February 2012 Newsletter

In November we went to Dodoma for planning meetings with our supervisor and colleagues. The meetings went well, and we feel like we have a good solid plan for the coming year. We are not yet ready to begin translation, but will begin publishing some books in Mbugwe and holding literacy classes this year.

Health Problems and the Holiday Season

The holiday season was a bit rough for us, but mostly for Julia; we ended up making several trips up to Arusha for medical care. About a week before Thanksgiving, Julia fell and got a bad cut that needed stitches. We made an emergency trip up to Arusha for that (a 2 hour drive), and then went up again a week later to get them taken out. It turned out that the cut wasn’t healing well, and Julia had to have a small surgery to fix it and new stitches. Eventually it healed up just fine.

In the second week of December, we had a visit from a colleague, Alison Compton, who gave Julia a lot of valuable teaching about how to test out the Mbugwe writing system and how to organize and run literacy classes.

We planned to have Christmas at home in Magugu, but a few days before Christmas Julia got sick. By the night before Christmas Eve, Julia had all the symptoms of appendicitis, including intense pain in the lower right abdomen. So, we ended up making another emergency trip up to Arusha (this time in the middle of the night). Julia stayed in the hospital for a couple of days, waiting for test results and trying to get better. The test results were inconclusive, but the symptoms were probably caused by some sort of bacterial infection, and a course of strong antibiotics eventually took care of it. Viggo and the kids were well taken care of by our friends in Arusha. They were fed a traditional Norwegian Christmas meal on Christmas Eve, and there were even presents for the kids. We were able to go back home to Magugu by the afternoon on Boxing Day, and we were able to open presents together and have a nice quiet meal together at home. It took Julia a week after that to recover fully, but by New Year’s she was pretty much back to normal.

A Good Start to 2012

The New Year started off great and all three of us (Viggo, Julia, and Shishe) have been making good progress with our work. The kids had a lot of fun playing with the neighbor kids every day, since they were all on a long school break. Julia is working on a Writer’s Guide for Mbugwe, including explanations and examples of all of the writing and spelling rules. She is also doing some testing of some rules that we’re still not quite sure about. Viggo is focusing on a thorough phonological analysis of the language.

Among other tasks, Shishe has been working on a history of the Mbugwe people. A while ago we were given a copy of the history of the Mbugwe, which was written in Swahili by an Mbugwe historian. Shishe has been translating it into Mbugwe. We hope that it will be ready for publishing within the next couple of months; it will be the first publication to come out of our project, and the second published book ever in Mbugwe. This has been a great project for Shishe to start with. He has been able to get practice translating and editing, which will prepare him well for translating the Bible. We also expect that this book will be quite popular with Mbugwe speakers.

Shishe has also been doing research on his own culture. This is an important foundation for future translation work, as it helps him to gather vocabulary items which will be needed for the Bible translation and helps him think through the meaning and usage of different terms. Most recently, he has been researching Mbugwe traditional religion. There are not many young Mbugwe who still openly practice the traditional religion, but it still has a significant influence in the community.

 

Rain Water Collection

We (and by that I mean Viggo) have finally set up a rainwater collection system. It has been great to have a water supply at the house, even though we don’t really have enough to install running water inside the house yet. Basically, Viggo put up gutters, and when it rains the water goes into the gutters and flows into a 2000 liter tank next to the house. It has only been raining about once a week since we got the tank, but that has been more than enough. The tank actually overflows every time we have heavy rain. We will still have to get wate from other sources during the dry season when it doesn’t rain at all (May-October), but this is a great solution for the wet season.

Future Plans

We have decided not to hire any more full-time employees this year, as we have not found the right candidate yet. However, we plan to hire Patrick and Sebastian part-time to assist in some literacy projects, in order to assess their potential as future literacy workers. Naomi will be helping us with editing Mbugwe texts as we begin to produce some Mbugwe literature this year. All of those mentioned above plus some others will assist Julia with testing out our Mbugwe writing and spelling rules to see if any changes are necessary. It is great to have a good group of Mbugwe speakers who are excited about helping with the project. Shishe and Julia had a productive meeting with the chairman and secretary of the Mbugwe Language Committee this week, where we came up with a list of Mbugwe who may be qualified for translation work.

