Friji Frustrations

One of my favorite parts about Tanzanian living is to hear the Swahili version of "modern" words (which are generally imported from English).  Case in point:  the refrigerator.  Although its proper Swahili word is jokofu, no one in Dar outside of my Swahili tutor uses that.  They use friji.

Our own friji tale is a long and frustrating story that illustrates perfectly how living here can wear you down.  Almost three months ago, our friji stopped working.  Our freezer stayed perfectly frozen but the fridge part was no longer getting cold,

Electricians here are called fundi umeme and there is a fundi who works on the Hill where we live. His English is not great but I asked my gardener, Ayubu (whose English is pretty much non-existent), to call him.  This fundi, Joni, came within two days to check things out.  I looked with fondness back on the days in the U.S. where I'd be given a 4-hour window for a repairman.  At the time, this window seemed unreasonable:  Four hours of sitting around is absurd!    Meanwhile, we had all our friji items spread out at friends' houses and at school.

From my limited, Western-influenced perspective, I find that fundis can be good at fixing things...if you know what the problem is specifically.  If you need a specific part replaced, OK.  If you need a diagnostic exercise...it can be pretty hit or miss (as evidenced by the fact that our car woes could fill up a lengthy series of posts).

In this case, however, Joni correctly diagnosed the problem as being a buildup of ice on the coils of the freezer.  This buildup prevents cold air from reaching the bottom of the fridge and can be caused by either the timer or the heater parts malfunctioning.  He thought it was the heater but he wasn't sure. He was really concerned by the fact that we didn't have another fridge and didn't want to take the part.  There were a lot of communication breakdowns as he wanted to wait it out and see and I insisted he get the part replaced.  Finally, after a second visit, he took the part.

Meanwhile, I went out and bought a mini-fridge, reasoning that on the off chance that things were fixed the first time around, we'd have an extra place to put drinks for parties.

It wasn't the heater.  He returned with the part, we tested it out, it didn't work.  After several failed Swahili texts, I finally got the idea that he was now in Arusha, mourning the loss of his sister.  (Did you know that the verbs to arrive and to grieve are very similar in spelling?  Cue major cultural blunder).

I gave him some time and space to mourn and then started sending texts:  Please come!  We need the timer fixed!  He responded:  "I'll come kesho (tomorrow)" then kesho again.  Then kesho again.  Then there was no response.

We discovered that we could circumvent the problem by manually adjusting the timer ourselves every couple of days....we'd turn on the heater, melt the ice, and have normal service for a couple of days while the ice built up again.

We'd think: should we just get another fridge?  They aren't cheap and this one is not even 2 years old!

Fast-forward to a month+ later.  We're by now getting thoroughly sick of our work-around and are noticing that the problem is worsening:  we are needing to do this almost every day now.  Tim researches how to get to the area of town that sells fridge parts and heads off on a trek across the city in our car that not only has no working A/C, but is actively blowing heat into the car to add to the joy of 90+ degree life in Dar.  He is gone almost 3 hours and returns home, bathed in sweat, and unsuccessful.

We ask around:  anyone have a reliable fridge fundi?  We decide to reach out to Joni one last time and so I texted him today.  He responds that he is in Moshi grieving another relative.

I'm not heartless.  Really I'm not.  But this is getting a little ridiculous.  By now, I'm getting rash.  I boldly launch into Swahili with Ayubu, begging him to go and get the part for me.  I am elated:  he knows a place in Tegeta to get friji parts!  Tim disconnects the piece and we send him off at about 2:30 to Tegeta, a place about 10 minutes away by bus.

By 7 pm I have given up and moved everything back to the mini-fridge.  Clearly, Ayubu is not planning to return today.

At 8:30 pm, there is a knock at the door.  It's Ayubu!  Unfortunately, he was only able to find "fakes" and not "originals" (yes, these are apparently Swahili words).  I'm not sure at all what that means but it sounds like we want the original.  These are only sold at the fridge fundi place across town. Although I'm still holding out a small sliver of hope, it sounds an awful lot like the place where Tim just went.

I just plugged in the broken part and he'll take it out again tomorrow.

Does anyone else feel like we're in the middle of a circle story?

Stay tuned.

Mission Trip Musings

Last week, we were honored to help host a group of 10 students and 2 teachers from Grand Rapids Christian High School. They traveled to Tanzania to witness God's kingdom, both the beauty and the brokenness, here in Dar es Salaam.

In a happy instance not uncommon in the Dutch CRC community, one of the leaders of the trip was a really good friend of fellow missionaries Marc & Gretchen Driesenga, and the other leader was our close friend Steve (who we have known for almost 24 years, since we were just a little bit older than the students on this trip...a scary but beautiful realization).

My friend Gretchen was the inspiration and brains behind the operation. I served as driver of the very large school van (aka party bus), chaperone, and sometimes-translator during most days of the week when I wasn't teaching. Tim accompanied the group over the weekend on safari to Mikumi National Park. Most nights of the week we ate Tanzanian food together prepared by local women and heard from other local missionaries about God's call on their lives and their work here in Dar. Living here, you don't always get the full picture of what people are doing, so it was also helpful and inspirational for me to hear their testimonies.

Everything went really well overall – we had safety on the roads, no flight delays and no one got sick. However, I was reminded by all the curveballs that we have to navigate here in Dar. Last weekend, our car's radiator blew up. Then half our power went out for 3 days (we only had power in the living room). I got sick. Then the Driesenga's car broke. Thankfully, everything was restored by the end of the week and our good friends generously loaned their van to the group.

Gretchen is a former youth pastor and knows that keeping busy is key so that there's no time for homesickness or other drama. We were on the go every day, all day and by the end of the time, I was running on adrenaline only. I realized that I really don't have the energy required for youth ministry! Part of it was that I was still trying to do “regular life” (teaching part-time, supervising my childrens' homework, making lunches, etc.) instead of being in a SERVE-type vacuum where your only responsibility is being fully engaged where you are. Also, admittedly, part of it is that I'm now 15 years older than when I first led youth groups!

I learned a lot of other things about myself this past week. The first one was that I am actually more of an introvert than I thought. I really needed time each night to be quiet and alone after being with the group. I also re-confirmed that my family does not handle “schedule interruptions” all that well. Although we did OK, they (and I) certainly like our nightly routines.

But the most surprising revelation was the unconscious bias I've had against Grand Rapids Christian students for the last 20+ years. I had uniformly negative experiences with these students at Calvin, most notably on my floor when I was a Resident Assistant. They were snooty, cliquey and refused to participate in any dorm activities or get to know anyone other than fellow GRCHS students. I frequently wondered why they even bothered “going away” to school at all.

So to my great relief, although I had subconsciously expected this group to share similar characteristics, they were not like that at all. They were friendly, very open to new experiences, and genuinely seemed to appreciate all the activities in which they participated. True, they didn't always like the hot sun, the non-working AC in the van, and the super-spicy Indian food, but they consistently had positive and gracious attitudes.

I was also struck by their reactions to the poverty here, particularly at the orphanage we visited. I think a negative side effect of being surrounded by the poor is that I have gotten used to seeing it. It really doesn't make an impact on me any longer...it's just “normal.” Seeing it through their eyes gave me a new and renewed sense of compassion.

Although a part of me still wonders about the effectiveness and stewardship of short-term missions trips, I am praying that this group will continue to have their eyes opened and that they will share their stories back in the U.S about what God is doing here on the other side of the world! Even if they don't enter “missions,” I hope they know that they can serve as missionaries wherever God calls them.