The end of the October photo assignment: Sunrise in Dar

Well, friends - it's been a fun month of photos.  I've enjoyed posting these "photos of the day" and hope you have more of a taste of what life is like for us in this strange and wonderful place God has placed us!

October 30 photo assignment: pretty flowers

With winter approaching in the U.S., most flowers are on their way out for the season.  Here in Africa, we're enjoying "spring," and there are a lot of gorgeous flowers.  Because it never gets cold, there is reportedly something blooming all year round here!

October 29 photo assignment: Charlotte's Grade 2 assembly

Last Friday, Charlotte's class took a turn to lead the HOPAC primary assembly (akin to the ECES chapel).   Charlotte had been reporting that they were telling about the stories of Noah, Zechariah, healthy eating raps, and several songs in Swahili.  Going into the assembly, I wondered how it would all come together, but it was a great presentation!

First up was the National Anthem of Tanzania.  Charlotte and one of her classmates, Zanab, were chosen to help lead the student body.  Our kids love singing this song about 1,000 times a day and so I'm becoming very familiar with it.  The lyrics are in Swahili, but I found an English translation (beautiful words!)
Verse 1:  God Bless Africa. Bless its leaders.  Let Wisdom Unity and Peace be the shield of Africa and its people.  
Verse 2: God Bless Tanzania.  Grant eternal Freedom and Unity to its sons and daughters.  God Bless Tanzania and its People.  
Chorus:  Bless Africa, Bless Africa, bless the children of Africa.



"Mungu ibariki Africa!"

Next up were the healthy eating raps, written and performed by the students (and hilarious!)  Charlotte and company's verse was about the benefits of eating vegetables and fruits versus junk food.  

"Word!  Peace out!"  Note the rap hat costume change.

The final part for Charlotte was playing the role of Elizabeth in finding out she would be mother to John the Baptist.  Here she is with "Zechariah."

Another costume change!

The class ended with several songs, including "I have decided to follow Jesus," sung in both English and Swahili, and "Standing on the Promises."  Both songs had a lot of motions and Charlotte was very energetic.  I got some video clips but apparently our internet connection isn't good enough to upload them.

After the assembly with BFF Zawadi:

October 28 photo assignment: the inside of our (current) house

It's October 28 now and we're still not sure what's going on with our living situation.  Several weeks ago, our landlord told us that our rent would be increasing by 50% as of November 1.  We told her we couldn't do that!  Since then, we have gotten a 2 month extension at current rates.  Last Thursday, we decided to have another shot at negotiating with the landlord (agreeing to a longer term lease, agreeing to give her the enhancements such as air conditioners once we leave).  We think it went well and they promised to send us the lease via email, but nothing yet.  We've also got a couple of other leads we're following.  So we wait and see.

Before we move, we thought we'd give a glimpse of life inside this house.  The house is a lot smaller than 231 Hawthorne Ave., but we've put a lot of time and effort into making it our own.  I really would love it if we didn't have to move.

My favorite room - the kitchen!  Nice and modern, with an electric stove in Celsius.

The dining room.  We're currently getting some more dining room chairs made but in the interim we picked up some folding chairs at Game (the Tanzanian equivalent of Wal-Mart).  You can see the security bars on the windows; the curtains were custom-made here.

We all sleep under mosquito nets.  Here is the girls' bunk bed (can you see Charlotte and me in it? photo courtesy Josh)

Our living room - safari theme inherited from past owners (photo courtesy Emily)

October 27 photo assignment: Moshi the German Shepherd

(all photos courtesy Josh)
In addition to our monkey friend, we also inherited a German shepherd along with our house.  His name is Moshi, which means "grey" in Swahili.

This is what Moshi does most of the time:

(snoozing on the front porch).

Although his official "role" is guard dog, I honestly wonder what he'd do if thieves made their way inside the property.  Trot up to them, wagging his tail and asking to be petted?  I think I've heard him bark maybe 2 times in our 10 weeks here.