In mid-February, Julia’s parents are coming to visit for three weeks. We are looking forward to their visit and to seeing them interact with Daniel and Rebekka. We’ll spend the first week of their visit on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, before we head back home to Magugu. We’re very excited about going to Zanzibar for the very first time.

Rebekka Juanita Larsen

Rebekka Juanita Larsen was born March 25 11pm. She weighed 2910 grams (6lb 6 ounces), was 45 cm long (17.7 inches) and incredibly beautiful. Rebekka's parents and big brother are all very happy and proud.

Julia had premature labor almost  two months before the birth, and this continued to a varying degree all the way up until the birth. Julia had contractions when we went to the hospital on the 25th, but not long after we arrived there, the contractions stopped. With Julia having been on bed rest for several months with pregnancy related back problems, we were very anxious for the birth to happen. We were therefore relieved when the doctor and the midwife decided to break Julia's water, so that we wouldn't run the risk of having a home birth. After the midwife broke Julia's water, it took less than 20 minutes before Rebekka was born.

The photo above was taken 10 minutes after Rebekka was born. You can see more photos in our online photo album (Click here to see the album).

Rebekka has gotten her middle name, Juanita, from her American great grandmother, who passed away three weeks before she was born. It's sad that we won't be able to be together with Juanita when we travel to the States in August, but we're happy that Rebekka can serve as a memory of her.

Snowplows and Security

Early this morning I was awoken by the sound of a snow plow plowing the road just outside our house. Even half asleep I was quite sure that was what it was. It snowed all day yesterday, a layer of new snow on top of the foot or two which has been accumulating and settling since Christmas. In Norway things do not grind to a halt when there is snow. There are systems in place to deal with it, and everyone knows what to do. The snowplows come early in the morning before anyone is up. People get up extra early to shovel their driveways and clear off their cars, and morning traffic flows as usual over the snowy streets.

When I was awoken by the sound of the snowplow this morning, I thought of Tanzania. Not of the climate difference, although that is huge. What struck me was how comforting it is to be able to take something like a snowplow for granted. To know that there are systems in place to take care of the problems of my daily life. Ever since being back here, I get a little bit of the same feeling every time I hear the garbage truck go by. How nice!, I think, that all I have to do is put my garbage outside in the bins provided for that purpose, and I can know that it will be collected weekly with no more fuss. In Tanzania, there are no good options when it comes to trash. I know it sounds awful, but due to a lack of options, here’s what we do: there is a big hole in the ground in our yard, and we dump our trash into it and burn it on a regular basis. Glass bottles and tin cans are tricky. Some people just stick them in the hole along with the other trash, while others ‘dig them down’ in a separate hole in the yard. We do try to reduce our household waste by reusing plastic bags, and we have a compost pile to deal with food waste. Daniel’s nanny started a little side business, selling my glass jars and bottles to a lady she knows who sells sunflower oil.

I could give a lot of examples of things we take for granted in the western world that don’t exist in Tanzania if I let myself keep going. A few of those I appreciate most; paved roads, stocked grocery stores, reliable electricity, good healthcare, and a trustworthy police force. When we encounter exceptions to the rule in these areas like potholes, power outages, medical malpractice, or a store being sold out of our favorite brand of cereal (not to mention something basic, like milk) we feel we have every right to complain. How would it feel to no longer have that right? To know that an extraordinarily bumpy dirt road full of deep mudholes is simply the norm? That there is no number to call in an emergency. That if you need to go to the hospital, no matter how sick you are, you’re going to have to walk there yourself? Like I said, the list of examples is long. And I find myself feeling very blessed and thankful for the garbage truck and the snow plow.

Time to celebrate

Three weeks ago, we finished our third of three week-long orthography workshops. The last week of March, we looked at the vowel sounds of Mbugwe, in August, we looked at consonant sounds, and in September, we looked at tone. After three weeks of sorting through hundreds of cards over and over, reading and comparing the words on the each of the cards, checking if the
translations of these words were correct, and not the least learning a lot about the sound system of Mbugwe, it was time for celebration.

