Christmas Walk 2013

We're pretty minimalistic when it comes to traditions, but we've got a few things we try to keep consistent every year, no matter where we're at when Christmas rolls around.  One of them, speaking of rolls, is cinnamon rolls for Christmas breakfast.  This is a tradition both Andrew and I grew up with, so it is not like we had to choose sides or anything when it came to deciding what to have for our own family's Christmas breakfast!

Another tradition that we have is going for a Christmas day walk.  It's a great tradition for folks who might be anywhere in the world December 25, because you can (almost) always go for a walk.  In 2008, on our very first Christmas together, (side note: this was two days before we were engaged) we were in Olympia, WA, and it was really snowy.  We bundled up in hats, scarves, boots, and all of that nasty junk and tripped and stumbled around the neighborhood where my parents live, wading through the drifts and trying not to slip on the hills.

The next year we had been married for five months, and were between our time in England and moving to Tanzania as a couple.  We were in Arch Cape, OR, with Andrew's family for Christmas.  We went for a short little walk, and I don't remember much about it.  I think it was raining, but we toughed it out for a wee while.

In 2010, we were living in our first house in Tanzania.  For lack of much else to do that day, we decided that since we had gone for a walk both of the Christmases before, we should do another and call it a tradition.  (To read about Christmas 2010 and see pictures from our walk: http://www.amsandeen.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-2010.html.)

We kept up the tradition in 2011 (in Tanzania), in 2012 (on the Oregon coast for a beach walk with Andrew's sister Karen and her family - although we confess we did that one on the 26th due to Christmas day logistics and two tiny babies involved in the event), and in 2013 - see pictures below!

The little strip of blue just below the far-away hills is Lake Victoria.

The lake really is huge - this is just a wee inlet of it between two peninuslas

Zarya loves going outside!  As squished as she appears here, she's really quite happy in her carrier.

I love the ginormous rocks around here!

Hi everybody!  I can walk!  Zarya got to walk the last bit all by herself.

December cold snap

Walking!

Zarya is now walking everywhere - crawling is like, you know, so totally for babies, and she's a big girl now, you know.  I wanted a picture of her walking, but she kept following me, so I took this picture while speed-walking backwards.  Her forehead got trimmed off, but it's the best I could manage under the circumstances!

Playing with Baba and CowCow in the morning

As you might have noted in the picture above, Zarya is sporting long sleeves and shoes.  It's pretty cold here this week!  This morning we woke up to a 70-degree house, so had to pull out the fleece and socks and shoes.  It feels like a true December day, with us all bundled up to endure the cold snap.

So cute!  We love our baby. :-)

What to do if you think you might be ill and you're in Musoma

This is a post without pictures, because, trust me, you don't want pictures on this one.

Well, who can resist a cute Zarya picture?  So here you go, a not-really-related-to-this-post picture:

Anyway, so I thought y'all might like to know what we do around here when we suspect we might be ill. Unfortunately, I've got two recent examples.

The first took place several weeks ago.  I had been feeling uncomfortable in my interior regions all day, gradually getting worse.  That night, I spent a fair amount of time in a room other than the one where my bed was, if you know what I mean.  Unfortunately, we were scheduled to go on a trip, leaving early the next morning.  I was acutely miserable and was 99% sure of what was ailing my guts - amoeba.  And so, not having time to do anything else before leaving town, and anticipating a four-hour-long trip with no rest stops possible (well, possible - there were bushes), I went online.  Who needs a doctor or pharmacist when you have the internet?  I found out which amoeba medicine is okay to take when nursing, and then on our way out of town, we stopped at a pharmacy on our way out of town and picked up my drugs.  They cost about two dollars.

