Sunday Friends and Showers

Arusha, March 10, 2018, Sunday

It was a quiet and very wet Saturday. The electricity went off and on over over and over, but usually was not off for more than several hours at a time. Sometimes the wifi went down as well, so we read and used word processing much of the time. John took his usual walk into town and bought bread and a few vegetables, but I stuck to Kundayo. Mama wasn’t out much because of the rain; we only had time to greet each other and then run—well, she doesn’t run—for cover.

Yesterday, Sunday, we had Ray pick us up as usual to take us to ACC. He himself had not been to church as he had been up until the early morning at a neighbor’s wake. Showing solidarity at a death is extremely important here. Mama even goes to pay respects to people she has never really liked. So, Ray, who never ever misses church or his men’s prayer group, gave up church to sit with the neighbors almost all night.

The service at ACC was better than average. The music was well chosen and the strings accompaniment was excellent. Linda was not present to play the piano as she usually does. Her daughter Sarah had had a bicycle accident in South Africa and broken her collarbone. The break was bad enough that Sarah needed surgery, so Linda flew down to be with her. I so hope she will be back before we leave. One of the women here whom I really, really like, Deborah Troester, gave the sermon. She and her husband, Joe, are being moved to Zambia soon, so I will not see her again when we return next year.

Joe and Deborah Troester with Atula

After the service, Tim Wright and his wife, neither of whom I had ever met before, came to talk with us. John had met them in Nairobi last week, and in one of those strange “small world” events discovered that they were the people who had followed us in 1975 at Kakinda in the Congo, where John did his doctoral research, and two-year-old Becca and I learned about survivalist living. Becca and I had flown home several months before John, and because of wanting to keep my luggage light, I had left behind several items for John to ship home later. Becca had worn a pair of little yellow rain boots, which I dearly loved. John promised to ship them home, but instead he left them for the Wrights, as they had several small children. All these years, I have mourned those boots, and now I met up with those who knew them last. It didn’t seem to me that the Wrights had loved those boots as much as I had, but at least I heard the rest of the story.

I also introduced John to Susan James, another person I find extraordinarily fascinating. She is from Minnesota, where her husband teaches wildlife conservation at the University of Minnesota. While he’s busy with that, Susan operates her own business which contracts with different agencies and NGOs to do surveys and data analysis for them. She has been doing this for 8 years now in Tanzania and uses very bright university graduates to do the data gathering, etc. In fact, she is the only mzungu involved in the work here. Once, when I had asked her if she has ever thought of doing a survey on gun ownership here, she looked taken aback and commented that wouldn’t tell much, as no ordinary citizen would own a gun unless they were a hunter and had an old rifle. Susan is also Linda’s “best friend,” just as Linda tells me I am.

We had spent so much time talking after church that we hadn’t found out if anyone was going anywhere for lunch. So, we found a taxi and took it to George’s, where others often show up. No no one we knew was there, so we took a table outside—the waiter assured us it would not rain. The sky kept looking more and more ominous, and just then the Mosley family—Paul, Rebecca, and their two boys showed up—so we asked if we could sit with them inside. Of course, they said yes, and we picked up our beverages and went under the big thatched roof. Just about then, it began to pour, harder than any other deluge so far. There was also a strong wind which whipped the rain in through the open sides of the pavilion, so we had to move again to the back away from the side in order to keep dry. Not only did the rain fall extremely hard, but it kept up for at least an hour. John kept wondering how long we might be trapped before we could get back to Kundayo. The din of the rain made it extremely difficult to carry on much of a conversation with Paul and Rebecca. However, we did have some moments of communication and found them to be very interesting and enjoyable people. They came this past summer to work with MCC, but because they have young children and normally do their own thing after church, we hadn’t gotten to know them before.

Of course, the rain did eventually die down and we called Ray to get us back to Kundayo. After that, we tried to take a nap, and eventually I made dinner (braised chicken, mashed potatoes, and sauced zucchini, with fruit for dessert). We tried to have a video chat with Peri, but the internet was not functioning well, so we only got a few seconds of actually seeing her and hearing her voice. I don’t know what she saw or heard. We’ll be home soon, and then we can talk face to face again. Oh happy day!