March Recap: Work, Play, Rain!

The monsoons have arrived this month. Several nights, heavy rain has caused severe flooding around the country, especially in Nairobi, where illegal building in watersheds and urban sprawl have cut off drainage in parts of downtown. This has resulted in flooded neighborhoods and even loss of life. Several of our partner organizations based in Nairobi have been adversely affected, especially the two partners working in the informal settlements in Nairobi. Victorious Learning Center, a school we support in Mukuru Kwa Reuben, a slum on the North side of town, was flooded, but it was also the high ground in that community, and many fled deeper water and took refuge there from the community on one particularly bad night. Community members huddled freezing in the three classrooms that weren't underwater, lighting fires to keep warm.

VLC is flooded

On the very worst night of the month, Rebecca and I actually went to the ballet. In an effort to nurture a culture of having regular date nights, we wanted to try something new, so we chose to attend a dance school's full-length production of The Sleeping Beauty. We knew we were in trouble about midway en route when the rain was driving. Nonetheless, we did make it 5 minutes before curtain time, then waited another 30 minutes for the rest of the audience to arrive. The ballet was surprisingly well done for a group of students, and very enjoyable as a cultural event. We also couldn't help but notice that the heavy rain continued unabated for the 3 hours of the performance. We got home safely, but then heard the next morning that parts of town were so badly and suddenly flooded that more than thirty pedestrians or drivers abandoning their cars had been swept away by currents and drowned. In other parts of the country, roads and bridges were destroyed, cross-country traffic was badly disrupted, and lives were lost.

Despite the rain, though, this has been a very busy month for us, and the weather has not slowed us down. This is especially true since March is the end of the MCC fiscal year, and there are several administrative tasks as well as meetings that need to take place before we close. Our checklist includes performance evaluations of staff, program annual reports, and submission of all new proposals. We also host an annual all-partner gathering, which happened this week. This is a capacity-building opportunity for partners, combined with networking, relationship-building, and a review of compliance requirements for MCC partners. 

Partner gathering group photo

This year, I felt we planned the Partner Gathering particularly well. With 11 partners as well as some board members, and all MCC staff and volunteers, we had about 46 total participants. We were hosted by a Catholic conference center, which was simple but more than adequate. The meeting went from Monday to Thursday with out-of-town guests staying at the center. The only problem for Rebecca and me not staying there was that in the morning rush hour, it took an hour and a half to arrive, so we had to leave by 6:20 am each day to catch the morning devotional. 

Judith is facilitating a panel discussion

Among the highlights were four panel discussions in which our program coordinators hosted 3 or 4 partners in their sector to talk about their work in: 1) Gender mainstreaming, 2) Livelihoods and savings groups, 3) Conflict analysis, and 4) Safeguarding (child protection). Certain partner organizations have extensive experience in each of these spheres, and it was a really good experience in peer learning as they taught each other. 

MCC Partner Gathering

During breaks and icebreakers, I led us in some dances, including a line dance to 'Footloose' and 'Jerusalemu.' It was quite a popular activity. Other topics over the days included Ethical use of AI, Monitoring and Evaluation, Conflict Sensitivity, and Self Care, led by different speakers. We also had individual meetings with most partners. Our 6 young adult volunteers all participated and had a good chance to reconnect. I can also mention that just before the partner gathering, our MCC team and volunteers took a morning to have in-person team building and to go bowling in preparation for the whole event. (This was a fun and needed reprieve from all the serious preparations we were doing.)

The month was not all work and no play, which was good because Rebecca and I have been putting in more than 40-hour workweeks, and I am continuing to go to David's school 4 afternoons per week for a couple of hours to help with the musical. (That is going well, by the way). We decided in advance to take a week of leave in the middle of March during David's spring break.

Turtle Bay Pool and Restaurant

There are quite a few options for vacations in the region, with both Kenya and Tanzania being tourist destinations. But since we did Mt. Kenya at Christmas, we decided to go to the coast this time, and for economic reasons chose Kenya, namely the Turtle Bay Beach Resort in Watamu. This is actually our 8th visit there since Oren was 4 years old. We have gone for work as well as vacation trips. We like it because it offers a lot of activities all-inclusive at a reasonable cost. 

