Multiple Tanzania Visits and Hellsgate

I am starting another blog entry, so I must be on a plane... It is true, Rebecca and I are on Ethiopian Airlines flying from Nairobi to Addis Ababa, where we will have a week of meetings with MCC leadership and all the Africa Country Representatives. We do this every other year; on the off years, we meet by region only. It is actually nice to get together with others who share a similar role in another context. We were not off to the best start, though, as the flight left about an hour and a half late (with us sitting on the tarmac). Apparently because they were not able to “detach a piece of ground equipment” from the plane. I was imagining us flying through the air with a baggage cart dangling behind. But it finally did get sorted, and we are on our way.

The last month has been busy, as usual for this season. I think the last update ended with orientation of our volunteers. This month we have already travelled twice to Tanzania, and there is one more visit scheduled for me at the end of October.  

The first trip was for the purpose of dropping off our two volunteers, Kiersten and Thabiso, at ECHO, an agriculture partner based in Arusha. Rebecca and I drove them down on a Wednesday. The trip is one we are used to; even with the border crossing, it is not too long or difficult. We arrived in the afternoon that day and took our volunteers to ECHO to meet the partner staff. While the director was not in town that day, we did get a warm reception from the support staff. There is also a Peace Corps volunteer there who was very friendly and helpful.

From there, we drove together to the host families. We are lucky that these are the same host families we had for the last volunteers. I know the first visit and night are awkward. The volunteers have rudimentary Kiswahili, and the families have about the same level of English, so communication is difficult at first. But the families are both really kind and happy to host them.

Rebecca and I were happy to stay this time with our friends Erwin and Angelika, who live right near the ECHO compound. They were very hospitable and cooked fantastic vegan food! It was a gift to stay in their quiet green compound and share breakfasts with them.  

The next day, we took our new volunteers to get a tour of the ECHO compound and an introduction to their work. One fascinating aspect of the work involves the seed bank. I had always thought of a seed bank as a place where you just keep seeds in cold storage. But I learned that a viable seed bank also includes planting out seeds to make sure they are still viable and then collecting the next generation of seeds to store again. The seed bank is making an effort to collect and store indigenous vegetables that are not widely known, along with green manure cover crops and other more typical vegetables.

Next, we went on an orientation visit to Arusha town to show Thabiso and Kiersten how to find the shuttle bus, the clinic, several decent pharmacies, and a large supermarket for a few essential supplies in their rooms. We delivered them back to their host families in the late afternoon, with a plan that they would start work the next day by joining a field visit.

The second half of our Arusha agenda began later that evening. The Mennonite World Conference – a global koinonia of Anabaptist and Mennonite churches -- will be holding its General Assembly in Arusha in June 2028. The planning committee was in town for meetings with the co-hosting Tanzanian Mennonite Churches. It was a perfect opportunity for us to connect with them and find out the implications of an MWC assembly happening within our program area. We are planning to recruit at least 2-3 young adult volunteers to assist with the event preparation, and so we had a good opportunity to think through what that would look like. Then we joined the whole team, including the Tanzanian Mennonite Leaders we often relate to, for dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants, Andrews. The grilled chicken is amazing, but unfortunately we ended up waiting for it until 9:30 pm! That was the longest restaurant wait we’ve experienced in a while – they are certainly pole pole in Tanzania!

We were scheduled to meet with church leaders again the next day, but halfway through the morning, they called to say that they were caught up in meetings with MWC. So we made the most of a quiet day catching up on email in the Kinseys’ pleasant home. We even took a nice midday walk up the slopes of Mt. Meru. In the evening, we met our good friends the Taylors for dinner. We are so grateful that our work keeps giving us the opportunity to be in touch with them.  

The second trip to Tanzania, only a week later, was a visit to the western part of the country, near Lake Victoria. We stayed in a town called Tarime, to be precise. We have a new partner, JBDI, which is a development arm of the Tanzania Mennonite Church. They are doing a food security and livelihoods project in a place called Nyarero. They have some land there and are in the process of setting up a demo farm to promote climate-smart agriculture as well as some livelihood activities like poultry and livestock raising.

They have also trained several dozen lead farmers who, in turn, work with a farmer’s group of about 20 members each to multiply the training they receive. They also have other livelihood groups which save together and do different kinds of livelihood projects—these have not really started as the project is just beginning.

The timing of this visit was predicated on a visit from one of our Food Security Coordinators from MCC Canada visiting Kenya for a conference. Immaculate arrived the night before our departure. Accompanying her were myself, James, one of our Program Officers, and Charles, our External Grants Manager. So there were four of us on the trip when we left very early on a Sunday morning for the 9-hour drive to Tarime. (This did not count the border crossing, which took an additional hour.)

