Through the Seasons

Well, we made it to the airport better than expected.  Our transportation actually arrived to get us.  He also arrived on time.  This is all quite the accomplishment.  The airport itself is much better than I thought it would be too.  Now, it’s not an overly nice airport by any stretch of the imagination and the fact that it’s all closed up and I feel like I’m in an oven makes it sort of a miserable place to wait.  But, the people are great.

We had to go through security for all of our bags right at the entrance.  Everyone was so nice and the girl at security even told Jonathan that I’m pretty.  Aw!  After we got through security our bags seemed to be in the way so I tried to scoot Jonathan’s backpack off the bottom of the ramp so the rest could slide down.  A man came by and said, “He should be getting the bags (talking about Jonathan) and you should sit.”  Jonathan had just come through security himself and didn’t know what I was doing so it’s not like I was the one working on the bags or something.  The man turned to Jonathan and told him not to let it happen again.  Yikes.  I about got my sweet husband (who takes excellent care of me) in trouble!

The check in lady was really sweet too and felt bad for asking if I’m pregnant.  She also made me show her my medical form – so I’m glad I had it!  And now…  We’re getting kicked out of the little restaurant we’re in so we can board the plane.  See Jonathan’s blog for an update with a pic.  Gotta run!!!  See you soon! 

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We leave tonight for the States.  In honor of that, I’ve chosen this quote:

The saying “Getting there is half the fun” became obsolete with the advent of commercial airlines.  ~Henry J. Tillman

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In the room.  It’s hot.  We woke to no electricity but it came back on at 8am then back off at 11am.  It’s now 12:30 and it’s still not back on yet.  It’s 81 degrees in the room right now.  I don’t know how Jonathan is sleeping.  Yuck.  I’d like to take a nap myself but I’m still hopeful the electricity will come back on first.  And do we have hot water if there’s no power?  I have no idea how that process works here.  Oh well.  Not the end of the world.  We were just looking forward to resting in a cool room all day before having to endure the hot ride to the airport then the hot wait at the airport.  And I was going to treat myself to drying my hair with a hair dryer and possibly even using a curling iron on it…but…that can wait.

I guess I’ll go see if I can rest at all for a few minutes before lunch.  We don’t leave for the airport until 9:00 tonight.  It’s really been a long, nice, relaxing day so far.  Exactly what we needed…

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Jonathan and I are flying in through Newark, New Jersey Sunday. Apparently, the huge ice and snow storm that hit the country’s center is now in the northeast. I went on weather.com to find out the “rest of the story”. The first line says that this storm is going quickly away. We cheered. The next line said a new storm is developing. What!? The more we’ve read about the weather, we’d have to be flying through Miami to not encounter some sort of issues. The Newark airport was very badly affected by this first storm. I hope they are more prepared for this next one.

We have an hour and a half layover in New Jersey – mainly because the booking agent booked our tickets wrong. We were supposed to go through Minneapolis with a longer layover. We figure it’s too late now to change it so we’ll just go with it and see what happens. In New Jersey, we’ll have to gather our bags, go through customs, go back through security, re-check in, and catch our flight. Yes. In 90 minutes.

We are PRAYING God will smooth the way for us to arrive safely in Charlotte Sunday afternoon. We are also prepared for Him to answer our prayers by giving us other circumstances to deal with. We’ll try to keep our patience and go with the flow, always hoping for the best. I guess worse things can happen than having to spend a night in Amsterdam. Otherwise I guess we’ll go from sweating it out in Dar to building a snowman in New Jersey. My first choice though is to be safely at my parents house Sunday evening. We’ll see what happens…

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As I think about going home I can’t help but think about some of the luxuries we’ll be experiencing again. I’ll list out some of those I’ve thought of so far…

- We can buy a piece of fruit or a vegetable – and then – eat it. Amazing. You really have to sanitize your fruits and veggies here. (I realize in the States it’s good to wash these things too – mainly because of insecticides and things like that. Here you’re not only washing but sanitizing and you’re trying to get rid of diseases and parasites.)