The other example is from yesterday.  Zarya had been showing some signs of perhaps being sick, but I wasn't sure if she really was, or what it was.  All I knew is that what I was finding in her diaper looked a little different than normal.  (I told you this post was better without pictures!)  So, I got a toothpick and scooped out some evidence and put it in a plastic bag, strapped Zarya into her carrier, and changed into my outdoor flip-flops.  Then she and I went off on a three-minute walk to the other side of the compound where we live, where there is a little medical clinic.  We carried her sample to the young man who runs the laboratory, who looked at it under his microscope.  He told me that he didn't find anything out of the ordinary in it, so we paid our thirty cent fee and walked home again.  At this point, I am not sure if she's sick or not.  Maybe it's the kind of sickness where you need to do a test other than looking at poo under a microscope, or maybe the young man just missed it.  Or maybe she's perfectly healthy and just ate too much fruit.  I guess we'll see how she does over the next few days.

Masatu wedding

George Masatu and Amanda Swift got married on November 30, and it was one fun party!  I was honored to be the "besty" - matron of honor/bridesmaid/attendant/witness for the occasion.  It involved a lot of smiling, standing, sweating, eating, waiting, dress-carrying, and even some kneeling.  I thoroughly enjoyed being part of the festivities.  I played a tiny role in getting George and Amanda together, so feel very successful as a matchmaker now - only twice (that I remember... but successes are easier to remember than failures) have I tried to set folks up, and twice they've ended up getting married.

This is me and the bride standing at the back of the church, waiting for the wedding march to begin for us to start going down the aisle (we walked in side-by-side - the bride's family is at the front of the church during the wedding, but don't parade down the aisle in TZ weddings).  I was very surprised by how so many people crowed up right behind and and were actually pushing against us, stepping on the back of the bride's dress and squeezing in between us at times, trying to see into the church.  I mean, like, hang on folks, this is the bride you're shoving!

Amanda's parents and family attended the wedding via Skype at about 1:00am their time.  Helping them attend was the gift of a few fellow missionaries who held this computer up, carrying it and applicable cords and antennae around for the entire wedding and reception.

Rings!  I like how they hold the hands and rings up while putting them on at weddings and engagements here - it's a big deal, so why not act like it?

Gift-giving is a big part of the reception.  People come up in groups (this is the choir that sang at the wedding, thus they are dressed alike) and gift group gifts, for the most part.  If a large piece of cloth is part of their gift (and many were), they are draped around the bride and groom.  I think there is some humorous significance to wrapping the wedding couple up in sheets at the front of the reception hall, but it being a very proper wedding, no overt jokes were made (as is I think more normal at some types of receptions).  But everyone had a good time, and I think dancing your unwrapped gift up to the front of the hall with everyone watching has a few fun points to it, although I don't think the idea will take off at American weddings.

We wish the Masatus all the best in their new marriage!

Wedding shower fun

These lucky ladies got their picture taken before the art project began

Praying for Amanda

Pretty soon you'll get to read a post here about our friend Amanda's wedding, but first you have to hear about her wedding shower!  It took place ten days ago, but I haven't been online much recently, thanks to load-shedding power cuts.  Oh yes, power cuts.  Just in case you're not familiar with what load shedding is, let me explain.  You see, sometimes the electricity goes out because there is a storm and a power line gets knocked down or something.  Then when the problem is fixed, the power comes back on.  That's the sort of power outage with which you're probably familiar.  And then there are power outages when there is some sort of issue that needs to be fixed, so the electricity company cuts your power for a wee bit while it's repaired and then it comes back on when they finish.  That's kind of like the storm-caused outage, except there has been no storm.

And then there is load shedding.  That's when there simply isn't enough electricity to go around, so the power company turns off half of the town for ten hours or so, then switches to the other half.  And, sometimes on special days, they turn off the entire town/region/country.  Right now we're in the midst of ten days (or so... one can't count on these things finishing exactly on time!) of such power cuts.  Apparently there is some problem somewhere that requires extensive repairs or replacement or something, so the whole country of Tanzania is enjoying a severe electricity shortage while the issue is dealt with.  It's pretty fun.  Ha.

Where was I... Amanda's wedding shower!

