For Halloween

This year for Halloween I went as a drowned rat. It poured all day and it's no fun taking public transportation in that, plus walking to and from the bus stands; there's just no way not to get totally drenched. The people at work were so kind as to tell me that they didn't like my hair like that (wet and a total mess). So kind of them.

I also think I might've gotten herpes from the daladala I took into work. Yeah, a trick and treat, I guess.

Happy Halloween, all!

On a Positive Note

I feel bad that I've left that negative blog post up for so long. Plus, I've been really wallowing in self-pity for a while on these here internets, what with no water, no electricity, car accidents, etc. etc. So, I thought I'd be good to focus on some things that I'm thanksful* for.


Let's just start with this guy. Well, girl actually. She's the sweetest. I wish we could have her in the house so she could sit by my feet all the time. But she wouldn't sit still and she'd bring flees in with her and it would be all kinds of disasters. So, outside she stays. But she sure is a sweetie!

I can't believe it, but it's LESS THAN 2 WEEKS TILL MY PARENTS COME! What!? I'm so excited, I can't even think about it. They'll be our first (of hopefully many**) victims visitors to come. We'll go on safari, which'll be amazing, and just relax and catch up. I can't wait for them to see the house and to meet Smokey! We're so lucky to have such a supportive network of family and friends and I appreciate so much that people are willing to spend the time and money to come see us.

We still don't have regular water but it's taught me what a valuable gift it is. I am so lucky to have access to clean-ish water and I am so happy when I they turn it on for a few hours at night and we can fill our buckets again. I don't want to jinx it, but we've had water AND power for the past two days, which means we've been able to take hot showers again. They're lovely and I'll never take them for granted again.

Since we've been living here I've had a young woman who helps out each week with washing the clothes by hand. About a month ago I asked her if she'd be willing to stay a little longer and clean the house. I cannot tell you what a huge help is it to me. She does such a wonderful, thorough job. And every time she comes, I want to give her a big hug. Instead, I pay her, which to her is probably better for her since she's an 18-year old who is struggling through school and trying to save money so she can help her sick mother. I guess my hugs can't help in that arena. But, seriously, I'm so grateful to have the help. Today I had to work and it was just a wonderful thing to come home to a clean house because I was exhausted and certainly in no mood to do it myself. And I appreciate that we have the ability to help her out with her family. So, yeah, it's a win-win, for sure!

We've made some headway on the yard. The veggies have been planted in the garden for a few weeks, but we've gotten no rain until this weekend. I hope that after a few more days like this, things'll be growing a bit better.



I've also done a little landscaping here and there.





I put a bunch of pictures up on Flickr with the new progress. So stop by to see them if you're interested. Chris and a young guy who lives in the neighborhood are building the gazebo this weekend, so hopefully we'll be done with most of the major work soon.

*Originally this was a typo and I was going to fix it. But then I decided to leave it because it makes me sound like a Tanzanian speaking English. So I sound authentic.

**When are you coming?

Bureaucracy is not Just an American Thing

Okay, I admit it. I hit a tree with my car. Well, it wasn't my car exactly. It was the community car, which I drive almost exclusively at the moment. Anyways, it was a stupid mistake. I was backing out at work; the tree was in my blind-spot; I had a carload full of noisy people who were annoying me and making me late; and in my haste to get out of there and go home, I failed to see the ill-placed tree and swiped the side of the car. It's still drivable, but definitely something that should be fixed.

So after a few days I go into our insurance agent to see if they will cover the repairs. I learn to my surprise that they will and, even better, our insurance will not go up! BUT! I have to have a police report. So, on Monday I trek down to the police station to file said report. They ask me to come back the following day, understandable because their police commissioner just died last weekend and things were in a bit of chaos. So, I give my condolences and leave.

