Project 52: Grandparents

Immediately after my mother-in-law and sister-in-law left, my parents arrived! They were here for nearly 4 full weeks which was great. I love seeing Jude spending time with them and hearing them read to him or play with him from the other room. Here is a picture of him with them, being goofy, of course.

We really enjoyed all of our visitors, but are excited that next time, we'll be the ones visiting! Carson's sister is getting married in January and we are thrilled to be making a trip back for it. Since it is so close to Christmas we'll be back for the holiday as well. I'm really looking forward to Jude's first Tennessee Christmas!

Dry Season in Geita

We’re from Tennessee, a place with 4 distinct seasons. I love that about Tennessee and I miss it terribly. In Geita the seasons in the course of a year are supposed to go, rainy, dry, rainy, dry. I’m honestly still not sure exactly when each of these seasons is supposed to start, because every Tanzanian you ask seems to have a different opinion. One will say it’s not supposed to be raining and another will say that he’s worried the crops are all going to die because it is supposed to be raining. 

It's hard to photograph the dust, but here is one of my attempts.

In dry season the red Geita dust abounds, forming a cloud each time a car drives down the road that lasts for several minutes. The house gets more dusty (since we keep our windows open) and white clothes turn beige hanging on the line. Dry season means months without a single drop. The world around us turns brown. And then the clouds start to come. We have overcast days without a singe drop of rain. We watch the dark clouds blow in and then away without leaving us any of their liquid. And then it happens. One day the rain comes. Today we had several minutes of sprinkles, for the first time in months. The last rainy season was pitiful so we are more than ready for the next one. It probably won’t really get going until sometime between September and December, but every little drop brings hope and anticipation. It’s the cycle of life. The more dry seasons I experience here the more I appreciate the rain. I no longer wish the rain would go away and let my laundry dry. I savor every drop because I remember what dry season is like. I remember what a gift the rain is. Rainy season for us means that Carson doesn’t have to go and get water in the truck. (He goes three times a week during dry season.) It also brings cool mornings that feel like Fall and the sort of calm that makes me want to drink tea and take a nap.

In this picture you can see the tiny sprinkle droplets hitting our walkway.

*The dry season we’ve been experiencing isn’t the drought you’re hearing about in countries north of us. 

I wrote this post yesterday, but didn't get it posted. This morning we woke to slow rain which has now turned into- the bottom dropped out pouring with thunder to boot! Our tank is filling via the rain water collection system and Carson is sitting on the front porch eating Reese's cups, wearing a coat! It's a beautiful day in Geita!

project 52: proper form

A less serious post this week. Just Carson teaching Jude proper form with his golf clubs. Here's Jude trying out the big golf club.

Neema House has LAND!

It doesn't look like much yet, but this land is the future home of Neema House! Neema House will be a children's home here in Geita serving young children and their families. Our teammates, Calvin and Alicia Groen, have been working on getting this land for a long time. There have been a lot of discouraging days along the way, but a couple of days ago they got paperwork giving them the permission to begin building! We are so excited for them and can't wait to see the impact Neema House has on this community.

Today in Geita...

 Cars and livestock sharing the road

 Dead Corn Stalks

A woman carrying a sack of something on her head

Lunch at Elizabeti's

The spread

project 52: toys

We live in a place where most people have less than us. There are Tanzanians in our neighborhood who make more money than us, but not most. There are always people at the gate asking for work, or money, or both. Many of them live in houses that look something like this.

Sometimes a little bigger. Sometimes with a metal roof. You can probably imagine that the kids don't have a lot of toys. Ok, in most cases they don't have any toys. Walking around the neighborhood I see kids playing with all sorts of things. Making mud with a stick and an old plastic container. Playing with a corn cob that has had the dried out corn removed. They turn ordinary things into toys, much like the child who plays more with the box than the toy that came in it.

As Jude reaches an age where he enjoys playing with other kids, I'm faced with a dilemma. If a child comes over to play what will they think of all the toys? Jude doesn't have nearly the amount of toys that many American children do. We can't exactly buy good toys here, so the bulk of his are things we or visitors have brought over. I have no desire for the kid to be drowning in stuff, but I like for him to have some things. His new Duplos have already provided hours of creative play time. His books encourage reading and language development. The food and kitchen toys I'm planning to give him next Christmas will provide opportunities for dramatic play. I don't want to throw out all the stuff, but what do I do when his Tanzanian friends come over to play? Hide the toys in the back? What if we just share and give his friends some of the toys he's grown tired of? Will they see it as a friend sharing something they have plenty of or a white person giving them something because white people are the ones who have all the stuff? I don't really have answers to any of these questions. These are just the sort of things I'm dealing with raising a child in rural Tanzania.

These questions all came up this past week because Nathan came over to play. Here's a picture of him with Jude.

I ended up clearing all the toys out of the living room except the Duplos, which Nathan loved. They also watched a DVD called Shaun the Sheep which has no talking so it is any language friendly. Still, I'm not sure if this was the best approach and how I should handle future play-dates.

cooking class planning

I've blogged a little about the cooking class that we are working on putting together. Carson has been working on the oven design, developing an oven that can be made easily and inexpensively by Tanzanians. We've been testing different prototypes as well as recipes. I've almost settled on the exact recipes I plan to teach, but have a few more tests to do. We still have a lot of logistical details to figure out, but I think we've made good process. Here are a few pictures from the cooking so far.

french bread

pitas rising

portuguese potato bread

the guys waiting for the oven temp to drop