Through the Seasons

How Asher is now is how I pictured my baby when I was pregnant.  I haven’t spent a lot of time around babies and just didn’t have much of a frame of reference.  I must not have seen newborns very often, if at all.  Even taking classes beforehand didn’t help.  Did they tell me everything I needed to know?  Mostly.  Yes.  They said that babies cry and you wouldn’t always be able to figure out why.  But that didn’t prepare me for how it would be when I became emotionally involved in the situation.  All that went right out the window and my tired mind screamed, “Why isn’t my baby happy!?!?” 

But now he is happy and content and…well…wonderful.  Not that I pictured a perfect baby before I had him and then he disappointed me.  Not in the least!!  I’m a formulas person.  I thought the baby cried, you figured out what was wrong, corrected it, and they went back to their happy selves.  Um.  Not a newborn!

But Asher is like that now!  He laughs and giggles and looks into my eyes and plays contentedly and sleeps soundly and wakes up happy…  I just thought all this would have started sooner.  Next time (Lord willing there is a next time) I’ll know better.

I love, love, love being a mother and I love, love, love Asher so much.  And I’d love, love, love to have more of them.  I’m so thankful for my happy child.

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We left Mbeya for conference at 6:45am (on July 10th or something like that).  This is the sunrise we were treated to a few minutes later.

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I have a ton of pictures to share from our trip.  I don’t want to overwhelm you with them though so I’ll just scatter them throughout my blogging for a bit.

By the way, many have asked when I start my position in finance.  I believe it’ll be at the beginning of August.  And no that won’t slow my blogging down – haha – way too addicted for that to stop me! 

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The conference itself was fun.  It was great to meet our colleagues, many of whom we’ve communicated with by email. 

The place was nice too.  We could have been anywhere really.  It was very western (still a strange term to me…but you know what I mean…I hope…).

The weather was nice but a bit warm and sticky for us Mbeya people.  Cold for the Dar people.  (They’re a little nuts.  )

We didn’t have much free time though.  Meetings, meetings, meetings.  There were 2 afternoons free but they didn’t offer child care for them so it became free time for the singles, couples without children, and child care workers (who were there from Ireland).  But that’s okay.  I don’t know if I would have put him in there during that time anyway.

The first day I went to drop Asher off at child care there were a lot of crying children and only 3 child care workers.  Wait.  Is that right?  Maybe there were 2.  Not enough.  I’ll tell you that.  So I kept him with me all day and he was happy as a lark and I was too really. 

They realized right away that they had more babies (they grouped the newborn to 3 year olds together…ahem…) than workers so some of the mothers and other conference antendees offered to help. 

The next day I put Asher in child care for a couple pretty long stretches.  He did great.  He goes to others very easily and then just plays and such.  But he didn’t sleep.  They can’t keep track of when every child should go down for a nap, etc.  So he was up all that night.  That doesn’t work for mommy.

After that I had him in child care for little moments but not many.  I need my sleep.  A friend that I met in the blogosphere and finally in person at conference (if you’ve noticed Kent’s comments, she’s his daughter) offered to hold him one afternoon while he napped.  That freed me up to go into the meeting.  As I was about to head in there she said, “I’d go take a nap if I were you.”  Hmmm…  Good idea.  So I did.  Well.  I tried.  I’m hopeless at sleeping during the day.  But I did rest.  It was wonderful although really weird not to have him with me.  He did really good for her.

And a couple other people held him a few times during meetings and a few times during meals (since he’d much rather us stand up than sit down and we’d much rather sit while eating).  Everyone was very nice and really enjoyed meeting him…and us I suppose too…

So I wouldn’t really say we relaxed a whole lot and if we did, it all got zapped on the trip back but it’s still nice to spend time with the other workers and to find out what all is going on in the organization.  It was an encouraging time.  There were also sermons and worship music which was nice since we only hear English on podcasts while we’re here.  Of course, it was Irish English, but that was fine for us.  It was a bit more difficult for those whose first language is not English but they managed.

I feel that I really learned a lot this week and gained a lot by going to conference.  But as one person said there last week, “Conference is not vacation.”  Absolutely.  That it isn’t!

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Let’s take time for a little laugh today.  These are great!  (Thanks to Angela Hunt for posting these on her blog.)

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are known to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

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We left the resort on Friday morning.  The plan was to leave at 6:45 but we ended up leaving about an hour late. 

There is this great store in Kenya called Nakumat that everyone stops at to get things they can’t in their hometowns of Tanzania.  That stop was about an hour and a half long.  It’s a very big store and we get to go there once a year so I wanted to go up and down the aisles a bit.