Usually, when we are there, our go-to activity is snorkeling, and since we have our own gear, we can just go off the beach in low tide and explore nearby coral. But this time, David and I really wanted to spend a lot of time windsurfing. We have done it there on 2 other occasions and are finally getting good enough to be able to do quite a bit of surfing without falling off. This time, we went out 3 times in the 5 days we were there. The first day was tough as the waves were a bit rough; the second day was better; and by the third day, we were able to stay up pretty much the entire time without falling. That was really fun!! I am thinking of investing in an inflatable windsurf board to use when we are home in the States in the summer. 

Pomacanthus semicirculatus,
semicircled angelfish (our photo)

We did take a boat out one day for snorkeling at the Watamu Marine Park, and spent several hours looking at coral and fish. We are now pretty good at identifying them, thanks to my GoPro, which I can take underwater. I am including a few pictures here in this blog. 

In fact, while Paul and David practiced windsurfing, I (Rebecca) went offshore snorkeling four different times. There is one particular coral rock formation that attracts a wide variety of tropical fish at mid-tide. I was able to photograph at least 20 different colorful species with the GoPro. One of my favorite moments was towards the end of week when I spent a few minutes with a school of four huge barred rubberlips (Plectorhinchus plagiodesmus). I'm used to identifying birds, with a photo or birdbook in front of me. In the water, you can't take the fish book with you, so it has been a learning curve that we have embraced ot try to become more familiar with the fish we are actually seeing. 

Barred Rubberlip (not my photo)

Rebecca and I enjoyed swimming in the pool every morning. We usually did that around 7am, before it most people thought about swimming, and had it to ourselves for laps, which is our favorite way to start the day. One other expedition Rebecca and I did together was to go to the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest, a coastal protected area, to do some bird watching. Rebecca's account here... 

I have heard about this forest for a while, as a great place to see some very rare birds that are only found in dry coastal forests. As an enthusiastic but not very skilled birder, I knew we would need a guide to help us see anything interesting. Fortunately, we have a friend named Anna who works with A Rocha Foundation in Watamu (a Christian conservation mission that is just awesome). She connected us with Albert who is very skilled and experienced. We had to wake up super early and leave the hotel before dawn to get the best of the early birds. Our first stop with Albert was the Forest Reserve area--where we were stalking golden-rumped elephant shrews, which are found almost nowhere else in the world but here. After walking as quietly as possible for 30 minutes in dim light through the forest, we finally spotted 4 of them. They are really odd-looking creatures! Apparently, they are more genetically related to elephants than shrews. Albert also pointed out a few interesting birds in that forest, including a Trumpeter Hornbill, Plain-backed Sunbird, and African Wood-Owl.

We then continued on to drive deep into the National Park, which is home to elephants and buffalo as well as birds. That meant that we had to be extra attentive as we picked our way through dense underbrush to follow the calls of a feeding party and spot some birds. It was delightful to follow a pair of Eurasian golden orioles and another pair of Dark-backed Weavers. The Yellow Flycatcher and Red-Tailed Ant Thrush were also new birds to me. Among the rarest birds to see are the Sokoke Scops owl (which we did not see) as well as the Sokoke Pipit (which we did see, thanks to the persistence of our guide). 

Rebecca is an avid birder, and she especially appreciated this outing. I am more of a dilettante; I do like to tag along, but have not started my own 'life list'. (I did like the movie The Big Year, though!)

I should also note that we were not the only people on vacation that week. There were quite a few Russian tourists, as there often are on the coast. I always think it a bit odd that our countries are on the opposite sides of several wars, yet we happily vacation in the same venues quite peacefully. But more interesting were friends and acquaintances we ran across there, including another family from Rosslyn who go to our church (and joined us on the snorkeling boat expedition), as well as a family from Ethiopia whose kids attend David and Oren's old school, Bingham Academy. It was intriguing to get an update on the life of the school and other friends there in the mission field. Overall, it affirmed our decision to come to Kenya for the sake of David finishing High School in a better place. The downward trend of the high school seems to be accelerating rapidly there. 