The trip as a whole was uneventful except that Immaculate unfortunately got a bad flu on the plane and was quite sick on top of jet lag. Nonetheless, we arrived in the evening and settled into our hotel.

The next morning we met Wango, the director of the partner organization, and Alex, the project coordinator, who took us to a number of official visits that protocol required preceding our visit to the field.

Our first stop was to the KMT Diocese office, where we met Bishop Randa, the Bishop of Tarime, as the project falls within his jurisdiction. He actually accompanied us to the next visits. We stopped at the office of the District Commissioner, the Regional Commissioner, and then the Village Commissioner and local pastors when we got on site. These steps cannot be missed when we have an official visit, and as much as it seems to be a waste of time for those of us who are not used to a bureaucratic hierarchy, it is part of understanding the culture and the constraints under which our partners work. All in all, we were well received at all levels, although it took a half day all told.

On the ground in Nyarero, we had an update from the project team on the activities completed to date. We also had a tour of their indigenous seed bank where they are multiplying seeds for farmers to encourage better yields and experimentation.

From there, we proceeded to see the model farm site where some activities like one prepared field and composting had already begun. They also had areas marked off for other activities that had not begun. They have been stymied by a delay in the rainy season, so we did not see much in the way of growth in the prepared field.

We then went and visited a number of individual farmers in their fields, where they shared with us some examples of their planting methods before and after training. I could see changes in spacing, although they have been challenged to manage crop residue efficiently to allow for good mulching. This should be improved with more training on that.

We completed the first day with a debrief before heading back to the hotel in Tarime. The hotel restaurant was fine, especially if you wanted fish, since we were very close to Lake Victoria. The four of us played Bananagrams while waiting for dinner, which took a while.

The next day we visited one more government office, then headed to the field again. On this day, we did not visit individuals, but rather a series of groups. I was not sure what we would see but expected some farmers and savings groups. They have just started encouraging people to save together, and we did meet one farmers' group that seemed to be doing really well, with a lead farmer we saw in his fields the day before (Pastor Fire was his name).

The second group was a group of disabled people with different limitations, and most of them were quite old. The project is trying to help reach marginalized groups in the community, although I wondered whether it would be better to spread them among different groups. Their group had been doing a chicken project with limited success because they were not properly vaccinating them against Marek's disease.

The final group was a group of youth. They were actually quite successful to date, having received a youth loan from the government and bought a motorcycle that they used as a taxi. They had made enough money to purchase coffee seeds and were planning to grow coffee and sell to coffee buyers. It was great to see such an enthusiastic and motivated group.

We finished the day with some final meetings with the project team, then headed back to the hotel. The next morning, we left very early to get back to Nairobi before dark. We had a relatively easy time crossing the border and got back to Nairobi by about 3pm. It was good to be back. Rebecca was also away from home that week, and we had left David to fend for himself. Rebecca will add a section in the blog about what we did during this time.

Immaculate stayed with us over the weekend when we returned, and Rebecca, David, and I went bowling with her on Saturday evening, then had dinner together (pizza again!).

Life has not been all work and no play. We did have some time off the week prior to the second Tanzania trip. David had a long weekend at school, and we had worked over several weekends during orientation, so we took two days to go down to Lake Naivasha in the Rift Valley. There is a camp beside the lake called Camp Carneleys. It is a place where people from Rosslyn like to go. It has bungalows as well as camping options (about 2.5 hours out of Nairobi). We drove down on a Thursday morning and got to the camp by early afternoon. The campgrounds are quite picturesque by the lake, and we walked around, tried some fishing, and observed the local wildlife. One of the most interesting animals we saw there was warthogs that have become very used to people, so they wander the grounds and often come within several meters of a person. They are quite humorous.

There are also monkeys who try to steal your food at the outdoor restaurant, and many birds, especially fish eagles, which look like bald eagles in the US. We had a relaxing afternoon, then had dinner. The food, especially the pizza, is fantastic. We also played some card games and met up with friends we know from Nairobi.

The next day we drove in the morning to a nearby park called Hell’s Gate. It is called that because of the rock features there, as well as the hot springs and geothermal activity in some of the gorges.

We had not been there before and were not sure what to expect. When we got there, a ranger convinced us to rent bicycles and do a 15 K round trip down to the lowest gorge and back. We took him up on the idea, and the 3 of us got bikes and started pedaling down the dirt road. I did notice that there was a slight downhill slope, so I knew coming back might be harder.