What did I get?  Hmmm…  White chocolate chips.  Belgian chocolate.  A couple pots and pans.  A cheese slicer.  A few cans of Dr. Pepper.  Marshmallows…sort of…they’re called something else…chamallows or something like that.  Hopefully they still make good rice krispie treats.  Mixing bowls.  Hmmm…  That’s all I can think of off the top of my head.  There are things there we can’t get in Dar and things in Dar we can’t get there so it’ll be nice to go to both each year.

At this point the car is LOADED DOWN.  The pack-n-play is strapped UNDER the car where there is space for another spare tire (ours is on a swingarm on the back of the car).  Everyone (except Jonathan and Asher) was holding something on their laps.

Near Mombasa you have to take a ferry across a body of water.  The car we were caravaning with got across before we did.  We barely missed their ferry and had to wait on another.  When we got across they were waiting for us and didn’t realize they had a flat tire.  We slowly made our way to a gas station.  As we were driving we saw a tire shop on the left and the men out front were watching us.  We got to the gas station where they told us we’d need to take the tire to – you guessed it – that tire shop down the road that we passed.  Haha…  A man at the gas station ran down there and got the guys to come get the tire and fix it for us.  In no time flat (pardon the pun) they had the tire fixed, back on the vehicle, and once again we were on our way.

Just to get stopped again.  This time by the police.  Why?  You’ll never, never guess.  On THE day we were traveling at THAT particular time…the PRESIDENT (yes, of the country!) was making a trip through that area which means they make everyone pull over and clear the roads.  So we sat.  And sat.  And sat.  For a good hour and a half we sat there watching the village people roaming around.  They had put streamers up along the road and waited with great expectation.  It was a big day for that area I’m sure.

He zipped by in his vehicle (a caravan of vehicles actually) and we were allowed to get back on the road.  By this time we were extremely behind schedule.  You have to remember that there aren’t “exits” off the road with hotels, restaurants, gas stations, or anything like that.  We heard of a place to stay in Morogoro and were trying to make it there.  We pressed on finally arriving at 10pm.  We were all SO exhausted. 

This was a guest house of the Christian Council of Tanzania and Training Centre for Women.  I have no idea what they do but the guest house was $5 per person and was clean.  They had mosquito nets but with big holes in them defeating the purpose of the net entirely.  I got bit 3 times while sleeping under the net.  Ergh.  We ran some water in the sink finding that it was black with dirt so once again we baby wiped instead of showering.  By 9am we were on our way again.  Again.  What a journey!

But we were in an area we’re familiar with which was a lot of fun.  This is the day I took most of my pictures and will share later.  We went through a game park on the way (it’s on the main road) and saw elephants, zebras, giraffe, worthogs, impala, gazelle, and….maybe that’s it.  The sunset was beautiful as well.  It was a very nice trip back.  We got home about 8 or 9pm and pretty much went straight to bed.  (I checked email first…not that I’m addicted or anything…)  We’re still trying to get settled back in and unpacked.  It takes time after such a long trip.  I’m just extremely glad to be home!

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I’m tired.  Exhausted.  And run down with a cold.  When Asher is awake he wants to be entertained so I can’t sleep.  When he’s asleep he doesn’t want to lay by himself or even next to me.  He wants me to hold him.  Every time I try to lay down with him he wakes up crying and won’t calm back down until I sit back up.  What does he have against me laying down anyway?  He’s fine with it at night!  So that’s my current dilemma. 

That was a long trip.  Between that and being sick I’m a walking zombie.  I’ve never been like this and had to take care of a baby at the same time.  Jonathan tried to take him for me today but Asher wouldn’t calm down and fall asleep for him…and he’ll go back to work leaving me in the same predicament anyway so what’s the solution here?  Or, as a mom, do you get used to sleep deprivation? 

I talked to a mother of 5 over the weekend who said she’s an introvert.  I asked how she handled that with 5 kids and she said she didn’t do anything about it.  “Did you ever feel run down then?” I asked.  “All the time.” she said, as if she just got used to it. 

If only my nose would quit dripping and my throat would quit feeling scratchy, and my head would quit hurting, and my eyes would stay open…

I want my mommy. 

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I have all this backlog of stories that it’s hard to know where to begin.  Jonathan and I both feel like we left Africa and have now returned.  It’s a little disorienting.  I want to tell you about the resort and conference but the trip there and back were the most interesting.  I think I’ll share stories in this entry and post some pictures in others.  I have SO many pictures of the trip back because I had the good camera out and I was in the backseat where I could hide (remember the people here don’t want their pictures taken).

So the journey. 

We left last Thursday at 6:45am to drive 12 hours before stopping for the night.  Most of the road is tarmac.  With potholes.  Lots of them.  I did manage to do some cross-stitching without getting sick but it was quite a challenge and I only did it for a couple hours before giving up. 