We also met our Area Directors, Wawa and Kristen, and their kids at a nearby Airbnb where they were staying. We spent a rainy morning with them in a very cool Swahili-style house before getting back on a plane to return to Nairobi. We got back just in time for me to prepare and teach Sunday School the next morning. 

It is worth mentioning other visitors we met during the month, as there were several due to some gatherings that were held in Nairobi. MCC convened a meeting of all the volunteer coordinators (CPCs) in Africa and Asia for some capacity building and feedback on the state of the program. It was quite large and held at a convention center near our house. While MCC Kenya was not responsible for it, we did have some involvement in it. Among the activities we assisted with was a visit to one of our projects, where we have placed 2 Ethiopian volunteers, the Victorious Learning Center (mentioned above). While I did not attend, our Education Coordinator took a group of about 60 people to visit the school and see what kind of things volunteers were doing. 

With James and Phoebe from MCC Bangladesh

Rebecca also took some time with two Bangladeshi Volunteer Coordinators who wanted to see some of the placements where a volunteer from Bangladesh had worked in the past, and where one that is coming this year will be assigned. Rebecca took them on field visits to both of these places, and there was a fruitful discussion about next year's assignment. One thing I love about the volunteer program is that we host people from all over the world to come to Kenya. This year, it is the US, Canada, Ecuador, Ethiopia, but we have had Bangladeshis, Cambodians, Indonesians, etc. And we send young Kenyans and Tanzanians to many places in Africa, Asia, and the US as well. (Although, thanks to visa restrictions, the US program is virtually shut down.)

Our family with Wondwesen

One more highlight of the conference was a visit from Wondwesen, one of our colleagues from Ethiopia, who was in attendance. We have such fond memories of our work and our team in Ethiopia; it is always a very meaningful experience to get together with him. We had him over to dinner at our house and had a very good catch-up with him as there is always a lot happening in Ethiopia (good and bad), and it is good to hear it directly from someone there, and not the rumor mill. 

Other things worth mentioning this month include our first choir concert since Christmas. We did an informal performance at the National Museum of Kenya. It was a bit of a challenge to sing outdoors and hear each other, but people who were listening really appreciated it. David's honors choir also did an adjudicated performance with other choirs this month. Rebecca was able to attend and really liked the repertoire, especially the choral arrangement of "The Times They Are a-Changin'" by Bob Dylan.

We had a significant goodbye event this month as well. I have mentioned in the past that we sometimes get together with a group of families that were in Burundi together. Most of us had kids in the Ecole Belge, attended the same international church, and had other connections. Surprisingly, there are about 6 families in total that are in Kenya after leaving Burundi. Most of us now have kids in college who were together in primary school. Stephen (who works for the UN) and Laura, his wife, and their family were a core part of our group. They are leaving for a new assignment in China, so our group got together for a farewell party. It was a really lovely event featuring croquet, wood-fired pizzas made in the backyard, and a really nice time of sharing memories. I will say that living the life of an expatriate means saying a lot of hellos and goodbyes, but what I have also found is that often, goodbyes are not forever, and you find yourselves meeting again in a new place. 

The last miscellaneous event I will mention for this month was the decision by our landlord to put a borehole in our side yard. We were told of this rather suddenly, and one morning we woke up to find a drilling truck in our driveway. The truck, as well as other vehicles, was there for about 5 days and did a massive amount of destruction to our garden, lawn, and driveway. At one point, there were several feet of slurry on our lawn and driveway. I was doubtful it would ever be removed, but they did bring in a crew to do a cleanup and got rid of nearly all of it. Grass will need time to recover, but hopefully the rainy season will help. 

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory rehearsal

Sleeping Beauty

slurry

Surviving and Thriving with New Rhythms in Life this Season

Tailor-made matching outfits

Some things are changing in life as of late, which is making this blog more and more difficult to write. I think it may be a huge new time commitment that I have, namely, choreographing the musical for David's high school. I mentioned in the last entry that they are doing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the musical--somewhat different from the book or the movies. David is in it, which is great; he is Mr Salt, Veruka's father and has a very funny song in Act 1. 

