First Week – Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear friends and family,

So we settled in quite well during our first week. Most importantly the little ailments that my family experienced seemed to go away with the exception of Stephen’s cold which doesn’t appear to bother him very much.

NORMAL DAY FOR MY WIFE AND CHILDREN
FYI - The lizard is on Jessica, hard to tell it's her from this angle.

Kathleen wakes up early, as usual, to get in her yoga and perhaps a run. When she runs the kids will sprint along side her and everyone shares a greeting. And when I say everyone I mean about 30-40 people every kilometer. The neighborhood outside our walls is typical Africa, tons of Africans walking, the women carrying impossibly large loads on their heads and all of the children so excited to see a “Munzungo” (white person).

She went for her first run and said she would be back in 45 minutes. After an hour and a half I got on the bike to try and find her (she, as usual, had told me where she was going). But after riding for 30 minutes and then turning around I found her about 200 yards from our house sitting on the ground. I thought she was hurt but no, she just couldn’t find her way back to the house (her only real leftover issue from her “accident” is that she sometimes can’t find her way around). She was not upset at all, she knew that we would come find her after some time so everything was OK.

After a little time for herself each morning the kids wake up and she starts home schooling, which is totally new for her but she brought lots of materials. She is very good at it as anyone who knows her would expect. Zoe, our 5 year old, for some weird reason, like her older sister, can’t get enough of her homework and pushes herself on her own. Constantly. The boys don’t need much encouragement so we are very lucky in that sense. After a couple of hours of homework they make their way to the pool at the hotel in our community which is very nice. They spend the rest of the day there typically. Zoe could do that for the rest of her life if necessary.

We live with Mount Meru in our backyard. The mountain is 15,000 feet tall and rises from our elevation of 3000 feet so is the largest mountain that we have ever seen. It is amazingly beautiful.

The children are learning Swahili and love Africa, but miss their friends very much. We got faster Internet and started calling everyone the day after Thanksgiving. If you have Skype, our Skype name is BenAllenFamily.

Last Sunday we visited the community church which is attended mostly by ex-pats and had a picnic after service which about 100 people attended. We met many wonderful people and started some relationships that should prosper throughout our visit. Two people, Jessie and Ben, are missionaries in sub-saharan Africa. They aren’t true missionaries, which require extensive schooling, but rather pseudo-missionairies, meaning they have all the right intentions but for lack of education had to pay their own way to get to Africa and be able to “prove” that, if necessary, they could return back to America. They teach English at a school about 3 hours from Arusha. They came for a year but found that it took them a year to just learn the language. After a second year they found that they were really enjoying themselves. Now in their third year they are contemplating a 4th. Like me 6 year ago, they have obviously got the African “bug.” They are the only white people, they believe, in about a 50 kilometer circumference. They are apparently looked down upon because they are not married and do not have children but that doesn’t affect their love for what they do.

My children are in love with Africa, as I had always hoped they would be. They are so inquisitive and have such respect for the culture that it makes Kathleen and I very proud. We went to Thanksgiving at Mark and Linda Jacobson’s house (the Dr who runs the 2 hospitals and the clinic) with approximately 70 other people from the USA. Garrison Keeler was quoted prior to our prayer, having mentioned that since the election visitors from the US in other countries no longer have to say they’re Canadian to be in the good graces of the country they are visiting. If you don’t understand this, let’s just say that for various reasons the USA is not considered as highly as it should be by many cultures…but this has changed where we live since the election. Kenya and Tanzania think extremely highly of the US since the election of Obama and it is with utmost pride that we share where we are from.

In Tanzania Kathleen is referred to as Mama Stephen and I am Baba Stephen, we take the name from our first born male. If we had no boys then we would be Mama Jessica and Baba Jessica. The children are learning Swahili but we all feel that we are not learning it fast enough, it is apparently a simple language but we do not understand many of the nuances. What we do know is that it is important to greet everyone, and many things influence those greetings. For example, when any of us greet someone older than ourselves it is important to greet them with the phrase “chakamu.” If they are the same age or younger we can simply say “jambo.” What is most important is that everyone, and I mean everyone, deserves a greeting. If you do not acknowledge a person that you are passing on the street than it is considered rude. And almost everyone you pass greets you with a smile. What is better is that because we are married and have children, we are held in higher esteem then Jessie and Ben mentioned above(sorry guys, but you know how you can fix the situation ;). Kathleen, and her children, were stopped by a man today and the man inquired of Kathleen if all of the children were hers. When she replied yes, he honored her with a handshake and a mention of the word, “congratulations.” Very unusual in our culture, but oh so wonderful.

I shared an article in the local newspaper with Jessica regarding the Masai relationships and how to curb the AIDS epidemic. It “recommended” that the Masai need to consider having relationships only with their “wives” but not with the wives of their friends who are the same age, which is typical in their culture. Interesting difference in our culture versus theirs. Jessica is going to bring the article back with her so this is the warning to her middle school.

On Monday the 1st we will be leaving for Safari using the itinerary previously published, please keep us in your prayers.

NORMAL DAY FOR BEN
I have been so fortunate to work with such amazing people at the new hospital. My boss is named Moye and he got a degree in computer science in Dar Es Salem, a big town in Tanzania, a couple of years ago. I have extremely high respect for him because he cares so much about what he does which I think is rare…Tanzanians hold their relationships much higher that their work but Moye does not have a girlfriend and so he is putting all his energy into what he does. He cares very much about security and getting everything to work well. We have had many conversations about standardization and have come up with some good goals for the new hospital that is due to open up by the 11th of December.

We are on track for the deployment of computers by the 11th and it is the hope that our hospital will become a example for the other 19 Lutheran hospitals in Tanzania. The reason this whole project has come about is due to Rotary in Evergreen. Rotary is known for having Group Study Exchange programs where people from one culture visit another culture to share their experience. That is exactly what is happening during this trip. For example, the head of the most successful ISP in this part of Tanzania is going to work with me where I will share experience on networking with his employees in exchange for him to share his experience with Linux and security, which is what the hospital standardizes upon, with Moye and myself. I am looking forward to finding ways to setup standards at this hospital which can be shared with other hospitals eventually.

We feel so fortunate to be part of this culture, assisting in any way that we can.

We thank you for your prayers and blessings, please keep them coming.

Love,
Ben's little family