this was taken in Musoma, on the shores of Lake Victoria. we go to musoma to stock up on propane and do errands - it's about a 3 hour drive from us.
my dad came to Mugumu for a week in September - among other things, he taught Ben how to whack a golf ball (75 feet in the air), flicked a lizard to it's fate over the hedge, met many of our friends and finessed his Swahili.
my mom and aaron - precious
National Geographic - eat your heart out! :) 
Ben has anywhere from 5-20 friends come to our yard on a daily, perhaps hourly, basis. Many of them are quite a bit older than him. Although at times we feel like we are the neighborhood kindergarten, we are thankful that Ben has playmates at a moment's notice. His Swahili has really been picking up lately - important words like "jongoo" (millipede), "kono kono" (snail), "mjusi" (lizard), "acha" (stop), "njoo" (come), "hapa!" (here), "ona" (look) etc.
one of his favorite activities is "fishing" off of our porch
turning 3 on august 2nd. we had about 10 neighborhood kids over for a party on the porch. i decorated the cake using a ziplock bag. Ben didn't seem to mind.
We had a day at Rosslyn where there happened to be facepainting - he wanted
little aaron - two months
first smile caught on camera - 2 months
i like to call him my "little bug"
brothers
aaron has the smallest mouth I've ever seen. however, when he smiles, 
Ben and Opa studying a caterpillar 
Serengeti
TastyHope you all are doing well!
Kurtis
Last week I (Carla) had to send in a progress report for work, and for one section they asked us to share a story. So I told the following story that happened around February. I realized that I have not shared much about my actual work here with MCC, so I thought I’d post it as it kind of shows our daily reality here. And just some general background info: Kurt and I work for Mennonite Central Committee, and are seconded to a local organization called Community Based Health Promotion Program. The program does HIV/AIDS education and prevention, voluntary counseling and testing, home-based care for about 500 clientele from 14 surrounding villages, and helps clients with income-generating activities. It’s really quite an amazing program working in a very difficult environment with little resources. My job title is “home-based care coordinator,” and I work with 3 Tanzanian full-time staff in the HBC office. (CBHPP has about 10 or so full-time staff). Kurt is working to get the offices set up with computers and internet as well as doing general maintenance. He is also becoming Mugumu’s computer guy so he gets lots of requests to help doctors or pastors or so-and-so’s with their computers. We like our work although many challenges come along with it.
Right now I’m actually on mat leave – technically I have until September off, but will be helping with a 3 week home-based care training seminar that starts next week. So I will take more mat leave off after the seminar is over.
Anyways…to the story…and of course, the promise to try to post pictures sometime soon:
We had a client come to the office with her 2 month old child. The mother, Bhoke, was crippled in one leg but had walked the 13 km from her village to Mugumu center with the help of her aging mother, so that she and her child could get medical assistance. When I met them they were gettinig ready to leave Mugumu to walk back to their village, but they had not yet arrived at the hospital. They had decided that it was too late to visit the CTC clinic and needed to start walking home as to arrive back before dark.
We told them that we would drive them to their village if they visited the CTC. They were able to go and see a doctor, who started the baby on antibiotics for a chest infection. We started taking them home, stopping at a duka to buy their medicine. As we were leaving Mugumu, we found out that they had nothing to eat at home. So we went back to the office and gave them a supply of a mix of ground rice, millet flour and peanuts. As I drove them home I was asking about the health of the baby - he just seemed so small. And I found out that the mother was only breast-feeding him twice a day, because she was told not to breastfeed him if she was infected with HIV. So she was trying to give him a small amount of uji at home. This was disturbing to me, and I encouraged her as best as I could to breastfeed the child when he was hungry.
A week later, the baby was admitted to the hospital for malaria and pneumonia. The mother stayed in the hospital with the baby. At Mugumu hospital, patients are dependant on family members to buy medications and bring food supplies to them. However, since they lived 13 km away and had come unprepared to be admitted to the hospital, they had no food with them. The grandmother left Mugumu to find a source of milk to feed the baby, and the mother stayed in the hospital. A day after they were admitted, I went to visit them, bringing some bananas, milk, water and millet flour. The mother and the baby had both not eaten in over 24 hours, and the grandmother still had not returned.