I was actually excited about being offered the opportunity to be the choreographer for the show. Rebecca had told the choir teacher at the school the year before that I had been a dancer and choreographer, and they asked me to help out a bit last year with the student choreographers for High School Musical. I had a blast, and this year they really needed someone who could commit to doing it. With some trepidation about the amount of time it would take, I got permission from my supervisors to take time off from 4 to 530 Mon-Thurs to work at the school on the musical. 

It was not until I committed that I realised how many full dances are in the production. There are, at last count, 12! That is quite a big time commitment to choreograph that much movement. In addition, there is a very amusing, but challenging necessity to create dances of many different genres, ex, Augustus Gloop is introduced with a polka, Veruka, a ballet en pointe, Violet, a hip hop routine, and Mike is kind of thrashy with some TikTok worked in. Charley and Grandpa Joe's music is reminiscent of Mary Poppins Step in Time chimney sweeps. The opening piece, set to Sammy Davis Jrs. Candy Man has an old Broadway, Chorus Line kind of feel, and the end of Act One, Willy Wonka at the factory entrance for the whole cast, I have used a combination of tango with Bollywood accents. Wonka does a lot of hat and cane work as well throughout. 

Don't even get me started on Act 2, but there are some returns to themes like a Nutcracker Suite for squirrels and Veruka, and a stamping dance for Mike TV entitled Vidiots. There are many I did not mention, but each one is a project unto itself. At this point, I am finished with most of the pieces, but it has consumed a great deal of my time. (I would say about 3 hours of prep time for every hour of rehearsal I have with the group(s).

Needless to say, combined with my job, which I usually need to continue for another hour or so on my return home, I feel like I don't have a lot of time or mental energy for writing or even reflecting on anything from the past days, forget weeks. 

Last day old office

I am sorry I don't have any photos or videos to show of the work so far, but taking photos of high school students is a sensitive matter, so you have to imagine what these rehearsals look like. The performance is in April.

Other things have made the month more than just normally stressful at work. Because of the musical, I have made sure I don't have to do any work-related travel in or out of the country. That has not stopped visitors from coming to see us, though. We have had visitors and conferences in town for at least 3 of the last 4 weeks. I am happy that we have program coordinators who can be on the ground for these visits, but there is still a fair amount of admin and logistics support that Rebecca and I have to provide. 

We had two groups overlap in mid-February, one was a consultant who was doing a program evaluation of our maternal and child health projects using the care-group approach. MCC had received a large grant for this work, and there was interest from HQ to see the impact of the program in countries in Africa where MCC implemented it. (It was implemented in Burundi, Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Tanzania.) It is continuing in Kenya. The approach has been adapted and innovated in different ways in these different contexts. Kenya has been doing caregroups in urban informal settlements (slums), and in the past phase, we have added a livelihoods component (savings groups) to improve nutrition outcomes by giving women access to savings to start small businesses. 

While I only went with the consultant to the field on the first day, we had to do a lot of advance work, including getting survey instruments translated, hiring a research assistant and interpreter, and arranging for all transport to and from the field. I was very happy Judith, our health programs coordinator, was there to help.

At the same time, we had a person from HQ in Canada come with some MCC Uganda food security program staff to visit a project we have in Turkana involving an irrigation scheme and climate-smart agriculture. They want to implement a similar project and came out to see our work. Turkana is difficult to access and usually involves a flight to a town called Lodwar. I had arranged a flight with a travel agent, but it was cancelled at the last minute. The team had to drive to Turkana from Nairobi, which is very far, and requires crossing a regional border where there is ethnic conflict that can result in carjackings. Charles, our FS program officer, drove them up to Turkana and coordinated with our local partner to be sure they could safely cross the border and get to and from their destination. 

New office visit from ADs

You might wonder what Rebecca and were doing to keep us so busy at the office while all this was going on. Well, we were moving from our office in Westlands, Nairobi, to a new place in Ridgeways, Nairobi (mercifully closer to our current house). MCC and Mennonites have a long history in Westlands, it was where the old Mennonite Guest House was, and our office was next to that location. We were told last year that the property was going to be sold, so when the lease was up for renewal, we looked for a new place and found a house with reasonable rent in Ridgeways. 

