Birthday Festivities

30 isn't so bad... but turning 30 in rural Tanzania where there are only a handful of westerners and little to no access to shopping?  Now that takes a little getting used to!  Tim and Micaiah did a good job, though, and I am happy to say that I felt properly celebrated and sufficiently embarrassed, and that's the point of a birthday, right? :)

An overview of my day...

Sleeping in!  Yay for an extra hour of sleep!  Tim had already asked what I'd want for breakfast, so we planned ahead for a pineapple-banana-kefir shake topped with my homemade peanut butter granola.  Yum! 

Leisurely morning.  The power went off shortly after Tim made the aforementioned shake, so that slows things down a bit.  Normally our day consists of a full morning of school with some activities carrying over into the afternoon.  Instead, I did about an hour of school with Micaiah and let the non-essentials go for the day.  I also enjoyed a leisurely, hot bath (once the power returned and we were able to use the hot water kettle!).  It sounds mundane, but since we normally take cold showers in the mornings, I assure you that this was quite a treat!

Messages, Messages, Messages.  I'm almost entirely certain that Tim did a bit of work to remind people that it was my birthday and urge friends to post thoughtful, encouraging messages to me.  I got more than a hundred emails and messages on facebook!  Not only that, but many of them were exceptionally meaningful and heartfelt-- I appreciated all who took the time to give me the gift of encouragement on my big day!

Gifts.  Somewhere between the homeschooling and bathing and breakfasting (that's a word, right?), I got gifts.  Micaiah and Tim gave me a metal stand to hang some of my mugs on (yay!), some pringles, some chocolate, and-- the best surprise-- an episode of CHOPPED!!  It's my favorite tv show, and a completely surprise gift.  I'd never have imagined that the internet would have been good enough to download something like this through i-tunes.  Oh, and I may be forgetting two of my favorite gifts-- Micaiah picked out a beautiful bouquet of silk flowers (!) and the shop-owner of our favorite shop in town gave me a musical, light-up birthday card!  It was so sweet!  Nothing like a bit of Tanzanian flare to spice up a birthday. :)  Don't worry, pictures are below...

Food.  Can't be a birthday without more good food!  I already mentioned the shake and granola for breakfast.  For lunch we had beans and rice with our workers and talked about birthday traditions here in Tanzania (which are minimal).  I had made my cake the day before-- a strawberry (read: pink! yuck!) box cake that my friend Jamie gave me, topped with a delicious almond buttercream icing (with REAL butter!) and garnished with chopped dried cherries that I brought all the way from the US.  It was delicious!  Since I'm still not eating a lot of sugar or flour, I've had to limit myself to one piece a day, but it was a nice splurge.  Yesterday I had had enough and cut the remainder into slices and stuck it in the freezer.  That way I can spread out the treat and not go into a sugar coma. :) 

Food (continued).  For dinner I made pizza.  Before you go feeling sorry for me that I had to cook my own birthday meal, remember that I actually like to cook.  And I had saved a few very special things for my birthday meal, including our last package of pepperoni and some mozzarella cheese I managed to find in town!  So I made pizza (pepperoni, onion, ground beef) and garlic breadsticks. 

And now for some pictures:

Can you believe this mosquito?  This is MY pink cake thank you very much!  :)

 The finished product.  I thought after the fact that I should have added some dark chocolate chunks in with the chopped dried cherries... that would have been yummy!

 Cooking up a big birthday dinner. 

The dinner-- two pizzas (I'm not going to waste precious mozzarella on Tim, who doesn't even like it!)

 This card was amazing!  It had an instrumental rendition of the "happy birthday" song and lit up every time I opened it..... Micaiah may have enjoyed it more than I did!  The roses on the front (not pictured) were like this but 3D. :)

This is the lovely (!) bouquet of silk flowers that Micaiah spotted in town and decided I MUST have as part of my birthday present. :) 

Me with my birthday cake.


Quote of the day: "Thank you, Jeana, for making your birthday so special for me!" --Tim. :)

Thanks to all who helped make my 30th birthday special for me, too! 

-JLR

The Quest for Clean Water

We are thankful that our water situation in Mpanda is as good as it is. We have a 1000L (264 gallon) tank that (ideally) gets filled up at least once a week. That tank feeds into our house and helps us wash our hands, wash dishes, flush the toilets, i.e. all the normal things that you just sort of take for granted in the States. We have a friend who works for the water department in the St. Louis area who says there's a daily usage of around 200 million gallons. If I've done the math right that works out to around 71 gallons a person per day. That would about wipe out our tank in one day. That's not to make anybody feel guilty or anything, I'm just trying to give a comparison.

And it's not just enough to get water, because we do have to bathe in it and drink some of it and that's a bit different than just flushing the toilet with it. This is sort of what it's like when it comes in. It looks (and smells) a lot like river or lake water.

We have a Katdyn water filter (micro) that filters out microbes but leaves behind a large residue of dirt, bugs, leaves, etc. This ends up clogging up the 3 ceramic filters and really slows down the process.

