Catching up- November

The school term ended in the third week of November, leaving us with a six week winter break. Just before that, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving! We had several Americans, a Canadian, a Tanzanian-American, a German, and a Kenyan born, Canadian-American toddler who lives in Tanzania. : )

One of the Americans in our village told me that Thanksgiving was her favourite holiday, so I thought it would be nice to make it as festive and special as possible. We are able to get a lot of traditional Thanksgiving foods in our village, and I even found cranberry sauce at the imported-foods supermarket in Mwanza! We opted on chicken instead of turkey, because turkey would have been over $100, but it was still delicious and thanksgivingy! We also held the dinner almost two weeks before Thanksgiving in America (and a good month late for Canada), because that was when we were all available, but that doesn't matter!

We ended up having a really lovely evening with wonderful people and wonderful food. Everyone pitched in and brought something. I made gluten free dressing and gluten free pumpkin pie, so that Abram, David and I would be sure to get some. (The pie was completely gone by the end of the evening- everyone had some!) And I roasted the chickens. I also set the table, and took care to make it look simple and elegant. I cut leaves out of coloured paper and had fun trying to come up with fall/harvest decorations. (Meaning, I cut leaves out of coloured paper. And then put a candle and some fresh flowers in the centre of the table.) I was pleased with how it turned out, though. I don't know if anyone cares but me- but I was happy with it.

We fit ten people plus David's high chair around our enormous dining room table! 

Thanksgiving isn't my favourite holiday, but this was my first time hosting it, and I found myself looking forward to it all week, searching for perfect chicken roasting recipes on my phone instead of getting work done, and mentally changing the table layout in my head. I really enjoyed the entire thing, and can't wait to celebrate next year!

Chickens here are really small, so we roasted three!

The lineup

Chatting over pie and tea.

On the actual date of (American) Thanksgiving, Abram lit a fire in our fireplace for the first time (rainy season is cold...ish, especially when you have louver windows that never close), and I made gingerbread cookies. We sat on the couch, listening to Christmas music and staring at the fire. It was a really lovely way to kick off the Christmas season. 

Catching up- October

October was a whirlwind of teaching and day-to-day life (who knew villages could be so busy?), but in the middle of the month, we flew to Dar es Salaam for several days, to attend AIM's annual Tanzania conference. This was a 5 day missions conference for all AIM missionaries working in Tanzania (and a few in Kenya).

I had been looking forward to the conference for several months, because in our village we are fairly isolated from other missionaries, save the two families who live near us. It was time to fill my extroverted social cup!

To be honest, the week was pretty stressful. Abram got really sick the day before we left for Dar. He actually did really well, considering we were traveling across the country with a baby! But once we got to the conference centre, he spent a lot of his time resting and recovering, and unfortunately missed much of the conference. I tried to take care of him and David as much as possible, and at 4 months pregnant this wasn't easy, so it was draining for me, too.

 In addition to this, the conference schedule is extremely full and busy. We were SO blessed and grateful that there was an amazing team of people from the UK who came to help with the children. David was the youngest person at the conference! and everyone on the children's team worked so hard to include him in the children's activities and to care for him during the sessions, so Abram (when he was up to it) and I could attend the adult sessions. This included sermons, workshops, worship, and other activities. It was so nice to get to sit and be "fed" without having someone climbing up, down, up, down, up and down from my lap!

David did really, really well in the children's room, but it was a bit taxing and overstimulating for him, so he also needed a lot of down time every day- something not very easy to come by. The cafeteria where we ate was also very crowded and loud, so I think he was overwhelmed in general. He did so well- but you could tell it was a hard week for him (and consequently, for us).

The conference also included a fun afternoon at the beach. This was David's first time in the ocean! He was a bit scared, but it was really special for us to take him to the water and the sand. The kid LOVES to be outside!

In general, though full and busy, the conference was a huge gift to us. This was my first one, and Abram's...severalth. It's so encouraging and refreshing to hear from other missionaries, see what God is doing throughout East Africa, and for me, to talk to other mamas and be reminded that this has been done before! It's so good to remember we are not alone! We will not see many of these people again until next October. We're already looking forward to it!

Here are a few more pictures from that week.

Game night

All the kids from the kids' programme (I believe David was asleep at this point)

Checking in for his 15th flight.

The conference room during one session

Catching up- September

Whooooooa. Another 10 weeks have gone by since I blogged. Again. I'm sure very few people care. But I do! I'm determined not to give up. I post lots of random stuff on facebook, and people get to see pictures of us, but I like looking back over our blog, because it's more of a summary of major events in our life, you know?

