Happy To Be Back In Mwanza

26 November 2010. After 5 months in America, we are finally back in Tanzania. For many reasons, it feels very good to be back.

For one, our Tanzanian friends make us feel so welcome. Take Charlie, one of our neighborhood friends. He's about 8 years old. The first day back when Charlie first saw us, he ran home and announced to his mother, “Margaret is back. Now we can eat cake again!” And it’s true. Charlie and his family have already had a banana cake baked by Margaret, and so have all the other kids and their families. We brought back from America some new picture puzzles and the kids have already put the farm yard puzzle together a couple times. We share with each other the English and Swahili words for the farm animals. But the kids don’t know a Swahili word for llama.

For two, it means a rest from medical appointments and procedures for a long while. We were blessed to have the time to get these things done and by excellent results all around. Enough said about that.

For three, it will suspend our well-developed American spending habits, if only for the simple reason there aren’t too many things here to buy. From the perspective of Africa, I better see in my own typical American life-style an enormous temptation to spend my time, energy and money on things of little importance—as opposed to dwelling on those true, noble, right, pure, lovely and admirable things the Bible (Philippians 4:8) encourages us to think about. For the next few months we’ll keep the plastic card quietly tucked away, out of service. Our lives will be slowing down, giving us more time to think about what is really important. That will be good for me, but will I remember it when I get back to the states?

For four, we can see changes for the better in Mwanza. The internet for example. This year it took only 2 weeks to get our internet reconnected and operating properly. I called the company every business day for the entire two weeks. Not to complain or express anger, but just to remind the man and keep him posted on the situation. I can tell from my visits to his office that he is very busy, and has a constant stream of distractions. The patience I’ve learned in the past kept me calm even when the promise of service “tomorrow” proved overly optimistic for nearly a week. He really tried hard to get my connection working, he followed up when he said he would, and I think he was more frustrated than me that it took so long to get working. But really, I am very pleased. We live in one of the poorest countries in the world, yet the internet service we have this year is very good, very fast and reliable (when the power is on, more about that in a minute). Things are noticeably improving and the price is coming down, too. What a difference from just 2 years ago!

And for five, we find joy in the oddities of life here. Like electricity. In the last two weeks, we have lost our power more than half of the days. Usually it dies for a few hours, and usually at night. When that happens after dark, we often just go to bed. But sometimes the power is off all day, like yesterday. It was Thanksgiving Day and Margaret had a pecan pie in the oven when the power went off about 8:30 AM. Fortunately the baking was far enough along that she just left it in the warm oven until it was perfectly done. That pie was delicious! We shared the pie and the holiday with a number of other American missionaries at one of their homes. They live only a couple blocks away. They had power all day, while ours was still off when we returned home after dark. It came back on sometime late in the night while we were asleep. So, we have learned to keep the candles, matches and flashlights always in the same handy places. When the light goes off, we can always find them, even if we have to grope in the dark. Last week we had friends from Nairobi staying with us. The first time the power went off while they were here, they laughed at how we didn’t even pause in our conversation when the house went dark. We just calmly stood up, reached for the flashlight and candle, and acted as though it were a normal everyday occurrence. And indeed it was. Even now, as I write this blog, the electricity is off and my computer is on battery power. So we adjust and get along with the electrical power, on or off. But the power outages do wreak havoc with the food in our freezer. We finally had to throw out some meat because it had thawed and refrozen so often. But there is good news even here—our freezer is only 10 inches wide and 4 inches high, so there wasn’t much to throw away.

We really are happy to be back in Tanzania.

On to Exotic Places

3 June 2010. My favorite Swahili-English dictionary is dog-eared and dirty, but the first draft of my translation of the current AICT constitution is now finished. All 51 pages of it. Swahili is still very much a foreign language to me. My conversations with my 7 to 9 year-old friends are my best. So the translation work is not easy. I feel both relief and a sense of accomplishment to be finished with that job.

The number of our days here is growing very short. Tomorrow is the last day of volunteering for both Peggy and me. After that it’s “summer vacation!” We’ll spend another week in Mwanza wrapping things up and packing. Then we’re off to exotic places – Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, Grand Rapids.

While our work is coming to a close for the season, we are not yet done here. There is still work for us to do, things to learn and see, people to get to know and love. God willing, we plan to return again in 3 months to remain for another 10 months. In the meantime, we look forward not only to visiting exotic places, but reconnecting with our families, friends, supporters, churches and CRWRC. They have all be very faithful to us while we were away. To them and to God, we are very thankful. It is good to be loved. Very good.

Mystery of the Water From a Closed Faucet

5 May 2010. Wednesday. Yesterday I had one of those AHA!! moments, solving the Mystery of the Water Flowing From the Closed Faucet. Let me tell you about it.

