Keith's journal entries October 2006

Selected journal entries from Keiths personal journal, related to Life in Shirati and the Shirati hospital

Oct 3rd
Cleaning up old emails and stuff I sent this to John Hendrickson at FMC on June 24. He was having a real tough time. Hi John

It is great to hear from you. Email is a real problem right now. We are lucky to be able to access once a week. Last week I had to drive 2 hours to the closest place with internet cafe to do email after not being able to access for over a week. It has now been more then a week again and I am afraid I will need to make the drive again. I appreciate your willingness to share how things are going at FMC and the offer to answer any questions I might have. If I am really curious I will ask you but I have really tried to keep distant and not ask you much. You are in charge, not me. You have the responsibility and accountability to keep FMC growing and healthy, so the last thing you need is me asking questions from afar. Having your predecessor leave for missions in Africa and having staff and residents providing support is a constant reminder of the past. You must look to the future, which you seem to be doing very well. I am sure it must be aggravating to hear your predecessor mentioned even if it is in supportive ways. Talk and thoughts of me probably stir up thoughts of the “good old days” and that is a tough thing to manage. Well they were not nearly as good as everyone remembers. And I was not nearly as good as people like to believe. When you decide to leave a place you know that there will be changes, you just hope they will not be too overwhelming and will leave people in a better place not a worse place. When I left work that last Friday I said good bye. Over the last year it was hard to let go but I think I finally have. That is not to say I don’t want to hear about FMC, only that it is not so important anymore and I don’t get upset when I hear about people leaving or program changes, etc. John, I can only imagine how difficult the last year has been for you as you and the organization have worked through the transition. I am thankful and most appreciative of the support and prayers the staff and residents at FMC are providing to me and my family. FMC is in your hands, from afar you seem to be doing good work, FMC continues to grow and improve in all areas. I only hope that the base I left you to work from was more a help than a hindrance. My time is past. Your time is now and the future, make your time count.
Please give the board my greetings. Blessings to you.

Email to a friend
Glad to hear things are going well for you with the new job and on the personal side. It is wonderful that the kids are doing well. Enjoy the college visits. Just try and forget all your college memories (at least the ones you can remember) or at least remember we survived the experience. Over all things are going well here. The usual annoying health problems. Our Tanzanian friends tell us it is normal for foreigners to have pretty constant problems, we weren’t meant to live here. Last night I ate dinner and sat down to play with the kids about an hour later my stomach was doing somersaults. I was sick most of the night. No one else was sick just me. Today I slept to 1 and still feel lousy. I was really mad because it was the first time in two weeks we had electric during the day. I could have got a lot done other than lying sick in bed. Each of the Hummels has had these problems. It just makes you shake your head and wonder. I’ll go up to the hospital and not see someone for several days and then I see them and they had malaria. Being sick is just part of life here. Anyway Gerry and Leah have really found themselves here of late. They both have many local friends and are speaking the language very well. Gerry loves the freedom here. He is allowed to go anywhere he can walk or ride his bike. He is building a tree house with some friends now. It is a big production everyone in the village is checking it out. It is so safe here for kids. Leah walks to her friends on this side of town. She is not allowed to cross the road that runs through town. It’s not a big or busy road it is just the marker that we use with her. Alex is struggling. He is almost 14 and any local kid that has any education or resources go away to boarding schools because the local schools are very bad. So he has no real friends here. The positive to this is he has become an avid reader and is also taking physics and calculus lessons from one of the teachers at the local high school. Since we are here in remote TZ, no worries about drugs and alcohol and we only have girl worries when we go to Nairobi or Dar and see friends with girls that are his age. It is remarkable to watch the transformation that occurs. He showers, changes clothes, brushes his teeth and hair without being asked. But the down side is he is missing an important part of growing up. I guess he will just be a late starter. Hospital work is going great. Lots of good things happening. The team is really starting to work well together. A number of new staff accountants and doctors are starting this month. We have some proposals out for money and new programs that look promising. And so life continues in the very slow but good lane in TZ.