We passed a number of very cool rock features and cliffs. There were some technical climbers ascending them. We also saw animals like zebras and giraffes right off the road. We finally got to the gorge where we parked our bikes and got a guide to take us through. The place is a narrow-walled canyon that was creepy to go through because the walls were at least a hundred feet on the sides. If a flash flood happened, we would not have stood a chance. And that has happened a few times in the past. I was personally glad to get out when we did.

We pedaled back after the tour. The 7.5 Km back was significantly harder, and Rebecca, who was getting sick, really struggled to make it. But we all did! We felt we had accomplished something very challenging and drove back to Nairobi exhausted after one more meal at Carneleys. That was our little two-day vacation in September.

Rebecca here to fill out a few more details on the past month:

MCC is honored to partner with the National Council of Churches of Kenya on two different projects. One is a food security project in the north of Kenya. But NCCK is also a big player in terms of national advocacy for peace and justice. They connect thousands of congregations from most of the prominent Christian denominations in Kenya in every part of the country, and thus they have a broad reach. As general elections approach in mid-2027, most of us are worried about the potential for election-related violence. The typical move for a politician in this part of the world is to pay a group of unemployed youth to basically buy their votes and even to use them as political “goons” (trouble-makers who incite violence).

So, this is the moment to work on violence prevention, especially with young people. And so MCC has started up a new project with NCCK called Base Bila Noma (or Hang-out-spot without violence). They are reaching young adults in some of the most under-resourced neighborhoods in Nairobi in an effort to build up a grassroots movement of social media influencers to inoculate people against political manipulation, counseling them to use their votes wisely and not be bought off to be someone’s goons. NCCK also has a parallel project, supporting young people with career counseling and business development. Unemployment and despair are root causes of election violence, and so it’s important to be thinking about how to nurture young people to thrive in their spaces.

In mid-September, NCCK hosted their 4^th annual Youth Convening, a gathering of 500 strategic young adults. The theme was “Claiming Space, Transforming Kenya.”   I was very glad to attend the first and last days of the event, and to note how friendly and down-to-earth the top leaders of NCCK were. They also really communicated well with the young people, giving them a strong, empowering message, encouraging them to vote when they have the chance, and to call their leaders to account. The first day included several addresses from partner guests (I was one of them) and then a bunch of rowdy dancing, and a very spicy panel discussion about the generational divide in Kenya. Everyone was respectful and yet made excellent, challenging points. It was one of the healthier political discussions I’ve witnessed in a long while, and I was shocked by the candor shown by religious leaders in a public forum.

Unfortunately, I ended up catching David’s sickness that week and didn’t feel well enough to return to the gathering until the final day for the prize-giving and final speeches. It was genuinely uplifting to be part of a positive trend among young adults.

On the personal front, David has been doing a lot of hard swimming as part of the Rosslyn swim team. Unfortunately, he ended up getting some tendonitis in one of his ankles from overuse, but we have taken him for physiotherapy, and he’s trying to work on strengthening it at home. He’s taken it easy in practice for the past few weeks but still elected to swim in a couple of meets during the month. I’m so delighted to witness the camaraderie between David and his teammates, especially the Senior high boys relay teams. They are a very strong group of four right now, and have proven that they can finish the 200m freestyle relay in under 2:00 minutes, winning that race in a couple of meets. They also dominated in the medley relay, where each guy swims his strongest stroke, and they all have a different favorite. Backstroke is David’s niche – he swims fast and mostly wins those races, and somehow says it is easy for him. He’s pretty good in freestyle as well. It was fun to be there along with parents, catching up, cheering for each other’s kids, admiring the style. Rosslyn has an amazing head coach right now, and David is lucky to be trained well in this sport.

We also had a sweet reunion of friends whom we originally met in our Burundi days, now all settled in Nairobi. Somehow, we have a deep common connection and find it pretty easy to share deeply when we get together. One man has been working for the International Rescue Committee for twenty years, moving all around the region. For the past 10 years, he has led a team in Somalia, which involved traveling to Mogadishu every other week. His family has never been able to go there and meet his Somali colleagues because it is far too dangerous. He made the recent decision that he needed to retire from that kind of intense work for a while, and so our gathering was a celebration of his decision and end of contract. He offered quite sobering reflections on what he’s experienced for the past years, the near misses, the tragedies he’s processed with his team, and the challenge of now just stopping. He said the most fulfilling thing was that people on his team stayed. He had no turnover. People trusted him deeply. Devout Muslim colleagues asked him (a Christian infidel) to pray for them. The work was as deeply meaningful as it was dangerous. We were glad for the chance to honor him.