After sharing a meal together on the last day of the workshop, each participant got the opportunity to share how they had experienced the orthography workshops. All the participants were excited about what they had been a part of. Even though it'll still be a while before we can start translating, they expressed joy because together we had laid the foundation for the work of Bible translation. Week after week they had discovered how Mbugwe actually is different from Swahili and therefore needs a different writing system than Swahili. They had discovered that Mbugwe has two more vowel sounds than Swahili, that Mbugwe has short and long vowels (unlike Swahili), and that we need to use some special diacritics to mark tone in Mbugwe (also unlike Swahili). Julia and I both shared some words about how excited we were to have participated in the workshops together with the 13 participants and for all the things we had achieved during the three weeks of workshops. After everybody had gotten to say something about their experience, all the participants received a certificate as a proof of their participation in developing a writing system for Mbugwe and a copy of the alphabet chart that we had made together. The alphabet chart has a word and a picture to illustrate each of the vowels and consonants in the Mbugwe alphabet.

Even though we achieved a lot during our three weeks of workshops, there is still a lot more work to be done on the Mbugwe writing system. We'll have to do testing, further analysis, and do another three workshops on other aspects of orthography. Those workshops, however will have to wait till we return from furlough in Norway...

The Bishop and the Cobras

Viggo drove out to Mbulu to visit the Catholic bishop for the area today. It's a couple of hours of driving on roads that are rougher than most anything we've encountered so far. Part of the drive involves driving up 2,300 ft. cliff (the Rift Valley escarpment), partly on bare rock.

The majority of Mbugwe identify themselves as Catholic, although only a small minority of those are active church-goers. It's very important that we develop a good relationship with the Catholic church, if we want Catholics to actually use the Mbugwe Bible when it's finished. Viggo's not back yet, but I talked to him breifly on the phone, and it seems the meeting went well. We have already gotten to know most of the priests in the Mbugwe area, and they have been very positive so far, but meeting the Bishop is rather critical, as he is a very important figure in the church.

It's starting to get colder here, and the snakes are coming out of the forest above our house to sunbathe, or so I'm told. Our guard killed two cobras out in back of the house the other day. Snakes are one of the main reasons why we have the neigbors cows come and graze in our yard on a regualar basis. The cows keep the grass short so we can see the snakes. Snakes were also my main motivation for wanting a dog, because I was told they're really good about barking and letting you know if they see one, which apparently Simba did do with the cobras the other day. Sorry I don't have any pictures, but I'm glad I didn't have to see them.

And then yesterday our friends' dog was spit at by a spitting cobra. They are American missionaries who are gone on furlough, so when the guard at their house saw that the dog was going blind, he came up here to ask for help. Viggo went down and helped to rinse the dog's eyes with milk, which is supposed to help. I am reminded that we really need to keep a close eye on
Daniel when he's playing in the yard. It's not quite as bad as I make it sound though; we've only had 3 snakes in our yard that I know of since we moved here.

Our Spring...

Ok, so it's been a really long time since my last post. I do apologize to those of you who are still checking the blog. We have had a pretty busy and eventful couple of months. After Daniel's birthday, we had a week-long project planning meeting in Arusha together with our supervisors and colleagues from two other projects. After that, we headed back to Babati and started preparing for our 'Vowels Workshop' at the end of March. We found and invited participants, bought and planned food for the week, arranged for a 'conference room' in Magugu, and edited, sorted, etc. over 1,500 Mbugwe words, printing them onto index cards for use in the workshop meetings, among other things.

Our supervisor came out to help us with this first workshop. Good thing she did, because Viggo ended up getting a majorly infected, swollen arm on the first day of the workshop and was basically unable to participate for the rest of the week, having to make trips up to Arusha to get antibiotic injections in his arm and whatnot. So Susi (our supervisor) and I kind of ran the whole show. I did a lecture on some basic linguistic terms in Swahili the first day and was pretty proud of myself for being able to make myself understood. The workshop went amazingly well, all things considered, though I was completely exhausted by the end. We had very heavy rains the first night, and had to drive through a fast-flowing river, with water up to the hood of our big SUV, on the way to the workshop the next morning. But we made it. That's why we have a Land Cruiser. We made good progress with the Mbugwe vowel system. We discovered that there are 7 vowels in Mbugwe, meaning that we will need to use two special vowel symbols in addition to a,e,i,o,and u. The Mbugwe were excited to do the research together with us and had a chance to learn some new things in the process. We will hopefully have another workshop on consonants at the end of this month.

