Back in Africa

Every now and then, during the course of everyday life in Africa, something odd will happen which will prompt Dusty to say, "you should put THAT on the blog!" The first time those words were uttered since our return was for the new toilet seat.

Because our toilet seat cover has been broken in half for a long time, we put it on the to-do list to get an entire new seat. Dusty went to town and came back with a new seat and cover. He promptly put the new seat on the toilet the next evening. By the following morning, the seat was mysteriously cracked in half! It had not cracked beneath either of us, so who who-dun-it?

Such is the quality of products we can purchase here, and returning purchases is basically unheard of here.. In the end, Dusty went back to the shop, and the shop owner gave him the display seat which he has not installed yet. I haven't seen it, but he says it's pretty banged up. I guess that's better than split in two though!

Regardless, we're happy to be back in our own home after a year of traveling and living out of suitcases and borrowed drawers. We've been welcomed warmly back into Musoma and are adjusting back to African life. We're amazed at how long it is taking us to settle back in, and are relearning how to cope with things like unreliable electricity, mosquito nets, and filtering the tap water. The kids are gratefully handling it all in stride.

Here are some pictures of our travels since we left America, in reverse order (sorry for the odd formatting).

1. My birthday party in our house. It was a team effort: Dusty made the cake, I made the icing, and the kids helped with the sprinkles.



2. The tunnels and tents my grandmother gave the kids for Christmas - set up for the first time since Christmas, and in our own house in Musoma.



3. Our annual family photo on the beach of the Indian Ocean.



4. The kids at Turtle Bay, the location of our annual branch conference in Kenya.



5. A painting shop in Zanzibar selling traditional Tingatinga paintings.



6. Having lunch while on a day-long safari in Ruaha National Park in Tanzania.



7. The tent where we all lived for one week during our two weeks of Swahili refresher course near Iringa, Tanzania. It was crowded and very cold! We were thankful to move into a cottage/hut for the following week.



8. The kids waiting at Heathrow airport for our flight to Tanzania. Amazingly, Jack fell asleep in the rental car and stayed asleep through unloading the baggage from the car onto the trolleys and continued sleeping for about an hour in the airport. What a blessing! Between Dallas and Musoma, we had an incredible amount of travel, airports, flights, rental cars, countries, and luggage.



9. Tessa and Dusty went out one morning in England to explore the canal system and it's locks. We visited several of our friends for about 4 days in England.



10. The Netherlands, where we visited our good friends for 5 days and visited the Outdoor Museum with traditional windmills and other historical monuments.

About Leaving

Worst things about leaving:
1. Packing
2. Stress
3. Saying good-bye over and over
4. Cleaning and constant laundry
5. Anticipating all the things I'll miss (food items, family, friends, fellowship...)
6. Waiting for Tessa's passport to miraculously appear in the mail
7. Forgetting to buy something and rushing out to get it
8. Finding out the airline only accepts bags 10 pounds less than what I packed in each bag
9. Making odd meals from the bits and pieces left in the fridge/pantry
10. Struggling to be a good mom while feeling stressed and emotionally fragile

Best things about leaving:
1. Anticipating being done with packing
2. Hearing from friends how much they appreciate us
3. Lots of meals out with friends and family
4. Having friends help out with cleaning the house
5. Looking forward to being in our own home again!!!
6. Getting rid of things we didn't really need
7. Happiness at Dusty's finishing his master's degree
8. Grandparents taking care of kids while we pack
9. Well, I can't seem to find 2 more things for this list.

See you again after 14 airport visits, 6 countries, 6 weeks, and 400 pounds of luggage miraculously delivered somehow to Musoma, Tanzania in late July.

Road Trip 2009

We've just finished the most massive road trip that I think I've ever taken, and on top of that, we did it with 2 toddlers! Amazing! It took us 3 weeks to make a full circle of Denver, Dallas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and back to Denver. We stayed one week in Dallas and at least one night in the other spots. Here are the photo explanations and then the highlights.

Tessa and Jack have been through so much transition that Tessa has taken to climbing in bed not only with her security blanket, but with her security brother as well.

Tessa and Jack chilling in their car seats with cool new sunglasses, which I bought after tiring of hearing, "Aaagh! The sun is in my eyes! Make it stop!"

Dusty and the kids in front of the Corn Palace in South Dakota. They've been building this place for over 100 years with corn. The photos of the old buildings look much cooler, but it was still interesting to see the modern version with most of the exterior decorations made of corn cobs and husks. We didn't visit anyone in SD so we were compelled to stop at this roadside attraction to curb the boredom of the plains and plains and plains and plains...

Mount Rushmore! Seeing this monument was a first for all of us. Dusty's dad saw the picture and wondered if we had aligned ourselves intentionally with the Famed Four, but alas, we can take no credit for the wonder that we are.

Jack in the croup tent in the hospital in Rolla, Missouri. This is obviously not a highlight of the trip. He started having raspy breath in Kansas, and when we went to a doctor in MO, we were surprised to get sent to the ER in an ambulance. Poor Jack couldn't even enjoy getting to ride in the ambulance - normally a very cool vehicle in his books. He was admitted to the hospital, stuck with needles, put in the croup tent, and given lots of breathing treatments through a nebulizer (machine that dispenses medicine as a vapor).
After a rough night, we were released the next morning into the snow with some prescriptions. The friends we were visiting, Bob and Sara Bowers, gave us an extra nebulizer (how great is that?) and after a few more rounds, he was on his way back to health and on toward Wisconsin. We're just glad this incident happened in the States and not in Tanzania where I have no idea what we would have done.