Next morning (Tuesday), I go back in. I talk to a few officers. No one seems to want to take the report. They say come back at 2:00 to talk to their boss. Fine, whatever. I kill a few hours, come back a little after 2:00. The boss is in. He listens to my story and starts to ask me a million questions, mostly centering on the fact that he can't verify that I have collision insurance. I'm still not really sure why that would matter because as far as I know you don't need car insurance to file a police report for an accident. But I humor them. I leave, go down the street to the insurance agent to get a printout of my insurance info. The agent gives it to me and confirms that the police are just giving me the runaround and that they do not need my insurance information. Back to police station. I've lost track of time now, but an hour or so later, several police officers later, much talking and debating, shuffling of paperwork, sighs from police officers, people laughing at and mocking me, I give a statement. A little before 4:00, Chris, who has kindly accompanied me along this process thus far, has to go to work so he leaves. A little after 4:00, I'm still being shuffled back and forth from one office to another. The main police officer can't get any of his employees to come out and do a visual inspection of my car. I find this unfathomable and I can't figure out why it was such a joke that everyone in the station was laughing at me and no one wanted to help me.* So, the head police guy escorts me outside, takes a look at my car, asks me about all the other dents and scrapes that I can't explain because it's an inherited car and I have no idea what happened to it prior to my using it. We go back inside and he begins to inform me that we have to go to "the scene of the accident," which is over 1/2 hour drive away, so that he can sketch what the scene looks like. At this point I completely lose it. I tell him under no terms am I driving him out to the scene where I hit A TREE! I suggest that I draw the map myself. He says, no they have to draw the map because I'm not a police officer. I finally convince him that if I explain the layout to the other police officer,  he can draw the scene. Reluctantly, he agrees. Fine. But the police officer wants to do it tomorrow. Again I get very animated and say that I am not coming back tomorrow. There is no reason why we cannot finish this today! He tries to explain that we can't finish it today and I try to explain that I'm not coming back tomorrow. He takes me back to the head PO and the head PO says that they can't finish the report today because it's after 4:00 and their secretary is gone for the day. She's the one who rights up the reports. That makes sense to me, so I say, fine, I'll come back tomorrow to pick up the report but I'm finishing my statement today, including the map of the scene. I am sent back to the original PO and he hands me a piece of paper, asking me to draw the scene. Didn't he just tell me I couldn't do that!? Whatever, I draw the scene, explain it to the police officer, confirm one more time from both OPs that I can pick up the report tomorrow (Wednesday). They say yes, around 11:00 or 12:00 and I get the regular POs phone number so I can call before I come in.

Wednesday rolls around. I go to work since I've barely been in there the past 2 days due to all this running around. At about 2:00 (giving the POs sufficient time to have everything ready) I text the PO. He actually calls me back (unheard of!) and says, yes, everything is ready, come down to the station. I confirm, "Can I come down now? It's there and ready?" "Yes," he says. He's not at the station, but the main PO is and I can get it from him. I leave work, drive down there, get to the office, the main PO is not there. They tell me come back later. I literally put my head on the desk on top of my folded arms and try to explain in broken Swahili that all I'm doing is picking up paperwork. It's not sitting in a file somewhere? No, they explain, it's in the main guy's office and he's in a meeting. They give me his phone number so I can call him later before I return. I go outside to my car and immediately text him. He texts back and say we can meet tomorrow.

Thursday I am busy with work and just can't stand the thought of going into the police station again, so I skip it.