As soon as we were done with the vowels workshop, we had to start preparing for a 'discourse workshop' starting in mid-April. Meanwhile Daniel had a week of high fevers, and I had a mild bout of malaria. It's difficult to explain the point of the disourse workshop, but suffice to say we've now been in Nairobi for three weeks and Viggo has learned a lot about 'discourse analysis' and the 'discourse features' of the Mbugwe language. This will be very helpful for making a fluent translation in the long run. The day after we arrived in Nairobi, I got really sick, and I ended up in the hospital with pretty severe pneumonia. It was really hard to breathe. I was in the hospital for five days, and slept most of the day for a couple of days after that, but after lots of antibiotics and rest I'm all better now. We have stayed with German colleagues for these three weeks, and they were extremely helpful while I was sick. We're very thankful that if I had to get so sick, at least we were in Nairobi, where there is a very good hospital.

So tomorrow we drive back to Tanzania. We'll be glad to get home. There will be a pretty intense couple of weeks of preparation for the consonants workshop, and after that, we'll be getting ready to leave for the US for Pamela's wedding and a much needed vacation.

Bananas

When the banana tree starts to fall over from the weight of the banana bunch, you cut off the banana bunch and put it inside to ripen. We have several banana trees in our yard. A banana tree bears bananas after six months of life, then begets a baby banana tree which will bear bananas again in another six months. When we get bananas, we get so many we get to give
them away to everybody we know. And I make banana bread.

On another note, Daniel went bananas over his birthday presents. We had a party today (Friday) and he got more than enough. His grandparents managed to spoil him even from the distance of a whole continent away. His favorite present, a little plastic trike, was belatedly bought with grandparent Christmas-gift money, plus he got two packages from them in the mail. I think his least favorite present was the homemade bubbles he got from one of our friends. You're supposed to blow the bubbles using a straw. He liked the bubbles, but he wanted to do it himself, and of course ended up drinking the dish-soap solution instead.

We had no wrapping paper and I didn't know where to buy it in town, but now we have a whole collection of gift bags and tissue paper that I can re-use the next time we have to wrap a gift.

You can sometimes get Betty Crocker cake mixes here (well, in Arusha) now, so naturally that's what we had. White chocolate swirl. Daniel actually managed to blow his candles out himself (or some of them. I went a little overboard 'decorating' the cake with candles. But I think he blew out at least two himself).

On a more work-related note, we had a nice first meeting with an Mbugwe catholic priest last week. He spoke perfect English and has lived in Rome and Ireland for several years. His Mbugwe is not so good anymore, though, apparently. He was pretty eager to be helpful to us, which is great because we need more Catholic contacts. A high percentage of Mbugwe are members of the Roman Catholic church, so it is important to have a good relationship with the Catholics. In the long run, if they feel involved in the translation process, Mbugwe Catholics are more likely to actually use the translated Mbugwe Bible. Anyway, we have an appointment to go visit the priest's family members in one of the Mbugwe villages in a couple weeks. We should be able to gain some good contacts that way. We're finding that often the most efficient way of getting to know more Mbugwe people is to get ourselves introduced to the extended families of those we already know.

Our new lawnmower(s)

Viggo thought he was very clever today. He found a way to get our lawn mowed and get free fertilizer without doing any work. We had eight cows inside our fence all day. Both of our closest neighbors have cows, and they were ecstatic when we offered to have the cows come eat our grass. Our guard, who otherwise would have spent much of his day cutting our lawn with a scythe, instead spent much of his day keeping the cows from eating our flowers. Daniel was thoroughly entertained both by the cows and by the neighbor kids who came to help ‘watch’ the cows (the guard had to keep telling them to get the cows away from the flowers because they were too busy playing on our swings…).

