Shall We Call It A Day?

30 June 2011.  It was two weeks ago when we both stopped working to prepare for our move back to the states and to say good bye to all our friends.  We used the whole two weeks, paring down our possessions and packing our bags.  And spending a few last and precious minutes with as many of our Tanzanian friends as we could.  Unlike earlier departures, there was no mad rush to get out on time—we had a leisurely morning greeting all of the last minute well-wishers.

Our departure today was for the last time.  Is the work done?  No, the work is never done, but there are times when one must move on to another calling.  We pray that our presence here will have a lasting impact—that  whatever work God has begun will continue until God says it is completed. 

We have been so blessed to share most of the last three years with our Tanzanian friends at the Africa Inland Church compound in Mwanza.  They showered us with love, and we tried to do the same in return.  It was hard to say good-byes.

So just let me share my parting with my good friend Byemero.  Over the years he and I spent countless hours together, working and discussing whatever cultural or doctrinal issues came to mind.   Each day when we had grown tired from our work, Byemero would ask, “shall we call it a day?” marking the end of that day’s time together.  And so it was today.  There was no good-bye from Byemero.  And none from me.  Our last words were simply these:

“Shall we call it a day?”

“Yes, let’s call it a day.”

Hodi! Means "May I Come In?"

4 June 2011, Saturday.  We plan a quiet day at home, but starting at 8:30 ….

Hodi!  Two boys, Kameli and Mkeno, arrive for computer “lessons” and play time.

Hodi!  Missionary Faith comes for help setting up Skype on her computer.

Hodi!  It’s Ephraim asking when he should come by to bake his birthday cake.

Hodi!  Prisca and little Rebecca and Naomi are here to wash the sheets and towels.

Hodi!  It’s time for Dehamu to bake a cake.

Hodi!  Neema is here to bake a cake for her family.

Hodi!  Samuel comes to ask what Ephraim should bring to bake his birthday cake.

Hodi!  Now Neema is back to finish up her cake.

Hodi!  Nashon is here to play games.

Hodi!  “Can we charge our telephone here?  We have no electricity” says Charlie.

Hodi!  Debora arrives with the telephone and plugs in the charger.

Hodi!  Neema is back again with her brother Saguda to pick up her cake.

Hodi!  “Want to buy some souvenirs?” asks Tito.

Hodi!  Jesca and Janeti come with a bag of their nicest clothes for fashion photos.

Hodi!  Neema is back again to water the flowers in the garden.

Hodi!  Ephraim says he must go get grass for the cows.  He’ll bake the cake later.

Hodi!  Elisabeth and Debora are here to get the charged phone.

Hodi!  Mama D. wonders why Jesca’s and Janeti’s photos are taking so long.

Hodi!  “Come take pictures of the newborn calf,” say Mama G. and Baba G.

Hodi!  “Can I print two pages on your computer printer?” asks James.

Hodi! finally takes a rest at 9:45.  A quiet day at home means Hodi!

A Break in Kigoma and Gombe Stream National Park

We ate breakfast on the morning of 17 May on the deck looking over Lake Tanganyika into Democratic Republic of Congo.  The mountains in Congo looked so close, but they are 6 or 7 hours away by boat, we were told.  The lake was calm and inviting.  Yet the battered rocks on the points suggested some serious wave action for generations. 

We were in Kigoma, preparing to go to Gombe Stream National Park to see chimpanzees. Kigoma is a nice town, but far from most everything in extreme western Tanzania.  The town and the area surrounding it are much, much less densely populated than Mwanza.  Also more orderly and organized.  Traffic is no problem whatsoever.  And it is cleaner, but still showing signs of habitual littering.

Our boat and captain

On the 18^th we boarded a modest wooden boat for a 2.5 hour ride to the beach at Gombe Stream National Park, northward up the lake shore.  The boat ferried us to the park, waited for two days in a nearby village, and brought us back to Kigoma on the 20^th.  The boat was lake-worthy, with a tarp canopy to protect us from the sun on the way out and rain that fell on the way back. 

Chimpanzees at Gombe Stream NP

Our visit to Gombe Stream was a lot of fun.  We saw 4 chimpanzees in total.  The first one I found by myself right behind the guest house.  The park staff and researchers all said they never see them so close to the guest house.  Indeed, they didn’t believe we had really seen a chimpanzee until we showed it to our guide, Sabas.  It was high in the trees and never came down, eventually building a leaf nest in a tree and resting there for some time.  The next day we saw three more.  We had to hike up into the hills to find them, and there we got much closer to them.  The biggest thrill was having to step off the trail to let this a mother and baby pass by, literally inches away. 