He does look a lot more ferocious than he acts and many people are afraid of him.  He's also quite the Alpha Male...frequently when we come home he'll go up to our car tire and pee on it (thanks, Moshi!)  He also feels the need to mix it up with Alias by peeing in his territory or trying to eat his food (seriously, do German shepherds even like bananas?)  This generally results in a dog/monkey brawl.

Unfortunately, he's a bit of a sickly dog....we've had the vet out here twice already (on the plus side, the vet makes house calls.  on the negative side, the vet feels the need to explain all the science behind the parasites for a long time).

Nothing makes Moshi happier than when we're all outside playing football.  He romps around with joy!

Overall, Moshi is a good dog and we're happy to have him!

October 26 photo assignment: after-school scrapbooking

On Tuesdays, I volunteer at HOPAC by helping to lead an after-school activity in the library. Scrapbooking is something I liked to do in the U.S., although it's considerably more difficult here without an A.C. Moore or a 1-hour CVS photo.  However, enough people make trips to and from the U.S. that we do have quite a few supplies to work with.  Most of the kids don't have photos but use the time to decorate pages and bookmarks.  Creativity is a good thing however it appears!

Hard at work!

We have 5 girls and 1 boy grades 3-6.

This was a cute idea to make candy corn!  This girl eventually made it into a door hanger.  I think this is about as much as we'll be celebrating Halloween here...

October 25 photo assignment: scenes from the computer lab

Here's a little glimpse of life in the computer lab at HOPAC.  Tim is teaching computers to all grades K-12 with the exception of grade 10.  There is a huge range of abilities in that age range due to the fine motor skills required!  The formerly "high school only" teacher has had a pretty steep learning curve as he prepares a large number of lesson plans.

Grade 3 hamming it up for Mr. Steen.  He's definitely acquiring some groupies here (in addition to his own three children, who he teaches!)

Kindergarten gets to play fun math and typing games!

Looks just like a normal lab, right?  What this picture can't show is the frequent power and internet outages or all the issues related to the new thin client system.  

October 24 photo assignment: Alias the Monkey

To satisfy the request of a certain 7-year-old special someone, today's pictures are devoted to Alias the monkey.

I have to say that going into Africa, I was definitely the least thrilled in the family about the monkey. And even less so once we got here and he bit Emily.  But he has definitely grown on me.  Considering I feed him pretty often, he's nice to me.  We've gotten better at reading his "cues" - he is a wild animal and so he has to be approached with caution.  When he's in a good mood, it's just like having a dog.

He doesn't stop moving so it's tough to get a good shot.  All photos courtesy Josh.

Alias has been living here for quite a few years.  The original owner bought him and a female monkey off a "traveling monkey salesman" (only in Africa...I have a mental image of a long coat opened up to reveal monkeys like NYC street vendors).  The female escaped, and Alias is tethered to a post so he can't escape.  Apparently male monkeys cannot re-enter the wild, so it's actually kinder to keep him in captivity.

He has two poles with perches to hang out on, and a little bucket shelter to sleep in.

This is his "submissive" pose, that means "pet my belly."  If you don't act fast enough, he'll start rubbing his own belly to give you the hint.  We feed him mostly bananas - 3 a day.  He also likes bread and other veggies/fruits.  I've been getting some half-rotted stuff for free at the green grocer.  I learned how to say "Do you have any food for the monkey today?" in Swahili (Una chakula cha nyani?)

October 23 photo assignment: traffic

One of the things we feared in moving to Dar was the traffic.  We had heard horror stories of gridlock and commutes to school that were truly epic.  Thankfully, a lot of that has been abated as work gets completed on New Bagamoyo Road, the thoroughfare that takes us to HOPAC.