Thursday October 5th

Yesterday I had a meeting with the board chair and ChaCha. We spent 5 hours reviewing the recommendations I made to the church regarding the hospital. They accepted just about all the recommendations. It was a good meeting. The church said they expected more in the way of recommendations. These were easy for them to accept because most of what I said is what the policies and constitution already says or so I was told yesterday. Whether or not the stuff is in the constitution or not they are not doing it. So now they have said they are going to do it so ChaCha can start doing it. About three weeks ago I was having a series of bad days, part of which was a struggle with faith. I realized that I was not doing anything for spiritual nurturing. I spoke to Ellen and we decided to get up earlier each morning and do devotions together. I suppose you would expect that missionaries regularly do devotions together but it is something we have done only on an occasional basis. So Ellen and I started getting up together. Then Leah started to get up with us. A couple of days latter Gerry started getting up also. Alex started getting up also but said he only wanted to get up every other day. The kids have been active participants and are praying for their friends here and at home. My faith seems to have stabilized for the moment and the days seem to be brighter and cheerier.

Friday October 6th
Today was another trip to Musoma for email. Email was the only reason I went on this trip. I am really getting tired of the two hour drive each way to do email. It would not be so bad if it was an easy drive or even a pretty drive but it is neither. This was Verle’s trip so we left at 6:15 am. I had our computer and the hospital computer along. Dr. C went along as well as two other people. Verle is a very slow and cautious driver which is very good here in this part of TZ but it takes a long time to get anywhere. We went to Juasun first and I stayed there until about 11 am. Dr. C has a computer now and I had set everything up for him. On his last trip for some unknown reason he decided to set up a Juasun account. I had spent several hours loading outlook, contacts and getting everything set up correctly. Juasun had deleted it all out in setting up their account. The Juasun people kept telling him the hospital account was there he just needed the hospital password to get in. I was very angry. I was not very nice to Dr. C or the Juasun staff. I told Dr. C I would have to reload everything but could not do it there because I had the information at home. I then walked over to the bank to check if our atm card was in. It was not. They said to come back next week. It is only supposed to take 4 weeks but it has been 8. They assure me it is not lost but that there is a problem with production. I then went to TRA to check if my car tags where in yet. When we did the transfer of the Land Cruiser the new car tags never arrived. I have been trying since December to get the correct plates. Of course the plates were not in. I am under the belief that I will never get the correct tags for the car. It really is a pain because our current tags are commercial tags. We get stopped at every police check when there is an officer who does not know us. I have the correct paperwork but we have to show it all and it takes time. We get stopped because they think we are a safari vehicle and they want to be sure all the fees are paid and maybe a bribe as well. Verle and I then did a little shopping and ate lunch. We left Musoma about 1:30. Verle asked me to drive. I hate driving the MFW pick up but at least it has AC.

Sunday October 8
Ellen was not feeling real good so I went to church alone. The kids stayed home with her. After church Verle stopped by and we talked for a while. Somewhere in the conversation we talked about swimming and whether it was ok to swim in the lake or not. The topic keeps coming up. Ellen and I have decided to let the kids swim if they want to. The boys have gone a couple of times with friends. Leah and Ellen have gone once. We decided to go to the lake and go swimming. Ellen wanted to take the dogs. The kids also asked Stephanie, a visiting med student, to come along. We had a great time playing in the water. It has been so hot lately and it was another blistering hot day so the water felt great. Ellen and I had some time to sit alone and talk. I was having a good time. The boys and I dragged Ellen into the water and then they all ganged up on me and dragged me into the water. The dogs were really fun to watch playing in the water but they were also a pain. Every time someone came walking along the lake shore we had to hold the dogs. Abbey also threw up in the car on the way to the lake. We got home and Ellen made dinner and then we watched a movie for family movie night.

