Visit to Village Church

This weekend we went to a Pentecostal church in the nearby village of Lundamatwe. Almost all of the workers at the campsite are from Lundamatwe, but most of them are Catholics. One of the camp drivers is named Daniel and is a friend of Viggo’s from their weekly soccer matches (the Language school students play together with the camp staff each Friday). Daniel’s father is the pastor at the Pentecostal church. It was a very interesting experience, mostly in a good way. The singing was great, accompanied by just a big drum, with the voices filling the church building. I was able to understand some of the Swahili songs, at least after the choruses were repeated a few times. All of the men sat on one side of the room and all the women on the other, with children who were old enough to sit on their own at the back. Women with babies were all at the back of the women’s section near the door, probably so that they could exit easily if they needed to tend to their babies. We were invited to the pastor’s house after church and given sodas.

When we returned to the camp, we met a young Norwegian couple who had stopped by specifically to meet us. They had read about us in a Norwegian Christian newspaper, which ran an article about us before we left for Tanzania. They are also doing language school now, but at a different location. They will be living a little over an hour away from us in a neighboring town, doing evangelistic work with one of the neighboring people groups. They also have small children, and will be staying for at least a few years. We were excited to find out that there would be a young Norwegian family so (relatively) close by.

Viggo finally was able to register our car in town today, and we are happy that they didn’t charge too exorbitant of a fee. The officer he spoke with insisted that Viggo had to have three names listed on the registration, and so Viggo is now officially ‘Viggo Viggo Larsen’, since he has no real middle name.

Daniel is still working on learning to walk. He can take a few steps at a time on his own, but is still pretty cautious, which probably makes sense since he still loses his balance pretty easily.

Space Cadet

This is Kent posting again.

Pamela reminded me that I forgot to share this precious picture of Daniel. Viggo took it at Swahili camp in Tanzania. He noted that the spacey look in Daniel's eyes must be something he inherited from Julia. Chances are good that we will have to say his name three or four times to retrieve him from his reverie, especially if he is reading.

Swahili School: Mid March 08

This is Kent posting. Julia would have posted a few days ago, but she has been battling the Tanzania Trots. If English is not your "heart" language, you may be unaware that I am looking for a polite way to say that Julia has had diarrhea. So has Daniel. Viggo seems to have stuck with just a fever.



I am sure they would like me to let you know that many, much better things are also happening while they are in Swahili Camp. I will. I am just starting with "things a Dad worries about".

Now I realize that Julia, Viggo, and Daniel have been sick in other places besides Tanzania. In fact, I recall that when Julia was a very little girl she would sometimes proclaim : "I have dia - rear - eah". The emphasis on "rear" was hers, not mine. Apparently she was making an early attempt at etymology.



So please keep praying that our intrepid trio will develop immune systems that can cope with the new germ population they have encountered.



Julia told us a lovely story recently. It was about a walk they took as a family. They are able to use their all terrain stroller along some of the local pathways. They were even able to gain enough altitude to have a vista of the area near the camp. It made me very happy to picture them clambering through the bush and emerging above it all to look across the distances.



We also hear that Viggo is able to pursue one of his great loves: Soccer. Apparently the camp staff and the students square off in regular soccer games. There is a village near the camp, and many of the locals enjoy watching the spectacle. It sounds quite colorful, doesn't it.



Of course their main purpose at the camp is to learn Swahili. That is going well. Julia is able to converse with Daniel's nanny now. This is timely, because Daniel seems to have taken a real liking to his nanny. He even seems reluctant at times to end his morning with her and return to Julia's custody.



Daniel's nanny is good friends with the nanny for Daniel's local peer group (one little girl). So Daniel and the little girl get to play while the nanny's chat. Daniel does not talk, just yet. However, in January, I personally witnessed him evincing comprehension of both Norwegian and English words. I think it is a safe bet that he is now rapidly filling that commodious brain of his with Swahili as well. In a few months he will no doubt, begin to add Mbugwe as well. Since Daniel retains dual citizenship (U.S. and Norway), he alone will significantly increase the average number of languages spoken by U.S. citizens!



So, yes there are some nasty bugs to reckon with. But there are also new friends, grand vistas, and a rapidly increasing Swahili vocabulary.



The adventure continues.

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.

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.

We're here!

We arrived on Friday morning in Dar es Salaam. The heat and humidity was struck us as soon as we stepped off the plane, but so far it really hasn’t been as bad as we were expecting. It’s actually pretty pleasant, but it’s a good thing our hotel room has air conditioning. We are staying in a hotel for the first three weeks for orientation. Orientation starts on Monday. We decided to come a couple of days early to adjust and settle in. Daniel has been sleeping more than usual, but otherwise he seems to be handling the transition really well.

The plane trip went like a dream. Daniel was in a decent mood for the first flight and our seven hour layover at Heathrow, and then he pretty much slept through the entire ten hour flight to Dar, which is a good thing since it was an overnight flight. We were really hungry when we got to the hotel, along with another Wycliffe couple who were also on our flight. It took a while before we got to order food from the restaurant here, and then it took over two hours to actually get our food. When it came, they’d messed up the order and they came with six plates of food for the four of us. So things are a little different here : ) But since then everything has gone smoothly. They were having a conference here the first day, and I think we caught them a bit off guard. Most of the staff have very limited English. It will be really good to learn some Swahili to be able to communicate with people better.

