Ellen's e-mail excerpts

August-Sept 5th '07

August 13, 2007
Went to dr. yesterday…have some sort of upper respiratory infection and amoebas (makes you have gas and poop a lot!). On meds now and already am feeling much better. Also Leah gained 1 ½ kg…@3+lbs. and dr is very pleased. Dr just loves Leah…lady from Switzerland with two teenage daughters who are mutual friends with Jensens (Keith’s USAID friends). Ex-patriot (foreigners) community is small and close-knit. Love that aspect of Dar so far. Hope weather is not too hot in DE. It is in the upper 80’s here but feels much hotter than Shirati (which was much higher elevation, but same temps). Keep hearing how BRUTAL Dec-March is—yikes!!! So, if you want to visit, hint-hint, then it’s best before Dec and after March! Love, E

August 18, 2007
Another novella, I guess. As you can imagine, Leah’s health trauma threw us all into quite a tizzy. I feel I handled things fairly well when the crisis occurred, but then got sick a couple of weeks after…very predictable. Chest infection, losing voice, etc. Throw in some amoeba infection as well, as a bonus for being in East Africa. I was taking a lot of naps and finding it difficult to stay “on-task”. Most of the new house still needs scrubbed from ceiling to floor, and have only managed to have conquered the bathrooms, partially. The kitchen has mostly been cleaned and organized, but I took the drapes down to wash them 3 weeks ago, and they still are not back up. Not a big deal, but something that adds to the sense of being unsettled, as I’m sure you are experiencing now. Mostly I have just cleaned up the major dirt, and the rest of it can wait, maybe indefinitely. A couple of weeks ago, Dr. Chirangi came and spent the day with us. He has left to go to the Netherlands for a year to get his Master’s degree in Public Health. We were all very sad to say good-bye, and Leah still cries. Anyway, another emotional experience.

Other news: Our friend Solar finally arrived on Thursday and we are thrilled to have a friend here from Shirati!!! He has a separate apartment next to the house, that is not fully furnished yet, and I am not sure how the logistics of meals, etc are going to work over the next year. He is part of the family, he comes and goes, and even helps me with the dishes!!!! For now, things are feeling pretty good. Bilali, our guard/gardener also has a small apartment behind Solar’s, and I have been giving him breakfast and dinner 7 days a week. Anyway, I talked to Bilali this morning and told him I’m not providing meals on the weekends. It is hard for me and I don’t know why. I know that most people here are not able to eat well, and those that I come in contact with, I feel it is my personal mission to feed them well. I just need to have a break to help me continue well.

Life in Dar is so different than Shirati!!! In Shirati, we were isolated from “civilization” and people of like culture (except Verle) In Dar, we are in the midst of civilization and many foreigners live here, but we are surrounded by walls, physical and imagined. In Shirati lots of people, mostly kids came to our house EVERY day. Here, it is unusual to have anyone come at all, and definitely not a Tanzanian. It is an isolation of a different type. In Shirati, most people were very friendly and welcoming of wazungu (white folks/foreigners). Here it is almost the opposite. Wazungu have a bad rap and rightly so from most of my observations of interactions. So many times I see folks being so rude to Tanzanians…expecting things and people to work like in America and other nations. I don’t get it!!! This is not my home, I am not even a citizen! I see it as a prolonged visit, and it is my duty as a Christian and a decent human being to be respectful of the people whose home this is. Just the fact of having huge walls with barbed wire at the top sends a strong message. Although I enjoy the privacy at the moment…what message is it sending???

Anyway, I am REALLY enjoying worshipping in English. It has been so refreshing. We have also gone to see a couple of movies, including Shrek 3.
Well, that’s all I’m going to type now, we just got broadband and the connection is actually working, so I’m going to check out some sites. Love to you!! E

August 25, 2007
Hi there. Sorry I couldn’t chat the other evening…I was making spaghetti, etc. Now cooking for 7 people Mon-Fri evenings. I don’t mind.

Are you sad about Maya going to school? I remember how sad I was when Gerry got on the bus for first grade! I cried. He got on the bus and never looked back. It was funny because Alex, even thru 4th grade would always get on the bus and wave to me until he was out of sight. I highly doubt he would do that now!! I will be driving the kids to and from school at least in the beginning, until I am able to arrange for carpooling. I am a little nervous of driving (stick shift) and we have to cross this crazy intersection that is a city bus stop. There are always at least 10 matatus/busses, 10-20 bikes, and lots of these covered 3-wheeled motorbike things. Not to mention all the pedestrians and cars.