- When we want to mail something we can walk to the mailbox and drop it in. Convenient! Oh and we could probably bet on that piece of mail arriving to its destination.
- We won’t be sleeping under a mosquito net. These look kind of fun and romantic. Some people in the States decorate with them. But here it’s a matter of safety. It’s important that the mosquito net completely surrounds the bed with no openings, goes all the way to the floor, has no holes, no mosquitoes are actually inside the thing with you instead of on the outside, and that you don’t lie against it at all. And if you have to get out of bed it requires you quickly raising the net, crawling out from under it, and lowering it back down to the floor. When we’re in the States we’ll be able to just sleep, get up, sleep, get up…

- We’ll be able to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without scouring the area for unwanted critters that may have snuck in overnight. We could, technically, get up and go to the bathroom at night without turning any lights on. Here I keep the light in the bathroom on all night so I can search for bugs as I’m walking in. Oh. And I’m pretty confident there won’t be any geckos in the house in the States. Geckos are harmless but when you stagger into the bathroom half asleep and see something scurry away – it can give you a heart attack!!

- Fast food will be – um – fast.  The quickest restaurant here in town (1 of only about 3 restaurants total) is called “Hasty Tasty”.  The food is good.  But hasty?  Not by a long shot.  The service here in Tanzania is good – just slow…

- The temperature will be regulated about everywhere we go.

- There will be plenty of living, relaxing space to enjoy. As well as furniture! Since we’ve been at a campsite all this time, and I’m sure you wouldn’t expect otherwise, we have no couch to sit on. That means when we’re at the banda we’re either in a plastic patio chair or on the bed and either one can hurt your back after a while. It’ll be soooo nice to sit on the couch in front of a fire drinking hot chocolate. Mmmm…

- I will be able to pick up anything purchased at a store without having to worry about the sanitation of it or the need to wash my hands afterwards. Here, when I buy something – let’s say a bottle of ketchup or carton of milk – there’s no telling what has touched the container. So anytime I touch it afterwards I think of how dirty it probably is and quickly wash my hands afterwards to prevent any unwanted side effects.

- We’ll be driving a borrowed vehicle on beautiful, smooth roads. I saw a picture recently of an American road and gasped. I have almost forgotten what they look like! The main road here in Tanzania goes from coast to border and truly isn’t THAT bad – until you put it beside an American road. That’s when I realize the difference! I probably won’t be bounced around at all in the car while we’re home.

- Speaking of traveling, we’ll be able to drive down the road too without having to stop at police check after police check. I guess there are so many here because the police aren’t driving around everywhere. I really don’t know. I feel like we never get too far until we’re stopped again either by those police checks or big speed bumps in the middle of the road – or dodging a pot hole.

- There will be an abundance of things available to us in the States that we’re used to having. That will be a luxury and at the same time we’ll have to be careful. We’re already repeating to ourselves, “We do not need one of everything. We do not need one of everything.”

- Internet service will be reliable AND affordable – neither of which describes the service here.

- I can pick up the phone and make free or reasonably priced phones calls in the States. Not so here! Expensive. Expensive. That’s why most people here send text messages instead.

- Our clothes, dishes, and bodies will be washed in CLEAN WATER. At the campsite all of these are washed with river water. That’s right. Brown, stinky river water. Sometimes I wonder what the point is at all. But I realize there is a point so we still wash all these things. And in Mbeya obviously it won’t be like that. It’s just good old “camping life”. We do use bottled water for washing some things, for cooking, and of course for brushing our teeth but if I used it for everything I’d like to use it for (including showers) we’d be broke already!

- I’ll be able to brush my teeth with warm water from the tap. I don’t know why I like to do that but it’s something I’ve missed. It’ll be nice to have an abundance of clean water to drink, cook with, etc.

All this is not to say that being here is terrible for us. It’s definitely not. We’ve adjusted well and the African ways have become somewhat like second nature. Some things we didn’t even consciously adapt to. Some things just are what they are and we immediately became okay about it. Some of the things mentioned are also because we’ve been living at a campsite instead of our own home in Mbeya. We have things to look forward to there as well!

I think the contrast between the two countries has just become more apparent to me now and will be even more so when we first get to the States. The sanitation thing is probably the most drastic difference. It is always on my mind here. Everything I touch. Every hand I shake. I have to be careful not to touch my face or forget to wash my hands thoroughly with soap. It’s like always living during flu season. You think about it when you’re shopping, cooking, visiting, traveling…always, always, always. It’ll be nice to get that off my mind for a period of time.