So, in honor of our dear friend Amanda's upcoming marriage, our ladies' Bible study group threw her a wedding shower.  Amanda wanted some of her Tanzanian friends to come, too, so I had to figure out some games that worked across language barriers.  I went searching online for wedding shower games, and found a few fun ideas that I could use as a starting point.  Not being one to follow recipes when cooking, neither am I one to follow game instructions to the letter.

One game turned out so well and is so multi-purpose that I thought I'd mention and recommend it (or a variation of it) here.  Here's what you do:

-Collect a bunch of pieces of paper that is blank on at least one side (ours had a draft of the JESUS Film in the Kabwa language on the other side, because that's the sort of scratch paper we cool missionary types have lying around)
-Collect as many pens as people in your group
-Collect books of the same number
-Choose a topic and judge

Distribute all of the above items and then tell folks that they are to draw a picture of the bride on her wedding day (or whatever else works for your group - a Thanksgiving turkey, a Christmas tree with presents, the new mother and baby, etc.).  A few artistic types will like the idea and everyone else will be annoyed that they have to draw.  Then tell them that they have to do it on their heads with NO peeking (see pictures above).  At this point everyone will be kind of annoyed.  But once they start, they'll all start laughing and it should be a good riot.

There is no time limit - when you finish, you're done.  It won't take long.  Give all the papers to the judge, who can hold up each one, talk about its merits (few) and issues (which are likely many), and choose the best (meaning, the picture in which the bride's head is actually attached to her body).

However, after saying all of that, I must confess that in our group, artistic talent did come in handy, because it was the art teacher in the group who had the best picture.  We all had a good time creating our scribbly pictures, but there was one picture that looked better than mine would have even if I'd been looking the entire time!

Hearing knocks

In the NIV, Revelation 3:20 (an excerpt from that verse, that is) says, "I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door..."

Have you ever wondered about the relationship between knocking and hearing someone's voice?  It doesn't say, "I stand at the door and call out," and it doesn't say, "If anyone hears me knock."  Something seems to be off in this verse, because last time I checked, one shouldn't hear voices (in one's head or otherwise) when somebody knocks on a door.

When working on this verse with the Ikizu translators, I was prepared to discuss the above issue with them to try to come up with a solution that was both accurate to the original and yet made sense. The first time I saw their draft, though, I couldn't help but smile.  I had been so caught up with the issues this verse creates in English that I had forgotten that Ikizu people don't normally knock on doors.  In Ikizu, the verse says, "I stand at the door and call..."

If you go to an Ikizu village and want to enter someone's house, you call out to them that you are there.  It's nice, because not only do you know somebody is at your door, but you also generally know who it is (if you recognize their voice, that is).  Indeed, I think that is the meaning Jesus has in this verse, that it's not just by chance that somebody opens the door when he knocks, but they know for whom they are opening the door.

I suppose it makes sense that sometimes translating a verse into Ikizu is much easier than translating it into English!

First birthday

Hello, my name is Zarya and this is my first blog post, and today is my first birthday!  I had a party with all of my best friends from the missionary community here in Musoma.  It was a really fun party!  Mama and Baba made lots of nice food for the grown-ups, and they all got sodas, too.  The other kids and I got apple juice for our special drink - it was my very first time to try apple juice and I really liked it!  I chugged my entire sippy cup full of it down to the very last couple drops!  This is a picture of all the food for the big people and bigger kids: 

My real aunts live really far away in America and one is even in Guam, but my special Auntie Ronit lives in Musoma and came to my party!  She's the funnest EVER.  I mean most fun.  Isn't she pretty?

I got to get dressed up in brand-new clothes because it was my birthday.  They are size 24 months, but they were only a tiny bit too big.  Most of the clothes that fit me right now are size 18 months.  I guess they size baby clothes for normal-sized babies, not really tall ones like me.  Baba and Mama measured and weighed me this morning.  I was 31 inches (78.7) cm) tall, 21 pounds (9.5 kg), and my head (can you believe they even measured my head?!) was 18 inches (45.7 cm) around.  Mama checked online, whatever that means, and said that means I'm in the 93rd percentile for height, the 45th for weight, and my head is in the 65th.