The Rains

The rains are finally here. I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of heavy rain on our tin roof. I love the smell and the feel of the air after it rains here. In the morning the air was cool and moist, and the sun stayed behind the clouds most of the day. Here it rains in short, intense bursts. We had another cloudburst around lunchtime, which Daniel stared at in awe. He has probably forgotten about rain, not having seen any at all since last spring. The landscape has been quite dry since we came to Babati, but within the next few days the ground will be bursting with new green growth everywhere. It will be especially neat to see the change in the eastern part of the Mbugwe area, which has been essentially gray and sand colored up to now. We will also be starting to get some more experience using our 4-wheel-drive in sticky situations, starting as soon as we drive out of our gate. Some of the Mbugwe villages will be almost entirely out of reach for us for the next couple of months, on account of multiple rivers across the already rough dirt roads. A lot of the hard-core vehicles here actually have “snorkels”, so the car can “breathe” while going through rivers. You can still get stuck, but if you get stuck in a river it is less of a crisis. We don’t have a snorkel, so if we get stuck in water above our exhaust pipe we would be in real trouble.

 

Mbalimbali (a variety)

We’ve had a rather stressful last couple of weeks. Our car was in the shop in Arusha for two weeks, and while Viggo was in Arusha his stuff was stolen out of a friend’s car. That included one of our laptops, but fortunately it was the old one.  Not having a car meant that we were limited in the amount of language work we could get done, especially since Viggo was in Arusha much of the time ‘babysitting’ the car. Now, having only one computer to work on is also limiting, because while we are at home most of our work is on the computer, and now we can only work one at a time. But, we have all been healthy, Daniel has been sleeping through the night, and we are really looking forward to my parent’s (and Sam’s) visit. They’re coming Oct. 6^th, and they’ll be bringing our new laptop with them. We finally have a table and chairs now, which was the big excitement for the week. Daniel’s nanny, Mama Elia (who also helps with chores) is taking very good care of him, which makes it possible for me to do a bit of work. She comes to the house and watches him for a few hours in the morning and puts him down for his nap while I work.

 

We made a trip out to a village last week and recorded some Mbugwe stories, riddles, and songs, which we can now enter into the computer and use for language analysis. Between the sun and speaking Swahili all day, going out to the village is really exhausting. We always have mixed feelings after a village visit. We would love to live in the village in order to be closer to the Mbugwe people and fully experience their language and culture. However, we’re not sure how much of that experience we could really cope with on an every-day basis, and still get any work done. At least for now we are very glad to live in a comfortable home and have some privacy.

 

This Friday we have a “mini word-gathering workshop”, where we will meet with a group of Mbugwe  to gather a long list of Mbugwe words. Then we will have lots of work to putting them into the computer and analyzing the individual sounds. The mother of Mama Elia (Daniel’s nanny) has helped us to organize this meeting. She has some clout in the village because she was the wife of the last chief of the Mbugwe. However, she is apparently also well-known as a radical Christian. She said that when she went around the first time to ask people to come to the word-gathering workshop, many said no because they were afraid she was just trying to trick them into getting saved by some missionaries.

 

Next week we will be meeting with a Catholic priest to discuss how the Catholic church can help partner with us in the language project. We try to work together with all of the churches in the area, and there are many Mbugwe Catholics. If we neglect relationships with the churches, then they may not support our work, and the Mbugwe Bible produced could end up being very unpopular among Catholics, for example. If we cultivate relationships with church leaders, then they may be willing to help us in a variety of ways throughout the course of the project. Relationships are very important here, as is flexibility.

 

Settled in Babati

So we are all settled (more or less) in our new home in Babati now. There’s been a lot going on, and I haven’t posted anything in forever. We now have a regular work schedule for ourselves, and have set regular days for blogging. So in theory, I should be posting every Wednesday. Viggo posts weekly too, but in Norwegian. You can always check the link to our Norwegian blog to see if he’s posted pictures though. God has blessed us with a very comfortable house in beautiful location here (see the pics in my Dad’s post below). It is not actually in the Mbugwe area, which is what we were hoping for, but we needed a livable place to stay right away, and the houses we could rent in the Mbugwe area were mostly unfinished. We think this will be best for us at least in this first year of transition. It is only a half hour from the Mbugwe area, so it is easy to make trips out to the villages.