Wednesday 11th
We have all been sick this week. Dr. C thinks it is food and water related so he has us taking worm medicine. It has some nasty side effects, like lots of gas and nauseousness. Today we left for Mwanza which is 300 kilometers about a 5 hour drive. Samwel went with us because the hospital and church do not like us traveling alone. The satellite hardware has arrived. I am really excited about this because I will not have to be driving to Musoma all the time. We are also going to get our emergency generator on this trip. We had to stop at Musoma first. We did email and then went to the bank to get cash for the purchase of the generator. We got to Mwanza about 1:30 and went to the New Mwanza Hotel. They have a pool and air conditioned rooms. Cost of a room is $50 USD a night which includes breakfast. We got two rooms. One for the boys and another for Leah, Ellen and I. I told Samwel I would get him a room at the hotel or I would give him 40,000 TZ shillings and he could stay where he wanted and keep the extra money. He wanted to find his own room and keep the money. He ended up at the Christmas Tree Hotel which is a good low end hotel and a room is 20,000 Tshillings. Then we went and ate lunch. Ellen was really having a tough time. She was looking very sick. Samwel and I were very worried about her. Sam and I went to DHL and got the Satellite package. Ellen and the kids were going to go swimming. After retrieving the package, Samwel went to the electronic store to purchase a loud speaker for the church choir. I went back to the hotel. The kids and Ellen were in the room because the pool water was very dirty. Worse than the lake water. We opened the package and found that Peter and Karla had sent a bunch of DVD’s in the package. I walked over to the electronic place to meet Samwel. Along the way I looked at several emergency generators. After that we walked back to our hotel. I told Samwel I’d call him later to arrange dinner plans. The kids and Ellen were watching Mission Impossible 3 when I got back. So I watch the rest of the movie with them. Ellen and I had seen the movie in the theater when we had gone to Nairobi in June without the kids. We decided to go to a Chinese restaurant that is along the lake for dinner. We took a cab because I hate driving after dark. The lighting on the cruiser is very bad. And it is hard to see Tanzanians in the dark. They are dark skinned and they tend to wear dark clothes. Combine that with not knowing where you are going and it is a bad situation. Dinner was great; we had a very good time but Ellen, Leah and I were still feeling the effects of the worm medicine. Got back to the hotel and went to bed because I was extremely tired. The boys stayed up all night playing computer and watching movies all in air-conditioned comfort.

Thursday 12
Started the day late which was nice. Got up around 8 and went down and had breakfast. Samwel was to be at the hotel around 9 am. Ellen, Leah and I went out and walked around and looked at a couple of shops. Samwel called around 10. He had been looking at a generator. I met him at the hotel and we went to the post office where I opened a P.O. Box. Peter said he has found some good shipping deals to Mwanza if we have a P.O. Box there. Then we went to TRA to see if the regional office could do any better with the lost tag situation. They were great. Everything in the Mwanza office is computerized. They told me the tag needed to come from Dar and would be in Musoma within two weeks. That would be nice but I will not hold my breath. We then went back to the hotel and got everyone. We went and ate lunch, then loaded up the cruiser and headed to get the generator. The generator was too heavy to go on the roof and it would not fit in the back of the cruiser with the doors closed. So we put it in the back and tied it in and then tied down the doors and spare tire holders. It would be a long trip back to Shirati with the back of the cruiser open. It would be harder for the kids since they have to sit back there. Then we went and bought Alex a mountain bike. He and Gerry have been sharing the one bike we have. Alex has been out with friends a lot more lately and I want to encourage the trend. He picked out the bike he wanted. He was very excited. It is a pretty cool bike. I think it is more show than substance. It has shock absorbing springs on the frame but I am not real sure how much they do to soften the ride. The bike went on the roof. Then we went to the electronic store and got the choir’s speaker. It was much bigger then it appeared sitting in the store. We had arranged everything the day before. They were to have had it boxed and ready to go but like everything here it was done on African time. So we spent about an hour waiting for the speaker to be boxed and tied on the roof along with the bike. Then we went to the U-turn market. It is a food store that caters to the foreigners most of whom work at the local mining companies. It was almost 4 until we left. I would have stayed another night but we promised Leah we would be home on her birthday which was the next day. So another trip of driving after dark. We had wanted to leave by one, two at the latest. 5 hours to get home without a stop. The trip home was long but uneventful. We got home about 9:30. I was tired and exhausted.