Our hotel is near the beach, and Viggo and I went for a walk to check it out yesterday. We dipped our feet in, and we dipped Daniel too, but not for long because he was afraid of the water. He was kind of tired too, so maybe it will go better next time. It sounds like we will be pretty busy from Monday on with Orientation courses starting every day at 8:00. Daniel will be with some other kids and a nanny in a childcare room adjacent to the conference room. It will be his first experience with any other babysitter than his grandparents, so I hope things go well!

2 Weeks

Our beautiful family on Christmas Eve. Norwegians dress up a lot for Christmas. Daniel is wearing his 'bunad' (national costume type thing)

Norwegian Christmas sunrise over the frozen lake.

We had a lovely Christmas up in the mountains with Viggo's family. We had friends over this weekend to celebrate New Year's with us, and that was really nice too. We haven't been at home before for New Year's Eve, and I was really impressed by all the fireworks. Everyone (or, lots of people, that is) has their own private 'big' fireworks, and from our house we have a view over the water to the city and the island next to us, so we could see big fireworks going up in dozens of spots all around us at midnight. Our friends brought some 'rockets' with them, so we had some of our own too. Our friends' two-year-old thought it was all really scary, though, and stayed up clinging to his parents and saying "done, done," until they left after one.

We can't believe there are only two weeks left until we leave now. We leave on the 17th. We have plenty to do still, but I think it will all get done. My parents arrive on the seventh and will stay until the fourteenth (I think...). They're coming to see Daniel, but it will be a big help to have them here too to watch him and maybe help us with cleaning out the house and stuff like that. Viggo is at the doctor with Daniel right now. Daniel has had a bit of a cold for almost four weeks now, and diarrhea for the last few days. He still seems pretty healthy and happy though, so hopefully the doctor will say it is just normal winter virus stuff. We want him to get well before we leave!

Christmas and packing

It sure looks Christmasy here, and without the hassle of having to shovel our driveway either. The temperature has been staying around 20 F (-6 C) for the past few days and there is a light dusting of snow making everything white. We are going up to the mountains on Saturday and staying there until the 28th with Viggo's family. Viggo was done with his work as of yesterday, so now we can both focus on all the things we've got to get done before we leave.




I did a bit of a pre-pack yesterday to see if everything we're taking is going to fit in our luggage, and it looks like we'll have to ship some stuff. Packing is kind of intense since there are a number of things that are hard to get in Tanzania and we're going to be there for a long time. I ended up deciding to bring clothes for Daniel up to size 24months. I know we can get clothes for him there if we need to, but finding what you need is way more complicated there, and I think we're going to be busy enough in our first year.

We're also going to need to go through the stuff we're leaving here pretty carefully to decide what is worth keeping. We've tried pretty hard not to accumulate too much stuff since we knew we wouldn't be able to take too much to Africa, but there is still plenty to sort through. I'm working on putting together a decent filing system so it will be possible to find any papers that we might need later on without too much trouble. Yeah. So that's pretty much where my head is. Not so much focused on Christmas, to tell the truth. We've got almost a month until we leave, but I know it's going to go really fast.

37 Days

37 Days until we leave for Tanzania now. Assuming I counted correctly.... Our funding is in place (thanks to all of you who have given or have committed to giving regularly), our work permits have arrived, and I'm busy ordering summer clothes and cloth diapers for Daniel. It will probably be in the mid-90s when we get there, with 100% humidity. That's on the coast, where we will be staying for our first three weeks (fortunately in air-conditioned rooms). The town we will be living in for the long-term is inland, and doesn't get nearly as humid, and probably not as hot either. It will be quite a transition from our cold Norwegian winter here, especially for Daniel I expect.

We are doing very well. Viggo has been working up until now, but expects to be finished with his last translation assignment (not the Bible, just a boring lighting catalog) by sometime tomorrow. Daniel just got his yellow fever vaccination today. Once Viggo is done with his work, I'm hoping to be able to use a couple of days to start on some packing and organizing that really needs to get done.

Daniel is also very busy. We finally decided we needed a playpen recently and borrowed one from some friends, and it has saved my life. I can't leave him for two seconds now without him finding something forbidden to get into or chew on, or else falling and hitting his head. He is really good at standing up now, but doesn't seem to understand the danger of just leaning backwards and letting go of the thing he's holding on to. So he would be constantly falling and hitting his head on our wood floors if I didn't watch him like hawk. I don't really watch him quite 'like a hawk' as it is, so he tends to fall on his head at least once a day. But the playpen helps somewhat at least.

We'll be going up to the mountains with Viggo's family for Christmas, and that should be fun, though cold. They are all excited about the cross country skiing possibilities, while I'm less than excited about that based on past experiences. Norwegains like to do their cross-country skiing in pretty hilly terrain, and that can be tough and at times embarrassing for out-of-shape and inexperienced skiiers like me. Oh, and they take their babies with them. In little covered sleds that they attach by a harness around their waists and drag behind them as they ski. Seriously. I'm not letting them take Daniel.

I'm glad we're going away for Christmas so that we will get to have a real break from the stress of all the things that need to get done before we leave. My parents will be coming to Norway on January 7th. They will get to see Daniel before we go that way, and we will get some help with him while we're in the midst of packing and moving out of our house.

Daniel eating bread

Here is Daniel showing how Norwegian he really is. He loves bread! The traditional Norwegian diet involves three meals of bread per day, for breakfast, lunch, and an evening meal. The bread can be topped with various cheeses, lunch meats (only one slice please!), jam, or liver paste (a favorite. comes in many varieties). Viggo's mom gives me strange looks if she hears tales of us eating more than one "warm meal" per day. Extravagant Americans! Ha. I bet Viggo will edit this post later so that no Norwegians reading our blog will feel insulted.