While Paul was off to Tarime, Tanzania, I had a couple of quiet evenings with David. We both were part of leading worship at church and had a nice game night. On another night, I picked up David from school and took him to have dinner at a very authentic Chinese restaurant to make sure I heard about his day. And then I headed off to spend the last week of September in another 4-day block of training in spiritual guidance. I am truly grateful to be given this opportunity for professional development here in Kenya with a lovely Jesuit community. And yet it always feels nearly impossible to step away from work and family concerns and focus.

Sure enough, I woke up Tuesday morning to a phone call from David, who told me he had woken up with his eyes nearly glued shut with discharge from a rapidly developing eye infection. I had been worried that he might be developing a sinus infection from cold symptoms that just wouldn’t clear up. Clearly, he needed to go to a clinic to be diagnosed and treated. I was more than an hour away, and he was required to be in class. David was not at all interested in interrupting his school routine and trying to go to the clinic by himself. But there was no way around it. I arranged for a taxi to take him to a very user-friendly clinic that he’d visited before. He was able to get himself checked in, and I listened on the phone while he had a consultation with the doctor. He had to do some tests and wait for a while. But we could handle payment for the visit and prescriptions via mobile money. It turned out to be a really good exercise in self-advocacy for David, and I’m glad he was brave enough to do it. Very soon, college life and the necessity to handle his own health care will be a reality for him. He conceded that he really was feeling unwell and needed to stay home for two sick days. There was a lot of maternal guilt about having him home sick by himself, but at least our housekeeper was around to check on him and cook for him. And Paul got back home on the evening of the second sick day, so there were more reinforcements.

Highlights of the week of training included learning about some interesting approaches to prayer that I hadn’t heard much about before (Prayers of Consideration, i.e., consider the lilies, and Praying with fantasy). We also went over material on human development, self-image, and how that impacts the spiritual life and our images of God. We take time each session to practice our listening skills in groups of three, with one person sharing, one serving as a guide, and one observer. I’ve learned a lot about my fellow participants as I listen to their stories. And I loved having one evening to reflect as I walked around the compound doing some birdwatching. My favorite moments were meeting each morning with my prayer partner Severine to debrief and encourage each other.

So now Paul and I are in Addis Ababa for the first time since we lived here. We will share more reflections after this meeting. We had to leave David behind on this trip: his school workload is pretty demanding with three AP classes, and he wasn’t willing to miss school and fall behind. We trust he will be fine, since he’s an organized guy. We left the freezer full of meat and look forward to seeing his photos of the gourmet meals he will likely cook for himself.

 

 

Back in the Saddle in Nairobi

We are hitting an annual milestone this week, and it is a good time to do an update on our work thus far. The past two posts were recaps of our summer home leave and catching up with family. I like to document it because we do only go back once per year. When you see family that infrequently, change is more obvious. Aging happens in lurches, not as a smooth transition. So that time seems precious, and as filled as the year is, the time back needs to be treasured.

Both Rebecca and I have been back for several weeks now. I preceded her by a week, and this season of our work features orienting and launching a new crop of one-year volunteers. The SALT and YAMEN programs are 1-year opportunities for young adults to spend a year in service with an MCC partner somewhere in the world. The SALT program recruits from the US and Canada, and the YAMEN program recruits from the rest of the world. In past years, we have had volunteers from Cambodia, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Ecuador, France, and even Laos. I should also add that we send between 3 and 6 Kenyans and Tanzanians to other countries for a year of service as well, to different countries, so it is an exchange program.

This year we have five volunteers: one from the US, one from Canada, one from Bangladesh, one from Zimbabwe, and one from Uganda.  (Four women and one man this year). Two of them will be placed in Arusha, Tanzania, at an agricultural partner called ECHO. Coen, the young man, will be living in a rural Masaai community in Kajiado County, and the other two will be in Nairobi. One will be at a school, and one will be working with the National Council of Churches on an election violence reduction project. 

Since this is meant to be both a service and a cultural experience, they will live with host families that are identified by the partner organization they are seconded to. 

There is quite an extensive recruitment and vetting process that leads to a person being chosen, and once chosen, there is extensive orientation to prepare for a cross-cultural experience. The first phase of orientation begins as a cohort of all volunteers for that year together. The YAMEN cohort actually met in Kenya, so members of our team were involved in some of the activities they did. I did one presentation and taught them a dance, "Jerusalemu," one day. It is always an exciting atmosphere to be in with over 100 young people from all over the world getting ready to go to new places. (Some had never left their countries or flown in a plane!)