I got to eat lunch on the back porch with the other kids.  The adults all had to sit inside.  I think my friends had more fun watching me eat than they did eating their own food!  Maybe they were jealous that I got special food that was different from theirs, because it had a lot of different vegetables and some legumes in it.  Because it was my birthday, Mama gave me extra carrots, since they are my favorite!

There are three of my best girlfriends.  They are all big girls, aged 7, 5, and 3, but they still like to play with me.  I'm one now, at least I finally have an age, so I'm almost a big girl!

I guess when it's your birthday, you get presents!  Who knew?!

Not only were there presents, but there was this weird new food called cake.  The presents were fun, but the cake was kind of scary, because they stuck a candle in it.  I cried a little bit.  Baba and Mama didn't help me eat it - they didn't break off little bites for me or anything!  I was stuck there on my own, this weird cupcake in front of me (at least they took the candle out), and I had no idea what to do.  Surely this purple thing wasn't food!  I poked it and some of it stuck to my finger, so I licked it clean, and then I discovered it tasted okay.  Sugar, I guess it's called.  I picked at it a bit after that and got some more frosting.  Baba seemed kind of sad that I didn't make a mess, but Mama seemed sort of relieved.  I don't know why they didn't just give me some more carrots.  Grown-ups, seriously.

As a final treat, I got to play with Miss Holly's watch.  She's married, so maybe I should call her Mrs. Holly.  Anyway, she has the nicest watch I've ever seen, and I want one just like it when I grow up.  I really want to have awesome curly hair like her when I grow up, too, but I don't think that's going to happen.  Miss Holly used to live next door me to me, and I'd visit her almost every day.  She moved away last week, though, and I'm kind of confused as to why I don't see her all the time now.  But all the same, she is still one of my bestest friends and her watch is my favorite.  And you should see her new house - it has lots of space to crawl around in, and pretty soon, I'm going to be walking and running all over it!  I took my first steps by myself the other day and might take more soon if I'm in the mood someday.  Oh, and Mama and Baba told me that I'll have new neighbors soon, Mr. George and Miss Amanda, so that'll be fun.  Miss Amanda was at my party today and I played with the envelope from the card she gave me more than any of the toys I got!

So now you know all about my very special first ever birthday party.  I wish you could have been there!  It was so wonderful - I had a really great time!  However, I had to take a nap at 2:00, so I had to tell everyone bye-bye while they were still in the living room having fun.  Being the first to leave your own birthday party is kind of lame, but Baba and Mama don't budge much on naptime.  And you know what?  I really was pretty tired after all that laughing and playing!  Birthdays are a lot of fun!

Lunch date at Matvilla Beach

Somebody loves Baba!  And somebody loves his baby, too. :-)

This guy was fishing on a small wooden boat - you know your fish is fresh when you're watching fishermen while eating!

Zarya wore shoes for the first time a couple days ago and now loves them.  Just seeing me get her shoes out of her bag to put them on her made her wiggle and giggle with anticipation. We kind of hope she grows out of her shoe obsession!

A couple of weaver birds were playing around where we ate, and this one paused for a moment to pose

Lunch!

Not the most flattering picture of me, but Zarya reaching out to grab herself a chip (which I did not allow her to eat, for the record), is pretty cute.  It's annoying to have a baby with such long arms - she can reach way too many things!  Where did she get such long arm genes from, anyway?!

Today we went out to lunch at our favorite spot, Matvilla Beach.  It was kind of a date, because Zarya doesn't talk yet, so Andrew and I could have a really nice conversation without her interrupting or understanding.  That'll end someday, but in the meantime it's fun to be able to go on a date and still get to take her along.  It's the best of both worlds!

Zarya got to eat her first fried food - not the attempted steal of a chip, but pieces of my fish.  I am happy to say she loved it.  I packed her lunch and brought it with us, since I didn't want to share too much of my fish, and a good thing I did, because otherwise she really would have kept right on chowing that tilapia down, like a true Musoma girl.