Friday, I text the main PO in the morning and say I am coming in to pick up the statement. He says that's fine but not now, later. I text him later, he says not now, maybe in another hour. I text him an hour later and say I'm coming in. I go in, wait 15 minutes to speak to him. He actually gives me my police record. But he is giving an original. He needs me to make a copy to give to the insurance agent and bring back the original. "Right," I think. There ain't no way I'm coming back here. But, sure, I humor him. I think of giving him my 2 sense because during the time of my "interrogation" he kept asking why I didn't report the accident to the police when it happened. "THIS is why I didn't report it to the police!" I want to say. "There's no way I'd come in here unless I absolutely have to!" But I think better of it, wish him a good day and say nothing of my frustrations. I walk down to the insurance company, present my paperwork and the agent informs me that the police didn't give me the vehicle inspection report and they also mistyped the vehicle tag number on the report. Seriously!!?? I tell her under no uncertain terms am I going back there. She looked at the car and took pictures. She knows I had the accident, why do the police have to verify it? And clearly the mistake on the other report is just a typo. Can't she just cross it out and initial it?? She explains it's procedure. Yeah, yeah, I get that. I walk down to the police station. AGAIN. Find the main PO outside shooting the breeze with some other officer. He immediately starts talking in Swahili and giving me a hard time about speaking in English. He says I know Swahili, why am I not using it? I try to explain (in English) without crying or punching him in the gut that this procedure is frustrating enough. I'm not going to use my limited Swahili to try to communicate on something like this. They give me a hard time for another minute or two but I think it was getting obvious how angry I was getting, so the main PO takes me inside, another 10 minutes later I'm leaving with the completed and corrected paperwork.

Now, everything is in the hands of the insurance company. Who knows how long that'll take and what other hoops I will have to jump through, but the agent called me yesterday afternoon to say she forgot to get a copy of my drivers license and can I come in to give it to her. Luckily, I was able to save myself another trip into town and emailed it to her instead.

Sheesh. Who knew I would miss plain-old American bureaucracy?

*The insurance agent said she thought they were treating it like a joke because maybe they suspected I was drunk when it happened. Still, really classy to have everyone in the waiting area in hysterics over someone who comes in to get help. I can only imagine what it's like for a victim of a crime (a traumatized rape victim, for example) when they come in to "get help." What a humiliating and disempowering process.

File this Under "Eff You, TZ"

Seriously, Tanzania? You're going to take our water away for 2 days (one of many other multiple-day periods of having no water)? Fine. Not happy about it, but we'll work through it.* But now you've taken away our electricity too? What the hell? I mean, this is certainly not the first time this has happened here. But I'm at the end of a shitty week. We've barely had water for 2 weeks. I wanna punch someone. Chris better watch out.

*Until our reserves run out, then we're effed.

I'm Such an Over-Achiever

I just voted! You know what they say, "Get out early." Done and done!

True Fact: In Africa if you plant basil you grow a toad

Do you think if we ground him up with pine nuts and olive oil that he'd make a tasty pesto?

I've Kinda Lost Count

But I'm pretty sure that within the past 24 hours we've had at least 12 avocados fall off the tree in our yard. That's not including the, on-average, 3 per day that have been falling for the past 1/2 week. It's raining avocados, y'all!

What a Difference a Year can Make

It occurred to me somewhat recently that it's been about a year since this whole adventure started. Granted, there was a lot of background work that started before a year ago. But we pulled up our stakes in South Carolina and started the orientation process in NY a year ago at the end of September, so it's a mile marker.

As I look back on the pictures from a year ago, pictures in our house in South Carolina, pictures from our farewell tour, even pictures from NY, and it seems like it was a lifetime ago. I wonder if a normal year feels like that. If I were still sitting in my house in SC, still working the same job, still hanging out with the same friends, would I still feel like a year is a lifetime? I can't say. But at this point, my "old life" seems like light-years away.

The past year has been full of highs and lows. We've finally fulfilled our dream of living in Africa, but it's been a tough adjustment. In some ways it's been way tougher than we ever could've anticipated and in other ways (ways we anticipated it being hard) it has been a breeze.  But I'm super proud of where we are right now (physically and emotionally) and I'm psyched to see what we'll be doing in another year.

Taken upon our arrival in NY

Taken just a few weeks ago.

Yard Project Weekend

Day 1 down of our weekend to get the garden closer to...well...an actual garden. I'm pretty pleased with our progress.

