Re-Entry

Sunday, January 6, 2019

Yesterday, we managed to stay awake until 9:00 p.m. and today we didn’t fully wake up until around 7 a.m. Of course, I am not counting all the times I awoke between yesterday and today and the many trips I made to the bathroom because I had nothing better to do. Maybe tonight will be more normal with only three awakenings. It’s still a struggle to stay semi-alert and fully functional during the daylight hours here. All we have to do to know what time it is in Spokane is to flip AM and PM and add one hour from the hour here. So, when it’s 4:00 p.m. in Arusha it’s 5:00 a.m. in Spokane. We are literally trying to stay awake when our bodies expect to sleep.

Today being Sunday—and Epiphany no less—we went to church. John had told Ray to pick us up at 9:30 because he forgot that church didn’t begin until 10:30. Consequently, we were the first to arrive at ACC and got to witness all the set up for communion and the music practice. Mary Lou, who normally does not attend church, came with us, as she did not want to miss out on any culturally interesting action. I told her to think of it all as a social anthropological experience, which is actually how I have come to accept some of it. She loved the incredible offering baskets as I always have.

While in general it was wonderful to be back and see old friends again, I was unsettled by the changes which have occurred in the past year. The current government is making it harder and harder for non-nationals to maintain or acquire work permits, and many of the Europeans and non-Tanzanian Africans who were here in past years have had to leave or have moved on to other African countries. There were many faces from last January missing from the congregation this morning, and my beloved women’s group has been decimated. Fortunately, my Tanzanian “homies”—Margaret, Mary, Grace, and Miriam—are still here, and we had some joyous hugging and back patting after the service.

Sharon Mkisi, the MCC director for Tanzania was at church, and afterwards asked us if we’d be interested in going to lunch with her. Of course, we were! We have no car, so getting a ride to any restaurant, and better yet spending time with Sharon, was a wonderful idea to us. And, as often last year, we went to George’s, an upscale establishment popular with wazungu. It has wonderful outdoor garden seating and is the one place in Arusha where ordering a salad is a good idea. I’ve posted many photos in the past of George’s gigantic salads, and they have not changed. John, Mary Lou, and I ordered salads, while Sharon had a pizza. We all had plenty to eat and still left with more than enough food for our lunches tomorrow.

The president of Tanzania has been compared to Trump. However, here there is far more fear and uncertainty, as people lose jobs or even “disappear’ if they criticize the current administration. Nothing political can be publicly discussed, and telephone calls must be self-censored. Even in private, unless one knows all present very, very well, one must guard what is said, as there may be spies. I have never known Tanzania in such a state of submerged tension and anxiety before. Always before it seemed like such a haven from the dictatorial ills of other nations. Now, I am not certain what its future may be. Such a change in the social climate is distressing.

Somehow we managed to stay up until nearly 10:00 p.m. Mainly it was the frustration of not being able to connect to the internet which kept me up. The access was painfully slow—just enough connectivity to keep me trying, but not enough to see Facebook posts easily or respond quickly to email messages. Playing any video messages was ultra frustrating, but we finally saw the first 6 seconds of a video of Peri saying “Grandpa.” John was thrilled; I never found out for sure if she also said “Grandma” before the video stopped. I assume she must have. If not, she’d better do so soon!