We love the breeze and the view at Matvilla, and there are always a lot of birds around.  Since coming to Tanzania, Andrew has gotten into bird watching (a little bit; he's not like a total nerd about it).  The birds here are just so beautiful and interesting.  I wasn't into bird songs until moving to our current house, which sometimes feels like an aviary in the mornings.  When I Skype with my parents, they can always hear the birds before I even say "hello" when we first connect and that's how they know if the sound is working or not and if the volume is right.

Sometimes it feels like there is just nowhere to go and nothing to do in Musoma, so it really is a treat to head out to Matvilla and enjoy our fish and chips there.  I came back this afternoon feeling like I'd been away on a two-hour vacation!

Fall Carving Party

Ronit and Crystal - they look like happy housemates, but what's up with the knife?  Friend or foe?

No, he's not growing a beard, it's just a weekend thing.

George's first attempt at food carving was a great success, likely thanks in part to some coaching provided by Amanda

I always try to match my knives to my clothing, as to be particularly classy while carving.

Scary Sandeen sharklike one on the left, center is the friend/foe housemates one, and on the right is the very successful first attempt at carving one

Our friend Amanda wanted to having a fall party this year - you know, the kind at which you drink cider, carve pumpkins, make caramel apples, etc.  It was about 90 degrees outside and cider proved impossible here, but the rest of the party was a giant success.  Well... that depends on if you are a real stickler for tradition or not, I guess.  Apparently it's not pumpkin season around here, because I've been scouring the market for a month trying to find just one, and have not had any success.  So, watermelons were our "gourd" of choice in lieu of the real deal.  And you know what?  Watermelons carve up just fine!

Cookbook recommendation

I've done a few book recommendations posts on here before, but certainly never a cookbook one!  Today, however, I have a post that most of you won't care about and a few of you will greatly appreciate.  If you find yourself in the minority category of people who cook everything from scratch with pretty basic ingredients (i.e. missionary, wanna-be pioneer woman, or health food nut without enough money to buy strange stuff at specialty stores), this is the book for you.  About half of what I make found its origin in these pages.  It's a Mennonite cookbook, like the renowned "More With Less", but more international and modern.  It has recipes for things from all over the world, made with things you actually have in your kitchen, and most if it is pretty good for you.  My brother-in-law (yeah, Kabyn!) gave this to me for Christmas back in 2008, and my culinary life has taken on new life!

So, I know a lot of you don't care about this one bit, and that's okay, but for those few special ones out there, GO BUY IT!!

A one-leaf fall

Nykerk Music Hall, Hope College

My leaf!

After living in Western Washington, land of soggy Octobers/Novembers for 18 years, I was in awe of every leaf I saw in Michigan.  Hope College, in Holland, MI, has a beautiful campus, especially in the fall.  I never got tired of crunchy, crisp, dry, gorgeous leaves during my four fabulous falls at Hope.  Growing up, I was a voracious reader (and still am), and it always annoyed me to read about people tromping through piles of noisy leaves.  Leaves were soggy things in my mind, burdened by slugs and pine needles mounding on top of them.  And then I went to Michigan and realized that all those authors didn't lie - fall is an amazing season, and you don't have to drown in puddles or slip on slug slime and disintegrating leaves during it.

In fact, back in the fall of 2000 I found the leaves around Hope to be so pretty that I collected quite a few of them.  I carefully transported them back to my dorm room and pressed them in books.  They were fun surprises to discover in random books for a few years after that.

Last week Zarya was doing her usual dining room bookshelf rearrangement routine while I was in the kitchen.  I heard the books come down and so went to go try to put them back on the shelf.  Imagine my surprise when I found a leaf on the floor next to my concordance!  I immediately knew it was one of my fall 2000 Hope leaves, since those were the only ones I ever collected.  My little leaf had survived for twelve years and had traveled the world!  It looked perfect.  It was the beginning of October, just the right time to find a fall leaf, too.  I carefully picked it up and set it up high, well out of Zarya's reach, and admired it for a week.