Baboons

The birding at Gombe Stream was very difficult.  In three treks, each of 3-4 hours, we saw and identified only 10 bird species, but 4 of them were life birds so I wasn’t completely disappointed.  It’s true what they told us.  Gombe is not a good park for birding.  Not that there aren’t some good birds there, but rather that they are quiet, extremely dispersed, and nearly impossible to see in the dense forest.  While looking for birds and chimpanzees we also saw many baboons and 3 other species of monkeys.

Sunset on Lake Tanganyika

We finally enjoyed some great swimming in an African lake.  Lake Tanganyika is much deeper than Lake Victoria, and perhaps that is why the lake is free of bilharzia, a nasty parasite prevalent in Lake Victoria.  So after the hot and sweaty hikes in the forest we would wade right into the lake and enjoy the clean, warm water.  They say the snorkeling is great in Lake Tanganyika—there are several hundred cichlids in the lake (think tropical aquarium fish)—but we had no snorkel gear and saw no fish while we swam.  Sunsets over the lake were spectacular.

Dr. Livingstone, I presume.

On 21 May we went to with our friends to the town Ujiji, site of Stanley’s famous encounter with “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”   There was a modest Livingstone Memorial there under two mango trees, said to be descended from the very mango tree that Livingstone sat under waiting for death or help, whichever came first.  Nearby was also a nice, new museum building.  It was sparsely appointed with life-size paper mache statues of Stanley and Livingstone and a couple dozen replicas of paintings and old newspaper clippings or journal excerpts.  There was a friendly old man to “guide” us.  He was entertaining as he told us some history and the story of the encounter.

The ride back to Mwanza was a long 12 hours, almost as long as the 12 hours it took us to get there.  Some of the monotony was broken by the usual evasive maneuvers and running out of gas an hour from home.  It was a great 10 day break.

Chimpanzee Mother and Baby

BZZZZZAPPP

27 April 2011.  BZZZZZAPPP!!   So that, I thought, is what it sounds like when you plug a 115 volt computer into a 230 volt outlet.  We had just made the mistake of plugging in one of the new computers before switching the power supply to the proper Tanzanian voltage.  Yes, the computer’s power supply was fried, and who knows what else inside.  It caused a bit of distress at the time, but it couldn’t dampen our spirits for long.

Yes, the long-awaited donation of computers has finally arrived from America.  Nine of them.  Enthusiastic “thank yous” to Perkins Coie LLP and my friends John and Lucas for the great gifts that you have given.  Today Bahati and I had a grand time opening the boxes, converting the voltage switches (all but one!), turning them on, and installing antivirus software.  I marveled at how fast these computers booted and installed the antivirus software.  Oh, these are going to be a huge improvement.      

The students gathered around, trying to get a look at the new equipment.  The most curious one asked me to show him how to make the connections.  As I did, he asked questions.  “What does USB mean?” he asked.  It took me a few seconds, but then “Universal serial bus,” I said.  “What does that mean?” he pressed.  He got no answer from me to that one.  After the BZZZZZAPPP he asked, “Why is the voltage different in America from Tanzania?”  Again, I had no good answer.  It was a good time.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

3144 Very Bad Viruses

21 April 2011.  As of today, the AICT compound is closed for the Easter holiday.  When combined with Easter Monday and a national political holiday on Tuesday, things won’t reopen until Wednesday.  So we get a whole week off for Easter.  Except Margaret—the clinic remains open on their regular schedule, so she will be working as usual. 

Recently I was told the computer shipment from America is to arrive today!  It is supposed to be coming by car from Dar es Salaam.  But since the business offices are closed until next Wednesday, I’m not sure what to expect.  It would be really nice if they do arrive today.  It would give me a few really quiet days to get them ready for use.

Yesterday my neighbor, an AICT pastor and leader, came by with his computer .  He had some virus problems he wanted me to fix.  I started with my usual routine, loading Avira antivirus.  But when I tried to connect it to the internet on my broadband DSL, the computer didn’t recognize the connection.  That was just the first of many things that didn’t work right.  So I ran Avira without the update—it was a very recent version anyway.  To my utter astonishment, it discovered 3144 virus infections and moved them all to quarantine.  When I then tried to perform some basic tasks in Windows , they failed.   After many frustrations, I uninstalled Avira and installed Avast, another free antivirus.  I ran a boot scan in Safe Mode, and before it was half-finished, it found hundreds more viruses.  The main culprit seemed to be called Win32:Vitro.  I did a bit of internet research and soon concluded it was hopeless to try to remove this vicious virus via a simple antivirus scan, so I terminated the scan and closed up the computer.  This morning I told my friend the bad news.  He must try to save all his files and documents first, then reformat and reinstall windows and all his other programs.  I know this is an enormous problem for him.  Like most computers I see in use here, this was a used computer that he bought—it came with Windows XP installed, but he has no disks for a reinstallation.  And the same is true for all the other programs he has been using. 