I held the baby in my arms and helped Bhoke find the small outdoor shed behind the hospital where there are some firepits. She built a fire with some twigs. I gave her an old pot and some utensils, and she cooked up some thin uji mixed with milk for herself and the child. I tried to educate her about how to know if her baby was hungry, and how to prepare the uji so it was not too thick for the baby to swallow. I tried to encourage her to know if her baby was getting enough food. We went back to the ward where she tried to give her baby some food but after a couple of spoonfuls he was unable to take more and she gave up.
Over the course of two or three days I visited them in the hospital several times, asking about her baby's food intake, talking with the nurses and pushing them to weigh the child regularly and monitor his progress. In two days he went from 2.5 kg to 2.0 kg. It was very frustrating to feel like people (including the mother) had already given up hope that this baby would survive.
Walking home from the hospital after a frustrating encounter in the hospital I was wondering about hope. Was it reasonable to have hope for this baby? What kind of life would he have even if he survived - living in a remote village, a crippled mother, an aging grandmother? Little access to food, and a small chance of obtaining an education. And then the story of Moses came to me. We know the end of Moses' story, but what about the beginning - the parts where the Israelite babies are being murdered and the desperation of a mother who gives her baby up to the mercy of a river. How bad would things have had to have been for a mother to let her child go in such a manner? And I realized that if God can bring up a person like Moses out of a situation of desperation and despair, that we are certainly called to have hope for each infant, each baby and each child. It is not up to us to decide what kind of a future a baby might or might not have - it is only up to us to choose to fight for and love each child, and leave it all up to God.
One day I went to the hospital to visit them and they had been discharged. Feeling surprised that they would discharge a baby that was losing weight daily and obviously still sick, I talked with a doctor and got the baby tested for anemia. He was highly anemic so I got a prescription for iron supplementation. Then we drove them home with an adequate food supply (the grandmother was able to find a source of milk from the community and we had offered to pay for it). And an HBC staff person who lived close to their village agreed to follow up with them after a day or two.
A week later I learned that the baby had died at home. And although I knew that this was likely to happen, I still felt overwhelmed with sorrow. On the one hand, he was in the arms of Jesus, yet on the other hand, it was the poverty, the lack of education, and the lack of adequate health care that led to his death. How do we work to improve these circumstances so that more infants do not need to die?
Later, the same day I learned of his death, another mother came to CBHPP with her 2 year old child. She had travelled 60 km, getting an expensive ride on the back of a truck, to have her child seen by a doctor. She had obtained for him a prescription for antibiotics for pneumonia. She came to our office to get her prescription filled. But when I asked about his symptoms they did not sound like pneumonia - fever, stomach pain, diarrhea. I asked if he had been tested for malaria, and she said he had not. So I walked back to the hospital with her and asked a CTC doctor to test the baby for malaria. He had a count of 100 (!) and was admitted for IV Quinine over a number of days. I visited them from time to time and helped them get food and medicines. After a few days her son was healed from malaria and they were ready to go back to their village. As she was leaving she told me "If you had not refused to give me the antibiotics until we had tested him for malaria, he surely would have died at home."
To me, the stories of these two mothers and their children illustrates the kind of place we work in and the challenges faced. People living in remote villages with little access to health care and little funds to travel to Mugumu. Mothers with no health education and little empowerment to make decisions for their children. Inadequate and incomplete hospital treatment. Lack of food and lack of funds to buy medications. Children dying preventable deaths. The hardships seem overwhelming. And yet we are still called to have hope for each child, to fight for them, to rejoice in the small victories, and to ask God to give us strength to continue working towards justice so that children do not have to suffer needlessly.