And then I started to wonder, what does one do with an antique leaf?  I mean, I couldn't throw it away!  I considered putting it back in my concordance, but hiding it away again didn't really appeal to me.  Then it came to me - share the love!  I transported my precious leaf, the only one of the fall this year in Musoma, to another Holland, MI, family here in Musoma.  That lovely leaf is now displayed in their house, bringing some fall cheer to folks far away from fall leaves - far away from all but one, that is!

Zarya, almost 11 months old

Proof that babies really do play with rattles - this is one of her favorite toys

She loves video Skype!

Zarya gets soooo excited when I turn on my computer and she hears someone talking!  And when she can even SEE that person, she starts squealing and kicking her legs with glee.  I mean, how thrilling is it to get to see Babu and Bibi all the way around the world in Olympia (although sometimes she gets distracted watching herself in the little video in the corner of the screen, instead of looking at the big video of them in the middle)?
I don't know what missionaries did before Skype, but it is one of the greatest inventions of the modern world, so far as Zarya and I are concerned.

Getting ahead

It's hard work to get ahead in Tanzania.  On one hand, the communal caring-for and sharing that goes on within families is really beautiful, but on the other, it makes it nearly impossible for anyone to break out of poverty.  It's a system set up so that nobody with friends and family ends up hungry and homeless, which is great, except that it also prevents anyone from being really well-fed in a very nice house.

To give you an idea of how this works, I'll give you a little case study example from a young man with whom I was talking yesterday.  He's the second child out of nine kids, and the oldest boy.  His parents chose him to be one of the few in the family who would receive a good education, since they couldn't afford to send all their kids through school.  They, along with the extended family and the brothers and sisters who weren't chosen, sacrificed a lot to put him all the way through secondary school.  After graduation, he managed to get a pretty good job with a regular salary.

Now, however, he has a huge responsibility to take care of everyone in his family.  Just this past weekend, his sister had a baby, and he was asked to pay for her transport to and from the hospital and the hospital bill.  Also, his cousin's child got sick, and he had to foot that bill, too.  While his cousin might not have directly contributed to his education, she's still family, and she needed help.  Every week or two, there is a relative who needs something or other, and he's expected to pay.

He has been trying to save up some money for a little nest egg, in hopes of getting married and having his own family someday, but how can he refuse?  They put him through school, and without their help, he'd be in the same situation they are.  As the oldest and wealthiest male among his siblings, he's the one they are all going to go to for the rest of his life.  When his father dies, he'll be responsible for taking care of his mother and any surviving grandparents.  If any of his brothers die, he's the one in charge of providing for their widows and children.

This system ensures that there is always someone who can help you in your time of need, and it keeps the family relationships close.  There are a lot of good things about everyone caring for one another and being responsible for each other, and I don't think this young man would argue otherwise.  However, he's already feeling the frustration and pressure, and he's still in his twenties.  A lot of people are depending on him, and he's wondering if he really got the good end of the deal or not.  It's not always so lucky to be the "lucky" one!

Missing family

The other day when I dropped Zarya off at another missionary's home for the afternoon, she started crying a little bit.  The other mama, the one whose house we were at, said, "Are you missing your mama, Zarya?  It's okay to cry.  I miss my mama, too.  Sometimes I'm sad to be far away from my mama, just like you are."

The next day, a different missionary woman I encountered was having a rough day, because it was her father's 70th birthday, and she was missing the big family party.  She had a good attitude about it, and said, "You know, it's only a few days each year that I feel that the whole living here to do missions just might not be worth giving up being near my family, but this sure is one of them.  Tomorrow I'll probably be fine again, but today I really wish that I wasn't here in Tanzania, unable to be with my dad."