However, there have certainly been some problems!  There isn't great signage here, so often when a road is closed, all of the sudden there are concrete barriers in the way, with no instructions on what to do. Tanzanians are very resourceful, so when one way is blocked, traffic streams on to the other side of the road (in oncoming traffic) or by creating additional lanes on the dirt shoulder.  For the more formal road closures, there are signs indicating "diversion"!

When sitting in traffic this morning, I snapped this picture:

Many bjajis and buses have little slogans painted on either the front or back of their vehicles, often having to do with God, Jesus, or Allah.  This one roughly translates to something like, "Jesus, please lift the driver above Satan."  (a good request!)

Some of these sayings are pretty funny.  My favorite daladala (bus), which I see often, has the slogan "Life is Password" on the front.  What does that mean?  It's either a deep thought or completely nonsensical.  I've also almost gotten run over by "Holy Spirit wind fire."  Hey, when the Spirit moves...

October 22 photo assignment: some foods here in Tanzania

Our household worker makes a few main dishes for the workers' lunches everyday:  beans and rice, a stew made with meat and ugali (fried balls of maize flour and oil).  While these foods are certainly edible, my impression of Tanzanian food is that it's fairly bland and oily.  It's a bit disturbing to see how quickly we go through a 5-liter jug of oil.

Luckily, Dar es Salaam has a significant Indian population, and so many places carry fresh spices. I've learned to make a few curry dishes, which are delicious.  Another good street food which I've had a couple of times is chipsi mishkaki, which is basically a beef kebab with fries.  Tasty and super cheap (less than $2).

One of our favorite ways to cool off is to freeze a triangle-shaped juice box and eat it like a slushie.  My favorite flavor is mapera (guava), pictured below.  The kids are big fans of the mango.

We are also big consumers of peanuts.  They are way cheaper here than at home - about 2500 Tsh per kilogram, which translates into something like 70 cents per pound!  Unlike back home, this is a do-it-yourself process:  the peanuts are purchased raw and must be roasted before eating.

One funny thing here is that in the Western-style grocery stores there is a brand called "American Garden" to give us expats a taste of home.  Two things which are pretty different here are Tanzanian ketchup (it's more pink than red, and runnier) and peanut butter (the African version has a different texture and is not sweetened).  The "American" versions of these products still don't get it exactly right, but are much closer:

I love how the ketchup is "born in the U.S.A."  I couldn't tell if these products are actually produced in the U.S. or not.  They are certainly much more expensive than their Tanzanian equivalents!

October 21 photo assignment: electricity

Anyone who has been following this blog has seen quite a few posts where I'm whining about power outages (they have been happening on average 1-2 times per week for several hours at a time, definitely worse for others).  But today I wanted to talk about the electrical system when it works!

Tanzanian electricity runs on 220 volts (vs 110 U.S.), which means that most U.S. appliances would be fried here.  One of the few exceptions is laptop computers, which are designed to handle a wide spectrum of voltage.

There seem to be three main types of plugs here: a 2-pronged, a 3-pronged wide, and a 3-pronged standard.  Below is a picture of the 2-pronged and 3-pronged wide version.

The 3-pronged wide plug doesn't fit into the wall socket, so you need to buy an adapter, pictured at left.

The 2-pronged version fits into the wall socket, but in order to make it work, you need to push down the top "gate" with something around the size of a pencil to release the bottom 2 openings.  I'm finally getting the hang of this, although it's tricky.

The 3-pronged standard version can simply be plugged into the wall socket.

Another difference from U.S. plugs is that the socket itself can be turned "off" when not in use.  This is actually a great idea that the U.S. should adapt - it cuts down on wasted electric use, or "vampire power."

One of our first purchases in Tanzania was a power regulator.  Electronic devices don't like fluctuations in current.  When the voltage is higher or lower than 220 volts, this box regulates it to maintain a constant stream of power.  We can usually tell when a power outage is coming, because this device starts going crazy with clicking noises.  It's also the first sign when the power is back on, since it comes back with an ear-splitting tone.