Yesterday Ben woke up around 6:15 so I took him to the bathroom and
then said it was too early to wake up so I slept in his bed while he
lay there. At some point he got out of bed and got himself breakfast
by eating the tops off of full loaves of pumpkin bread which is how I
found him. We played Lego for a while, he has 8 duplo blocks so there
are only so many tower, bridge, stair combinations that you can build
but he had fun and is certainly getting the hang of it.
As usual our gardener arrived at 8:00, our househelp, Mama Daudi
(Mama David), arrived at 8:30 and the milk sometime after that. (Our
normal househelp had a baby last month as well so she's on leave and
now the lady who normally watches Ben is helping around the house.
It's really a great situation but it's a long story.)
I was trying to do a little computer work in my office (in our
house) but I have an issue with the grounding in my house and kept
tripping a breaker. By the time I "fixed" the ground the electricity
really was off so I couldn't do that work anyway.
Carla went to CBHPP to just check in with everyone and say hi. She
met a volunteer who just arrived this week from Illinois, I'm not sure
what she'll be doing but she's here to help. I stayed home and
watched the boys. Ben's quickly learning his alphabet and has words
associated with almost all the letters of the alphabet. We spent the
morning stacking the letters and identifying them (flying for F,
muffin for M, tree for T, etc).
Carla got back around noon and fed Aaron while Ben and I had lunch.
Biscuit, chapati and cucumber for Ben, left over heuvos rancheros
(sp?) for me. Then Ben went for a nap and I wrote some emails and did
my MCC worker report. At some point Mama Daudi made ugali and sukuma
for herself and Carla and I had joined them for a bit more lunch.
(Carla and I are really getting addicted to the local food - even,
dare I say, ugali.)
I forgot to mention that these days we usually have on the order of
10-20 kids playing in our yard at our swing. Sometimes it seems like
mayhem, sometimes they are all in a line waiting their turn at the
swing. We did have a rubber ball that they played with a lot but then
one of them wore cleats one day and it got a serious hole in it. I do
have a really nice new soccer ball waiting for Ben's 3rd birthday and
I'm wondering how or if to bring that outside.
So speaking of the kids, after I had written some emails and
reports, Ben and I went outside to fly his kite. There was virtually
no wind but I got it up once for a few minutes. The next time I tried
running around the field to get it up but of course some trees snagged
it so it took about 15 minutes to get it down and then Ben had gone
off to his swing.
Later we drove to town to buy some curtain rod hardware and do
various errands. Going to town is always interesting because usually
it involves visiting a minimum of 10 little dukas because each one
sells this but not that. (For example, the main hardware store had
one curtain rod in stock, it was on the ceiling with plastic sewage
traps hung off of it. But they didn't have the ends for supporting
the rod. So I tried about 3 other hardware stores but no avail. We
also wanted chapatis so that we could have egg burritos for supper but
it took 3 "restaurants" to find one with chapatis.)
Now of course I've forgotten the details of the evening. But after
some great egg burritos (we brought back salsa from Nairobi) I'm sure
there was some playing with Ben's little tool station, some no-get-me,
aka tag, a bath, etc. I think the electricity went off for a while
and I also think I spent an hour holding Aaron watching an episode of
an 80's BBC series called "Connections" that I found on our computer.
And then it was bed for two exhausted parents but luckily we would
at least have a few hours to ourselves on Sat morning with only the
milk lady dropping by.
This material certainly isn't new, it's been covered under the lenses of
future/present/past centered cultures and even materialism. But I want to
discuss it under the lens of "preparedness".
Most of the people reading this blog have grown up in a boyscout culture
where the motto "Always be prepared" is respected and valued. We see it all
around us, I remember biking in Winnipeg and the bus benches on Pembina had a
picture of a police man and the words "Have a plan" - though I was never quite
sure what I should have a plan for, which may have been the point. The Canadian
Mennonite recently featured an article about preparing for a pandemic and often
features articles about preparing for retirement or the death of a loved one,
etc. We are certainly a culture of preparedness.
