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.