Moving an office is a daunting task, and it was made more difficult when we realised we would not be able to bring our guards with us since the new house already had a guard service. This was also true of our housekeeper, who was eligible to retire and could not have kept up with the work of the new place. 

New office living room

The process of letting our support staff go is elaborate according to labour law, and we had to visit the labour office several times to drop off documentation of redundancy and have numerous meetings with our staff to support them in finding another opportunity. It was a challenging, sad, but necessary process. On our last day at the office, we had a party for them and gave them some gifts and speeches of appreciation. I am also happy to say that MCC does far more than the minimum required by labour law as far as severance compensation. 

We officially moved into our new office on Feb. 5th. It took a huge moving truck, 2 trips, and a very long day to complete the work. Rebecca and I stayed at the new office until nearly 9pm that night. Since then, we have been doing a lot of work to equip the place, as it is bigger than our old office, and we even have some space for guest bedrooms when our volunteers visit us. 

International Day at Rosslyn

All of these things involve a lot of logistics, and Rebecca and I have been very busy getting settled while also hosting guests, and this is also the season of interviewing new volunteers for next summer's cohort. Needless to say, it has been stressful. 

On the home front, we were also hosting our friends Erwin and Angelika, who came to Nairobi from Tanzania for health issues and spent about 10 days with us during treatment. Erwin got quite sick while here and spent several days in the hospital as well. I am happy to say that at this writing, they are back in Arusha and doing better. 

I will mention several highlights in the month, one of which was my Birthday. We had a big blow-out last year for 65, so we were pretty subdued this year and just celebrated with the neighbours. I think with the musical and everything else going on, it was too much to do more than that. 

David's school had an international day, which was fun despite the onset of the rainy season. There were contributions from about 40 countries represented at the school. Our family contributed a line dance for the USA to the music of Footloose. It was very well received. 

There was really too much happening to get it all here, but I will close with something that has been nurturing, which is Rebecca and my participation in a 6-week marriage course at our church. As part of it, we are supposed to go on a date as a couple every week. That has been a lot of fun. We do have a planned vacation for a week in March, so hopefully it will be a less stressful month.

Birthday

Erwin and Angelika

David's youth group bowling outing

Renewal, Routine, and a Visit to Arusha

The midpoint of January has come and gone. The holiday season, which ended just over a week ago, seems a distant memory. We sent Oren packing back to Goshen on January 4th. We had a really good time with him, and honestly, it was hard to say goodbye. 

Our last week of holiday after Christmas was particularly meaningful because we continued in a ritual that we have been participating in since at least 2019. "Renew' is a spiritual retreat that has been meeting for over 40 years. It spans 5 days between Christmas and New Year's. It has historically been attended by missionaries and Christian development workers from all over East and Central Africa. Since COVID, it has diminished significantly in attendance, and sadly, 2 years ago, we lost our beloved Brackenhurst venue, where it had always been held, amid tea plantations and lush gardens. We started meeting at a new location outside of Nairobi, which has nice facilities but is not nearly as picturesque. 

Nonetheless, we had about 40 adults and children who came this year. The programming usually includes inspiring teaching, fellowship, music, games, sports, and recreation to rejuvenate all ages. It ends on Jan 1 after we have a kind of vigil on New Year's Eve with a vesper service and then a bonfire. 

The reason we continue to go is that we have very dear friends, the Taylor family, who we have been close to since our time we were living in Arusha. They have 4 kids around the ages of our 2, and they are all very close friends. Their Harry and our Oren have both left for college, so we are feeling in similar places. Mike and I both really enjoy golf, and Katie is one of Rebecca's close friends. We have fellowshipped in a small group and through many challenges in life, so it is always good to be with them. 

Mike was actually the inspirational speaker this time, and we helped Katie with music leading. Harry led the youth devotionals, which Oren and David attended intently. I enjoyed getting to play the banjo for worship, and even led an evening of line and folk dancing that was a lot of fun. Probably the most challenging event was a Trivia Night organized by our Gen Z youth! A lot of us struggled to know the music, celebrities, and even the Bible trivia, which included questions like: "How many judges were in the Bible?" or "How old was Enoch when he died?" Not stuff you know off the top of your head. 