We have very basic indoor plumbing in our house here in Tanzania. In the bathroom there is a sink, toilet (western style, thank you very much), and a shower. Right next to the bathroom is the kitchen where there is a sink and one faucet with cold and hot water taps. That’s it. There once was a homemade solar hot water system, but that was broken long ago. Consequently, the house has no hot water (except only an instant hot water heater installed right on the shower head). There are hot water taps at each of the faucets, but when you turn them on you get nothing, not even cold water. The only taps that work are on the cold water side. That’s our situation.

A few weeks ago we noticed a very odd thing happening. When the shower was on in the bathroom, water flowed from the kitchen faucet even though the tap was closed tightly. Not just a drip, either, but a steady flow. It only happened when the shower was on, and no amount of tightening the kitchen tap would make it stop. I pondered that for days. I concluded it couldn’t be excessive pressure, because if anything, the water pressure on the kitchen faucet would decrease when the shower faucet released water. I even looked for an answer on the internet. I found lots about leaky faucets, but as far as I could tell, no one else ever had this problem of water flowing from a closed kitchen faucet only when the shower was turned on in the bathroom. I could think of no earthly explanation for water flowing from a closed tap, but I wasn’t ready to call it a miracle, either.

The extra water really wasn’t that big a deal. The only time it was an actual annoyance was when trying to do dishes while someone else was taking a shower. The extra water flowing into the dishpan did disrupt the chore a bit. That aside, the plumbing works fairly well, most of the time, and we are certainly grateful to have indoor plumbing. I chalked it all up as an unsolvable mystery and decided to live with it. But it still troubled me.

Then, just yesterday when the shower was running I decided to wash my hands, taking full advantage of the extra water flowing from the kitchen faucet. It was fun, not even having to turn the faucet on and off. As I stood there rubbing my hands and looking at the mystery water, a very intriguing question came to mind. Was the water coming from the side of the HOT water tap instead of the cold water side? I twisted off the hot water tap, and lo! The flow stopped. Once I discovered that, the solution instantly came to me.

This is a puzzler worthy of Car Talk, don’t you think? Send in your answers (to me, not Tom and Ray) on the back of a $20 bill! Be sure to enter often.

This is what was happening – the hot water taps in both the shower and the kitchen sink had been left in the open position. Normally that didn’t matter, because there was never any water pressure on the hot water side. But, with both taps in the open position and the shower turned on, the rising water column in the shower stem (which rose to the highest point of plumbing in the entire house) created enough pressure to push cold water backwards through the shower’s open hot water tap and further backward through the hot water pipes until it flowed out through the kitchen’s open hot water tap. When the shower was turned off, the water column drained out of the shower stem, lowering the water level to below that of the kitchen faucet, thus stopping the backward flow of water through the hot water pipes. Turning off either or both of the hot water taps prevents any backflow of water from the shower through the kitchen faucet.

Mystery solved. Problem fixed. Mind at peace.

Computer Faith

It is remarkable that I can sit here in Africa looking at images on my computer monitor and with just a few key strokes, a package of goods will arrive days later on a doorstep in America. No catalogs, no telephone calls, no letters. Nothing but mysterious electrical impulses cause it all to happen. What was unimaginable to the common man less than half generation ago has not just come to pass – it’s become passé. But how can something that so profoundly affects our lives be so technically complex as to be incomprehensible to ordinary people?

Take Skype for example. How can 20,000,000 people talk at the same time without their conversations getting just a little mixed together somewhere between here and there? And how do my voice and picture get around the world instantly, anyway? I don’t know, but I have seen the proof it works. Computers and the internet are amazing. Sure, sometimes things break down and I get frustrated. And at times, because I can’t fix the problems, I even get a little angry. Yet somewhere and somehow there seems to be a fix. With a bit of well-informed help the problem can be resolved and the computer can be working properly again. Once again, I am soon amazed at what the internet can do and how it affects my life. We have much faith concerning our computers. I cannot explain how my computer communicates from Africa to Amazon and then to booksRus; or how booksRus finds PayPal; or how PayPal gets approval from my credit card company; or how Amazon tells UPS to go to booksRus to get my book to deliver it to Main Street USA. And that just touches the surface of the astonishing series of electrical impulses and human responses that gets the book to my American doorstep. It all depends on countless unseen computers working silently (or so it seems to us) in unknowable places. I can’t explain it, but I do have much faith that it will happen, that my credit won’t be stolen, my life won’t be ruined, and that one day I will actually get to enjoy the book I have been promised to receive.

I was thinking maybe God is a bit like that. His ways are so complex that we cannot comprehend them – he is God after all – yet he profoundly affects our lives. God is hard to explain, yet evidence that he is at work is all around. It is hard to know how or through whom God is working. And it is especially hard sometimes to know why God does or allows things to happen. One can get frustrated and angry at those times, too. Yet I have faith that what God has promised will happen. Faith that God will stand with me and help me, whatever my problems may be, and my life won’t be ruined. And although I cannot fully explain or even comprehend how it can be possible, one day (and forever more) I will actually get to enjoy the home in heaven that I have been promised to receive.