Sometimes Andrew and I talk about being far away from our families and how it's difficult that we can't just pop over for a visit.  We don't need to live two blocks away, but a little visit now and then would sure be nice.  In the picture of my dad and Zarya, you can see how little she is - that's how old she was when he last saw her.  She's grown up a lot since then, and gone through some super-cute stages that our families have totally missed.

It makes me sad that we can't do things with our families like put a puzzle together, like we did last Christmas.  We video chat on Skype once a week, we upload short video clips of Zarya onto YouTube for them to watch, and we e-mail regularly, but it's just not the same.  You can't snuggle a baby over Skype, and you can't spend the afternoon in the kitchen talking and baking together via e-mail.  Between the two of us, Andrew and I have five sisters, and if any one of them walked in our front door right now, Zarya would have no idea who she was.

Missionaries have to "count the cost".  We know we're called to be here, and we've chosen to obey and live in East Africa.  We don't regret or resent it, but that doesn't mean we're not sad about it sometimes.  Zarya is sad when I leave for two and a half hours (and, mind you, she's asleep for two of those), and likewise, we're sad when we leave our families for two and a half years or so.

Dad, Mom, Papa, Nammie, and all of our sisters and brothers-in-law and the plethora of nieces and nephews, this one is for you: we love you and we miss you!

Don't Pack Up Those Books Yet!

Andrew writing here (any gasps are understandable)...

Last Sunday I visited a Pentecostal church in a Zanaki village on my list of villages to get to for the first time.  (Actually, I thought it was a Catholic church until I arrived and was informed otherwise.)  I've visited a lot of churches over the last several months, which I actually quite enjoy once I get out the front door of the house and on my way.  This church visit wasn't really one of my favorites, but there was a highlight moment I thought was special.

At the end of the service I pulled out all of the books I'd brought with me for sale, covering about seven of the different languages I expected might be spoken in that village.  As usual, a mob immediately formed around me, consisting mostly of small children, but also including a few other individuals who had some level of interest in looking or buying.  After about fifteen minutes, I starting packing up the remaing books and most of the children had been shooed away by various adults.  At that point a teenage girl came running up saying she'd gone home to get her grandfather because she was sure he'd be interested in the Zanaki books.

Sure enough, as I looked up, a gray-haired man was walking into the church.  My encounter with him lasted all of about one minute.  He asked what Zanaki books I had, and I showed him the five options.  He selected the Gospel of Luke and a guide for reading the Zanaki language, paid for the books, and quickly left.

If I had to guess, I would guess this man is not a Christian, but he's proud to be a Zanaki and was motivated by the desire to check out what it might be like to see his language in print.  He seemed very uncomfortable in that church building, but we can hope and pray that after he reads the Gospel of Luke in his language that the Lord will change his heart.

If he IS a Christian and I just completely misread him....I'm sorry for my mistake, but I still hope that reading Luke's Gospel will bring a smile to his face.

Five years

Five years ago today (well, okay, so it's five years ago tomorrow, if you want to get really technical about it), it was September 16, 2008.  If there was ever a date that changed history, it's that one.  Hmm, to revise that, it was a date that changed the course of the Smith family lives!

For starters, my parents bought a house that day.  That's a big deal.  The address of that house is still our USA address and a lot of good stuff has taken place there.

Also on that date, my sister Alyssa gave birth to the first niece/grandchild in the Smith family - Alaythia Esther Vikesland was born!

Since I'm not sure how my sister feels about having her post-birth hospital picture on the blog, you get one of me, the hesitant new auntie, instead.  I'd never held such a tiny, brand-new baby before and was kind of anxious about it!

Five years later, Alaythia is a beautiful, smart (duh, did we expect otherwise from Alyssa's progeny?!), and stylish little girl.

Five years ago, Alyssa was laboring in the hospital, and now she's laboring again, frosting cupcakes and wrapping My Little Ponies for a big birthday shabang to commemorate the day she added motherhood to her list of accomplishments, just in case PhD wasn't enough (although at that time she wasn't quite a doctor just yet).