Let me give some examples of what I feel preparedness looks like for us. I am
often encouraged to make sure that I have tools, oil, rope, water, etc in our
truck in case we get stuck. Our truck has two spare tires and 2 gas tanks. We
are very conscious about how much water we use because if our rain tanks run
out, then we don't know what we'd do. We would like to get some patio furniture
for when we want to sit on our porch. I would like to get a cell phone that can
do internet since currently we can only access the internet through Carla's
phone and sometimes I can't go online all day (!). I built Ben a swing and a
sandbox for when he wants to play outside.
Now some examples from Canadian culture. We put money away and pay UI for
when circumstances deteriorate. Our organizations and governments are filled
with offices and documents explaining what to do in particular situations. A
cliche example (and the one that set me on this path) is that we buy our SUV's
for when road conditions are poor. (Who remembers the SUV commercial that
justified the need for an SUV by saying that the various exceptions to good road
conditions really are quite common.) On that same note, we get the truck for
when we need to haul stuff, the cabin for when we want to get out, the boat for
when we want to get out from the cabin, the rotary car buffing thing-a-ma-bob
for when we want to buff the car. I recently heard that the lifetime total run
time of the average power drill was 8 minutes - we buy or are given that drill
for those eight minutes over the next x number of years before we forget we have
it and go buy another one.
So how does preparedness play itself out in the lives of the people here. We
often give spur of the moment rides to people, at their bequest, and drop them
off 100's of kilometers away without money, clothes, a plan or even in forming
anyone from where they came or where they ended up. But they are perfectly
comfortable doing this. People here share everything from rides on bicycles,
clothes & furniture to food and money. We would say they do this without much
planning. One recent visitor had brought 2 bottles of Peptobismal with him and
after realizing that his gut was adjusting fine he gave one away. The recipient
family used it up within a few days, again we would say, without thinking of
when they really might want some. The day to day activities of our clinic seem
to be largely dictated day to day. The only time we really seem to plan for
next week, month or year is when some outside donor organization asks us to,
otherwise it's simply dealing with the day to day.
So I don't want to criticize either culture. When my father-in-law recently
traveled across Kenya with hundreds of Kenyans, he and many of them were very
glad that he had brought a flashlight for when it got dark. When our neighbours
don't have water, they appreciate that we aren't concerned about how much water
we may or may not have 6 months from now, they need water now. When I build a
swing and a sandbox for Ben, all the neighbourhood kids are very happy to play
with them.
But a couple of things I want to point out. It struck me that our
preparedness is a huge contributor to our ecological footprint. All these
things that we buy "for when ..." are maybe not so needed. Also, I remember
reading a short article out of The Manitoban [U of M newspaper] where the auther
recalled being at the end of his rope in the Caribbean and other places and how
something just happened to work out. He even went so far as to challenge the
readers to test it for themselves; to place themselves in a situations where
they had no backup plans at all (How foolish!! we say) and to see what happens.
One challenge (sheesh, I hope this doesn't sound like a sermon!) for anybody
who reads this far is, try to analyze how much of your daily activities could be
categorized under the "for when ..." idea. Whether it's buying that drill or
preparing for the weekend. Another thought I just had this morning was that I
wonder how much this preparedness stifles us. As we were driving out 60km to a
remote dispensary, some hose started leaking fuel. Since I had brought all my
tools along I was determined to use them and was having quite a time thinking
about it. Our accountant took one look at it and simply suggested kinking the
hose and tying it. I felt a bit silly. But who knows how much more we could do
if we didn't insist on preparing for everything ahead of time and just learned
to role with the punches.
Likewise, I think the culture here is benefiting from the exposure to the
idea of "for when ..." especially as it is becoming westernized anyway. I've
read how society and culture developed here over the last millennium as a coping
mechanism for the various ecological and social crises that struck this
continent. Not that the crises are abating, but now that the world is much more
global, these problems might be better addressed with a more prepared culture.
At the end of the day, like most people, I very much appreciate my way of
thought, probably because it's been so ingrained in me. But it is healthy for
me to begin to see the advantages of looking at things from another perspective.
Thanks for reading...
Kurt
Luckily I didn't fall through the ceiling. So it's not so bad but the buzz lasted 20 minutes and I
still have a headache as well as some nice little burns on my leg and finger.