We bought a car-load full of flowers. 19 flowers in all, including 2 hydrangea (which are Chris and my wedding plant) and a beautiful hibiscus, and it was around $30 US dollars. Most plants were less than a $1.50 each.







I dug out the mounds for where our veggies will go and soon these little guys will go in the ground.


Basil, sage, zucchini, squash, shasta daisy ready to go in the ground.


It kinda looks like we've got a bunch of dead bodies buried in the back. Maybe it'll deter any thieves that try to come in the yard again. (I doubt it.)

In other yard news, Chris got the clothesline up and running today. We had this built and then he put it in the ground earlier in the week. It's wiggled a little bit, which caused the lines to droop, but we'll fix that. This makes life so much easier because we were drying laundry in our garage and it took several days to dry and everything would smell moldy and musty afterwards.


Yes, those are my underwear. I'm just putting it all out there for you guys. That's how devote I am to giving the real scoop about life in Africa.

In non-garden news: You can never predict how a day is going to go here in Tanzania. And one of our most regular (unpleasant) surprises revolve around constant water issues. Our water is constantly having periodic outages. On 3 separate occasions we have had busts in the main pipe leading to the house, all of which Chris has skillfully fixed.* And the faucets in the house constantly need to have the washer replaced because they just leak all the time. Today we couldn't get our kitchen sink to turn off. Thanks to the assistance of our neighbor, a fellow MKLMer, we got a new faucet which is really fancy (for here). I'm stoked!



Let's see if we can keep this trajectory up and have some of our plants actually in the ground by the end of the day tomorrow.


*Do you see a theme emerging of how skillful my husband is becoming?

Twin Sisters/Coworkers

I really like the people I work with. I feel so lucky to have smart, funny, nice people to share my days with. Kadijah is a really good worker. She's just starting our her career and she is a single mother to a young son. She and I laugh all the time, especially because she's always stealing my pens at work. Kadijah did a great job of planning and facilitating an annual meeting this Thursday and Friday. On Thursday we both showed up in traditional cloths and she wanted to take a picture of us.



I said we looked like twins, but I don't think she was buying that story.

Work Update

I've not really talked too much about work lately so I thought I'd give an update on what I've been doing in the office. I mentioned all the way back in June that I was working for an NGO that is a women's rights organization. After being at Kivulini for several months the Executive Director and I have developed a job description for myself and over the next few more months I'll come up with a formal work plan. I am serving as a Technical Adviser for Programs. I'm pleased with what we came up with because it plays to my strengths and I think the organization needs a lot of help in this area. They do really good work, but they're not so good at monitoring, supporting, tracking or evaluating the programs that they run. So I'm going to be helping them do a better job at this, which is important so they can continue to improve their programs and services to improve women's rights in this part of Tanzania. Also, if they can prove their programs are successful, they'll be able to get more funding to do even more programs and potentially become more of a global player. There aren't many other organizations in TZ as big as Kivulini so I think they have a lot of potential. That is, if they can get some of their core operations in order.

Up until this point I've mostly been doing very unglamorous, but very necessary work alongside their new Executive Director. I really like the new ED. He's about my age, so he's young and he's got a lot of energy and great ideas. I think he and I think alike in our approach to our work and we work well together, which is something I definitely appreciate. For the past few weeks I've been spending a lot of time working on the organization's strategic plan. It's boring work, but very necessary to help set the course for the organization over the next few years. But, a few weeks ago I was able to break away from the office and attend a training that we were running for local leaders.


The ED facilitates a portion of the training. I'm thinking "What the hell is he saying??"

Here's something majorly different between America and TZ: in America you have to schedule a training months in advance, notify your participants, have them RSVP, line up a venue, etc. Here? Nope. I didn't even know about this training until a day or 2 beforehand. I asked if that was unusual and they said no. No one plans ahead. They just called all the participants a day or 2 beforehand and said they were holding the training. People are so excited about getting more education and information to help them in their jobs, so they'll come. And they did!


Participants breaking out into work groups.