After about 10 days of orientation as a cohort, volunteers go to their respective country programs for an in-country orientation. This was a short trip for our group since they were already in Kenya. In January, we had to move out of our office in Westlands and move into a large two-story house where we set up office spaces but also had 3 bedrooms to spare for a volunteer guesthouse. This has saved us a lot on booking a hotel or Airbnb for them to stay in during the 3 weeks of in-country orientation before they are placed in host families. 

This time is spent mainly in language study. They take Swahili lessons for about 3 hours per day. The rest of the time, we do more cultural orientation, as well as set them up as new employees with a phone, SIM card, computer, etc., and teach them how to use M-Pesa to buy things. There are quite a few financial logistics about how money is received and reported. There is also an orientation on security, health, Kenya history, Mennonite Church history, and some preliminary meetings with partners and host families to sign MOUs etc.

We also do a number of outings with them. We have taken them to a different church every Sunday, for instance. This past week we went to a small Mennonite Church in the middle of an informal settlement called Embakasi. It is a very poor, densely populated area. The 3-hour service was in a tin building surrounded by other churches blasting music was quite an interesting cultural experience for them. 

The weekend before they came to our church, where Rebecca, David, and I were leading worship on our instruments. That weekend we also had them over for a meal and took a walk in Karura Forest, which is a nice nearby place for a walk and recreation in Nairobi. 

Between a number of our staff, we coordinated to give them orientation in and out of the classroom, including taking public transport to the Central Business District, visiting some local tourist sites, using Ubers, and discussing managing culturally sensitive situations like dating, dealing with financial requests, expectations for weddings, births, and bereavement, etc. 

At this point, they are chomping at the bit to get out into their assignments and begin to live life with their host families. The final team event this week was a full team all-day meeting, which began with a meeting of our 4 program coordinators for food security, peace, education, and health. MCC HQ is now requiring very high levels of compliance with regard to reporting. Nowadays, auditors expect NGOs to adhere to far more complex guidelines with regard to tracking grants than when we started 15 years ago. It requires a whole team of us to work on meeting all requirements for all projects. So the meeting was important to coordinate between finance and project staff. 

We had the meeting at our house, and Rebecca and I had prepared an elaborate Indian meal for the whole team. I made dahl, and Rebecca made curry. The food was appreciated, especially by our Bangladeshi volunteer, Foibi. Our volunteers joined us at noon for lunch, after their final Swahili lesson. In the afternoon, we did several team-building activities, including some line dancing and some skits involving dealing with awkward cross-cultural situations. (Several of them featured 'time' expectations.) The last thing we did was celebrate some Birthdays and eat cake. 

This officially ended their orientation period, and this week will take them to their assignment locations. Some of our team will help the Nairobi-based volunteers get set up here, while others will go to Kajiado with Coen. Rebecca and I will go to Tanzania to take the two Arusha volunteers to ECHO and their host families. 

During this month, we started up a lot of our personal activities that we had set aside during our absence from Nairobi this summer. Church activities began, and as I said above, we took a turn leading worship on guitar and banjo. We also got started in a new small group with more teens connected to our church. I went back this month to Nairobi West Men's Prison, where I have been serving as a volunteer in our prison ministry. I have grown spiritually from participating in this and visiting these men regularly. Kenya is a difficult place to be incarcerated.

David is back in full swing with after-school activities. He is doing swimming again this season and has been staying after school every day until 5:30 pm with the team. This is his 3rd year doing this, so he should be good when meets start. 

We have also attended several school events to launch the new year, the Senior Class, and a day to visit his teachers in an open house setting. David has also been applying to colleges and got all his applications in yesterday. He is applying to 3 schools: Goshen, Messiah, and St. Mary's in MD. We will see what each of them offers him. It is hard to believe he is already a Senior!

Rebecca and I have also started back up in choir, and David is doing voice lessons. Since I gave Rebecca a fiddle for her birthday in July, she has also been working on that. David is in honors choir this year as well, so we are all singing in different capacities. 

Lastly, I should mention reconnecting with friends. We have had a few dinners with our next-door neighbors, the Ungers, fellow Mennonites, and Canadians (which makes for some lively conversations). 

Home Leave Epilogue: West Coast

Perched on Cape Perpetua

Paul wrote up the last blog en route to Kenya to get David back in time to start his senior year of high school.  On the same afternoon, I was flying in the opposite direction, heading west with my parents to Oregon. I had told them I wanted to spend an extra week with them at the end of our home leave, either to spend time de-cluttering their basement, or else to take time to visit our western extended family. They voted for the more interesting option!