So, while I have internet (hooray!) and David is out playing in the grass (hooray!), I'm going to try to post a few quick updates of the past few months. Here's September.

Two major things happened in September (I think. Who can remember/):
~I started teaching at the bible college- my first time teaching adults. Ever.
~And, David turned one! We survived a year of parenting! Hooray!

I am teaching English to the first year students here at Nassa Teological College. The students have to have a certain amount of English to get accepted, but they usually still need some brushing up (don't we all?), so the first years take a 5-hour, year-long course, currently taught by yours truly. The most challenging part of this is that there was no curriculum, syllabus or even standards for the course. So I did some digging around online (mostly on my phone...or, when we have electricity, I am working on English, and hence no time for blogging...) and looked up other school's suggestions. Then I mashed together an outline of what I wanted to teach them, and went from there.

The first term was a ton of work- covering grammar and writing, vocabulary and reading comprehension, figurative versus literal language, etc. There are a lot of resources online, but most ESL classes are geared towards people who are learning English and are living in the US. So a lot of the context - the stories, examples, figures of speech- don't apply to my students here. In conclusion: planning the class was a LOT of work.

Teaching was actually pretty fun, and I think I'm doing pretty well. My students are amazing, and they all did really well in the first term! I'm very proud of them. And I'm looking forward to teaching them again next term.

Abram taught three courses this last term: Hermeneutics, Isaiah and Hebrews. He taught almost every morning, and in the afternoons, he keeps busy with his dissertation, ministering to people in our village, writing sermons for occasionally preaching on Sundays, and helping with some of the vision and development for the college. Abram also keeps track of our family finances, so he is always, always busy. He's such a hard worker, and still finds time to spend with me and David! I married a good one, you guys. A really fun twist in the plan is that he's been having significant computer problems. This makes it hard to work on school or his dissertation, in case you were wondering.

But none of that is as interesting as baby David eating chocolate cake for the first time.

See what I mean?

David's birthday is on September 25th, and he shares a birthday with Abram's Tanzanian sister, Neema. So on the 26th (a Saturday), we threw a small party for the two of them. This is, in the long run, so unimportant, but I spent a lot of time thinking about how we could celebrate David's birthday in a culturally appropriate way. I wanted to find a balance between North America and Tanzania, and I think we managed it! (Most everyone who was at the party has probably never had their own birthday cake before.)

For those interested, I baked a small, paleo chocolate cake for David (and myself). Almond flour, cocoa powder, honey... I melted chocolate chips and made icing out of butter and honey and decorated with sliced bananas, since those are David's favourite food. It was SO GOOD, you guys. Probably the best cake I've ever had- gooey and creamy and rich and sweet. If you notice a huge amount of cake missing in the pictures, that's because I ate most of it.

Because almond flour is a precious resource, I made a larger, normal cake for Neema and our guests. I don't think it turned out as well- it was really dry- but I think Neema appreciated it!

Our gift to David was custom-made wooden alphabet blocks. He loves them and plays with them every night before bedtime. They were pretty expensive, but we hope they last years and years. We didn't give them to him at the party, but later, when there wasn't a huge audience. (We already have more nice things that a lot of our neighbours, and I'm sure to them, David is quite spoiled. And he is. We have been so blessed.) The other gifts David received were: a card and cash from our next door neighbour, some eggs from another neighbour, and a (live) chicken from Neema's parents (David's Tanzanian grandparents). Pretty fun gifts, for a one-year-old! (The chicken is no longer with us. She was delicious, though.) We also got a book from Abram's parents in Canada (which he loves), and some clothes, toys and books from my family. Thanks, guys! We felt so loved.

This is much longer than I planned- thanks, D, for playing nicely outside- and I'm pleasantly surprised at my pregnant brain's ability to remember anything that happened 3-4 months ago.

Here are a few more pictures of David's birthday party. (Thanks Abram for grabbing some photos!) They uploaded out of order, just for fun.

We are so grateful that he has such a loving community and family here in Tanzania. And in Kenya. And in Canada. And the US. What a loved little boy.

David and his Tanzanian Grandpa (Babu)

Digging into the frosting.

The birthday twins and their cakes.

I didn't think to take a single photo with David during his party. This was afterward. Oh well.

Singing happy birthday- D was clapping along.

Being efficient. This eating style was a hit and people still talk about it.

Another family photo taken after the party.

He ate every single banana slice off first, before digging into the cake.

Neema, David, Baba and Ashby

Carrying out the cakes. (Like I said, the pics uploaded out of order.)