This training was for local leaders (mostly Ward Tribunal Officers) who are the first responders when there is an incident (such as domestic violence) in the community. We work extensively with these people in 4 wards in Mwanza to help them know how to respond to and refer victims of VAW. This particular training was talking about the overlap between HIV/AIDS and VAW. Victims of VAW are at a significantly higher risk of contracting HIV/AIDS because they have no power to control when they have sex or if they use protection. Also, women who are HIV+ are at higher risk of violence for a number of reasons, not the least of them is that the husband/boyfriend thinks she contracted the virus from an affair and retaliates with violence (this is despite the fact that he very well may be the one having an affair). 




The training was really interesting for me to attend. I love being out in the community, so I was happy to just be doing that. I still don't understand a large portion of what's being said but I realized very quickly that these community members didn't know a lot about HIV/AIDS. This really surprised me because I was under the impression that Tanzania had received a lot of education on the subject. Obviously not because the participants were coming out with a lot of the old standard stereotypes. I can only imagine how little uneducated, rural people know if this was what educated community leaders knew! That just makes them more at risk. Needless to say, the training was a good one and people left with more knowledge and tools to help women in their community.

So, that's the scoop for now. So far I'm happy with where I am work-wise and I hope it will only continue to pick up as I'm there longer. It's so important for us to be doing something we feel is making a contribution. We have to feel like we are doing something that was important enough to leave our family, friends, home, community, etc. and move all the way across the globe. So far, this is a good start.

The Yard Project

We've* been working and working and working in the backyard to get it ready for planting our garden. You might remember I planted some seedlings a few weeks ago. Well, the work has paid off because check out what's coming up!



Oh wait! That's not a plant. That's Smokey!



Well, that's almost as good as plants. Dumb dog.

*By "we" I mean Chris.

A Few Unrelated things

I've been meaning to post a bunch of things. Really, I have. About work. About fun things we've been doing. But I seem to barely have much time these days. And, the electricity's been out a lot lately. We just went through 14 hours with no power. That's following this past weekend when we had either no power or no water (or both) for large stints of time. It's not unusual for those things to go out, but not with this much regularity. Good thing our fridge didn't have much in it. I only had to dump a few things. Luckily, the cookies I made last night aren't refrigerated so those were unhurt. Thank God for that! ;)

Unrelated to this: today we received our absentee ballots via email. I can't believe it's that time of year! September is almost over?? Wow! I'd take a picture of the ballot and post it here, but I'm afraid that might not be legal or something. But it's pretty cool.

Lastly, here's a sneak peak of something we treated ourselves to this past week. We just needed a little R&R. It was amazing!

Mkulima

Thanks to some packages from the States, today I was able to start a few seedlings for our garden.


Basil, oregano, sage, dill, cosmos, daisies, sunflowers, gourds, and rosemary.

I don't have any fertilizer or anything yet so I just used the dirt from the ground. We'll see if anything takes.

Ordination in Mabatini

A few months ago Chris and I started attending church in a parish that is run by the Maryknoll Fathers. It's a little further away for us, but we liked the parish. It's got a lively congregation and it's really nice to see our brothers in community, the MK Fathers, each week. Plus, it's easier to understand a westerner who speaks Swahili than a native speaker. So, if we're lucky we can understand a little more of the homily! I've posted pictures of me in the past when I was hanging out with the parish women's group making chapati.

Anyways, this Wednesday the parish was celebrating the ordination of a new priest. Now, I've never been to an ordination in the States, so I have nothing to compare this to. But I'm pretty sure that our ordinations are NOTHING like this! Here in TZ the ordinations are celebrated individually in the home parish of the new priest rather than in one large celebration at the Cathedral. And when I say celebrated, I mean CELEBRATED! There were close to 3000 people at the Mass.


They set up a bunch of tents to accommodate the number of people.