Friday 13
I was feeling really bad again. Upset stomach tired, achy and sore. My head and sinuses really hurt. I figured from all the dust of the trip. It was Leah’s birthday and she was excited the big day was finally here. She has driven everyone crazy the past few months with constant talk of her up coming birthday. She had her party planned for 4 in the afternoon. Ellen was making cupcakes. Ellen was feeling very poorly also so we worked at things together. We decided to give the kids soda to save on clean up of glasses. Gerry and I went out and bought a couple of cases of soda in the afternoon. The kids started showing up around 4. In all about 25 kids came. They played outside until about 5:30 and then we gave them cup cakes and soda. Then Leah opened presents. This was a very amazing experience. Sad and humbling also. The kids all gathered around Leah each with a small gift. Ellen had talked to Leah ahead of time about how everyone here is very poor and can barely afford food let alone buy birthday presents. Ellen had told Leah to be kind and thank each of her friends for what ever they gave her. Leah did a great job of being gracious and thanking each person for their gift. I was amazed at each gift because they had wrapped the gifts in newspaper or scraps of colored paper from school or pieces of colored plastic bags. Leah was given 4 bars of soap which is a very big deal here since most people get to bathe rarely because of the water situation. She received a lot of small packages of crackers and some packages of gum and also a couple of chocolate pudding packs. These are about the size of a McDonalds chicken nugget sauce pack. She also got one chocolate bar. Each of her friends watched with excitement as she opened her presents. I was taking video and pictures. I had to leave the room because I started to cry. All I could think about was the birthdays our kids had gone to at home and how we simply ran out to Toys r Us and bought a nice big present without a second thought and then it got added to the pile of other big nice presents. I am sure there was never much love or thought put into purchasing those presents. And I know we never gave up a meal or special treat to buy a present for someone. But here were all her friends giving her gifts with big smiles and hopeful expressions that she would like their present. Here were kids that had managed to get her something they themselves would rarely get but they had hope, delight and love shining in their eyes. We gave all the kids lolly pops. Birthdays will never be the same again. So now Leah has 4 big beautiful pink bars of soap and a basket of crackers and gum in her room. She is using the first bar of soap every night when she takes a bath.

Sat 14
I am feeling so bad. I have a terrible headache. Migraine, sinus or Malaria. I think it is a sinus infection from all the dust from the trip but then it seems to be a migraine because it is only on the right side and is affecting my right eye only. I spent most of the day in bed. I am tired and exhausted. No appetite and no energy. The heat is unbearable. Even at night I can’t get comfortable. I can’t take much more of this. Ellen keeps saying she is done and wants to go home. Let’s see, if we leave now, 12 hours to Nairobi, buy the tickets and 24 hours to home. Pizza, ice cream and a hot shower. I told her she can go but I can’t and am not ready to leave East Africa. I just sense God still wants us/me here. So everything is just real lousy right now.

Sun 15
Alex Leah, Ellen and I were all sick in the morning again. I stayed in bed most of the day. In the afternoon the heat was brutal. Gerry went to the tree house. I don’t know how the kid manages to be out in the heat and not have it affect him. And he has not had any of the health problems we have had the past couple of weeks. Ellen, Alex and Leah felt better by lunch and decided to go to the lake to swim and escape the heat. I stayed in bed. About the only thing I managed to do was to get up long enough to watch 4 episodes of My name is Earl with the family for family movie night. Another lost day.