Since I had been using my computer and my flash drive to load the antivirus programs from my computer onto his computer, I was suddenly gripped with fear that I had infected my own computer with this nasty thing.  I immediately shut it down, booted in safe mode, and did a complete system scan with Norton.   It came up clean, so I slept easy last night.  But my neighbor may not sleep so well.  This morning he told me his Easter morning sermon (and everything else) is on his now unusable computer.  Pole sana! 

Computer Tech Woes -- Hope Is On The Way

13 March 2011.  Back in January 2010 I described my computer tech woes—the frustrations of trying to clean viruses from the ancient computers that the AICT Kisula secretarial school has to work with.   These days the most streamlined free antivirus software requires about 192 MB of RAM under Windows XP.  Most of the Kisula school machines have either 64 MB or 128 MB.   Not only will the antivirus software not run, but every other task on the computer takes forever (in computer time, anyway.)   These machines were meant to run Windows 95—just running Windows XP itself far exceeds the capacity of the machines.  But still they will function, even with programs like Microsoft Office 2003.  So they get along—at least until the viruses take control.

This week one of the computers bogged down and ceased to function.  I tried to clean off the viruses, but the antivirus software would not load into the insufficient RAM.  In short, it simply did not work.  I tried to explain to the school matron why it would not run.  It’s like trying to fly an airplane with a motorcycle engine, I said.  She gave me the strangest look, and then she laughed.  I’m not sure she understood the point, but at least she saw some humor in the description.  Or maybe she just couldn’t believe what she heard and was simply laughing at me.  Either way, I appreciated the laughter.

But since I first described this problem a year ago, things have been happening.  A friend of mine from Alaska and my former Alaska law firm, Perkins Coie LLP, donated a total of 9 used computers and keyboards—many thanks to you all!  Although used, these computers will be much faster and more powerful than those clunkers the school now uses.  In late February I received word that the computers have arrived in Tanzania, at the port of entry in Dar es Salaam.   This is very good news!  But, what would be easy in America is often a far greater challenge in the developing world.  Transporting these computers the last 1200 kilometers to Mwanza is proving to be a significant logistical issue.  It’s not that there aren’t trucks and airplanes traveling the route every day, but rather the problem seems to be finding a transporter who is not only trusted and available, but also affordable on a limited budget.  So for now I am waiting for the improved hardware to arrive.  My American colleagues got them into the country, now my Tanzanian colleagues must also do their part to get them across country.  Maybe this week, I hope.  Hope is a real blessing.  Sometime you might ask someone the reasons why they have hope.  

How's Class? Good, but ...

12 March 2011.  The Excel classes have been going well.  Not fast, just well.  Our pace is controlled by our electricity shortage.  We are still having electricity only about half the time—a nation-wide situation.  Tanzania is in great need of rain, not only to refill important hydro-electric reservoirs, but also for farming and food security.  Please pray for that, it’s more important than the Excel classes.

The English classes were going pretty well, too.   The panic I felt at first has faded away, now replaced by a sense of enjoyment of the time spent with my students.  And they now seem to enjoy the time with me, after they got over their feelings of intimidation.  The first week of class was a good success.  But then I took off a week to a attend conference in Kenya with Peggy.  The week’s absence had a serious affect on class attendance.  This past week, only one student showed up on one day.  I guess other things came up.  That can happen when you live life on the edge.  

Mwalimu -- Teacher

15 February 2011.  Tuesday. The panic that beset me last week has subsided.  On Wednesday last I learned I was supposed to start teaching Microsoft Excel and English on Monday, i.e., yesterday.  So for several days I scrambled, whenever our highly irregular electricity was on, to find on the internet lesson plans and ideas for teaching these subjects.  In no time I discovered that the internet holds several good and usable tutorials for Excel.  One of them, in 27 lessons, complete with assignments, has become the mainstay of my Excel lesson planning.

English is another story.  While there are lots of English as a Foreign Language lesson plans and ideas on the internet, I have no idea where to begin or what to teach.  And just because I am able to speak reasonably good English, that in no way translates to teachable knowledge of reflexives, objectives, connectives, and intransitives.  (Are those actually grammar terms?)  After much flailing about in a rising sea of panic, I finally just started writing down some scripts for in-class conversations.  Who are you? (Always the first lesson, it seems.)  Formal and informal introductions of self and others.  At the office.  And so on.  But I still don’t know what ability level the students will have. 

