Wishing you a very Merry Christmas from Tanzania, Everyone!
It's been a couple of weeks since I've updated the blog. I'm sure that many of you can relate to the "busy" December syndrome. Rather than go back that far, I think I'll just focus on this past week.
On Monday, we had some visitors! Our friends Mike and Kari Ness from Moshi, and their children Josh and Katie, came to visit us. Josh had flown home from college and since he was Gwangi's tribe chief while we were in Missouri this summer, we were super excited to have them visit and spend some time with us before heading back up to their house in the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Unfortunately, we forgot to take pictures...arghhh! Next time! Maybe when they come through again :)?!
Later that afternoon we had the annual Sala Sala Kids' Club Christmas Party up at HOPAC. We've been working with the group that meets on Tuesdays (the 7 and under crowd...the older kids meet on Mondays) for the past semester. It has been such a blessing to get to know these children and see them open up to us and our own children. There were games, time to play at the park, songs and skits performed, and then each child got a meal of pilau and chicken, and a lunch box with Christmas cookies and treats to take home. We really enjoyed our time with them and will see them all again in January.
Many of you might know about the weather we've been having here as well. An unseasonable storm front moved into the Indian Ocean and started dumping rather a lot of rain on us here in Dar. It was torrential and caused widespread flooding, loss of lives and homes, disruptions in supplies and transportation, and set us up for just an all around crisis mode here in the city.
Here, at our house, we seemed fine on Tuesday and Wednesday. We even had some friends, the Grahams over for dinner on Wednesday night! On Thursday morning, the rain was still coming down in buckets and an empty lot around the corner, that hadn't been properly set up for drainage, flooded and broke down the adjoining wall. It flooded our neighbor's property (the water was waist high), and came into our property like a waterfall. Our front courtyard and lawn were under water within minutes and quickly rising. We started making plans and packing as if we would need to evacuate. While I was handling that, Indy decided to go take a walk with our gardener, to see if our drainage ditches were blocked. They ended up being enlisted to help with the neighbor's yard, knocking holes in his wall to provide quicker drainage of the water. He should tell you the story sometime; but, as he was handling this, he saw used hypodermic needles float past him, lots and lots of bugs (he has a few nasty red bites on his legs now), so much trash you would just be beside yourself....it was pretty messy! After a time, the pressure from all the water seemed to calm down and the water started to recede from our front door (it was within an inch of our front door step, and our house was well placed and sits up a bit higher than many!) We decided not to leave; but, left all our things packed, just in case. We spent the rest of the day cleaning and trying to catch up on laundry that just wouldn't dry with all the moisture in the air!
Friday dawned with no rain and so we decided to chance it. We had a laundry list of things to get....cash, petrol for the generator (power cuts/outages with the weather were not good), cooking gas for the oven, some fresh veggies. We had to do a bit of driving, it was the 2nd place that we went that we got petrol, the 3rd place that we got cash, the 4th place that we went that we got the cooking gas (oryx)....ahhh, what a day. On the way home, we didn't put the truck into 4 wheel drive, and we got stuck about 100 yards from our front gate. Many of the neighbors and locals had to help us get the car out. YUCK!
Saturday was Christmas Eve. We had plans with a couple of other families; but, with the state of our road, we decided to move the festivities to another location, the Clendinen's house. We had a lovely day, made crafts, lots to eat, and time to chat. We loved it!
Decorating sugar cookies!
We brought a kit from Hobby Lobby and made snow!
Trying to use Borax and water to make crystal snowflakes...didn't quite work.
Making icicles for the tree with another kit I brought from Hobby Lobby ;)
Sissi pretending she's sleeping.
Today, we celebrated our Lord's birth, and it was Sunday; but, after a late night last night and not knowing how things were going into town, we decided not to chance going to church and just did our normal Advent story and Bible reading. Then we all picked a Christmas carol to sing together. It was sweet and simple! Gifts were that way too, I had brought 3 gifts for each child from the States, not knowing what we could get here. It was quite the lesson in knowing your children... I had bought some Barbie stuff for Sissi on clearance last year and she loved it! I brought over some Leap Pad books and cartridges I had bought on Ebay before we left, she's super excited about her new "Lily Pad Games". For Gwangi, he got some old Lego "Orient Expedition" sets that we had bought, and stored, since before Krypto was born....he thought they were awesome! Gwangi and Krypto both got some old comic books and serials that used to be their Daddy's. Simple items, not much fuss; but, it was just what they wanted.
We also enjoyed using the "Golden Ticket" idea. It was supposed to be to go to a movie downtown one day this week, and then the second punch was to be used to go to a local water park another day. With the weather this week, let's just say neither of those events took place. SO, I still wanted to use the idea of a special something....so we cut them out and put them on construction paper and wrote special activities that they could do with us, here at home. They though they were fabulous!
Unfortunately, mail being the way that it is, none of the packages from our family showed up. So I told them we could keep the tree up until they all have arrived, and we'll just keep Christmas going all the way through January!
Smokey, waiting for Daddy to finish reading and singing.
Our tree, presents, and Christmas book from the Morgenthalers.
Sissi with her "Ballerina Snow White"
Gwangi getting some old Disney comics from his Daddy!
Sissi's Ken doll finally has some new clothes! We are up to 3 Barbie movies now too, I got "The Princess and the Pauper" in the dollar bin at Walmart before we left Colorado.
Some new legos...his favorite toy ever.
Opening the ziploc with the 'new' leap pad games
Comics, serials, and books that his Daddy used to read. Oh, and a mad lib book too.
Sitting and spending some DS time with Daddy.
Sissi and I spent some time doing our toes and fingers....it was Spa Day!
The Golden Tikckets!!!
Building his new set.
War Game time...Moon Base Clavius!
Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls that Sissi and I made for dessert.
Snowflakes that we made to decorate the school room.
When I went to make dinner, Indy decided to run out and try to pick up some more Zantel credit, just in case our holiday family Skype calls ate up our internet bandwidth and cut us off. He drove all around and nothing was open....hey, I know it's Christmas; but, not everyone celebrates it here. Anyway, on the way home, he tried our dirt road again (rather than going another way that is longer; but, a bit drier)....he got stuck, again. A neighbor helped him out and told him that the 4 wheel drive on the truck isn't working properly. Hope we don't need 4 wheel drive up in Lushoto....we'll get it looked at when we get home.
Please pray for safety, we're driving up about 6 hours north of here tomorrow to a mountain town, called Lushoto. We'll be with a number of other HOPAC families, trying to have a little coolness and downtime before the school term starts again on the 4th of January. I pray we make good time, have no issues or accidents, no bad weather, no police stops and that all is well during this week of quiet time. Love to you all and blessings on this very Merry Christmas! We think you're all a most amazing blessing in our lives. Thank you God for our friends and most importantly for our Savior.
Happy New Year!
