were a number of very accessible coral formations not far from the beach. Our family took a cab up to the hotel and got permission to snorkel there and use their pool. We were out for about 3 hours snorkeling and saw some very unusual fish. Notably there are quite a number of eels and sea snakes along with venomous lion fish, beautiful and dangerous. We saw at least a dozen lion fish around several reefs. We took a swim then had a fabulous dinner featuring a mountainous seafood platter. 

The last day we took an excursion up to the north side of the island where we had never been. We had heard that it is quite popular with Western tourists and now I see why. At the first stop we took a boat out to Mnemba island, about 25 minutes off shore. We were in a small boat and the swell was huge. We were headed for a coral atoll off Mnemba's coast where people like to snorkel. It is fun to snorkel off a boat because the water is deeper so the coral and fish are bigger. There was also an impressive 'drop off' that we swam along. We were in about 12 feet of water on the high side but could look down 50- 75 feet where it dropped down. I am quite adept and snorkel diving and can go down about 30 feet to see some of the bigger fish and coral up close. It was enjoyable, but also challenging at times because of the swell. 

From snorkeling we continued to two towns on the north shore. They were much more like large European resorts full of tourists and options to take boat excursions, kite board, jet ski, deep sea fish, etc. Much less rustic than the side of the island we are on which is dominated by local fishermen. Hookahs also seem to be quite the craze at most of these resorts, probably an Eastern European touch. 

We got back in the evening from our excursion had a late dinner then went to bed before waking up the early the next morning for our return flight. We were home by noon without incident. It was Wednesday by then and the kids had missed two days of school to allow for our Zanzibar trip. We took the afternoon Wednesday to prepare for the return to school the next day. 

By Thursday morning we were back into what could be called a 'normal' routine again with us dropping the kids at schol then going to Gymkhana for a workout before beginning our work day. The big difference, however, is that we no longer have an office. That is very disorienting and we spent the first part of the day doing work on the computer at Gymkhana as the lounge there has nice tables to work at. Later we returned home and have been working to set up some ways of normalizing our officeless life. 

We are close to closing out our role as Reps for Tanzania and next week we will be cut off from the Tanzania email as the Kenya Reps. take it over. We will be starting our work as Ethiopia Reps in training at about the same time. The next two weeks are tranistion weeks with Kenya Reps coming to visit us on Monday for five days, then me traveling to Ethiopia the following week and staying for about 6 weeks. It all sounds very stressful when I write it out like that. 

As part of getting ready to transition out of Tanzania, I have been doing some last minute work on the Sunday School program at our church where I am coordinator. I have been trying to recruit a replacement, and yesterday ran a half day teacher training seminar to get some new teachers ready. We are hoping to relaunch in Feburary after a 10 month hiatus due to COVID. The logistics of restarting safely is tricky, and it is very hard to not be able to be a part of re-visioning. At this point I am still looking for a person to step up and take this on. 

I will stop here and will probably be writing the next entry from Addis Ababa in about two weeks. 

Closing, Closure, Christmas

An update is long overdue if I am going to get two entries in the month of December. I don’t know what has happened to life these days. It just seems that there is very little time to sit down and reflect on the recent past, much less write it down.

I am currently sitting in a restaurant at a hotel outside Nairobi. Our family is here for an East Africa MCC Representative gathering—something between a retreat and a team meeting. We have been here for two days. It is a stark contrast to Tanzania where we never wear a mask. Kenya is experiencing a COVID spike and mask requirements are extremely rigid. You can even be ticketed for driving in your car with another person while not wearing a mask. I am grateful for the policy because one of our group actually recently tested positive just prior to arriving here. The threat is real!

Crossing the border with valid COVID tests could be a story unto itself. Suffice it to say, trying to get a test in Arusha during the Christmas season that is ready on time for departure but not done too early was very tricky. We actually picked up our results only hours before we left. I was very happy to get four negative results back because Rebecca, Oren, and David, have been fighting a respiratory illness for the last 10 days, and it was worrying.

I will say less about what we are doing in Kenya and talk about the weeks leading up to our departure. It has been a very busy holiday season and a time of several ‘closure’ events around the official closing of our MCC Tanzania office.

The most memorable event of the past 3 weeks was definitely a Tanzania team retreat we did with our colleagues Chrispin and Lucia. As we approached the imminent closing of our office, Rebecca and I really wanted to have a last chance to spend some non-work time with our national staff and their families. With the decrease in tourism these days, it was not difficult to book a safari lodge. We booked one in the town of Mtu wa Mbu (means ‘mosquito river’) which is next to the entrance to Lake Manyara Game Park. This is a park Rebecca and I have been to once before. Not typical as game parks go in that it is along the side of a large lake and has a ‘rain forest’ appearance thanks to an underground aquafer that keeps a forest watered year-round. Because of this, it is not uncommon to see tree-climbing lions, who have adapted to this habitat.

We traveled in two cars. Chrispin drove Lucia and her family (husband Nicolas, and two girls, Esperanza and Novella) in the Landrover, our family drove our Harrier. We left in the afternoon and got to the hotel after dark. Chrispin was ahead of us and fortunately found the place first, because our family got lost in the town and had to be met at a gas station and led to the gate. (This is not uncommon because there are never road signs and most resorts are off on small dirt roads.)

We went to bed shortly after arrival since it was late, but did wake up to find the hotel charming in daylight. All of us had our own bungalows but met for meals in a common lodge/restaurant. There was also a small swimming pool that provided several hours of entertainment during the two days we were there.