We were considered "special guests" (either because we're foreigners or because we're Maryknoll family, probably both) and got "chai" beforehand. Chai consisted of tea or coffee, chapatis, mandazis (which are friend dough), boiled egg, and meat soup. Probably about 100 other people were considered special guests as well and got the same treatment. I heard a rumor that all the other guests got mandazis and chai, but I'm not sure.

After chai we headed to the church for Mass, which was held outside in an open area that has a roof, in order for everyone under the tents to see the alter.


We sat in the section for Sisters. I hope no one noticed that we weren't wearing habits!

Mass was about 3 hours long. It was full of wonderful music sung by the choir who had matching outfits and fancy hairdos. A kids group did liturgical dances during every song.


The kids must've been so tired because they spent almost the whole day dancing!

The Bishop said Mass along with probably at least 35 other priests. At one point, all of them came up and gave the new priest a big hug one-by-one.


The Bishop blessing the new priest.

After Mass was over all 3000 people were invited to come up and shake the hand of the new priest and congratulate him. There was a guy on a microphone the whole time shouting "Welcome! Welcome! Greet the new priest! Shake his hand!" We sat there for a little while, but then made our way to the back and up into the priests' residence where we discovered lunch was already being served. Everyone who attended the Mass was invited to eat dinner either in the residence or outside. It was such a well-ordered affair and there was so much food! We had the choice of rice (2 kinds), chicken, beef (I think), fish, veggies, watermelon, beer, water, soda. I was in such awe of how organized* everything was and how smoothly things seemed to move. In a country where the systems are a complete anomaly to me, this seemed like a big deal.

After lunch they had a huge gift-giving ceremony where people from each community were invited to present the new priest with a gift. The gift was announced by loudspeaker so all could hear. At this point it was getting on into the afternoon so we snuck out**. I don't know how late everything went that day, but when we left our car was stuck in the back of the parking lot so we had to leave it until the following day.

I heard that the following day the parish had another, more intimate gathering of about 300 people from just the parish. They had another celebration where gifts were danced up the aisles to the new priest and a snake dancer was there to entertain the crowd. Then afterwards the family hosted another big reception, resembling a wedding reception, at the yacht club. We had to work that day so unfortunately we skipped out on these festivities.

I have to say, at first when I was attending the ordination on Wednesday I kind of struggled a little bit in my mind about how to reconcile such extravagance in the midst of a country that has such poverty. I couldn't help but continue to dwell on how much  money must've been spent to put such an elaborate affair together and wonder if the money could've been better spent on some community outreach project. But then I realized how much joy and pride this gave the community. Most Tanzanians don't celebrate birthdays or holidays in the way that we do in America. They don't give and receive gifts or have big elaborate meals. Therefore, they don't get much opportunity to celebrate. And some of the people in this community don't have two coins to rub together on most days. They don't have much they can take pride in. This was something that brought the community together and gave them a sense of purpose and accomplishment. It's something major to be proud of and you could certainly see their pride shining through, whether it was in the matching outfits of the dancers and choir or in the work and preparation that went into planning the day. I feel like celebrations like these are so important in everyone's life. We should all have days where we can pull out all the stops, eat a fabulous meal, have fellowship with those we love. I live for days like this myself, so why shouldn't everyone?


*Each church in TZ has small community groups that do weekly Bible study and provide support to each other. For this ordination I think that each group was responsible for helping to raise money for the food and they had to prepare and serve the lunches to people in their community. This contributed to the orderliness of the day.

**There is no such thing as sneaking out when you're a white person in an all black country. Everyone watched us as we tried to be stealthy and sneak away. I always find it kinda funny when we try to be sneaky and it totally backfires.

In the Dark

We lost power last night around 3AM and haven't gotten it back yet. Apparently bugs (or wadudu in Swahili) ate through the bottom of the pole and it fell over. Wonder how long it'll take to fix it. We've got less than an hour on our computer so we've got a little while until panic phase sets in. The Reids with no computer/internet for the night!? WHAT WILL WE DO!!!??