And, in case my parents and sister all doing something really big on the same date wasn't enough, Andrew decided to make it a pretty significant date for me, too.  On September 16, 2008, he asked me out on a date.  We'd met just four days earlier, and I'd never been asked on a date in my life, so that e-mail just about made me fall off my chair!  I don't have a picture of us together until November of that year, but here we are together at Thanksgiving:

Five years later, here we are on our second term together in Tanzania, and we have a BABY!  Crazy!  Here's to five fabulous years of twitterpation.

Zarya, age 10 months

Zarya loves playing on her obstacle course in the dining room.  Why take the easy way around the chairs when you're just now big enough to wriggle your way over the rungs and go right through them?

So cute!  So sweet!  So much fun!

Horsing around in Zanaki

Michelle, age 10, in the backyard on Fling

Last Thursday (Aug. 30, 2013, if you really care), the two Zanaki translators and I FINALLY FINALLY finished reading the ENTIRE book of Genesis aloud, doing some major spelling changes as we went.  There are 50 chapters in Genesis.  It's long.  You probably don't particularly care about that right now and it doesn't even matter in this story, anyway, except that the story below took place when we got to Genesis 49:17.

Genesis 49 is the chapter in which Jacob/Israel blesses/curses his sons.  Some of them are most definitely better blessings than others, and poor Dan got a bad one.  I guess being the son of a concubine takes one's blessing down a rung or two (or like 15, if you compare his "blessing" with what Judah or Joseph got).  Genesis 49:17 says: "Dan will be like a snake beside the road, a poisonous viper along the path that bites the horse's hooves so its rider is thrown off."

The Zanaki translators hadn't quite understood the verse, so had switched it around a bit.  The English translation of their draft was something like this: "Dan will be like a poisonous snake that bites the horse's hooves so the horse and rider fall beside the road."  All the right words were there, so it took me a minute to figure out what exactly was wrong.  Then it took much longer than a minute to convince the translators that it was wrong!

Usually, if the issue in the translation draft is one of actually being wrong, it's straightforward enough to have them read the Swahili and English translations, look at their own again, and then they themselves notice the issue and we work out a correction together.  This time, though, they argued and argued with me.  I was like, "What is the big deal about moving the phrase about 'beside the road' to being about the snake instead of the place where they fall, and making it just the rider who falls, and not also the horse?!"

More arguing ensued.  I still didn't get why it was so tricky.  I mean, seriously, this wasn't theology, just some sentence structure issues in poor Dan's blessing/curse!  Finally, a light went on when one of the translators said, "If the snake bites the horse, the horse will fall down.  If there is a person on the horse, then I guess they fall, too, but the horse has to fall."

I asked, "Has either of you ever ridden a horse?"  I didn't include "or ever seen one," but I wondered about that.

They both looked at me like that was a pretty dumb question and said, "No."  They could have added, "Dude, this is Tanzania.  We're kind of short on horses around here, duh," but they kept their answer short.

I said, "Look, y'all, I have.  And when horses get scared or hurt, they rear up, or buck, or run, or freak out, but they don't actually fall down very often.  But if somebody is sitting on that horse when it does some of the aforementioned (ha - like I really said "aforementioned" in Swahili!) antics, chances are, they are going to end up in the dirt.  So just trust me and change the verse."

They looked at me dubiously.  One of them asked, "So you've really ridden a horse, and you're sure?"

I assured them I had been on plenty of horses, although it didn't actually matter if I had or not, because the Hebrew says that the rider falls, not the horse, and we were supposed to stick to the biblical facts.  They shrugged, and one of them typed (i.e. pecked it out with two fingers) in the changes.

Usually, Zanaki culture is a lot closer to ancient Hebrew culture than modern American culture is, so they translators usually understand the context of Genesis better than I do (i.e. the importance of having sons, killing animals in religious ceremonies, marrying multiple wives, living in a dry place, etc.), but for once I had the advantage.  Who knew that my riding lessons at age 10 would come in so handy?!