November 10, 2001 Update

Update for November 10, 2001

Greetings All,

I thought I would share some personal updates to our friends in cyberspace.

First of all, we had been hearing from our friends and colleagues here, that the rains would come in late October or early November. We had been through a week of clouding up and clearing off with no rains. You must understand that the dust in our neighborhood is quite severe. Normally, people walking down the street cover their mouths and sometimes eyes when a car drives by. The foliage of the hedges and trees that line the street were brown. Not from drought, but from dust! Our house must be dusted regularly (at least every day.) We must cover things that we don't use every day. (It is not practical to keep too many things out like books, pictures, decorations, etc…) We had experienced a few light sprinklings late at night or early morning since we had been here, but not a good shower or thunderstorm. People had been praying for rain. We understood that there had been snow and some thunderstorms near the top of the mountain (Meru) but we were also told that those rains never make it down this far (we're at about 1500 meters above sea level.) It was also reported that there had been some good thunderstorms west of here, but Arusha had not yet seen rain!

Last night, I awoke to an unusual sound. It was loud and forceful. It was about 4:00 AM. I had been awakened by wind and dogs before, and this sounded something like the wind, but not quite. Oh, it was rain! A glorious forceful rain pounding on the metal roof! It was a joyful sound as we were tiring of dust. The rain did bring a power outage for several hours, but the dry weather also has power outages, so this was no surprise. The power was still out when we woke up, thanks to a gas stove we were able to enjoy coffee cake and hot coffee and the air smelled so fresh and new. Unfortunately, a power outage and an electric water heater are not a good combination on a Sunday morning! I took a "washcloth and bucket" shower with water warmed on the stove. As I got out of the "shower" the girls were all cheering because the electricity was back on and they could listen to music. Cathy had the opportunity to take a lukewarm shower prior to leaving for church.

We are thankful for the rain.

Many of you have asked about health. We are all healthy. Yes, we have all had diarrhea at one point or another, but nothing that was caused by a parasite or amoeba, or the things people worry about here. Perhaps some bad food, perhaps a swallow of water, or perhaps at the beginning our intestines were just getting used to life in East Africa. We are all on anti-malarial medicine for now. Cathy and I will probably stop taking it after the rainy season. We have not yet decided about the girls. The house we will move into in December has screens on every window. This house does not have any screens. We feel we will be safer at night from the mosquitoes when we move. Additionally, the Arusha area is not a "high-malaria risk" area.

For me, work has been hectic. I have been trying to cope with learning the job of an accountant/treasurer because the bookkeeping is an important element of my job. I've enjoyed my travels, but have been spending too much time away from the family, and the travel is starting to slow. I've been to Mwanza twice for planning and for the LMC assembly, and I went to Nairobi for several days to learn the accounting software package. Nairobi could be any big city in the US. It has over 1 million people, I think, and reminded me a lot more of a US city than anything I'd seen so far in Tanzania. I played the piano once at church, and agreed to play this week because there was a communication error, and the person they planned to play won't be in town. Playing for the single Sunday morning service is stress-free and enjoyable! I found out that there is a pipe-organ builder about an hour from here. A fellow missionary offered to take me to see him and play a nice organ he just built. That will be some good therapy! She mentioned that he is a missionary teaching people how to build organs, and that I could have a practice organ built for the house for very little money. We will see, it seems like the money could be spent better elsewhere. I don’t think I would want to mess with the maintenance, given the dust!

Cathy has been busy. She attends a Mom's play group, a weekly women's bible study, aerobics, has volunteered for the Christian Education committee, and still manages to maintain our house with the help of Paulina, our "house-help." We have hired a driver on an interim basis for her fear of the stick-shift, fear of the left side of the road, and for added security. We've been told that women with children are targeted by the unscrupulous because they get distracted by their children and easy targets. Therefore, the male adds extra security when shopping, etc... Cathy is learning to quilt with a borrowed sewing machine. She has adjusted to shopping in Arusha. We have had a difficult time finding 2% milk, lately. There are about 5 or 6 "grocery stores" that have the normal canned, dried, and boxed goods, though variety and selection change on a weekly basis. Two of the stores have "produce markets" in front of the stores, but most of our fresh produce we buy from our local neighbors, or it comes off the trees in our yard. We had some mangos last night that reminded Cathy of the mangos from grandma and grandpa's when they lived in Miami. Then there is a shop called "Meat King" that has good meat. We have yet to buy a live chicken or goat, but they have them all over the place. We can also buy some basic essentials: bread, flour, eggs, shortening, and soda from the local shops.

