Tumefika Tanzania!

We have now been in Tanzania for 15 days.  So much has happened that to try to catch up now would produce a long and probably boring blog post.  But perhaps I should touch on the highlights...

-We had safe travels (first week of September) including 30 total hours of travel.  Eight or so hours of that was spent in the London airport.
-We traveled with 11 check bags (10 of which were ours, one we brought on behalf of some friends), three carry-on size suitcases, and three backpacks.  All luggage and handbaggage arrived safely and intact with us!!
-We spent 11 days in Dar es Salaam doing a variety of tasks ranging from jetlag recovery to getting our Tanzanian Drivers Licenses to purchasing various household items to visiting friends to meetings with each of our department heads in Dar... the list goes on.  Basically we had a lot of logistics to attend to and added enough margin to keep sane in the process! 
-On September 17 we drove to Iringa, which is where we currently are living as we take a Swahili refresher course.  Our Swahili has returned MUCH faster than we expected and we are getting all sorts of encouragement from local people.  Perhaps more importantly we are gaining confidence that we will be able to communicate effectively here in this country and we continue to improve each day we are here.
-I finally learned the compound tenses!  I know this may not seem like a big deal, but the first time we were here I was more focused on the basics.  I was not able to understand these much less use them correctly, so this is bringing me a huge sense of accomplishment and encouragement! 

As you can see, it has been a busy few weeks.  We will try to keep you all posted, as this can be a great forum to post interesting stories and pictures between newsletters.

And now for some pictures...

 Micaiah was all smiles from the time our plane touched down in Dar es Salaam!  She is loving Tanzania and is happy to have met new and old friends along the way.

 This is where we stayed in Dar.  It is the SIL guesthouse and was very comfortable. We had to readjust to many things like not using tap water to brush our teeth and sleeping under mosquito nets.

 This is our new truck.  We bought it from another family that left TZ, so it was waiting for us when we arrived!

 There is an elephant in this picture.  You may not be able to see it, but you'll have to trust me. :)  One of the perks of driving from Dar to Iringa is passing through Mikumi National Park and seeing some wildlife along the way.  Micaiah had prayed that we would see elephants (rare to see from the road in this park!!), so this was a huge blessing!!

 Giraffes!! Hopefully you can see these better than the elephants.  :)

 Our home in Iringa.  We are staying in Banda #1 at Rivervalley Campsite.  It has been an adjustment to have all of our laundry hand-washed again.

Micaiah LOVES exploring here at the campsite!  She has been able to join some other kids (about) her age for part of her morning for school time and is hanging out with a Tanzanian lady to learn Swahili for the rest of the morning.  She is doing really well with her lessons and is consistently greeting and learning words!
 
-JLR

Ready to Go?

Surely I must be forgetting something.

We have our bags packed and are working on weighing them so they are just under our 50 pound allotment.  We're making sure they're labeled and that there are extra zip ties inside just in case they get search and need to be re-sealed.

But I must be forgetting something.

We leave tomorrow (lord-willing!!) and will spend today saying goodbye to family.  We spent a good portion of this past week traveling around and saying goodbyes to friends, but we're thankful to have almost all of our closest family here in town to visit and to say goodbye tomorrow.

But I still can't shake this nagging feeling that I'm forgetting something.

Our goal was to have some well-protected margin in our last two weeks here in St Louis.  We packed for 4-5 days straight and got a majority of it all done.  These past few days have just been finalizing the details, packing our hand baggage, etc.  It feels strange to have leftover time.  I think they call it "margin," but it's such a new concept to a type A person like me that it feels odd-- like I'm always forgetting something!  Once I'm able to shake this feeling, I'm confident that I will like this approach much better than the rush-around-like-a-chicken-with-my-head-cut-off approach... yeah, that wasn't working for me. :)

But what am I forgetting??

-JLR

Camp

We've had a lot of opportunities to share about our work in Tanzania, but one of my highlights this summer was sharing at Kings Kids Camp near St Louis, MO.  Preparing for this presentation was fun and exciting, and it got me wondering why we don't make all of our presentations so interactive and... well... interesting!!  How do you make linguistics interesting?  You don't talk about it!! Just kidding. :)  It's true that linguistics can be a very dry subject.  If you don't believe me, you should try reading Tim's Master's Thesis!  But somehow, knowing that our audience was 9-13 year-olds forced us to think outside the box!  And I'm glad we did. 