The safari was the highlight though. Lucia and her kids had never been on safari in a game park. We rented a safari vehicle and spent the day driving around the park. I think it was especially fun for the girls who sat in the front seat next to the guide who gave them a lot of extra information about the flora and fauna we were seeing. He told us he had enjoyed seeing more Tanzanian tourists during the time of COVID because many could take advantage of lower fares to go on safari.

Although we did not see lions on the day we went on safari, that was about the only thing we did not see. One of the highlights of the Lake Manyara park is the astounding variety of birds. Rebecca, being a birder, was particularly enthralled. I was amazed that we saw at least 4 very different species of hornbill from the great hornbill that had a toucan like snout to the giant red-headed ground hornbill, big enough to devour small monitor lizards, as well as smaller varieties of these large beaked birds.

The big game included elephants, cape buffalo and giraffe, and every kind of antelope there is. We stopped for lunch by a hot spring and were amazed that boiling water could come straight out of the ground. Lake Manyara is very high this year because of last year’s rains so we could see many areas which had been flooded out and had to take several detours to keep from driving into the lake.

We spent most of the day in the park and returned in the early evening to spend at the pool. David has a great rapport with Lucia’s kids and they always enjoy playing together at team retreats.

We spent the last morning together with a devotional, singing, and prayer, (as it was a Sunday). We had a good time together and exchanged some gifts before heading down the road back to Arusha. It was a very meaningful time, and I felt the weight of finality as we remembered retreats in previous years—in Zanzibar the past two.

By this time we were fully into the Christmas season and there were a number of events around the holiday. We set up our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving as is our tradition. This is our fourth year of doing this in Tanzania so we have a way of decorating our house that we like. We are also big on Advent so we have an Advent wreath with calendars, an Advent calendar with chocolate, and a daily reading that we share each evening. We enjoyed setting up our tree together for the last time in Arusha.

One Saturday, we went to a Christmas fair at the school of our friends the Taylors. These Christmas fairs are a great place to pick up gifts for family, as they are loaded with boutiques. With COVID, this is the first year that we have no visitors arriving from the US to bring gifts from relatives. That usually makes Christmas quite extravagant. We all went with money and bought each other several gifts which meant we were able to make the Christmas tree look quite full once they were all wrapped. We could also buy gifts for the family in the US through Amazon, so exchanging gifts for the season was not entirely lost.

The fair ended with a pantomime play (in the British style) at the end of the evening. It was based on Aladdin and one of our friends, a teacher at the school named Ruth was in it. (She was the genie). It was quite funny. The only uncomfortable part was that it was indoors without masks or social distancing. Although we have not had COVID here in the past 4 months, it was definitely out of my comfort zone and I sat by a window.

The weekdays have been very busy with packing our office into boxes. This has involved going through many files and folders to decide what to keep and what to throw away. We hauled several boxes of records to our home, and I was able to read up on a number of archived items on the history of MCC in Tanzania. We have been here since the 1930s which makes our departure even sadder.

The fact that we have had to be closing our office has made home life difficult because our kids have been off school since the first week of December. Normally we can take some time off as well, but with the end so near we have needed to be at the office every day, all day—leaving them to their own devices (literally). Fortunately, they have been able to get together with friends from time to time.

The last day in the office was December 22^nd. We had made arrangements with the Tanzania Mennonite Church (KMT) to bring a truck to pick up all of our furniture and two vehicles (as our Constitution made them the beneficiaries of our assets in the event of dissolution.) They were able to clear the office and we signed over the vehicles in half a day. It was a surprisingly unemotional event, as we had been going the process of grieving for several months at this point. We did manage to get our lawyer to notarize all of the proper documents to make the dissolution legal. We still have some issues to resolve with the Revenue Authority (TRA) but we effectively closed on that day.

This was not a moment too soon for several holiday functions. Rebecca and I are active in our church and I preached the Sunday before, then me, Rebecca and David participated in a Christmas lessons and carols service at our church on the 23^rd. David, who can be quite fickle about participation, agreed to sing ‘Gabriel's Message’ with the choir humming in the background. It sounded great and you can see it on Rebecca’s Facebook page.

Other Christmas preparations included making Christmas cookies and cinnamon rolls for friends (a Sack family tradition). On Christmas eve we watched the Polar Express, which has been a family tradition the last few years since we usually do our Lessons and Carols on the 23^rd.

Christmas finally arrived. We had a very nice family Christmas morning with gift exchanges. We then headed off to church as Rebecca was leading music for the Christmas day service. I helped with singing as well, and Katie Taylor played flute. It was a very nice service.

The best gift of Christmas was a waffle iron for David. David loves to cook and make elaborate meals for himself and others. He also loves waffles, so there was a recipe included. Needless to say, we had waffles made by David on Christmas morning.

Last year we started a tradition of going to a resort in Usa River called River Trees for Christmas day dinner. We were joined by many friends from our small group including the Taylors and Ruth (the genie from the pantomime’s family). It was really fun, and the place had a Christmas dinner with real turkey and many activities for kids.

We had the day after Christmas for packing and picking up COVID test results, so it was a fairly undramatic day. We left the following morning in our Harrier and drove across the border to Kenya. The border crossing takes a lot more time with COVID checks. We got across and stopped at a mall in Nairobi on the way to the place where we were retreating. We picked up a few things and headed to the hotel. Driving after dark to a new place in Africa is always a challenge and one of my least favorite things, but we made it here safely. (Google maps is almost never right about the location or route.)

We will be here for about 5 days then drive back and finally get a short vacation in Zanzibar. More about that later.