My dad grew up in Portland, Oregon; I used to visit there every few years to see uncles, aunts and cousins. But due to the constrained nature of our home leaves over the past 10 years in East Africa, I had not been able to visit since 2016. Recently
, I’d been feeling like I needed to make it a priority to see my dad’s siblings and so we bought the tickets and planned to go visit everyone. Sadly, my dad’s oldest brother Bill passed away in June from an acute illness, after 88 very healthy and blessed years of life, so I missed getting to see him in person again.

Welcome from Bob and Corinna

Our flight was significantly delayed by thunderstorms in Baltimore, so we didn’t make it to Portland until late at night. My dad’s one remaining brother Uncle Bob stayed up for us and let us into our guest rooms at their retirement community. In the morning, I woke up early (thanks west-headed jet lag) and went out to explore Rose Villa, the same community where my grandparents had spent their final 20 years of life in a little cottage. Some of the old ranchers looked very familiar, but there’s been a lot of new, stylish development. 

Willamette River with a rowing team

I found my way down through the rose gardens and neighborhoods to the Willamette River. Every pine scent of the west coast air was so deeply refreshing. Fruit trees were heavy with apples and plums, falling into the streets, and every hedge is lined with wild blackberries coming ripe. Such abundance! At the same time, I noted the signs of heat and drought. We had originally planned to spend 3 nights in a borrowed cabin at Mt. Hood. But unfortunately, a major fire has been burning up the east side of the mountain for several weeks, and the area around the cabin was evacuated. 1500 firefighters are continuing to battle the flames and dry conditions and dangerous air quality even now. My cousins talked about their new normal: “snow season” and “smoke season.’

Garden tour

After a quick breakfast in our room, we stopped by to greet Bob’s wife my aunt Corinna and see a little of the indigenous gardens she’s been promoting at their community. And then we got in the car with Uncle Bob to head downtown and visit the Portland Art Museum, where their son Charles is on staff. It was a fascinating building in terms of architecture, and I particularly enjoyed the sculptures and the portraits thoughtfully displayed in various galleries. 

Portland Art Museum

Next, we visited Dan & Louis’ Oyster Bar, an old haunt for our parents when my dad was in medical school. They really enjoyed a big bowl of oyster stew for old times’ sake, and we watched the varied crowds of visitors wandering past our outdoor seating. A few years ago, Portland was dealing with a crisis of homelessness, exacerbated by the decriminalization of drug use in the city. As much as that sounded like a good idea to most citizens, there were consequences. For a while, it wasn’t a great idea to hang out downtown. But things have shifted in the city governance and downtown seemed to be a brighter and happier place these days. Our final downtown stop was a quick run past Powell’s used bookstore, another favorite place for my mom as a librarian. I’d given her a copy of Anne Patchett’s new book Whistler (excellent read!) and she was keen to pick up a few more novels by Patchett.

Back at Rose Villa, my parents took a little time to decompress, and I had a really good visit with Aunt Corinna. She is an artist and graphic designer, with such a deep sense of creating beauty. She and my Uncle Bob are also very concerned with environmental sustainability. She showed me a lot of intentional efforts their community is making to save water and energy. I really appreciated the chance to interact with her as we walked around and toured the campus. I also took a few moments for a refreshing swim in the pool! We shared dinner and good conversation with Bob and Corinna, followed by more evening strolling. My mom and I went off separately to explore the community vegetable gardens, while my dad and Bob had more time to talk and share about the recent loss of their brother.  

In the morning, I took another delightful walk down to the river before we headed to Portland Mennonite Church. We enjoyed the hymn singing, the silence incorporated in the service, and the meaningful sermon. The most ironic thing was that the closing hymn was a song I had written for the GLI reconciliation conference, which happens to be in the Mennonite hymnal. I was able to mention the connection and greet the congregation from MCC, and afterwards, a lot of folks came to talk to me. One of them was the wife and son of Paul’s good high school friend Tim Manickam. I also found out that the new pastor also studied at Regent College in Vancouver and we overlapped for one year.

With Aunt Susan

After the service, my parents and I shared a delicious Thai lunch. Then we headed over to the retirement community where Uncle Bill and Aunt Susan had shared a condo. Susan still lives there but is now in a memory care facility. We found her waiting for a group activity to start and so took her aside for a chance to spend some time together. It is not easy for her to know exactly who we are, but she remains as lovely and gracious as ever, so loving and affirming and kind. We sat around a puzzle, sharing a few photos and memories of old times, and then found ourselves singing old songs together. It was a joyful way to connect with her and I’m so glad I was able to look into her eyes again and remember the times we spent when I came to visit her family as a child without my parents. We didn’t want to wear her out, so left her to join the movie with her fellow residents.