The place we stayed was a hotel in Segera.  It was simple but clean.  In America we would refer to it as a dump.  The showerhead had a drip so they had a bucket under it which we heard go bloop, bloop, bloop all night.  The bathroom had a resident spider and a stream of ants going in and out of a little hole in the wall.  The place itself was a hole in the wall.  Anyway.  So we didn’t shower there.  We baby wiped.  What a great invention baby wipes are.  Too bad I didn’t discover them before having a baby myself.  We also had a gecko visitor in the night.  Harmless but still unsettling.  It’s good the room wasn’t invaded by mosquitoes because the place didn’t have nets.  (WHY WOULD A HOTEL IN AFRICA NOT HAVE MOSQUITO NETS!?!?)  The best feature of the room was a ceiling fan control.  No ceiling fan.  But a nice control mounted on the wall by the light switch.

We arrived at this – um, quaint – hotel at dinnertime and lucky for us they had a restaurant.  You could choose whatever you’d like to eat from an extensive menue of chicken, french fries, and rice.  What to get, what to get…  The next morning we had breakfast which was included in the room price of $23.  I honestly can’t remember what breakfast included but I’m thinking probably eggs, toast, coffee, juice, tea…not bad really.  We awoke that morning to rain too which was pleasant.  There was even a huge snail on the walkway that I found very interesting to watch.  Sadly, I didn’t think to snap a photo.

So off we go that morning on our journey.  The tarmac ends not too far from the hotel and the rest of the way to Kenya is all dirt – and a terrible road – plain and simple.  A few hours later we arrive at the border where we found we had a ton of friends.  All these nice people ran up to us saying, “Friend, friend, friend.”  Yeah, right.  What did they want?  Well, to bless us with a newspaper, fruit, something to drink…all for a fee of course.  We all got out and filled out our immigration forms.  Jonathan took care of the paperwork to get the car into the country and back into the cars we got.  (Oh.  We were caravaning with another group of people.)  3.5 miles later we arrived to the other side of the border where there were more forms to fill out.  The whole process was about an hour and a half.  For lunch that day we stopped on the side of the road to eat the lunches we brought.  Right off the side of the road there was a little shack of a building that had a sign declaring, “Welcome to Paradise”.  We were very happy to have arrived.   

A few hours later we were almost to the resort when the car started fishtailing so we pulled over (and attracted quite a crowd).  One of the lugnuts on the back left tire broke off (a little kid found it on the road and brought it to us).  The other 5 were loose.  Jonathan and Matt resecured the tire, fastened the 5 lugs, and checked the lugs on the tires of both vehicles.  That was a close call really.  A few minutes after getting back on the road, we made it to Turtle Bay just in time for dinner.

I was going to tell you about the trip back in this post too but it’s even more interesting so I should wait…  This is already an extremely long post!  By the way, I’ll be posting a couple pictures of the roads and such.  We didn’t take too many pictures at the resort because we were in meetings most of the time but hopefully what I have will give you at least an idea of what it was like.

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AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I didn’t know.

Kenya is a more developed country than Tanzania.  Our annual conference was held at a swanky, “wazungu” (foreigner), touristy resort.  If nothing else we’d have our cell phones.

But none of that mattered.  We got on the internet ONE time for a VERY short time and only to send/receive that batch of email. 

Ergh.

But we’re back!!

And do I have stories to tell.

And pictures to show.

But.

I’m exhuasted and so is everyone else (except the dogs, unfortunately, who are jumping all around us wanting attention).  After a good night’s sleep…or three…I’ll have my bearings again and will be right back in business.  I’ve missed my email and my blogs SO much!!!

Oh and did I mention I have a cold?  And mosquito bites?  It’s 9:00 and we haven’t been home long so off to bed I go now that Asher has fallen asleep. 

Kesho…  (Manana…Tomorrow…etc…)

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I met with the Mbeya team director last week about the finance help they need.  Originally it was to be once a month from home but I was informed that they need someone in the office for a few hours 2-3 days a week.  I listened to what the job entails and agreed to think it over a while, pray about it, and talk to Jonathan.  Now all those things have happened and I’ve decided to do it.  I emailed the director today, who is in Dar at the moment, and asked him when he’d like me to begin. 

I have several reasons for doing this:

1.  I don’t think God would give me a particular skill set, put me in a place where those skills are needed (the Finance person just moved back to Austria – or somewhere like that…), and not want me to help.

2.  Asher will be with me and Jonathan will be there to watch him while I’m working, if necessary.

3.  I took Asher with me to the meeting with the director and he quite enjoyed being at the office so I figure it will be good for him to get out some too.

4.  It’s only a few hours a week.

5.  I’ll get to have adult conversation, use my brain on something besides changing diapers and cleaning spit-up, and find out what’s going on in the world.  I learned a lot about the happenings of the team just in my brief meeting last week.

And I’m sure there are other thoughts that ran through my head during my time of decision-making.  It’s sort of like having the best of both worlds.  Working, but not full-time, and without having to put Asher in day care.  Yay. 

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