By 8am Ben and I had played in the car, installed a new AC belt and played with a chameleon. Had to
make a quick trip to town for bread since we didn't have any food in the house after all our
travels. Then it was a pleasantly slow morning, only one person dropped by - a stranger asking for
money. I went to town for a big shopping trip where I spent about $16 total on groceries. Ben and
mom played around while I fixed some curtain rods that had pulled out of the wall.
Spent a few hours in the afternoon changing the oil in our truck. This involved 3 trips to town
for various reasons such as "Oh, I need TEN liters of oil, not five." and "Uh-oh, how am I going to
get that filter off." (Just letting the engine cool did the trick.) Having 4WD is nice - just drive
up on a big rock, no messing around with a ramp. (Actually I did try a ramp but underestimated the
weight of the truck so it just bent.)
Played some more with Ben. (The kid has a crazy amount energy - our gardener was telling us the
other day how much he ran around the entire morning without stopping.) Went for a walk in the
evening and Carla picked a bouquet of wildflowers. We had an early supper which was VERY nice and
Ben got to bed early and we watched "The Fugitive".
On Sunday morning Carla gave me a haircut and got ready to go to church but then we just decided
to stay home. Carla made pancakes for breakfast and we listened to a sermon by Richard Rohr. Also
arranged our furniture a bit - we just got some living room furniture that we had ordered in January.
I played outside a lot with Ben - climbing trees, riding his tricycle, tipped over rocks looking
for millipedes - while Carla cooked up some Indian food since we were having our first "real" guests
over. Curry, rice, even dal! with all the toppings - it was delicious! It was also not too far
from a regular Tanzanian meal of chapatis, stew and rice - though putting the fresh tomatoes,
cucumbers, pineapple and yogurt on the curry was a bit strange for them. They are an older couple
that has very naturally taken us under their wing. We drop by for Ben to herd the cows or play
around and they come by with their twin grandchildren. She also delivers fresh milk to us every
morning.
Then we went to work on Monday morning only to find out that it was a national holiday! So we
had the morning to catch up on emails and take care of work stuff that had been put off.
So that was our very nice weekend.
Sunday, March 2nd.
Tonight Kurt and I are up later than normal. Actually much later. It is 11:00 pm and we are each going strong on laptops, communicating with the outside world that is somewhere out there. Usually I’m half asleep by 9:00 and drag myself to brush my teeth and stretch out in bed while Kurt unfurls our mosquito net and tucks it in. So, this is late. There usually isn’t much to do around here after dark. Although, some aspects of Mugumu come to life at night. We have some good friends, Eli and Linda Knapp, who have spent time in Serengeti and Mugumu, now living in the States (woohoooo, you guys are BLOGWORTHY!!! Eli loves to tease about that – little do they know the plans I have for them). Anyways, before we arrived in Mugumu, we had asked them to describe it. One of the things they mentioned was that they would often ponder as they laid in bed at night, “Why do all the dogs in Mugumu choose to bark at the same time?” And now, I join them in their ponderings. It’s the Mugumu nightlife…stray dogs barking and howling together. I also hear frogs, crickets, and doves. You know how things seem quiet until you listen and realize that there are noises everywhere? It’s the same when I sit on the grass outside…if I look closely, the grass is moving. Teeming with ants, termites, little harmless insects busy with their day’s work.
