Our sea shipment finally arrived!

Of course our shipment came the day after Matt had to be out of town for over a week. The upside to that is that I got to decide where everything went! With about 8 men unloading the truck and putting stuff wherever I told them, plus Mama Jackie (nanny), Elizabeth (house-girl) and Cleophus (gardener/day guard), I had plenty of help. We did seem to be overwhelmed with boxes for several days, but we slowly chipped away at it and now have most unpacked. It's great to have our own things again and not just 'make due'.

The girls had their 'share-time' at school this week. It's sort of a mini-performance where they get to show us all of the things that they've learned during this unit. Ashlyn's was 'media mania', so she was learning about art and expression. Their class made puppets on sticks and danced to different music to show different emotions. Tierney's class learned about endangered animals - she was a mountain gorilla and had to say (on-stage) "I see people setting traps all around me". For such shy kids, they didn't seem to have much trouble getting on-stage and showing us their stuff.

This week our very sweet askari (guard that comes over-night), Julius, brought each of the children (our 3 plus Birch and Cole) their own plant. He speaks very little english, but when he came to work he asked for each child and then he took them each individually to dig a hole and plant their own. It was an amazingly generous offer from someone who only makes $100/month and has 4 kids of his own. Very sweet. It's understandable why the children like him so much.

Anderson is still surprising me with the things that he is eating. He'll eat a plate of sauteed greens with carrots and onions and a samosa. He even asks for several servings of the greens. Amazing!

So, on my list of things that have to get done this week is to go buy additional cell phone minutes and also more electricity. This is very much a cash society. Everything is pre-pay. You buy minutes for your cell phone and when you run out you are abruptly cut off from your call. You can buy the scratch off cards everywhere, but it's a different mindset (and I'm also now very conscious of keeping calls to the point - I am spending a ton less with this method than I was with the 'plans' in the US). Electricity is the same way - you go to the electric company and give them your meter # and however much $ you want and they give you code to manually punch in to your meter to get that amount of credit. Similar with internet, but we haven't yet paid the fee - that also has to be done this week. All in cash, of course. It takes a little planning when you don't have a local bank account and can only withdraw a certain amount per day. I'm getting better at it though (I'll miss my REI dividend dollars, but I love seeing the credit card bills now). I guess the gas is the same. Our cooking is done with a big gas canister (similar to ones for an outdoor grill, but a little bigger) that's just hooked up (inside) next to the oven. I wonder how long one of those will last. I'm sure it will run out just as I'm baking a huge meal.

Matt's been in Kenya all week for the TNC Africa team retreat (I think it's just a drinking fest for a week - I'm supposed to feel bad for him that he comes home tired...yeah, right), but he'll be home on Tuesday. Still much easier than losing him for 3 weeks at a time, but we'll be glad to have him back.

Happy 70th Grammy Webb!

Happy 70th Birthday Webb/Grammy/Mom!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0sU1x7Vu30

And special from Ashy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFzpIIxzCxE

Noloholo and Loibor Siret

This weekend we went 'camping' at the camp for African People and Wildlife run by Laly and Charles (aka Buddy). I say 'camping' because I guess technically we were "in the bush", but I slept in a king bed, used a flush toilet, and took a shower, so it's hardly roughing it. They are a community based conservation group that does a lot of work in the nearby village of Loibor Siret which we were also lucky enough to visit. The drive was long - I think longer than we anticipated. After about 20 minutes on the road outside of Arusha we took a left and were on dirt roads (and calling some of it a road is a bit of a stretch) for the next 4 1/2 hours. We barely saw a handful of other cars the entire drive. We passed through several small villages each more remote than the previous until we finally passed through Loibor Siret and then to the camp at Noloholo. It was gorgeous sitting at the top of a hill with the park boundary to Tarangire just in the distance. At night we could hear all sorts of wildlife (hyenas, bush babies, frogs...). Each family had a big tent and a little 2-3 person tent. I was lucky enough to get the king bed which I shared with Anderson and Matt slept in the tent with the girls. Between our tent and the Bank's tent there was a nice pit toilet and just past our tent was a shower which the maasai filled with warm water when we wanted to shower. We were also give hot water in the morning to wash with in a makeshift sink (which I now want for all camping trips).