Hence, my quest to build a working bio filter that works on the macro level (and theoretically would work to filter out bad bacteria, amoeba, etc. as well). One step at a time though. I got the idea from some missionaries in the Mara region working on water filtration. It basically uses layers of sand and rocks (which naturally filter all sorts of water around the world in underground springs, etc.) I've gotten as far as a prototype (pictured below in white) which seems to be working well at the macro level.

Each run through seems to show the water getting clearer and clearer. I've already thought of a few improvements I could make, so we'll see how it goes. Check out: http://villagehealthproject.org/biosandFilters.html for more information. There are loads of NGOs/missions doing this sort of thing in Africa. This site happens to have PDFs for plans and photos of each step in the process for building concrete bio filters.


-TMR

Thank God for... Toilets?

Do you take your western toilet for granted?  I do.  Or I did at least, before I had to be without one for weeks and weeks!  It seems that squatty potties are standard for most homes in Mpanda.  This was true of the Langs' new house, which had two.  While we were staying there with the two oldest kiddos (Jer, Jamie, and Lily were in Nairobi-- see my last post), a fundi (think specialized repairman-- electrician, plumber, carpenter, etc.) came to install their two western toilets.  What a welcomed relief!  The only downside was having to use the outside squatty potty for about four days while we waited for the cement to dry thoroughly.  It was worth the wait, though!

 

The "Squatty Potty" (aka the "before" pictures).  Squatty potties are more common for many cultures around the world.  Some flush, some don't, but most are shaped like this or similarly.

The "Western Toilet" (aka the "after" picture).  And yes, it is a step higher than the rest of the bathroom.  It is a throne and after using a squatty potty for weeks, I sure felt like royalty!!  But maybe that's more than you wanted to know... :)

In other good news, our new house has one Western toilet and one squatty potty.  We have another Western toilet to have installed, just as soon as things calm down here.


-JLR

Too Busy To Worry

My apologies for the lack of posts in the past few weeks.  It wasn't because there wasn't anything going on here-- in fact, quite the opposite!  We'd finish each day and just collapse into bed so it could start again the next day.

I've been meditating on the passage from Matthew 6 and particularly this verse: "Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."  Indeed it does!  For the first time in my life, I have actually realized that I am too busy to worry.  Over the course of the last few weeks, I have come to expect that each "tomorrow" will be a challenge.  Not only does worry not accomplish anything positive, but I'm stealing the energy God has given me to deal with each "today."  I'm a natural worrier, so this is a big lesson that God has been teaching me!

Anyway, here's the brief version of the past few weeks to get you caught up:
Oct 9 (when I last posted)-19-- we moved from the guesthouse into the Langs' home.  We stayed there with them and helped them with a number of home-improvement projects such as putting screens on their front and back security doors to keep mosquitoes and flies out.  We (as in both families together) got into routines of cooking, cleaning, securing the house, talking with various fundis ("experts" in various things like plumbing, carpentry, electricity, etc.) to arrange improvements and repairs.  Oh, and many of us got sick with a nasty virus during this stretch, so were out of commission for 2-4 days at a time.  Thankfully Jamie didn't get it and was able to continue preparing food for the gang!

Oct 20-- our friend Jeremy was airlifted from Mpanda to Nairobi for emergency medical treatment.  He had been very sick for the 20 hours or so leading up to his med-evacuation.  Jamie and Lily (their youngest) went with him.

Oct 20-26-- We stayed in Mpanda at the Lang's house with Junio and Annabelle (their two oldest kids).  We had our moments of frustration during this time for sure-- like that Saturday when we had a crew working on the perimeter wall, a crew working on installing 2 western toilets, and the plumber who was overseeing the toilets and also working on other plumbing jobs.  Tim left at several points to get additional plumbing supplies in town and to work on negotiations for our new house.  We somehow kept all this organized along with managing the usual househelper and keeping the kiddos fed and entertained.... I didn't think I'd make it through that day!  But we did.  (ok, so I did break down at least twice during the day, but was better each time after a good cry...)  The downside to having the toilets installed to replace the squatty potties was that the cement needed 4 days to dry and we'd need to use the outhouse during that time!  Bummer!  (btw, it is probably the nicest outhouse I've ever used, but it's still inconvenient to make potty runs outside, especially with three kiddos and when mosquitoes are out late at night!)

Oct 26-- Jamie and Lily returned to Mpanda by a small chartered AIM flight. 

Oct 27-- We woke up to chaos-- the guard outside had chased off three (or more?) thieves.  One had distracted him by throwing rocks at the gate while others hopped over the wall and took some plastic chairs that were outside.  They got away.  We heard later that it was probably young troublemakers who had "hit the neighborhood" and stolen several things from other yards as well.  It took us some time to review our security plan and make sure we were as safe as possible.

Oct 31-- We finished moving things into our new house and spent the first night there.

Since then we have been settling in, unpacking, having fundis come to work on electricity, plumbing, blender repair (a priority so I can have my morning kefir shakes!!), and other various things.  I have been training a new househelper who may or may not work out for us... it depends on how this week (her second week) goes!  We'll just have to wait and see.  But for now things are starting to slow down and we're able to get back into some routines.  Routines keep me sane, after all and bring a much-welcomed structure to my schedule.

Speaking of structure, time to get back to homeschool with Micaiah. :)

-JLR

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