So, confessions. Blogs are overwhelming. There are so many details to choose from to spill forth onto your computer screens! We are glad you’re taking some time to read up on our lives. There is much to share…about life, work, raising a child here, pregnancy. Yes, our late but big and getting bigger news…I’m five months pregnant. Here’s the proof:
This was just less than a month ago, but the only “pregnant” picture on our computer thus far. And behind me you’ll see a bit of our kitchen. I made bagels for the first time, they turned out nicely, especially when I used yogurt to make cream cheese, I felt like I was back in
So, for some lucky people, pregnancy is blissful, romantic, full of wonder and excitement. For me, I feel like I turn into a wretch. I could barely get food down, for it only to come up again. All the time. And all this while we were settling into a new country, a new town, working new jobs, with new people. Believe me, we gave our head a shake at the timing as well. But anyways, the worst is over, I’m healthy again, and coming out of the “dark hole” of the first trimester and seeing some sunshine again. We’re happy for this gift, happy that Ben will have a sibling soon (we’re due in June). I’ll be going up to
Someday I will post about my work, driving over goat paths to reach villages where our clients live. And about living here, of snakes and malaria, of friendships, of culture shock. We’ve figured out a way we can email our posts, which hopefully will save a lot of time and work in “blogging,” so maybe we can be a bit better about it.
But for now, here is what I cooked for dinner a couple of weeks ago.
It started with this:
And ended like this:
Here’s something I couldn’t have eaten a couple months ago! Fish with Mango, from Extending the Table for all you Mennos. Fish caught from
The other day I was lying on my back on the bed and Ben was lying on my shins. I was bouncing him
and tossing him with enough force to justify a call from family services; he wasn't saying much
except "More" every time he fell off. But then all of a sudden we hear him say in this very calm
and normal voice, "Thank you daddy, thank you." And then a few seconds later the same thing, "Thank
you daddy, Thank you." Anyway, Carla and I found it very funny.
We were playing with his tee-ball set one afternoon and he was hitting it OK when he picked up the
tee and put it on the steps. He then ordered me to throw the ball to him and promptly whacked it
right back to me quite well about 4 times in a row. I was very proud.
Backgound...
I'm doing IT work here in Mugumu. In geek speak, I get to clean
viruses off of PIII's with 64MB ram that someone had the bright idea to
load with XP. But my main focus over the next little while will be
networking a bunch of computers to share a 64kbps VSAT connection.
Initial Thoughts...
So some groups of Mennonites have some very conservative ideas about
technology and it's true value. And part of me is right there; although
I am a computer engineer (Professional Engineer too!) I'm in a bit of a
love/hate relationship. What good is internet access when many people
don't know when they'll have their next meal? (And now I KNOW people
who live like that.) Is this just another imposition of a western
tool/thing/way-of-thinking that needs some major thought and
readjustment before it is introduced to a rural African context? I read
about a UN forum where someone had apparently documented how democracy,
freedoms and general education DECREASED after the introduction of the
internet. (I definitely need to read up on that.) So those are just a
few of my skepticisms about my own work here that I deal with.
However, as I get to understand the situation better I see that there
is some use for it here. (Just to be clear, I was called here by the
local staff to pioneer internet. This was not something I nor MCC told
our clinic that they need.) It will certainly give people more access
to information to help them understand their own context better. And,
although I don't believe in "top down economics", I still hope that by
providing internet to the more educated people in the health community
here and to the wealthier people who can afford internet cafe costs that
it will trickle down to the rest of the community.
One liners...
Wealth is...
....having THREE laptops in our house in a town where 99% do not have
electricity or running water. (We have so much wealth in many other
ways but that's just one way.)
Culture shock is...
....wirelessly surfing dlink.com, linksys.com and newegg.com researching
wireless access points on your brand new Core 2 blah blah blah and
looking up to see a mother watching you with a sick child on her back
who very easily could have walked 15km to get to the hospital and now
has no way to feed herself or the child. (The hospital ONLY provides
medicine and a bed - I'll post a very illustrative picture some day.)
Power is...
....being a young 28 year old punk and giving water to the head of the
Tanzanian Mennonite church (a VERY wise, influential and respected man
and my boss) for a bucket of water.
on a lighter note,
Fear is...
....having your face covered by a blanket or pillow and know that at some
moment in the near future a 50lb two year old will land somewhere on
your body.
Other bloggable thoughts that I might get to some day...(so if you want
to hear them you'll have to comment!)
The Turtle (or How White Guys Wreck Everything)
A Culture of Preparedness
My Projects
The Information Superhighway in Dis-empowered Societies
So that's all for now, that wasn't too long now was it?