The kids are pretty excited. I gave the boys haircuts. I have had to cut Gerry’s hair 3 times!!! His hair got progressively shorter, and now it is short all the way around. He looks good and it is good to see his face. Leah already knows some girls in her class. The church we go to is the only wazungu church and most of the families of students and teachers go there. It is nice to see familiar faces.

I am SO EXCITED to have a break!!!! I think I’m going to peel out of the school parking lot!!! I think the first few days I am just going to rest and finish unpacking the rest of our stuff. Keith just left today and will be gone a week, so I will completely have my own space. Keith doesn’t want me driving much yet, but if I feel confident, I will explore some nearby areas and do some shopping. Of course there is always the beach.

I have been getting up at 6 am every morning this week to get ready for the school routine. I like getting up early and feel much more productive that way…I just usually need a nap since I still stay up late at night!

September 5, 2007
Hi there. Thanks for the e-mail. It was great to hear from you. I must admit I have been feeling quite disconnected from you for quite some time…not meant to be a guilt-inducing statement, as I have not e-mailed much over the last number of weeks/months. Am very glad to hear that the first day of school went well! I have so many moments lately that just blow me away at how grown up the kids are getting. It’s thrilling and heart wrenching at the same time. Really don’t miss the running around and doing the sports thing, although I attended a “new” parents meeting for the school last week and there is interest in starting a Middle school baseball team and they need “someone” to run it. Wonder if I can rope Keith into leading that and me to be team mom? We are pretty much laying low at the moment and not taking on any more “stuff”, so the baseball thing will need to wait a bit.

The kids really like school, although the boys are not feeling challenged at all…they are both in a grade lower than they should be. I’m going to give it a bit more time before I go talk to the “Deputy-Director” and see if they can be moved up. The higher grades for each of them were supposed to be full, but with the high turnover rate here of comings and goings, no one is ever sure. Leah likes her class, but is way behind the others in reading. Here they are expected to be reading well by first grade and she does not read at all. I have tried and tried and tried. I know she will get it in time, it’s just frustrating at the moment.

I totally hear you with the “babes” thing w/your son. Gerry seems to be a hot item in his class! He is the only new boy in his class and the new guy is usually the focus of female crushes according to class legend!! There are 25 kids in the class and only 7 boys! Guess he’ll have his hands full. Before school started I had to cut Gerry’s hair 3 times!!! At first he just wanted a trim, then he wanted the front short (Alex and Leah said he looked like Velma from Scooby-Doo!)…after that he asked me to cut it all short. He looks so much better!!! He exercises twice every day to keep himself buff and has been doing that since April and has not given up. I usually chuckle when he flexes his arm or stomach muscles for me. Outwardly I ooh and aahh, but inwardly I think he still looks like a string bean to me!!


Other news: Keith was away all last week to travel to Musoma/Shirati/Tenwek. He had a great trip and things went fairly well. Here in Dar we did ok. Had a lot of water issues. This is a never-ending source of angst!!! You never know if the fundis (fix-it guy) are telling you the truth, etc, etc. While Keith was away, the one water storage tank had some sort of clog in the line. Anyway, after a few days it was fixed. Another headache while hubby was away was that the 2 female dogs were fighting….like to the death!!! It was so ugly. The two of them could not be out at the same time and the one who was locked up would howl. It usually took 2-3 people to separate the dogs if they got at each other. Poor Old Dog got sucked into the fights a couple of times and not sure why, but he was bleeding real bad on his neck and I was a bit concerned. It turned out that Mama Mbwa was sick with something. I drove her down to the vet @ 30min away (yes, I’m driving the Beast in Dar!!). The vet thought she was having a false pregnancy and that she also had some infected lesions from fighting. It was horrible…the dog had howled in pain ALL NIGHT LONG. The vet stitched her up and injected pain meds and antibiotics. The poor dog howled in pain the whole ride back to the house. Luckily Solar and Bilali (gardener) went with me to help. She ended up dying that afternoon. I felt so bad for her and still feel a little sad. The kids took it ok. We buried her in the yard and I keep hoping that the other dogs don’t go digging there!


As for July 2008….sijui (I don’t know). We are praying for guidance for “what’s next”. I would really like to further my education, but don’t know what in, either psychology or creative writing. Still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up!!! We don’t know if we want to go home yet or not, but DO know that we will be finished with EMM next year. If Keith could get a paying job here, we could travel more (including home). If he doesn’t find a paying job, then we need to come home. Since we decided to not sell our farm to serve here, we have to pay farm bills from our savings every month. We figured we can manage that for the 3 years, but nothing beyond that.