Sarah is enjoying school. Her teacher is Clayton, from Australia. The International School of Moshi, Arusha Campus is a beautiful campus with Mount Meru as a backdrop to the campus. They have a swimming pool where we bought a family membership. She has spelling or math homework every evening except for the weekends. She has made good friends with some of her classmates, and some even live within walking distance from our house. Cathy had a conference with Sarah's teacher earlier in the year because she wasn't listening in class, and she was trying to create her own rules. (In other words, typical Sarah style!) She was removed from the group tables and sat at a desk by herself, a REAL punishment for a kid that likes to socialize like Sarah. After a couple of days after the conference, Sarah was moved back to the group tables. Her teacher recently told us that she is like a different student since he talked to us. He said that she still has an occasional problem with listening, but he is very impressed that she is willing to help her fellow students. Many of them do not have English as a first language. Sarah continues to bury her nose into as many books as she can read, and also loves to read to her sisters. Sarah's BIG birthday present was a guinea pig that she named "Mr. Guinea." For those who don't know the story, my predecessor was looking for a home for the family GP before they left for Germany. The timing was perfect for a birthday present! They delivered the outdoor cage about a week before Sarah's birthday. When she asked what it was for, we told her we were getting chickens! She came home on her birthday and Cathy told her that there was a chicken in the cage. She was very excited to see her new pet.

Emily has been attending a preschool at the international Community Church (Growing Vines) twice per week. They focus on a color and a topic every week, and she has also made friends. Emily's best friends are German and Tanzanian. Her Tanzanian friend is named Peter, but she pronounces it with a British accent "Pitah." We cannot keep shoes on Emily, and she loves running around in the dirt. Lately, she has taken a liking to coloring (should I say colouring) herself with magic markers or pens! She remains as sweet as ever and still seems to be getting cuter every day! Emily will turn four at the end of November.

Grace is now in big-girl underwear full-time. The pull-ups we brought with us made nice additional packing material, and she used every last one of them, but once we told her it was time to stop the pull-ups and wear underwear to bed, she's only had maybe one accident! Grace is still as persistent and stubborn as ever. She is "doing 2" very well and we're not looking forward to the threes. She is becoming multi-lingual. Recently she told me, "Daddy, you're calling that a giraffe but it is a Twiga." Twiga is the Swahili word for giraffe. When we look at picture books together, we will sometimes try to figure out the Swahili words as well as the English words. Grace is charming when she wants to be. Paulina really gets a kick out of Grace, and she does still get quite a bit of attention, here. Grace will likely start pre-school at Growing Vines next fall. Grace will be three in December.

We recently bought a stereo system that is simply a big boom-box with detachable speakers (called it my birthday present.) It has a CD, dual cassettes, and AM/FM/Short-wave radio. It is a Sony with a funny plug, and with cement floor and walls, it sounds just fine! We can pick up the BBC and Voice of America for news. We really do not miss having a TV now that we can get the news over the radio.

We also recently just got back from our first Safari. We went to Tarangire National Park for two nights and stayed in a bungalow. It was absolutely AMAZING! Yes, this was the Africa we saw on National Geographic specials. We saw giraffe, elephant, gazelle, wildebeest, zebra, monkeys, ostrich, water buffalo, warthogs, lots of birds, and a few other animals. We did not see any big cats, but had a great time. The park is only a two hour drive from Arusha, and only the last 1/2 hour is gravel, the rest of the way is paved. Believe it or not, one of the most beautiful parts of the day was sunrise. We had a great overlook and saw the animals going to the river while we sipped our morning coffee.

That is about all of the updates from here. Thanks to all of you who have written. It is always great to hear from you. It will be odd to have Christmas here without our families, but we are thankful that our family is here, safe, and surrounded by our brothers and sisters in Christ. We did kind of celebrate Halloween with some other American families. We attracted some onlookers at our gate with all of the kids dressed up! Try to explain to a Tanzanian that it is an American custom for the kids to dress up in silly or scary costumes, traveling from house to house asking for candy. Better yet, don't try to explain, just let them laugh at us!

Grace and Peace in His name,

Dan

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Dan, Cathy, Sarah, Emily and Grace Smith
PO BOX 15128
Arusha
Tanzania
http://www.goodshepherdkettering.com/pages/mission.html
missionaries@goodshepherdkettering.com
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