October 20 photo assignment: mountain hike

On the last day of our vacation, we hiked up the mountain a little ways to play in the streams and waterfalls.  Some friends did this hike on the first day and reported that it was pretty dry; however we had a heavy rainfall one night, and so the water was really flowing when we went!

The setting was gorgeous with bubbling water and fun rocks to climb on.  It felt so good to be back in nature - I've really missed hiking since living in the city.

Everyone's clothes were soaked by the end - those pools were just too tempting to play in!

The kids discovered that the rocks were slick enough to slide down...homemade water slide!!

A rare picture of the whole family!

October 19 photo assignment: the Highlands camp

The Highlands Camp, just outside Morogoro, was our home for 4 days this past week.  The camp is primarily for camps and retreats; it can house and feed hundreds of people in dormitory-style rooms, and it also has a few hotel-style rooms with private baths, which it rents out at reasonable cost to missionaries.

Besides being in a glorious mountain setting, the camp has a nice pool, basketball court, ropes course, and giant water slide (the last two were unfortunately closed for maintenance while we were there).  It was a great, relaxing time!

Emily and Charlotte in the pool

Lots of crazy water gun action with the dozen or so kids that were there!

The large dining facility allowed for plenty of space for board games!

Josh by the large rock that was the meeting place for the "kids club" (created and run by the Steen kids, attended by HOPAC friends).

October 18 photo assignment: more safari animals!

I didn't want to overwhelm everyone with the number of safari pictures, so I thought I'd do Safari:  Part 2 today!

This baboon got uncomfortably close to us while we were standing at the park entrance waiting for the replacement safari vehicle.  He was probably 10 feet away, and did an aggressive warning jump in front of us.  Needless to say, we backed up quickly!

I loved watching this beautiful and graceful stork!

It's a bit blurry and far away, but that is a male and female lion!  Lions are not very common in this park so we were happy to see them even at a great distance.  They were greatly upsetting a herd of giraffes, although it was clear they weren't hunting them, just moving to a shade tree nearby.

Backside of an impala!

October 17 photo assignment: safari!

Yesterday we drove about 1 1/2 hours from Morogoro to Mikumi National Park to go on a safari* with some friends.

*let's get the awkwardness out of the way - while I do feel that vacations are an important part of life and therefore missionaries should not feel badly about using supporters' money to fund them, I will say that we have decided to pay for vacations out of personal savings.  Because we are residents of Tanzania, it was actually very reasonable.

In typical African fashion, when we went to start the safari, our guides discovered one of the vehicles did not work.  After an additional 1 1/2 hours, we were ready to roll!

Our safari vehicles!  Here are Emily and Charlotte climbing into the very high platform.  There were definitely "issues" with the vehicles (they brought along big jugs of fluids to add periodically, ours wouldn't start again without lots of fiddling), but they were comfortable and gave great views.

I'll probably post more animal pictures in subsequent days, but we were very happy to see most of the big ones in the park:  nice close-up views of elephant, giraffe, and zebra and even a far-away look at two lions terrorizing some giraffes.  It was truly amazing!

The warthog, Pumbaa from Lion King!  I'm learning that most of the Lion King creatures' names are Swahili words...Simba=lion; Rafiki=friend.   (Pumbaa actually means "thoughtless").

I think the zebras were my favorites.  We saw so many, including one that ran across the road on our way into the park - it almost hit the car in front of us.

October 16 photo assignment: the mountains

We are spending a couple of days R&R in the mountains of Tanzania, about a 3 1/2 hour drive west from Dar.  We're staying at a Bible camp that serves youth groups and church retreats, and has several hotel rooms available for missionary use.

On the drive yesterday I took a bunch of pictures of the mountains.  They are just so amazing!

I've never seen tall mountains without snow caps...but then again, I've never lived near the equator!

I'm not really sure what those plants are - they look like huge pineapples?

This is where we are staying - at the foothills of the mountains in Morogoro.