Saturday we had a relaxed breakfast and then Laly and Buddy took us into Loibor Siret to show us (mostly David and Matt) some of their community projects. Matt and David met with a group maasai from town while we just hung out. I think the kids enjoyed the ride down there in the back of Buddy's truck as much as the rest of the visit. The local children followed us around and were just as shy as ours were to them. Anderson was fascinated by the animals (baby cows and goats mostly) - they didn't stand a chance. One of the women from town, Mama Juma, was very outgoing and kept trying to hold the kids which as you can imagine didn't really go very well. Cole did the best and gave her a giant hug. I have several photos of Anderson trying to squirm out of her arms before Matt finally got one of him smiling. Apparently momma juma (??sp?) is a very progressive Maasai woman and is very outspoken (was even shushed by the others during the meetings). She is even 'divorced'. I have a feeling that I'd like her a lot.

Later on Saturday Buddy drove us even further into the middle of nowhere and we climbed to the top of this ridge. It was a gorgeous overlook on both sides. We heard elephants trumpeting below and eventually spotted them with the binoculars. We drove back to camp in the dark and stopped next a water hole and listened to the deafening croak of the frogs - really amazing. We also so a serval cat run across the road into the bushes.

Ashlyn fell in love with Laly and was actually crying when we got back on the paved road because she wanted to go back. I love it when she attaches to someone like that.

Sunday was a long day again in the car, but the kids were exhausted from the weekend and slept a lot. When they weren't sleeping they were counting maasai bomas or trying to spot wildlife. We did get to see a dung beetle doing it's thing and rolling poop into a perfect circle - kept the kids entertained for a while. short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2smhWdgZBug

(all the pics are in a separate post and I think you have to open it up to read captions...or they are here: http://tandapictures.shutterfly.com/1900 )

In regular life news, Tierney is about to lose her first tooth. It is very loose and she's carrying her tooth fairy pillow everywhere just in case it falls out (yes, it really is that close). You can see the adult tooth coming in behind it which she just thinks is so great. Any idea what the tooth fairy brings these days? Tierney tells us that there are two tooth fairies for every country in case two kids lose their tooth at the same time. "He's not like Santa ya know?" I wonder if one of the Tanzanian tooth fairies brings the same things that the American ones do (one boy, one girl in case you were wondering)

We are hearing that our shipment may be here by week's end which would be good because Matt and David are off to Kenya next week and I don't want to have to deal with it's arrival by myself.

The best news is that my sister got to hear her baby's heartbeat for the first time last week (due on my birthday, too - how cool is that?). Nothing I do here can compete with that. Congrats to Joanna and Mike!

Noloholo and Loibor Siret - pictures

Click here to view these pictures larger

kilimanjaro 1/2 Marathon

Nothing starts on time here. Except for a foot race sponsored by a beer company...

I signed up for the race via ISM (kid's school) to support the scholarship program. I arrived at the start of the race about 20 minutes before 7am and the ISM booth to learn that my race number was locked in the office about 10 minutes away but the office did not open until 9am. there were a few of us in this infortunate situation. Luckily we had a car and drove to the school, found a gaurd, found the office, found our numbers, raced back to the start only to find a cloud of dust. The thousand plus runners had left the stadium a few minutes prior.

No problem. As I ran I was passing the walkers, then the fast walkers, then the kind of runners, then the slow runners then the runners and finally at about the turnaround at mile 6.5 I was at my place - running at pace with runners around me. The first 1/2 of the race was uphill running from Moshi town to the base of Kili. Then back down to town. It was hot but good water stations and lots of fans cheering which helps the motivation. I was running pretty slow and finished in over 2 hours (about 2:10 I think).

Best part of the race was after a few Kms I made eye contact with a village kid standing by the side of the road. I gave him a head nod of encouragement to join the race. Faster than his smile could spread across his face he was running next to me. Jeans, long sleeve shirt and flip flops. He ran the entire 13 miles next to me. I gave him a visor and at each aid station he got water and sponges - he loved it. I was impressed.

Next year I think I'll try running in flip flops.

Anderson Dancing with Mamma Jackie

A little fun in the kitchen after school today

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjq9aI1zH_0

Arusha Street Shots

Here are a few shots from when I was out running errands yesterday. All were taken surreptitiously out the car window because the local people aren't too fond of people photographing them (especially Maasai).


I can't seem to get descriptions to align with photos, so below there are photos of men bringing grass to their cattle in town (cows or goats most likely), the carts that men are carrying all sorts of things (logs and barrels below, but often furniture, fruit, shoes, crates..), local Maasai (they are everywhere), one of my favorite supermarkets (Pick 'n Pay), the dirt shortcut we take to avoid town traffic, breadfruit (which I hear is nasty, but I haven't actually tasted yet...I'm sure my curiosity will get the better of me one of these days), and other random street scenes.

Mama Jackie is making roast chicken for dinner tonight in celebration of the Banks' shipment arriving (I'm jealous, but also sort of dreading the arrival of ours). Too bad Matt is in Kenya and won't be here to enjoy it.