On the Roof with Mt. Hood in the background

We did a little wandering around Portland from there, finding our way through the campus of the Med School and then up around the wooded hills towards the Rose test garden. There wasn’t easy parking, so we decided not to stop, but it was still fun to explore more of the city where my parents had lived as newlyweds.

That evening, we had a get-together at the home of my cousin Heather. Her husband Dan made amazing grilled chicken, and we enjoyed a tasty southern menu, complete with a crunch cake, together with their kids Beatrice and Baird. I’ve really appreciated talking to current college students all along the way this year, but the two of them had really interesting insights into West Coast, Greek college life, and what’s happening for people taking business degrees. The two kids were so attentive and interested in sharing conversation and I was really impressed with them. It was also great to hear more from Heather and Dan about what they have been doing lately.

Beatrice, Heather, Baird and Dan with us 

In the morning, Uncle Bob fed us delicious fresh pancakes and gave us a few travel tips before we headed further west to the Oregon coast. My dad had wisely switched gears when we could spend time on Mt. Hood and had booked us 4 nights at Salishan resort. I continued my role as the chauffeur on our shared week of travels and thoroughly enjoyed the nice rental car on the country roads. On a whim, my dad suggested stopping at the Flight Museum in McMinnville. It was a lot like the massive hanger of historic planes housed near Dulles airport in DC. 

But the prize craft in this place is the “Spruce Goose,” the largest wooden aircraft ever built. It is a massive flying boat with an infamous history. In the end, it only flew for 30 seconds. After we left, I noted all the old aircraft labeled “Evergreen.” We looked it up and found out that the establishment housing all these aircraft was originally a private company with deep ties to the CIA and their questionable foreign adventures in the 70s and 80s. I’m glad I only learned that after we left!

We finally got to the coast at Lincoln City and felt about ready for a picnic. We found an excellent perch on some rocks at one of the many coastal state parks, with amazing views of the surf, kites flying, and wind blowing wildly. The water was really cold! And the wind chilled us, despite the clear sunny day, but it was exhilarating. 

Salishan nature trail

After driving a few more minutes we arrived at Salishan, where the welcome drinks were chardonnay or lavender kombucha, which I think says a lot. The three of us shared a fairly big room with a minimal kitchenette (fridge and microwave). My parents took some time to read on our sunny balcony while I went to explore for a bit. I found a lovely little nature trail tucked between the golf course and the Siletz Bay, which led eventually to a distant view of the ocean. In the evening, we enjoyed the hot tub and pool and hot showers and then got to bed.

We took our time to enjoy the resort in the morning, in our various ways. Salishan has several gas-powered fire circles running all the time, which I found to be a great spot for morning prayer, along with the good coffee always available. Then I went to enjoy a complimentary yoga class. Finally, we had some lunch and headed out to explore more of the coast to the south.

Boiler Bay

By instinct, I pulled over at the overlook on Boiler Bay. We found a line of people gazing out into the ocean below, where several boats hovered close. What was going on? It was a pod of whales, two adults and two juveniles! Our neighbors helped us to find them, spouting 2 or 3 times, and then showing us their backs and sometimes their tails. We were transfixed, watching and waiting to see them as they surfaced. The scenery was spectacular, glistening in the full sun. We didn’t take a boat out but passed by a little marine museum in Depoe Bay to learn more about the gray whales who are resident there. And then we kept driving further south towards Newport, where we found our way to place where a big colony of sea lions were crowded all up onto a special designated dock. It was incredibly funny to watch them rolling over each other, barking, diving and wrestling with each other in the water.

Sea lions in Newport

That evening we returned for a very special dinner in Depoe Bay, at a restaurant just hanging right over the water. The food was incredibly good, including steamed clams, fried oysters and fresh halibut in white-wine sauce with capers. It was a great way to recognize again that my parents have been married for 60 years this August. We had a really nice time sharing stories and memories over dinner, including the different ways that they used to come to the coast as kids, and how they learned to love seafood. My dad would always come when his Iowa cousins visited. Meanwhile, my mom’s family would drive out in the summer, pitch a big army tent, and then spend a week digging oysters, shucking them and canning them in a pot over an open fire on the beach. It was free meat, worth the gas money, and would supply them with oyster stew all winter.

On our Wednesday at the beach, we actually headed inland. My mom still wanted to have a walk in the mountain woods, and fortunately the low mountains of the coastal range were just next door. We had identified a nicely maintained all-ages appropriate trail just 35 minutes’ drive away. The unexpected bit was that the forest road started just 10 minutes from our resort and rose up steeply, through countless sharp bends and curves up to the top of the ridge. I would have expected it to be a gravel road, but it was beautifully paved and maintained, taking us through thick forest and then logged/thinned areas. It was lovely to drive through, like a pre-hike. The trail itself was also very satisfying. A few of the massive old-growth hemlock stumps were still visible, but most of the trees looked like they had been planted not so long ago, perhaps 60 years. 