The other interesting part of the event was being joined by our 4 young adult volunteers working in Kenya, who were off for most of Christmas break. They happily agreed to lead the children's programming and did a stellar job! It was really good to be with them as well, because when we were not having sessions, they joined in with games like Capture The Flag, dancing, frisbee, trivia night, etc. On the last day, they were honored for their work, and I think the parents of young children really appreciated them. (Lainie, Esther, Eyasu, and Selam were the 4 who helped out.)

Among the difficult discussions was the future of Renew. It has been dwindling each year, and we barely had a quorum this year to cover all the leadership positions to keep it running. After some deliberation in an informal general meeting, we decided to take a hiatus next year and not try to convene and rethink its viability. It was a hard decision because of how good we have seen it in the past, but we are realizing it just can't be sustained. The big change is one of demographics. Historically, there were large numbers of expatriate missionaries and workers in East Africa who felt a need to have a time of renewal annually. Now, most of the work done by these people is handled aptly by members and leaders of local churches in each country. There really is no need anymore to have foreigners coming for the purpose of evangelical mission work. 

Despite the bleak future for Renew, the event as a whole this year lived up to its name. Our whole family left feeling refreshed, renewed, and satisfied to have reconnected to our deep friendships. I was glad to send Oren back with a new sense of purpose. (Climbing Mt. Kenya was not his idea of inspiration!) But being with his best friend Harry gave him a renewed sense of purpose. 

When we returned to our house on Jan 1st (we did stay at the place even though it was not too far from our house, so we could be part of the evening events), we found the cat and all things in good order. (Our neighbors looked in on Charlie the cat.) We had about 2 days with Oren, but we did go back to work for one day to start to get on top of 2 weeks of email we had not really looked at. We did get one more chance at a walk in Karura forest with Oren, then took him to the airport on Monday night. I felt a bit sorry for him because he was booked on Emirates, which flies to Dubai, then does a 14-hour flight to Chicago direct. I watched his progress on my flight app and told him later that he flew over all of America's enemies. Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, Greenland, and Canada! He got back on schedule and made all his train connections in Chicago to get back to South Bend by about 10pm the night before classes restarted. 

For us, there was really no rest from travel as we transitioned from vacation travel to work travel. David had one more week of holiday before his school started, and we needed to visit some partners and our volunteers in Arusha. Our Area Directors also needed to do a Tanzania visit, so we decided to combine all of these into a one-week field visit to Arusha, which started early the next morning after we dropped off Oren. 

I will admit, I have been out of the office on most weeks since mid-October. That did include some personal travel to the US in November, but I won't lie, I am sick of traveling and was looking forward to getting this last trip over with. There were some good elements to it, though: 1) Arusha is our old stomping ground, and we knew we could see some old friends (The Taylors) and visit some places we had not been in a while. 2) Also, our ADs are good friends who have 4 kids younger than David, who think he is awesome. We do enjoy spending time with them, so we had that to look forward to as well. 

We took two separate vehicles since there were a total of 9 of us. Although we headed out separately, we did meet up at the Namanga border and crossed into Tanzania without a hitch. Our first stop was in a town close to the border called Longido, where our partner TEMBO has a project. TEMBO is a Maasai organization that focuses on helping girls get higher education. They do a lot of sensitization and advocacy around preventing early marriage and FGM. They sponsor girls to succeed in national exams and attend secondary school and University. They have an excellent track record. 

Wawa and Kristen are our ADs, and this was Kristen's first visit to TEMBO. For me, going reminds me of at least a dozen other visits since we lived and worked here from 2017. Longido is dry and dusty, but features a very high volcanic crater that sits behind it. TEMBO has a simple guesthouse where we usually meet. Paulina, the director, and Simon, the accountant, met us, and we had lunch together while they gave us an update on activities. The kids did a good job of amusing themselves.

After lunch, we met several groups of project participants, including community advocates, some of whom had been female circumcisers and traditional midwives themselves, but were now strongly pro-girls' education. There were some male community chiefs as well who were girls' advocates as well. 