We did a monolingual demonstration where Tim played "Mafuru" the Tanzanian.  I had three translation helpers try to translate what he was saying, illustrating both the need for translators and the difficulties (on an elementary level) that they face.  They loved hearing us talk back and forth in Swahili as I translated for him, and I taught them a few Swahili words along the way.  My favorite part was later hearing that some younger campers debated for quite some time whether or not Tim was actually from Tanzania!!  I guess the blonde hair didn't give him away after all!  We also did a compare/contrast between an Ikizu alphabet chart and the English one... the kids really enjoyed that and were rewarded with candy for each difference they found.  We showed the obligatory maps and even had a video of what it was like to drive on Tanzanian "roads."  And finally we closed with a bit of cultural education-- I gave them all candy and then taught them the word Shikamoo (respectful greetings to elders) and had them present their candy to their counselors as they practiced the greeting.  Tying candy into any experience is sure to help them remember it!

This presentation was especially meaningful to me because I was 10 years old the first year I went to this camp.  Camp was where I first learned that Jesus was more than a character in stories-- that He was real and wanted to be my friend.  I spent three years as a camper and four years as a Jr/Sr counselor until finally I had too many scheduling conflicts between camp and short-term missions trips.  It's only one week in the summer, but somehow those who go to camp keep coming back for more year after year.  This experience was so nostalgic that we're already trying to figure out how to make sure we can be back in time for camp on a furlough-- it would be so special to have all three of us at camp together!

And now a picture... this was my last year at camp as a counselor (1999).  I'm in the back row, second from the left. :)

I only wish I had one from my first year at camp... or maybe I'm glad I don't!

-JLR

Psalm 42

 ¹ As the deer pants for streams of water,
   so my soul pants for you, my God.
² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
   When can I go and meet with God?
³ My tears have been my food
   day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
   “Where is your God?”
⁴ These things I remember
   as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
   under the protection of the Mighty One^[d]
with shouts of joy and praise
   among the festive throng.
 ⁵ Why, my soul, are you downcast?
   Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
   for I will yet praise him,
   my Savior and my God.
 ⁶ My soul is downcast within me;
   therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
   the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
⁷ Deep calls to deep
   in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
   have swept over me.
 ⁸ By day the LORD directs his love,
   at night his song is with me—
   a prayer to the God of my life.
 ⁹ I say to God my Rock,
   “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
   oppressed by the enemy?”
¹⁰ My bones suffer mortal agony
   as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
   “Where is your God?”
 ¹¹ Why, my soul, are you downcast?
   Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
   for I will yet praise him,
   my Savior and my God.

Eat Your Veggies

I eat several meals a day and spent time considering, planning, preparing, and cooking meals for my family.  Early this year, Tim and I started to change our diet for health reasons related to long-term stress and related hormone imbalances (see this previous post for more info).  In the past couple weeks, we've also been watching a few other new-to-us programs on similar issues:  Food, Inc. (a documentary on where food comes from in the US) and Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (a tv show on ABC about changing the way America eats). 

I can't believe how few veggies most Americans eat!  Ok, I can.  I never used to eat veggies myself, unless you counted the pea/corn mixture that would garnish my plate at dinner times throughout my childhood.  But for breakfast?  Or lunch?  No thanks-- I'll stick to my meat/carbs/dairy combinations, thank you very much!  I counted potatoes as my veggies-- mashed, boiled, roasted, or fried.  I wish I could blame this entirely on my parents, but honestly I didn't cook many veggies (other than potatoes) in my first years out of the house, either.  Maybe some frozen corn/peas, some potatoes, or a can of green beans, but not fresh real ingredients.  It's only really in the last few years (probably since moving to TZ in 2007 and not having access to the same foods!) that I've learned to cook and prepare a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.  And it's probably only in the past couple months that I've actually started to enjoy the fruits and veggies more than the processed foods.  Why is that?  My theory is that my body was literally addicted to food-related pleasures-- fats, sugars, refined flours, and a whole host of preservatives and chemicals!  It has taken removing them from my diet to actually see that there are better options.  And now, I'm just starting to really appreciate the whole, real foods for what they are-- high quality fuel for my body! 

I'm thankful for the new USDA Food Guide, which emphasizes filling half your plate at every meal with veggies (and fruit).  According to the CDC via this website, less than 1/3 of adults eat the recommended servings (2 fruit/3 veggies) every day.  Healthy eating takes intentionality.  It is an investment of time and money.  Eating equal amounts of veggies/fruits as carbs/protein really does take discipline and planning.  In addition to getting myself healthy, I also want to be a good example of healthy eating for my daughter.  I want her to grow up with healthy perceptions of food and to learn these healthy-eating principles now rather than having to re-learn them later.  How amazing would that be to grow up with an immune system that's built up by consuming nutrient- and antioxidant-rich foods??  That's an investment!  And if I can get healthier while helping my family grow stronger, then that's a real win-win!

-JLR