Winding road to the trail

The forest was rich with a variety of ferns and undergrowth, exactly the kind of woods we had been looking for. We ended up at a suspension bridge over a dramatic waterfall. We picnicked on some rocks looking back up at the Drift Creek Falls, checking for trout in the river. The return journey uphill was a bit more challenging, and I was really proud of my parents for doing such an ambitious walk successfully.

Back at the hotel, we took a little break, and then I mentioned that I wanted to drive out on the spit and see the beach at Salishan. I was surprised when my parents said they wanted to join me. We took the 15-minute drive through the private Salishan housing development and arrived to admire fierce surf in the late afternoon sun. The sand was deliciously warm on bare feet. We sat for a long while just contemplating the end of the continent before going back to relax in the hot tub and get a nice dinner.

Spouting Horn

On our final day on the coast, we drove all the way south to Yachats. It is a famous spot for spectacular coastline. We walked down to the water’s edge to admire some tidepools – I was able to get close enough to see green anemone in the cold water. Further along, the erosion of waves has created sink holes in the volcanic rock, and a sort of ocean geyser, the Spouting horn, where water builds in pressure and then shoots up a jet of spray as the waves keep pounding.

At the CCC shelter

Next, we drove up to the overlook trail to see the view from above at Cape Perpetua. We looked straight down a vertical cliff back to the winding Route 101 and the parking for Spouting horn. The spruce old growth was still there at the top of the ridge. Almost 100 years ago, young men with the Civilian Conservation Corps had built the road and a rock shelter and all the trails with their guardrails around the edge of this promontory. I was grateful for the risks they took in this work. We finished our excursion with a lunch of fresh hot fish and chips and fish tacos at Luna’s Sea Kitchen.

On Friday, I rose early to make sure I had one more chance to walk the beach. It was mysterious and misty, with a few dog walkers appearing out of the mist. The tide was low and I walked way out onto a sandbar, spotting gulls and sandpipers and one sea mammal that may have been a seal, another that was a human surfer clad head to toe in a black wetsuit. They didn’t look so different in the water. The sun was just breaking through the clouds when I left to join my parents for breakfast and packing up.

Aunt Kathy, my dad and I

We took the country roads back to Portland, stopping near our destination at the confluence of the Willamette and Clackamas rivers. The water levels are dangerously low with the current drought conditions, and apparently salmon are struggling to spawn these days. Everywhere we went, we admired the beauty and also witnessed the groaning of creation against the conditions of climate change.

My aunt Kathy came to join us for a little get together that afternoon at Rose Villa and I was so glad to see my dad’s other living sibling again after a very long while. We had lots to talk about with her work at a Christian school and the developments of her grandkids, my cousins’ children. Bob and Corinna then invited us to have an early supper together at Lake Oswego. 

Corinna, Bob and I

Our sunny table hung right over the lake, and the restaurant was absolutely hopping with the hip young wealthy Lake Oswego crowd. It was a very festive way to wrap up the week. I had one more chance to meet up with my cousin Gretchen after dinner. She’s my Uncle Bill’s only daughter, and we always connected really well when we were young. I’d had the chance to meet up with her in Dallas, and this was the second time we could get together. We have a lot to share, both having young adult sons, as well as thinking about the both the grief of losing her dad, but the gratitude for his life well-lived.

My mom with Gretchen

In summary, it was such a worthwhile week. I was able to connect really well with so many members of my extended Sack family in a way I hadn’t done in years. Even more, I had such a positive and fun experience spending time with my parents, away from our various responsibilities. We haven’t had a real family vacation in a long time, and this seemed to be the most uncomplicated way to enjoy each other’s company before I have to leave them for another 10 months. I’m grateful I could take this time and really focus on being with them.

Last morning at Salishan

On Saturday morning I got a very early uber to the airport and caught a plane back to Washington, D.C. My dear college friend Margaret picked me up from the airport and I had the great pleasure of staying at her house overnight, spending time with her and her husband and kids. This morning, I attended mass with them. Margaret served as the cantor, singing the liturgy and leading the congregational singing with such beauty and simplicity. She is truly gifted as a singer, and I was very blessed to be there with her family. And now I’m in the skies, somewhere over the Atlantic, hoping that the 2-hour delay caused by another East Coast summer thunderstorm  won’t stop me from making my connection in Paris and returning home to Nairobi and to Paul and David. (and I'm in Paris now, but I might miss the flight posting this post!!)

Bonus photos: