It is hard to believe we have been here three and a half months! Honestly, I think you are expecting me to say that time has just flown by, but actually, I feel like we have been here a year already! Everyday life is HARD. And being a "people person" like me, makes transitions lonely for me. I stay "busy", but I miss my friends and family. Each time we have moved, I have been surprised at how long it takes me to feel at home. You just cannot create a mountain of friends instantly....and especially not in such a foreign place! However, I am happy to report we are WELL and Don's hearing is back to baseline. I struggle with the dust and that continues to cause coughing and sneezing and blowing, but that is due to allergies and not illness.
Don feels useful at work. His stories about the patients he sees and their diseases fascinate and sadden me. I will let him write about that. My role tends to be "hospitality coordinator" for all the visiting nurses, medical students, residents, biomedical technicians, etc. Most people come for 1-2 months, but some stay for six months. Saki, a University of Minnesota pediatric resident from JAPAN, is here now. She is the ONLY visitor right now so she needs company as much as I do. We have gotten together often for dinner and shopping and games and movies, etc. I will be sorry to see her leave September 22. Fortunately, that is the day Wema comes home from school for a break.
Speaking of Wema (the 14 year old Maasai neighbor who rescued me from bad dogs a year ago), the connection with her family continues to unfold. She is attending a boarding school in a neighboring town, but we see her older brothers, Orjantan and Ombeni, and her younger brother, Herison, often. They bring their laptops and various devices to our house to use our wifi. We also play games and they get to experience all kinds of new food....like broccoli! Anyway, those computers have been life changing for them! It has truly opened the world to them! Yes, they download movies and play games, but they also download tutorials on how to prepare for SAT exams! They are SO bright and self disciplined! The older brothers have big dreams of going away to college and they are pursuing scholarships and wish for sponsorship. Sponsorship is HUGE here. It seems like every Tanzanian success story has a sponsor behind it....Someone willing to invest in that person's education.
Ok, here comes a long story about Wema's family. If you continue reading, I promise a surprise ending! We recently met Wema's cousin, Allan Kilevo, who lives in the US (Virginia) and was here for a wedding. Orjantan brought him to our house for a quick visit on his way to the airport. We encountered a very bright man in his 40's? who speaks flawless English. He married a Caucasian and has two children. We were delighted to meet him and hear the story about how he ended up in the US.
Turns out, he was working as a waiter at Tarangire, a safari lodge about three hours from here, when he struck up a conversation/friendship with visiting tourists. These tourists were friends of the owners of the safari lodge, the SIMONSONS, long time missionaries here. The Simonson's and Rowbergs have had deep connections for decades! Long story, but these tourists were so taken with Allan that they eventually provided his plane ticket to the US and helped him attend a community college. He excelled and wanted to continue studying business at a university. Simonson's used their influence to get him an international scholarship at Concordia College in Moorhead Minnesota!
Well, this was all just mind boggling to us to learn that Wema's cousin was connected to the Simonsons! Dave and Eunie Simonson started the Maasai Girl's School where Wema now attends! That made us curious about Wema's family tree. We heard she comes from a rather influential family, but we did not know how everyone was related. Orjantan talked with his mom and provided us with a family tree which is complicated. The family is large and people here take their father's first name as their last name.
The tree starts with Wema's grandfather named Kilevo who had a first wife and after she died, a second wife. (Many Maasai have more than one wife at the same time). Kilevo had five children, including a son, Mesiaki who is an influential person around here, with the first wife. Then Kilevo had 11 more children with his second wife. Victor (Wema's father) was number 9 from that mother. Incidentally, this wife (Wema's grandmother) died last summer when we were here and she is buried on their property. I remember when she died and am sorry we did not get an opportunity to meet her.
Apparently, Kilevo was fairly well off, at least in terms of land. The large family has now divided up this land, but most of them still have generous parcels next to each other and within walking distance of our house.
Ok....so back to Allan and our remarkable visit. We learned that Allan's father was Mesiaki. That is a well known name here but we did not understand his connection to Wema until we studied the family tree. Mesiaki is Wema's uncle. We were curious to meet him, especially after meeting Allan. Both Linda and Erik had told us about Mesiaki but no one knew the exact connection to Wema.
So, last week Orjantan brought Mesiaki to our house! (Saki was here too and finds the connection to Tanzanians through us fascinating.) In walks this handsome, stately gentleman using a cane. We were so happy to meet the patriarch of the family! His story is every bit as remarkable as Allan's, who is his 6th child out of 8. We learned that he is 84 years old and living nearby with his wife. He is a retired Lutheran pastor! He also received sponsorship in the 1960's and even attended Luther Seminary in St Paul Minnesota! He used his newly acquired smart phone (just amazing that he is so capable!) to show us family photos. So we had a glorious evening getting to know this remarkable man. He has written a book....a memoir, but it is in Swahili.
Anyway, here is the the punch line: Mesiaki finally figured out who we are because he has met met Erik....and we discovered that he also had known Ray, Don's father! Now this just seems hard to fathom that Wema's family has had connections with our family from long ago...and we are just now figuring it out!
Tonight we are invited to Wema's house (Saki too) for a dinner of bananas and beans cooked in coconut milk. They asked me to bring a plate of fresh veggies and dip. Eating cold food is new to them but they tried it at our house and enjoyed tasting hummus and curry dip. They love experiencing new things! So our relationship with this family continues to be one of the highlights of living here!
I wanted to end with this story. As I mentioned, my main function is to provide various types of gatherings for various people several times a week. Preparing all that food requires a lot of effort because the shopping is so difficult and involves so many stops in the midst of traffic that is nerve wracking. Each time I do this I am aware of how difficult everything is here! Everything is so much harder and more time consuming than at home.
I decided to throw a "going away party" for Wendy, a visiting medical student from New Zealand. I invited Jacobsons and another American couple our age who were leaving the next day as well. I told Wendy I could handle up to 14 people so she could invite 8 more including herself. Included on her invitation list was a Japanese woman she met on Safari, her safari driver and a performer she met at a nearby safari lodge! With such a wild assortment of guests, I knew it would be an interesting evening.
I knocked myself out and fixed a vegetarian meal since Wendy and a another visiting resident are vegetarians. We enjoyed carrot curry soup, mediterranean rice salad, Thai peanut salad, chutney, fruit salad and an amaretto/almond/ lemon bundt cake for dessert. Wendy is Chinese and she brought dumplings made from scratch! Linda contributed a green salad. The evening was such a fun global experience! That is probably my favorite thing about being here....all the global connections.
So the "old folks", like us, left first. The last to leave were the Tanzanian young men: the safari driver and the back flipping, fire tossing performer. They thanked me over and over for including them and for all the good food. As they left, they said my name should be changed to MOTHER AFRICA! This would not be so funny if they said this to Linda....she actually deserves that name! But for me, with all my difficulties adjusting and all my grumbling about the inefficiencies in this strange place, the irony of being referred to as "Mother Africa" has kept me laughing! And laughing is indeed the BEST medicine!
❤️Debi
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| Sunset in Tanzania |
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