I always knew that America was a comfortable, luxurious country full of conveniences but now it has become even more obvious. It’ll be interesting to see how “re-entry” will affect us. We really don’t know what to expect and hopefully it will be as smooth going back as it was coming here in the first place.

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For Jonathan’s presentation he created a Jeopardy game in Swahili. We split into 2 teams made up of both students and teachers. We had a BLAST!

Tanzanians are generally very gracious and kind. You’d never expect them to be competitive but THEY ARE! They were cut throat. I thought at one point they’d begin fighting. (Not really.) It was sooooo funny! After the game though everyone was friendly and the game was simply over. They laughed at their mistakes, weren’t sore losers, or arrogant winners. I guess that’s why they can take it so seriously while playing.

I sat beside one of the teachers and we ended up with a system. Jonathan would read the question in Swahili. I would turn to the teacher who would tell me the question in English. I would tell him the answer in English and he would raise his hand and answer it in Swahili. Heehee… It worked great! One of the categories was ‘math’ and we had a whiz kid on our team. He was FAST so we let him handle those. Oh. And we won. Hongera (congratulations) to us.

One of the categories Jonathan had was English vocabulary – things only found in the English language. But he would describe them in Swahili. We decided that we had to answer those questions totally in English. Jonathan described a computer mouse. A girl on our team raised her hand and answered in Swahili so her answer was disqualified although it was correct. So a teacher on the other team raised her hand and said in English, “What is a rat?” LOL! It was great! So we got to answer again, this time collecting the points. At lunch later we were talking about how our computers weren’t working because our rats were broken. She started the whole thing up and got a kick out of it. She had no worries or embarrassment about making that mistake. It just goes to show, some things do get lost in translation…

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(I am finished.)

I gave my final presentation today in class. I taught how to make snowflakes out of paper and we put them on colored card stock to make Christmas cards. Everyone loved the craft! They were soooo into it and ended up making many snowflakes. I’m glad it was a success. I wanted to do something interactive instead of having people sitting there listening to me talk for 30 minutes. Boring!

We also had our graduation today. We officially have our certificates and have completed the course.

Tomorrow the rest of the class give their presentations so all I have to really do is sit back and enjoy them. Yay! It’s basically over for me.

After class we’ll pack up, ready to leave early Thursday morning. We go to the doctor in Dar on Friday and catch our flight Saturday night. We’re practically home!

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Oh, for the good old days when people would stop Christmas shopping when they ran out of money.  ~Author Unknown

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…a lot like Christmas.

Well.

Not anywhere else around here but the banda. But I do love the decorations I have here. It reminds me that it’s “that” time of the year.

The gingerbread house in the picture is one I made. My mom sent me a foam kit. It’s so cute. You assemble the house and then use the decorations included to decorate it however you’d like. I love it. I have it sitting on the bookcase and use it for a table centerpiece when we eat at the banda. She also sent Christmas placemats that we use. You can see those in Thursday’s post. I decorated the table with them and the gingerbread house for our presentation.

No one else seems to care that it’s Christmas around here but oh well. I love it. I played Christmas “pre-music” when I had to preach last week. One guy complained, “A whole month dedicated to unoriginal music.” Bah! Humbug!

I figure the first time I see “real” Christmas decorations will be in the Netherlands airport. I hope so anyway. If not, Newark International will certainly be decorated. And if for some strange reason America has completely changed in the last 4 months and I don’t see anything in any of the airports, I KNOW my parents house will be decked out and lit up!

I brought a couple Christmas CD’s here with me. That’s the only Christmas stuff I brought. I don’t know why I didn’t think about the fact that I’d want to celebrate Christmas and wouldn’t be able to buy anything here to help me. So I have been listening to the music occasionally only to discover a couple of Christmas CD’s aren’t quite enough. They tend to get old after a few hours. But I’m still grateful to have them. I just can’t listen to them as often as I may like. I’ve already watched Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer – all of which I brought here with me. Those have been a huge blessing. Talk about feeling like a kid again!

I do love this time of year.

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You may remember a while back I mentioned an upcoming Christian author I found through the blog-o-sphere. She’s doing a book giveaway. If you’re like me you can’t pass up the chance at free books – here are the details:

ASHBERRY LANE’S BOOK GIVEAWAY

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