UPDATE: About 30 minutes after I wrote this post the power came back on, which clearly indicates that every time we lose power I should write a blog post and it'll trigger it to come back. Glad I worked that out!

That Kind of Day

Friday are supposed to be my days to work from home. But because we have an all-day meeting tomorrow, the girl that does our wash on Saturdays has come today to do it instead. We put up the clothesline outside knowing that the cement was still not completely set from when the workers installed the spikes at the top of our wall earlier this week. The clothesline is attached to the wall. But I was hoping it would stay. Of course, just as Jackie was putting the last piece of clothing up, the wall broke, the clothesline fell, and all the clothes fell into the dirt. So I helped her pick everything up, feeling sorry that I couldn't adequately express my sympathy as she re-rinsed everything. Then I fixed the clothesline inside the garage and told her to just put the stuff up in there. As she was 1/2 way through hanging the stuff, the line broke and 1/2 of what she had just rewashed and rehung fell to the dirty floor again! The garage floor is even more dirty than the dirty on the ground, so Jackie had to totally rewash those things that fell. I feel so sorry for her! And, I've not managed to get any work done so far. Let's see what the rest of the day brings.

Just Another Day in Mwanza

I went to the hairdresser today and got my first real haircut.



Boy was it sorely needed! While I was at the hairdresser I also picked up some lettuce. Because, really, who doesn't buy lettuce while you're getting your hair done?*

In other news for the weekend, Chris and George finished putting up the privacy fencing around the yard. Check out how good it looks!



I hate to block out the outside world because I like looking outside my window and seeing Africa. But at the same time, people are always looking at us through the fence and either staring or asking for something, usually both. I just feel like we're always in the spotlight, so I really am excited to have this privacy and feel a little more comfort in our home and outside in our yard.

Smokey's not too happy about the new fence, though. Look at what happened to her "secret" escape route into the outside world full of trash and bones to eat.



She's been sulking all day today. So to take out her frustrations she's helping Chris with some heavy yard work.





Thanks, Smokey. Our garden beds will be so much nicer because of your assistance today. 

*Lettuce is kind of hard to find (or at least found in out of the way places) so when the guy came into the saloon** selling veggies I took the opportunity! And it was cheap too--500 shillings for 2 heads (that's like 35 cents). They were small, but they usually run closer to 1000 shillings for 1, so I feel like I made out in the deal.

**Yes, I said saloon. The Tanzanians call salons saloons. Or at least, that's what they often write on the outside of their shop. Cracks me up every time.

Where's August?

I can't believe that August is almost 1/2 way over! It seems like life has just been picking up and I've got so much to do and little time to do anything. So, yes, this is an apology for not posting more this month.

Burglary update:
Looks like I'm not going to get my computer or Blackberry back. So, if people can please email me your phone numbers, physical addresses and birthdays (for you and your kids if you have any) because I lost all of that. Chris and I are slowly adjusting to being a one computer family. Life is tough, I know. But that has been a tougher adjustment than I think either of us would've thought! ;)

Smokey is doing great. Last week she gained her full apatite back and then-some. She's back to her super chipper, loving ways. We're hoping to increase our wolf pack by one more this week because we're on the lookout for a cat. We've not gotten one yet, but we have some feelers out so I think any day now... That will add to our mental well-being, I hope, because it'll give us a little fuzzy one to cuddle with and pet, which totally lowers stress levels.

Job update:
I've started working full time at Kivulini and it's been great so far. There's not much to report on that front yet. I've mostly been learning about the work they do and assessing where I can make a difference. I think I'm joining the organization at a good time because their Executive Director is transitioning out. The new ED is young and full of really good ideas. He seems very smart and on-point. I will most likely be a technical adviser to help get the organization a little more streamline in the way of programming, evaluating, monitoring, documenting, etc, which will help them get more funding and provide more valuable services in the region to prevent violence against women.