On to the top 10 highlights:
10: DVD players attached to the headrests in the back seat!!!
9: The children's museum with the Caldwells in Enid, Oklahoma.
8: Costume night in Kansas - Tessa as a lion, and her buddy Luke Hunsberger as Buzz Lightyear dueling for top dog.
7: Being thankful not to be one of 4 overturned cars in Missouri snow. We're giving God praise that we had clear roads the rest of the way.
6: An amazing turkey dinner with the Philippi family in Wisconsin and turkey sandwiches in the car the next day.
5: Playing on the snow-covered swing set at the Readers' house in MN.
4: Finally seeing Mt. Rushmore on a sunny day with hardly anyone else around.
3: Going on a double date with the Kroekers in WY and hiring actual babysitters for the first time...ever! (Tessa's nearly 4 now.)
2: Tessa and Jack having so many new friends that they forgot all their names and referred to them as "boy," "that girl," or "the children."
1: Getting to spend some great times with friends across the nation who we haven't seen in years.

All told, it was a great trip and extremely worth while. If I remember I'll post the miles once we do the math. We're now in Denver for 3 weeks before heading to Dallas for 2 months and then back to Africa on June 7. We all got sick after Jack, but we're all now recovering from coughs and colds. Best of all, we're just thankful to finally unpack our suitcases and chill out for a bit before the next transition.

Tessa's handling the transition like a champ and enjoying each new place and friend. It's been harder for Jack though and it shows in his behavior. In fact, while we were in Dallas, he told me "I want go home," and I just have no idea what that even means to him! It's amazing that at his verbal stage he was able to form such a sentence with the abstract concept that is "home." It nearly broke my heart. We will all be glad to settle in for good, although that won't happen till late July when we get back to Musoma.

At this point, that's the main reason I'm looking forward to returning to Africa. For now, we're having too much fun in America.

Sorry for the length of this blog - I guess it makes up for months of no postings.
cheers,
Kim

Fall Fun Festival

Dusty and the kids with the firetruck at our church's festival. The kids had a blast in the bouncing house, on the giant slide, playing games for candy, and petting the animals in the petting zoo, especially the "zony" - half pony and half zebra.

The kids and me at our playgroup, which we love! Tessa misses her buddies in Tanzania, but she loves her new friends here too. Tessa is infatuated with the whole princess thing, so she didn't even think about any other costume.



The pumpkin we carved at our house in 10 minutes. Jack didn't even complain about wearing his hand-me-down costume, which really surprised us. Tessa earned her wand by having dry underwear during naps!

Recent Photos

1. Dusty's Birthday brownies


2. The kids at the Arboretum


3. Wearing our cowboy boots to Marsh Lane Baptist Church's western-themed missions conference


4. Fall fun at the Arboretum

Life of Luxury

Ok, this is not to make our friends in America feel guilty, but I do want to comment on what I am considering to be luxurious about life here.
1. Hot or cold, clean, drinkable water from the tap.
2. Easy driving conditions: not having to be hyper-alert for animals, children, adults, loaded carts, cyclists, and other vehicles who are about to jump in front of our car at any moment.
3. Cooking and preparing meals with anything and everything easily at my fingertips. This weekend it was delicious vanilla yogurt with fresh strawberries.
4. Playgrounds and libraries - a culture that caters to children.
5. Actual changing of the seasons - this morning I saw my breath for the first time in three and a half years!
6. Dependable plumbing and electricity.
7. Grandparents close by who are happy to babysit their adorable grandkids.
8. Church nursery which is safe and enjoyable and educational.
9. Being able to understand EVERYTHING anyone says to me, and everyone understands everything I'm saying.
10. A dishwasher!

And the list goes on, but these are on the top of my head. On the downside, life here is jam-packed busy, and our kids have caught every last American cough, cold, and fever, but otherwise we are doing great and are enjoying the life of luxury.

Back in the USA

A friend recently emailed me assuming we were not yet in the States because I had not updated the blog. I told her that's because there are so many entertaining things to do here and people to see that I hadn't even thought of the blog. Plus I haven't figured out how to get the photos off the camera and onto this laptop.

Regardless, we're having a great time here. Dusty's already finished his first course in school, in which he was a teaching assistant. I think grading papers gave him a whole new perspective on schoolwork for his other classes starting next week. The kids are having a blast in the pool at our house and at local playgrounds and libraries. I enjoyed shopping for some new clothes with birthday money while Mom watched the kids. And we're all loving hanging out with family and friends.

Highlights have included: peaches, strawberries, blueberries, grapes, yogurt, turkey, boneless skinless chicken breasts, and all the other fantastic food we can't get in TZ. Jack's new word is "a-ay" which is "airplane" without the consonants - he gets lots of daily practice with all the airplanes zooming overhead. Tessa mistook two gold glass high-rise office buildings for sand-castles.

I'm writing from Denver where we're having a short trip, so Dusty's highlight is going to the Rockies game tonight with buddies. And my personal highlight was getting over carsickness in the Mt. Evans' parking lot to hike the remaining way up to the top of the 14,000 foot mountain... while carrying Jack... in the snow... in FLIP FLOPS... and not falling!!! Let's just call it Supermom (otherwise known as poor planning). Fun times. - photos later.