Workshop Finale

Photos: Dusty's speech, using the Swahili Bible. The kids outside the church who were chanting "wazungu" (white people) when we drove up. The inside of the church where the celebration was held.

The Orthography II workshop ended on Friday with a celebration of everyone's hard work. Several of the leaders gave speeches. All the wazungu were amazed when the guest of honor gave a lengthy comparison of the participants to breasts full of nourishing milk! Everyone else just nodded their heads in serious agreement. The point he was making was that the participants had done great work to lay the foundation for Scripture the same way that breast milk is essential for a child to grow. In this culture, breasts are just a very normal every-day part of life - but, gosh, that sure is different in the Western culture, isn't it?

Dusty gave a strong speech in Swahili, and a participant from each of the languages read a story. Each language group wrote a story for the first time in their mother tongue, which is pretty amazing for everyone. It was a privelege to hear them read the stories even though we couldn't understand them till they retold them in Swahili. They were clearly proud of their achievement and looking forward to sharing the stories with others upon their return home. We're thankful we get to be a part of this ground-breaking work, and it's always exciting to have a small part of the project completed.

Atrarat

The focus of our month here in the Hill House has been
getting rid of MICE. The mouse that wasn't stirring the night before
Christmas apparently had babies who have been scurrying around our
kitchen and bedroom leaving the fragrance and sight of mouse pee/poop
in their wake. Last night through my pillow I even heard one scratching
under our bed.

So after failed attempts with three kinds of
poison and a handmade mousetrap, a 12 year old shop keeper offered
mouse "glue" named Atrarat (how do you say that?) made in Italy. The
other side of the box is written in Arabic, as are MANY items sold
here, so I doubt this stuff makes it into many Italian restaurant
kitchens. Although we did get a gecko and a few bugs stuck in the glue,
we scored no mice. Have no fear: my hunter husband sent one to his
maker last night and another tonight. He dispatched the first by
slamming it between the dog's crate and the wall, and the second met
its fate from Dusty's moccasin. Three cheers for Dusty! Or at least two.

Daddy, I Cut My Hair!

Well, Tessa has gone and done it: she's finally had her very first haircut! The problem is that she did it herself. I had just cut Dusty's hair, and while he was cleaning up and I was working on a sewing project, Tessa found the scissors all alone and decided to put them to good use. She just lopped off a couple of locks of hair from the top of her head and a few from the front. Hair was everwhere, but now it's safely in a Ziplock bag in her baby book. Fortunately she doesn't look too bizarre, unless you're looking closely, but her hairstyles are now a bit more limited. It could definitely be worse, and she was pretty darn proud of herself. It was a hard call between laughing at her (thus condoning her actions) and scolding her. In the end, my parting comment was "stay away from your brother!"

Bizarre Produce

OK, so the potato, garlic, and tomato are perfectly normal, but how about the carrot and banana(s)? I don't remember ever seeing produce like this in America, but here we see these types of things all the time. Of course, they are so inspiring that sometimes we just have to get creative and have some fun, so here are our two little friends, Mr. Tango Potato Head and Mrs. Twirling Banana Legs. Next time you see these two for sale at Kroger, let us know: they will have traveled a long, long way!

Bible Thumping

We experienced the Tanzanian rendition of Bible Thumping at church on
Sunday. What else would you do if you got to church and did not have a
drum? The boy in front of us just banged on his Bible with his hand to
keep the beat as everyone else clapped. He did a good job making a
joyful noise to the Lord, and it sounded pretty good to me too. Even
Tessa thought so because she grabbed her own Bible and tried smacking
it a couple of times. Our church is very small and rarely has musical accompaniment, which is generally a good thing here since those churches with keyboards turn up the volume very loud! We like the normal acapello style of our church here. It seems that folks here are born with the ability to harmonize so the singing is always great.

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was a beautiful sunny day in Musoma as you can see from Tessa's picture. After opening all the presents, she got her new dress on, grabbed her new beach bucket and headed out to do some properly-attired gardening. I got a leather framed mirror from my loving husband (see photo). He got a new shoe shelf made just in time by our local carpenter. Jack's favorite present was all the wrapping paper for chewing. Tessa's happy with toys galore including a trike, a backpack on wheels, and tons of books.

Jack's rash went away on Monday so by Christmas he was back to being Happy Jack instead of Cranky Clingy Monster Boy. We're very glad to have him in good health now that the bizarre virus is gone.

The big meal of the day was an amazing BBQ with 3 other families followed by a birthday cake for Jesus and my pecan pie with real ice cream! Then we played a Scandinavian lawn game where you throw short, heavy wood rods at blocks - fun for the whole family (when else do we encourage our kids to throw sticks around?). We had a great warm Christmas this year with thoughts of all you in the snow.

Thirsty?

Are you thirsty? Well, just come on over for a fresh glass of tap water at out house! Yummy! We had water like this for Christmas day, then no water at all on Wednesday, then finally - clear water on Thursday evening. The sad thing is that we were not surprised to see this junk coming out of our faucets because it's not too unusual. Of course, even when it's clear we still have to filter it to drink it. We're trying to explain to Tessa that she can't drink water from the tub or tap when she's playing or bathing. How do you explain parasites to a 2 year old?