Tuesday 17
ChaCha left for Dar on Friday and is to be gone all week. I was expecting to get a lot done but Monday I was in bed most of the day. Tuesday Samwel came and we worked on installing our emergency generator. I still felt terrible and the project did not go well. The cut off switch we bought was missing the wiring diagram and was not working correctly. We have all the wiring in place from the outside store area where the generator is located to the breaker box in the kitchen. We still need to fabricate an exhaust system to get the exhaust out of the store room. And of course figure the switch problem out. I am going to try and get a new switch in Tarime when we go to the border tomorrow. However the electric has been on everyday since we got back from Mwanza with the generator. I should have bought the generator months ago. Samwel has been such a blessing to our family. He is a good friend and is probably the person I will miss the most when we leave Shirati.

Wednesday 18

Spent the day at the border with Samwel getting the huge hospital generator through customs. Boy what an ordeal. The transport company did not follow instructions. They were supposed to get to the border and start the customs export process on the Kenya side. Kenya was their responsibility, Tanzania was ours. But they got to the border at 7 am and then sat and waited outside the border area. We arrived around 11 to find them waiting for us. Our clearing agent had been over twice in the morning to see if they arrived so he could help them with the process. So instead of starting at 7 we started at 11. I was feeling very bad. Am I ever going to get well? They finally had just about everything done on the Kenya side and it was 1 pm, lunch time. So everyone went to lunch and the paper work had to wait until 2 when the officers returned. Samwel and I drove over to Tarime to see if we could get a cut off switch but none were available in Tarime. Back to the border and ate lunch while the Kenya customs people took care of the final paper work. Then it was on to the TZ side. Our clearing official had all the paper work ready but it still took 2 ½ hours to complete. The transport driver and helper did not have passports which was a problem that was dealt with in some way or another. I did not want to know. Boy I say that a lot. We finally left the border around 6pm. Another drive in the dark. I pretty much stayed out of this whole process. It seems that a lot of money exchanges hands at the border to get things done and I want to be able to plead complete ignorance. But money changing hands here to get things done seems to be a part of life. I have done it several times myself. Given the choice of paying 5 or 10 dollars or coming back another day which is 40 kilometers of dirt to get to the main road and then the distance to Tarime or Musoma it makes better financial sense to get it done while there. You know it is never a bribe it is an expedite fee or clearing fee. If you really push you can even get a receipt.


Thursday 19th
Sick and lousy. Ellen spent part of yesterday while I was gone and all morning today working to set up the Satellite. She was very frustrated because she could not get it to work. I wanted her to work on it with me in the afternoon, she finally reluctantly agreed. She reminded me again she is done and wants to go home. So we spent the afternoon working on the satellite together and it finally started to work. We have no idea what we did differently but hey it works. It is very fast and it beats the heck out of driving 2 hours to Musoma. Life is getting better. Later in the afternoon TRA Musoma called they have our new tags for the cruiser. Finally after almost a year they have arrived. Life may be getting better. Late afternoon the boys talked to me about their frustration with all the kids and visitors coming. They asked for a family meeting to talk about the difficulties of the past couple of weeks. It was a great opportunity to address a long simmering issue. We talked a lot about all the visitors and kids and lack of boundaries. We decided to have visiting hours and decided on M-W-F after 2 and Saturday after 10. No kids any other times. They will be told to leave and return later. This went over well with Alex and Gerry. Leah is a little worried because she does not do much school work in the morning and has been playing with friends here at the house. This might force her to go visit them. This goes well with the recent change in house help I made. I changed Stella and Williams schedule to work only from 9 to 12 and Kezia from 9 to 11:30. They will be in the house much less now and only eating breakfast with us. Stella is only cooking 2 lunches a week because everyone hates her cooking. I think she can cook a lot better than she does but we have never held her accountable for a lousy job. If it was totally up to me I would just fire her and we would do meals ourselves. But Ellen would not go for that and this way I am getting shopping and bread baked for $50 a month and I look at it as charity. I have a plan to deal with this in December when we return from Nairobi. I think these changes will help the family to feel more in control of our home and space. It will be interesting to see if it does.

Friday 20
Ellen and I started the day talking about how bad life is at the moment. We are both sick and tired and exhausted. The heat continues to be brutal. I am ready to go to Musoma and buy an air conditioner for relief. That would create a whole new set of problems to deal with. So I will continue to dream.

October 25
I am very happy with just about everything at the hospital at the moment. However I am frustrated with just about everything else. I have absolutely nothing to do here now except finish up the water project. The new team is doing a great job. They handle all the day to day stuff and with the board and church accepting my recommendations, the leadership team now has authority and responsibility for the hospital operation not the board and they now have a guideline to follow. I go to the hospital once or twice a week for a couple of hours. I spend most of my time with Ellen and the kids. Ellen wants me to start teaching math since I have a lot of free time now. The church is talking about sending me to the other hospital they operate in TZ. It is near Mwanza. That would be a 1 or 2 month assignment. I am not thrilled because Ellen and the kids would probably stay here. But at least I would have something to do. I am very happy about the great progress the hospital has made but I am a person that does not do well sitting around. Anyway if we can’t find something here in TZ or east Africa then we will head home. Timing really was bad. My dream job I had been waiting for at home is open right now. Starting date is January 1st. 15 minutes from our farm. But, I would like to stay in TZ for a while longer. I think I have a lot to offer on a broader scope than Shirati TZ. It’s just finding the right opportunity which again being out in the bush makes it even more difficult. I am tired of rice and beans, beans and rice, rice and carrots and beans. The beef is very tough even when cooked in the pressure cooker. We can’t eat chicken any more because the kids have become attached to the last three chickens we bought to kill. So Subway and ice cream in Dar is looking very good. I watched a movie with the kids the other night and the kids in the movie had a pizza delivered. It was brutal. I think I would have seriously gotten in the car and driven to Nairobi just to get pizza if it had been 9 in the morning and not 9 at night.

October 28th
Email to my brother
Ok you missed some birthdays; we missed all of yours also. Being here in Africa changes priorities, schedules and our American concept of time. As far as presents go, movies are the best bet. You can take them out of the cases and put them in paper protective sleeves and then mail several at a time inexpensively directly to Shirati. Since it is not safe to be out at night because of malaria carrying mosquito’s the kids watch a lot of movies. Karla recently sent about 20 new DVD’s which we are rationing to 2 per week. I think we have seen Star Wars, Harry Potter, Police Academy, and Lord of the Rings etc about 20 times each. We have become quite lenient on what the kids can watch. Certainly not up to missionary standards. So as long as you send movies that are not too gruesome the kids will mostly be allowed to watch. Any R rated movie Ellen and I watch first and then decide. G, PG and PG 13 are preferable.

Kirk it sounds like work and career are going well. You should always remember those big name guys you are intimidated by put their pants on the same way you do and still have to sit down to take a dump. The only real difference is they don’t really give a crap about anyone but themselves so they just go do what they need to to get where they are. Get to know these guys; they can give you opportunities to advance career and pocket book. Are you still teaching the community college class? That seems like it gives you more satisfaction than the other stuff. Maybe a little more time spent on that area would be fruitful and provide less stressful more fulfilling vocational opportunities. As to the truck driving. I use to dream about driving a truck. The open road, tunes playing from the radio, watching all the cars go by. Then I got to know a couple of truck drivers and the romance ended. Rain, sleet, snow, bad attitude drivers, bad roads, long hauls and unloading your load. Now it is working at Turkey Hill night shift that I dream about, just make sure the coffee is hot.

Life for the Hummels has really sucked the past month. First it is brutally hot. It is supposed to be the start of the short rainy season but the rains have bypassed Shirati. The rains normally knock the heat down this time of year. Even the Tanzanians are complaining about the heat. Everyone but Gerry has been sick. Mostly stomach. We have been dewormed, deparasited, changed our water system, got rid of everything in the refig and started over. We are cooking everything longer and eating nothing cold. And we are still getting sick. This past week we started drinking bottled water only. It seems to have helped only Leah. I even took the malaria series treatment just to be sure it was not a low grade case of Malaria. So each day is tough to get up and function because life is hard enough to live here when you are healthy. Yesterday I was feeling pretty good and had a very good day. Today, I was in bed all morning with stomach cramps and severe nausea. It is really a pain to be feeling fine one minute and running to the bathroom the next. Such is life here.

Things are going very well at the hospital. I gave the church and hospital boards a 25 page document of recommendations in September. They have accepted most of them. Most of my work here is done. Here is an excerpt from my final recommendation in the document. “EMM and their missionaries have failed to understand that their presence in the local community has a tremendous impact beyond spreading the Word. As missionaries, we tend to think of ourselves as people who live humbly and modestly within the community. I believe missionaries often fail to acknowledge that they are still among the wealthiest members of the community. Just by being white, missionaries are given undo respect and authority. This happens in Shirati. Simply by being here I am given credit for doing the work, making the changes and bringing resources. By being here, I have been the catalyst for change. In fact, for the recent changes to have occurred, someone from the outside needed to be here to push EMM and the entrenched current and former missionaries to make changes. However, these changes have now occurred. I am beginning to see people looking to me as the person actually doing the work. Instead of taking the credit for what they have done, they are deferring to me. In fact I am no longer helping to build capacity, trust and confidence in the local management team. It is time for the Hummels to leave Shirati. In leaving Shirati at this point in time, there is a strong leadership team that is capable of leading the organization. My leaving will create some struggles and difficulties for the hospital and leadership team as they adjust to being without a missionary for a safety blanket. However, these challenges will be offset by the benefits of people being forced to acknowledge that the change and success is indeed being brought about by the Tanzanian Leadership team and not a missionary. This continues to re-enforce the thinking that Tanzanians need outside people to do the job for them. Mission agencies and their missionaries should be vigilant that they build local capacity not destroy it.”
One of my recommendations was that we leave Shirati by the end of January. A real business consultant would be out of here by January because it is appropriate but because of the church and mission element we will not leave by then. But my final point of the document was that we will leave Shirati by July of 2007. It will be a long 6 months with not much to do. Ellen has asked me to help with home schooling at that point. I think it will be a real stretch for me. We are in discussion with the church about other possible assignments to complete our term in TZ. We would prefer to move to Dar at this point. I am also looking for government and NGO opportunities. We would like to spend a couple of more years in East Africa.

To Nina
Believe me I can relate to the grass is not greener on the other side. We came to Africa in part because we thought the work would be less demanding and we would have more time together as a family. The only part of that that panned out is the more family time. I have a much better relationship with the kids and Ellen but there has been much more stress and the demands of life here are much harder than in the US. I am sorry things have been tough for you. I have no idea what the lesson is you are to learn. I have found I get clarity on life’s messages at the strangest times. Hopefully your billboard will flash bright in the near future. As to purpose, I have grown to believe purpose is in the living of life, the chase of the dream, the challenge of the task and less in the idea of God’s single purpose for my life is to... Not to get evangelic or philosophical on you but I think God created us and put us here on the planet, giving us free choice so we are not robots and the rest is up to us. Alex and I have been having a lot of long discussions on the subject. It is really cool to be able to have intellectual conversations with your kids. But that also means they are growing up. As to finding yourself, I’m afraid to find myself because then what’s left, no struggle no adventure just an easy chair in a corner of a room reading some novel because I have everything figured out.

October 29th,
Well I had a great day yesterday. I was feeling very good. The boys were going with the Birai’s to visit their oldest daughter who is in boarding school about an hour away. It should be an interesting experience spending the entire day traveling with a TZ family and being at a TZ event. They came home late and were not real happy that the day was longer than it was supposed to be but then that is Africa; nothing is on time or schedule. It sounds like they had a good time. My stomach was trashed again and I spent the morning in bed. I have spent the rest of the day catching up on email, journals and pictures. At least now I’m only having stomach problems no more exhaustion and headaches. Maybe I’m about over whatever got into me.