Take 2

We have a house! It's actually a split level home, with one apartment on the bottom and one on top. Grace Mendola will take the top and we'll inhabit the bottom. We move in, in one week - which is cool and a little scary. The best part is the neighborhood, so we think. This new home has a gated entrance, but most of the homes nearby don't have a gate. That means people of often out and about. Secondly, we're about 100 yards down an alleyway from a busy market area. When we visited the house last, there were hundreds of people milling about and all kinds of shops - fruit, electronics, house products, etc. I didn't see any other wzungu (white people), but our part of the apartment has a bide (pronouced bi-day) in one of the bathrooms, so I imagine a European lived there at one time. We are really excited to move in. We'll be about 5 minutes drive from the Lyattu's place. We'll also be just minutes from a major road, so we hope getting around the city will be okay. One thing that is almost unthinkable considering less than 1% of Tanzanians own cars, is the traffic. It must be that most of those owners are in Dar. It's basically out of the question to venture out between 7-9am or 4-7 pm (of course that's unrealistic), but even on the weekends we've already experienced 2+ hours of traffic for a length of drive equivalent to driving from Campus to Worthington. It's just so hard to believe it's going to be like this everyday.
On Sunday we met a really cool woman named Anglea. She's a nurse from England and works on a health project with other doctors. She's invited us to see her efforts this week and we're excited b/c they've been successfully able to turn responsibilities over to indigenous leadership and authority, while strongly sustaining the services. I guess the head guy is quite adept at starting projects and then training others to lead them. I'm hoping we'll get an audience with him at some length this week. He travels often, so I don't know if he'll be in.
Most importantly, can someone please update me on the Yankees! I can't get a fast enough connection to load the espn page. Also, if there is buckeye news perhaps someone can fill me in. Ah, the things we take for granted in the states - fast Internet connections, highways, driving laws (though I must say I'm have fun), billing options (everything, I mean everything, is pre-paid - no "bill me later" stuff), everything Trader Joe's, the sports page every morning, free nights and weekends on the cell phones, free refills, diet pop, water from the tap, snack foods (3 musketeers), and no mosquitoes!!! We have a lot to be thankful for....

Rabitt's Hole

Where have we landed – we feel like Alice in Alice and Wonderland, freshly emerged from falling down the rabbit’s hole. We are alien; in our surroundings, in our family, in our persons. Which way is up and which is down. How do we recover from such an intoxicating experience? At least we have money right? No, we don’t even know how to spend it, where to go to get milk, eggs, cereal…where do we throw our trash…how do we not get blanketed by mosquitoes…how much water can touch my person – drinking?, washing hands?, washing dishes?...how do we keep our boys sane in this seemingly insane place…That was day one.
Day Two. We have cell phones. We can call each other. We can conceivably call home, but it will cost about $5 for 30 seconds. We found food! Cereal - $6-$14. Bug spray - $10. Internet - $.50 per 30 minutes!!! Slow, but the connection is steady. Can count to 10 in Kiswahili, Moja, etc. We can casually greet people. We can say “no thank you” to hawkers, trying to sell us socks, or hats, or newspapers we can’t read yet. We have mosquito fumigation - we’re saved!
We have arrived! Sort of. We have our own wheels! We need insurance, but we can drive. We met friends, and now know our general location and living area within this vast city. I can leave my house and get to the “main” road – despite the 3-foot divots and random lakes made by people cutting water lines to get a couple of buckets of water…
The heat is bad, but it’s similar to Columbus. It gets quite warm by 9am and will not cool down until 9pm or so. We’re told “this is cool – wait until December”. The other strange thing about the environment concerns day and night. Because we’re miles from the equator, the sun comes up at 6am and it goes down by 6pm everyday, all “seasons” (I put that in quotes b/c there is only a 10-20 degree change between seasons).
The people, oh the people are wonderful! They are so kind and friendly – if you engage them. They like foreigners, they are patient and helpful. This is a fundamental difference between Africans and Americans. Africans value you, the person, above your contribution, or purpose – above what you offer to them. Americans often value just utility – usefulness, satisfaction of need, etc. An example is how Americans mock and treat people rudely for not knowing English – or at a minimum - Americans who display open annoyance b/c of the delays or inconveniences caused by a foreign worker at some grocery store or retail location. As Christians, we have much to learn about valuing others. We came here b/c we thought we did – we found out how much further we have still to go.

Moved-in with parents (in-laws)

Not too often am I excited by the prospect of moving back in with my parents, especially with my wife of more than 6 years and my two boys...but this time is wholly unique. After moving from our home all our "treasured" possessions (what could fit in a few pick-up truck loads) we took the plunge. More importantly, this move signals the near arrival of our much anticipated bigger move. It's very strange, and humbling, to be without a home (you own home) or without "reliable" employment. Both of us have officially stopped working in order to finalize last minute preparations and tie up some loose ends. We're entering a transition phase that will last for a least 4 months. We'll be living out of our suitcases, and at last count, we'll be sleeping in 7 different beds. Why would seemingly sane people do this you ask? Why would any responsible parents inflict such irregularity upon their innocent children? The answer is, I have absolutely no idea...actually, the answer rests in the deeper recesses of our hearts, where the raw materials of our motives and desires reside. See, 4 years ago, imagining this same course of events, there would be slim chance you'd see us in line to sign-up (we'd be the nay-sayers in the back critiquing everything). What changed for us more than anything else was a fresh and deep understanding, through the Bible and by the holy spirit, that our lives are not our own. If we can gain that eternal perspective, firmly rooted in Christ's redeeming love, all our values shift, all the preoccupations with this life get loosed, all the excuses fade, all the hardships shrink, all the attachments re-prioritized - and our contorted and blurry image of a Christ-centered life becomes really sharp and the contrast of full obedience to the Kingdom appears black-and-white. Let us not lose focus, oh Lord.