The Journey from Mbeya to Mpanda

It took us two days to drive from Mbeya to Mpanda with the Lang family.  The first day was Mbeya to Sumbawanga and took about 7 hours and 45 minutes.  But considering the number of potty stops we made, we're estimating driving time was more like 7 hours.  The second day was Sumbawanga to Mpanda and took us about 5 hours total.  Once we (and the big truck!) arrived, then it was time to unload everything and get some sleep. 

Tim and the truck after day 1 of driving.  We don't have pictures of post day 2 of driving that are accessible at the moment, so just imagine double the mud/dirt. 

 

This is the trailer that the Langs were pulling.  It had a number of our suitcases and action packers as well as a bunch of their stuff.  We also had a big Fuso truck (a lorry) that was carrying most of the Lang's furniture as well as our mattresses and large appliances.  But for some reason I didn't take pictures of that... sorry.

 X-- GIRAFFE CROSSING--X  Part of the road from Sumbawanga to Mpanda goes through Katavi National Park.  We were bummed to not see much wildlife until we came across this big group (herd? flock? troop?) of giraffes.  We had to wait until they moved out of the way.  There were also zebras and monkeys in this stretch of road. 

 The Langs were in front and waited for this lone giraffe to leave the road before we went on. :)

 The giraffes continued to watch us as we passed.  You can see a few zebra rear-ends in the back right of the picture, too.

 As we were leaving the park, there is a bridge that crosses over this river.  We said, 

"look, Micaiah, at the hippos!"  

"I don't see any hippos, Mama.  All I see is a bunch of big rocks... WAIT, those ARE hippos!!!!"

Indeed they were hippos!  Lots of them.  We were quite safe on the bridge, but what a sight!!

Now we're in Mpanda looking for a house and just itching to get all unpacked.  We don't have a lot of furniture already, so once we know where we'll be living we'll still have to have that made.  But in the meantime, we've been staying in a nice guesthouse (despite the loud music next door!) and will be moving in with the Langs in a day or two.  They're house is starting to come together and all their un-packing is going well.  We're thankful to have friends here who have made the long journey with us and will continue to journey with us in the coming years as we serve together in Mpanda.

-JLR

Rivervalley Campsite

We stayed at Rivervalley Campsite for about two weeks while we took a Swahili Refresher course.  One of the downfalls of our time there was bad internet connection, so there is a lot to post now.  But I think the pictures tell the stories better than I can...

Micaiah turned 6 1/2!!! I know, I know... it isn't THAT big of a deal except that it was also the 6 month mark since she had her ears pierced, which meant that she could now wear dangly earrings!  We celebrated by letting her wear a pair of my earrings as a special treat. :)

This is a sausage tree.  I was thankful to know enough Swahili to talk with the ladies who wash the laundry at Rivervalley.  They warned us to walk quickly under the tree so we didn't get hit by falling "sausages"!

This is what they look like on the ground-- Micaiah could hardly lift it!

This is Tim and I in class with our teacher, Kiobya.  There was another student (Simon) with us for the majority of our two week refresher course.

This is Micaiah in her Swahili class. :)  She did informal Swahili with one of the caregivers the first week, then the second week she joined some of the other kids (and their tutor!) in a class with a teacher, Joyce.  As you can see, they may have had a bit more fun than us-- they even got to play hangman!

This is Micaiah's class. Laura (the tutor), Luke, Micaiah, Nikki, and Joyce (the Swahili teacher).

This is Joyce (Micaiah's Swahili teacher).

This is Micaiah with Polly.  Polly is the laziest guard-dog known to man. :)

 Micaiah had an accident while we were at Rivervalley.  It gave us a good scare, actually.  She was hopping around on these stumps when she changed directions and slipped and hit her head on one of them.  She had a big bump on her head and-- more frightening-- the symptoms of a concussion.  She was threw up several times, was really sleepy, had somewhat blurry vision, some slurred speech, etc.  But thankfully we were able to get some good medical advice and didn't need to use our emergency evacuation plan!  Micaiah woke up in the morning as if nothing had happened.  Praise God for His protection and for healing our little girl!

This is Harold.  Harold is a very large tortoise that was found at Rivervalley.  The kids were given the big responsibility of taking him food every day-- a job that they loved and took very seriously. 

 These are the three very responsible tortoise-feeders. :)

 

This is Laura.  Laura came to Tanzania to help another family with their homeschool/lessons while the parents were in language school.  Laura (and the other family) graciously agreed to let Micaiah join them for school time and helped supervise Micaiah's modified homeschool assignments while we were in Iringa.  We enjoyed many laughs with Laura and these two especially became very close!  There were some very tearful goodbyes when we left.

Tim on the zipline at a nearby campsite!!! After a decent hike to this part of the river, we enjoyed going across and back on this awesome contraption.  So much better than a bridge!

Micaiah and I went together.  Safety first.  She's quite adventurous and thought this was as good as or better than the roller coasters she went on this summer at Six Flags. :)

Don't worry, this is just a posed picture.  I put her out over the air, but she was only a foot or so from the platform. :)

We really enjoyed our time in Iringa.  It was good to see our friends Will and Amanda again and to get to know their daughter Carrie as well.  It's nice to visit places that we have already been and share those memories together as a family.

-JLR

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