Adding to my panic is the fact that the teacher in charge, Mwalimu (Swahili for teacher), has been absent from the school ever since our first meeting on Wednesday.  So I can’t ask her if she has any students signed up.  I don’t know what day class begins.  Or what time.  Or how long it is.  Or what days of the week.  I am in the dark. 

By Saturday I had concluded that the English class would not start on Monday.  I have a couple of lessons prepared, but there are many more to prepare once I learn something about the students and their abilities.  Since the head teacher still hasn’t returned as of today, Tuesday, the classes have still not begun.  I am so glad I didn’t have to start 2 brand new courses on the first day of my teaching career.  I’m not a teacher!

Excel, however, did start on Monday.  Not as scheduled at 9 AM, because the power was off.  Without electricity, there is no teaching on a desktop computer.  And I won’t even try teaching Excel on a blackboard.  Besides, there is no blackboard. 

The first Excel class went well, I thought.  My three students were interested.  They seemed to understand, for the most part.  One young man spoke English well enough to be able to translate my words into Swahili when it was necessary—which didn’t seem to be too often.  The students were able to demonstrate on the computer (we have only one to share) the things I taught and asked them to do.  In the middle of our lesson the electricity went off again.  I looked helplessly at them as we sat in silence for a minute.  Then they started asking questions, and so did I.  We took the chance to learn a little bit about each other.  The young man wanted to know about American clothes and food.  I learned they are all hoping to learn computer skills to help them get jobs.

By the time we all had a chance to talk a bit, the power came back on.  So I resumed the lesson and we made it all the way to the end.  I gave them a short assignment (open a new workbook, give it a name, and save it), and then watched them do it.  Success!

I was actually looking forward to today’s second class (see how much the panic has gone!)  But just minutes before the 9 o’clock class time the electricity went off again.  It is still off 9 hours later.  This is the 9th day out of the last 10 in which we have had no electricity for at least several hours once, sometimes twice, a day.  It is supposed to be a 2 week class.  Because of the electricity problem, they actually plan for at least 3 weeks to complete the course, maybe even 4.

So now I am Mwalimu Tans.  I’m ready to go with Excel.  But English ….

A Day Like Many Others

11 January 2011 or 11/1/11.  I have to laugh a little at myself today.  I awoke right on time, when usually the day is already fully light.  But today the skies were uncharacteristically dark.  It was gray and overcast, the sign of the rain soon to come.  Being a compulsive about this, I turned the computer on right away and downloaded the morning’s first emails.  Then I went in to shave.  I had just gotten a good lather when the electricity went off.  You don’t just waste a good lather, so I got my headlamp and put it on.  Now you can’t just shine a headlamp into a mirror and look at your face—the bright light shines right into your eyes!  So I angled the lamp off to the side, but then every time I turned my head to see my cheek or neck in the mirror, the light also turned away and put me in the dark shadows again.   The problem wasn’t insurmountable, but I did amuse myself trying to get the light just right so I could finish my shave.  You might try shaving in the dark with a headlamp sometime, just to experience what my shave was like today.  Oh, and to get the full experience, use only cold water.

Because the power was off, there was no electric water heater for the shower today.  So a pot of water heated on the stove (some of the best advice we got was to buy a propane cook top) poured into to a few gallons in a big bucket became my shower.  Pour on a little water, suds up, and pour on a little more water to rinse off.  It’s not a bad shower at all.  Way better than the cold showers I took 2 years ago.

The rain really cools things off here.  When I came back home from the office around 11:30 this morning, the indoor temperature was hovering around 23 C (or 75 F), way down from our typical 28 or 29.  I was so cold that my socks and long sleeved shirt (both worn only on the coldest days) were not enough.  Only with a blanket wrapped around me did I finally feel comfortably warm.  And then I thought of the 32 years we spent in Alaska—especially the day when the managing partner let all the staff leave work early because the temperature hit 75 degrees and the day was just too warm and beautiful to stay at work any longer.  My how we change.

The electricity is still off now as I type on battery power. It’s already been off 8 hours today.  Yesterday it was off about 10 hours.  It seems to go off about every other day, or sometimes every day.  And sometimes it’s on during the day but off all night.  Tanzania has been undergoing some serious electricity rationing for months now.  I’m not sure of all the causes, but what I hear includes generator breakdowns, shortage of water for hydro, bad maintenance and lack of parts and, especially, burgeoning demand.  Even the locals, who often seem blasé about poor infrastructure and service (they know how to get along on little), are beginning to complain that the constant interruptions are killing their businesses.  It’s true.  If you try a day at work without electricity, let me know how it turns out.