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| Newest Picture with all of the Kids. |
It’s been one year since I arrived
in Tanzania; one year since I stepped off the plane and into a new life. And
now I am going back; back to my family, back to my friends, back to the only
life I had ever known until this past year. My year in Tanzania has been full
of growing, and changing, and learning, and now I get to go and share that with
everyone that I love back home. It was hard to tell the kids goodbye, I only
cried in the taxi. I know that they will still be there when I return, and that
I get to have them for many more years to come, it made it easier to step on
that plane.
It took me 48 hours to get back
to Oregon. First I had a twelve hour bus ride, then one ten hour plane, another
ten hour plane, and then the last one and half hour plane. I haven’t had much
reverse culture shock, which I am very thankful for. While everything is
louder, faster, and crazier than my life in Uhekule, I seem to have adjusted
back quite nicely. The only thing I am struggling with is that everyone is
driving on the wrong side of the road and car and it’s stressing me out!
Luckily my license expired in TZ so I haven’t driven yet for myself. (Probably
safer that way!) I have been waking up earlier and earlier each morning; first
it was 5am, then 4:30am, and this morning was 3:40am. Hopefully that will stop
soon, I do enjoy my sleep.
It’s great to be back home and
with my family. It almost feels like no time has gone by and Africa is just a
dream. Weird how being in an entirely different environment does that. I also
keep wanting to speak Swahili to everyone. I did tell a lady in San Francisco
“Asante” which is “Thank you” in Swahili, she gave me a very strange look.
Food is a bit of an adjustment.
So far I get a little sick to my stomach after everything I eat. My diet in TZ
consists of fruit, vegetables, and that’s about it. But I am very happy to be
eating pickles again, I had a delicious salad, lunch meat is great, I just need
to have a nice juicy steak.
Well some updates from Tanzania,
before I left:
We have had a few birthdays; Ima
turned 10, Lukemelo turned 9, and we celebrated Yona’s 9th & Emma’s
birthday while I was still in TZ.
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| Ima's Birthday |
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| Lukemelo's Birthday |
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| Yona & Emma's Birthday |
We finally finished planting our
potato crops. I won’t be there for the corn planting but the field is all ready
and prepped for that. I have a big project waiting for me when I return. I’ve
decided to work on expanding our garden, A LOT. I want to plant basically
everything that we eat, except for fruit. It will only save about 10,000/= TSH
a week, but that will add up over time, plus we’ll have it in our backyard!
The kids are all wonderful, as
usual. I think we are truly blessed with 15 of the best kids in Uhekule,
totally not biased or anything. Lately about half of them have started to call
me “mother”. It’s kind of neat that I get to be a constant in these kids life,
for some of them the first and only they’ve had. While it’s an intimidating
realization, I also love these kids more than anything, and that gives me the
motivation that I need to keep going strong.
For our Tanzanian version of
Halloween we carved watermelons and watched a movie. The kids thought it was
one of the funniest things they had ever seen, like all of the crazy American
traditions that I have introduced to them. We had a lot of fun putting faces on
our watermelons and eating the insides, and putting the candle inside was good
for a laugh.
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| My Example |
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| Sesi |
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| Elenesta, Elisha, Elia |
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| Tumpe |
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| Elia |
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| Eating the Insides! Tumpe & Akwirino. |
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| Half the kids: Tumpe, Priksa, Akwirino, Franki, Ziadia, Yona, Elia |
I’ll be finishing the children’s profiles
while I am here, and hopefully will be able to find sponsors for all of them
too. That’s my big mission while I am back here this trip. I think my parents are
planning an open house, and I hope to have a ‘try Tanzanian type food night’
too.
Thanks for all your continued
support and prayers, lots of big changes happening and it’s all very much so
needed!