Yes, I think God at work is a little bit like computers and the internet. Only better, much better.

Computer Tech Woes

Well, my future as a computer technician seems headed in the same direction as my efforts to grow zucchini. It was not difficult to find troublesome viruses on the old computers in the church’s computer training center. Making educated guesses, I found two viruses on my own before even starting anti-virus software. So after downloading from the internet a couple free virus removal tools, I looked forward to getting all the viruses off the machines.

It all started out so well on Day One. Proceeding on two machines at the same time, the antivirus software almost instantly announced it had found viruses. But after that things started downhill. The virus removal tools worked at a snail’s pace. After a full day of labor, one machine was not yet half scanned. The other virus removal program running on the second computer didn’t even tell me how much longer I’d have to wait. In fact, I wasn’t even sure it was still working. I suppose it all had something to do with the fact the minimum requirements for the virus removal programs were at least 192 MB, 512 MB recommended, and I had only 64 MB to work with.

Day Two started out as slowly as Day One ended. Neither removal program had finished its work the day before. When I started them again on Day Two, would they begin again from scratch? Or would they pick up from where they had left off at the end of Day One? Oh, I was so happy to see them pick up where they had stopped the day before. Both of them. So I watched as the programs proceeded, every bit as slow as before, to complete their scans. Every once in a while I needed to answer a question posed in a dialogue box. But, like all Windows-inspired dialogue boxes I have ever encountered, they give no intelligible clues as to what will happen if you say “yes” or “no.” Like always, I guessed. Eventually, both computers finished the scans and came to a point where reboot was required to complete the virus removal. My how that sounded encouraging as Day Two came to a close.

On Day Three I on the two computers and watched them reboot. For hours I watched. All day I watched. On one of the machines, nothing happened all day. The other machine gave me an error message – something about certain operating system files being missing or corrupted. Neither machine rebooted. At the end of Day 3 I went home, very discouraged, to think about what to do.

Disaster is the word for Day Four, as well as Days Five, Six …. Focusing on the one machine with missing or corrupted OS files, I decided to try to reinstall the XP operating system from an old disk lying in a desk drawer. What did I have to lose, after all? It was clear the computer wasn’t going to run the way it was. So I naively started the reinstallation. I could give you all the details, but you would only laugh. At me. For being so foolish. After a couple days of effort, I finally got the installation to the stage of asking me for the Microsoft security key. Groan! Such a thing, which clearly once existed, is nowhere to be found now. I should have known. I should have known how this could all come to a halt for the absence of 25 precious digits and letters. Less than an alphabet’s worth.

So today neither of the computers I “fixed” is now working. The poor woman in charge of the computer center was so happy at first that I was helping with the computers. But now, she looks so confused. Understandably, she is reluctant to let me touch any of the other computers. She was so trusting.

But I have a plan. I have my friends looking for donations of old Microsoft operating systems. Maybe XP, or maybe even better, 98 SE. Complete with those 25 digit security keys, for sure. If they can mail a couple copies to me, I’ll get those computers running eventually. I have 5 more months to get it done. That will be enough, won’t it?

Now, if I just had a plan to replace the Microsoft Word and Excel programs that were on those old machines.

Zucchini-less

It’s a good thing I didn’t come to Africa as an agricultural consultant. My zucchinis have all gone to rot. My hopes were so high after that first promising zucchini-let. The plants grew big and green with lots of yellow blossoms. They looked beautiful, but they never developed another further fruit.

Indeed, I have to admit the whole garden has failed. The green peppers and spinach I planted never produced a plant. Even the watermelon that grew “wild” from the compost developed only one melon, and, infested with insects, it rotted from the inside. Should I blame it all on the bugs? Or maybe it was the el Niño weather we are having. The normally dry month of December was anything but dry this year. Probably bugs and the weather both contributed to the loss. But what do I know about weather and the crops?

The only thing I know for sure is how much hard work it is to grow vegetables using only hand tools. Now, each time I pass by the large fields with men, women, and children all using nothing more than a hoe to cultivate, I must nod with respect acknowledging the hard work that they do. And then when I pass by the piles of those same vegetables in the market, I marvel at how little we pay for all that hard work. How did it ever come to pass that they should be paid so little for the back breaking work that they do?

With my garden nothing more than history, I have something else to look forward to. My latest assignment at work is to try to make the AICT computer lab’s ancient computers work faster and better. I can’t do much about the slow processors and RAM limitations – forget about the recommended 4 gigs, we are talking 64 MB here! But I think I can wipe off some of the viruses I have already identified. Tomorrow could be interesting. But then, every day is interesting here.