Monday, February 18, 2008

Language School Update

We’re all settled in our little cabin here at language school now, where we will be staying for about the next four months. I’m sorry I haven’t managed to update the blog before now. I’ve hardly had a chance to be online at all since we’ve been here, and I’m learning that I’m going to need to write emails and blog posts in advance so that I don’t have to waste time on the really slow and expensive internet connections here. Thanks Dad for writing an update. I don’t know how soon I’ll get a chance to post again, so this might be a bit long.

We are really enjoying our language classes and feel like we’re learning really fast. We have Swahili class from 8am til 1pm every weekday, and then we do some studying in the afternoon and evening as well. We are split up into small classes – there are just four of us in our class. Our classrooms our these small open-sided thatched ‘bandas’. The weather has been really nice and mild, actually almost a bit cold at times and rather rainy, but it’s by far preferable to the hot and humid weather we had for three weeks in Dar es Salaam. The rainy season here will last until the end of April. The campsite is in a somewhat hilly, forested location, and a river runs through the middle of it. There is apparently a hippo living in the river here at the moment, though we have yet to see him. Daniel seems to be doing really well with his nanny. She doesn’t speak much English though, so I’m gradually getting to be able to communicate with her better as I learn more Swahili. I take a break every day at 10:00 to put Daniel down for his nap, so I get a chance to check on him then. He often plays together with Lea, the other one-year-old baby here, while I’m in class.

Daniel has been a bit sick since we got here over a week ago. He has had some diarrhea and a low fever most days, though he has still been acting pretty normal most of the time and eating and drinking well. We’ve done blood tests for malaria multiple times, and it isn’t that. On Saturday his fever was higher, so we met with a missionary nurse here to get advice, and she took us to a doctor she knows. After getting some tests done, it seems he has some kind of bacterial gut infection, so we have started him on antibiotics now, and hopefully he’ll get better soon. He started to get a runny nose and cough yesterday though, so it seems like now he’s getting a cold too. We’d appreciate your prayers for him. He’s not seriously ill, but we’d like him to get better and not worse.

Otherwise, we are all doing really well here. I found the three week orientation in Dar totally exhausting, and I was sick a few different times (tummy bug, dehydration, bad headache…). I don’t know if it was the weather or that there was just too much going on or what, but it was pretty overwhelming. I’ve been doing great since we got to language school, though, and I feel very happy and relaxed. Viggo has enjoyed getting to play football (I mean soccer) and volleyball a few times, and we often go for walks in the afternoon and practice our Swahili as we walk, with Daniel in the carrier on Viggo’s back. We’re really glad to have our little cabin here. Most of the single people are staying in tents (but with cement floors and beds and so on) for the whole four months, so we feel very fortunate to have two whole bedrooms and a bathroom all to ourselves. We don’t have a kitchen, but we don’t miss it. All the meals are served buffet style in a communal dining area and the food is actually really good. It sounds like there’s a plan for a group of us to go have some cooking lessons at a village home sometime this week, so that should be fun.

We’re working on getting a car – you’re also welcome to pray that that process goes well. It seems that the estimate we were given for what we need for a car was a bit low, because whoever made the estimate forgot to include taxes, but we are still hoping to find something in the right price range. Hopefully we’ll have more information soon – getting information is in general a much slower process here than we are used to at home.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

News from Julia and Viggo

This is Kent (Julia's dad), writing this post. Barbara and I have been able to talk to Julia and Viggo on the phone a few times and I thought it would be good to pass on a bit of news via their blog.

After arriving in Dar Es Salaam, Julia and Viggo stayed in a hotel room for three weeks. During that time they received orientation training from Wycliffe. Sounds like there were a couple of dozen folks in training with them.

As of about Friday, Feb. 8, they had completed the orientation. They packed up and took the bus to a camp near Iringa, Tanzania. Although packing up and preparing to get on the bus was stressful, the ride itself was very interesting. It was in a smallish bus on decent roads for about eight hours. The road passed through a game park and Julia and Viggo saw giraffes, elephants, and baboons as they traveled.

The camp is where they will study Swahili for the next four months. It is about 5 or 6 miles outside the town of Iringa (which is big enough to find on Google maps).

The camp is a large clearing in the bush near a river. There is also a local village nearby. The nearest internet cafe is in Iringa, so e-mail and blog posting may be tricky for a while.

Julia, Viggo, and Daniel are fortunate to have been placed in one of the slightly larger camp cabins (two small bedrooms, if I heard correctly). About 15 other folks from orientation have also joined them at camp for Swahili training. There are other small cabins and tent cabins in the camp. Generally the cabins are spread apart to give a bit of privacy. The bush all around is green at this time of year. Bush babies occupy the trees and make noise. Guinea fowl prowl the ground and make noise at that level. Sounds quite rustic. Yes, they have been cautioned about poisonous snakes (mambas), but the camp does keep antivenom on hand.
Another plus during this transition is that the food is "western style" and varied at the camp.

Daniel will meet his African nanny about twenty minutes before Julia and Viggo begin their Swahili immersion. It seems that he has been a good little traveler, and is in good spirits. Julia is quite happy to be settled for a while in their new little home.

The adventure continues. Please keep praying.