We talked to a group of girls as well. They ranged in age from about 9 to 18. Listening to their stories was shocking and inspiring. Hearing that some of the youngest had already been promised in marriage to men, even before puberty, was appalling to our ears, but all of them talked about how TEMBO advocates had stepped in on their behalf. All of them were doing very well in school and wanted to go on to professional careers. When I asked what they wanted to study, half wanted to be doctors and the other half, pilots! (I hear that often. I think seeing planes flying over and imagining where they go must lead many kids in rural settings here to aspire to fly a plane.)

After spending the day until late afternoon there, we drove the next 1.5 hours to Arusha and arrived at dusk. It was a very clear evening, and we could see Mt. Meru, even the edge of the crater, quite clearly. We stopped at ECHO, a partner where our 2 volunteers work, which has a neighboring guesthouse, checked in, then picked up our volunteers and took them out to eat at a restaurant. It was good to see Zoe and Sheila since they were not able to join the other 4 volunteers in Kenya at 'Renew'. 

They had really good reports about their assignments, and we had a good meal together, all 11 of us. We went back to the guesthouse and had a decent night. It was a very simple Norwegian kind of place, but very comfortable. The next morning, we did a tour of the ECHO campus, which is basically a large demonstration farm with many gardens showing different kinds of indigenous plants, as well as ways to improve harvests and food security. There is also a seed bank and technology innovation center made for small-holder farmers. Zoe and Sheila showed us around proudly. We also had an extended visit with their host families to be sure that everything was going right in their homestay situations. I am happy to report they are doing very well on all fronts. 

After our visit to ECHO, we went to a mall for lunch, then next door to a place called Arusha Cultural Heritage Center. This is actually a place I always loved to go. It has a lot high end shops for tourists, but mainly features a huge 5-story art gallery that is shaped like an enormous drum! (Imagine an African Guggenheim). It has some really cool artwork there, and everyone really loved to look at it. (all ages). There is also a cool shop that sells Tanzanite (a gem that is only found in Tanzania). From there, we left our volunteers and went on to our second venue, where we were going to stay a few nights. This was in some luxury tents at the Joshua Foundation, where our family used to live when we were in Arusha. We had many great memories from there, and it is a good place for kids to run around in, too. We had a nice evening and dinner there (at our old dining room table). 

The next day, Rebecca, Wawa, and I spent the day with our partner, KMT (Tanzania Mennonite Church). They had developed a Peace curriculum with a grant from us, and wanted to show us. It is a syllabus to be used in schools, churches, etc. to promote peace and social cohesion. We had a long visit with them, about half the day. They are developing some new livelihood concepts and had a lot of questions for us. We ended after lunch, in the afternoon. 

Kristen took all the kids to a kind of waterpark where David helped entertain them. It seems like the most fun activity was 'bumper boats', seen in the picture. 

On our third day, we visited our partner OWSL, a food security partner that has its headquarters and a demonstration farm in Arusha. Our old MCC TZ colleagues, Chrispin and Lucia, work there, and it is always good to see them. We had another thorough visit, hearing the updates on their project, and saw some of their demo. projects. They do fish raising and stingless beekeeping. If you have never tasted stingless bee honey, you are in for a surprise. It is supposed to be extremely healthy and has a kind of tart taste, not like regular bee honey at all. 

When we were done with field visits that day, we went our separate ways from the ADs. They went on to a short family safari adventure, and Rebecca, David, and I went to the Kilimanjaro golf course, where we met the Taylors. Some of us played 9 holes of golf and had a great time. 

The next morning, we headed back to Nairobi and got back around lunch time. I was glad to be home and hope not to travel again for several months. 

One of the reasons I don't want to be out of town much is so I can put in some afternoons to work on choreography for David's school musical. I think I said before that it is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and it is a lot of fun to be helping out with. 

Work has been full as always, although Rebecca has been able to take a much-needed 5-day silent retreat, like she did last year, to de-stress and work on finding a sustainable way to keep going as Reps here. 

That should cover a lot of what we have been doing in the past 3 weeks. I will add as a postscript that we are currently hosting our friends Erwin and Angelika from Tanzania, who are here for some medical treatment. We have been enjoying playing music with them as Erwin is a really good guitarist and we used to sing in choir together in our Arusha days.