Fun stuff:
We've been busy having new Tanzanian friends over for dinner. One friend who lives in our neighborhood and also works with Chris came for a visit last week and brought her 2 kids over. We made chilli and a TON of french fries. The kids had a great time playing with some toys that were sent from the States.


Chris wasn't happy that the boy had his nemesis printed on his shorts. SHARKS! Ha ha!

Chris and I went to Musoma this weekend to visit fellow missioner, Liz. It was great to get away from the stresses of the big city and our life here and relax for a few days. Liz always rolls out the red carpet for us and it was great seeing her. We also got a chance to help out with Lisa's Pride and see the kids who we met back when we were at language school. It was great to see them again! They're such a great group of kids.


Playing with sidewalk chalk sent from the States


A message from the kids of Lisa's Pride




Liz and one happy looking girl. She used to be really surly, but seems to be warming up to our group a lot! She's a cutie!

New Beginnings

Over a week has passed since the burglary and I finally feel like our life is back to being about more than just going to the police station. We're still checking in with the investigator from time to time and on Monday we went in to claim some of our belongings that they found. I KNOW! Right? How crazy is that!? I've had plenty of things stolen from me over the years, but I don't recall ever getting much back. And we were able to take the stuff home with us that day. They just took a picture of the things, had Chris sign a statement saying he received them and that was that.

While we were at the station they brought in the burglar who, unbeknownst to us, they had in custody. The investigator simply left the room for a minute, came back with this kid and said "this is your thief." It was very strange to sit in the same room with the kid (well, he was probably around 21-ish), look him in the eyes and hear him tell how he came into our house and bedroom while we slept. He didn't even seem one bit remorseful about it. He had this cocky half smile on his face the whole time. Really creepy.

So, from here, they'll bring the guy to court. Who knows how long that'll take or how long of a sentence he'll get. I wonder if we'll still be living here by then. In the States it often takes years even for things to go to trial; not sure if it's like that here. The police think that by the end of this week or early next week they will have recovered the last of the big items that were taken. So I guess all there is to do is get back into the rhythm of life here.

Which brings me to the real point of this blog post--the fact that we still really don't have much of a rhythm to life here in Tanzania. It seems like we've constantly had stumbling blocks ranging from slow/non-existent ministries, illness, and burglary. It seems like every time we're all set to start actually "doing something," we get set back. Chris and I have talked multiple times recently about longing for the time when we had jam-packed schedules and too many activities to fit into one day. We feel like we're having good experiences, but that we're not really "doing" anything.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks that I've faced over the past few months is on the work-front. Several friends in the States have asked me over email recently what I was doing again work-wise and apologized for not remembering. My response has been that they probably don't remember because I've not really said what I'm doing. In fact, I don't think I've even written anything on my blog about my work all summer long. That's because slowly but surely the placement I was originally given (at Caritas) has fallen apart. I won't go into the details here (boring!) but the long-and-the-short of it is that there was no funding, no staff, no projects, and unfair and unachievable expectations of me, to name just a few things. So officially as of this week I am no longer working there. It all ended amicable (at least I think it did) and I am sure that no one there was surprised to see me go. I'd transitioned to part time status a few months ago and haven't even gone in over the last few weeks because there's been no work.

So, now I feel like I'm a little bit at a crossroads. I am hoping that tomorrow I can meet with the executive director of the organization I want to work full time with. I'm assuming that they'll happily take free labor, but I really, really hope that they can find a way to put my talents and skills to work appropriately. Sometimes I feel like it's always extremes here-either I'm expected to rescue an entire organization (which is just a little over my head), or I'm only seen as a good English speaker to write and edit documents. I feel like there's got to be something in between, something I can do here that makes me feel competent, yet also challenges me and keeps me interested and wanting to do more.

So, here's to yet another new beginning. I'm pretty ready to transition out of continual "new beginnings" and into "smooth sailing," so hopefully this is the start of that.