We have gotten off to a good start on language research and building relationships with Mbugwe people, and this is what we will be continuing with. Trips out to Mbugwe villages right now usually involve visiting pastors and village elders to tell them about the Bible translation project, and recording stories and other Mbugwe texts which we then take home for language analysis. The language analysis part is a little technical to explain, but we spend a lot of time at home on our computers picking apart the texts we get. I also enter notes on our experiences into a computer program for anthropological analysis. Having anthropological information will be helpful for various translation issues later on. All our communication with Tanzanians here is in Swahili, which we are still learning, though we are finished with language school. To start learning another new language (Mbugwe) this soon is quite a challenge, even for us linguists, and we are taking it slowly for now.

We have hired an Mbugwe woman to help with a variety of things at our house four days a week. She helps with Daniel and chores, and will also help with some of the language work, including language learning. Her name is Mama Elia and we are very thankful to have her help, which allows us (me, especially) to get a lot more language work done. Mama Elia is the wife of an Mbugwe pastor who teaches at a Bible school here in Babati, and is also the daughter of the last chief of the Mbugwe (who is no longer living), so she is a great contact for us. We went out with her to visit her mother a couple of weeks ago and had lunch in the village and recorded a couple of stories from her mother. It was a great experience, and we will be going back soon to record some Christian songs her mother has composed in Mbugwe. In addition to translating the Bible we hope to publish other materials, hopefully including a book of Mbugwe songs to be used in church. Right now church services are conducted in Swahili only.

Daniel is doing well, and is as cute as ever, despite the fact that he has started throwing fits fairly often when he doesn’t get his way. Our neighbors like to play their music very loud, and Daniel really enjoys dancing to it. He’s a very good dancer. He get’s all into it with his hips swinging and his elbows out and head nodding. He also enjoys our two new puppies. They are supposed to be guard dogs in the long run, but right now they need to be guarded themselves all the time they are out of their kennel so they don’t get into trouble or out of our fence. They’re also giving us fleas already…

Daniel's Girlfriend

Daniel became quite enamored of a lovely little girl who was also with her parents at Swahili school. Alas, they went on their separate ways as their families moved on to their assignments.

But wait, there was a joyous reunion. Here they are at a resort in Kenya where SIL folk met in August:

House in Babati

This is a post by Julia's Dad, Kent.
Julia, Viggo and Daniel have gotten a lot done since they moved toTanzania in January.

Orientation in Dar......check

Swahili School ........... check

Conference in Kenya ....check

Find House in Babati ....check

Begin interacting with and learning from the Mbugwe ....Check

Dodoma Guesthouse Party

We are staying at a guesthouse tonight and for the next two nights where we have a living space separate from the bedroom, a luxury we have not had since moving to Tanzania. Daniel has a fever tonight, but it seems to be just a cold; he has a runny nose and cough as well. He fell asleep early, and Viggo and I are enjoying having a second room where we can stay up a bit without the fear of waking him up. We are also taking full advantage of the free wireless internet here on both our laptops. However, it is now past 9:30 and I can barely keep my eyes open.

We're finally finished with language school, and are excited to be moving on to other things. Yesterday we drove about 7 hours up to Dodoma where we will be staying for about two weeks before heading up farther north to where we will be living. In Dodoma we will be living with a Tanzanian family for 5 nights to learn more about the culture, and we will be getting to know our colleagues here. There is a translation team here working in the Rangi language, which is the most similar language to Mbugwe (the language we will be working with).

I made grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner; my first attempt at cooking in quite a while, as all our meals were served communally at language school.

Last Week of Language School

We're nearly finished with language school. This weekend we'll be saying goodbye to most of our friends and colleagues who have been learning Swahili with us. Viggo and I are going to be staying for an extra week, because we missed a week of language school a couple of weeks ago. We went to Dar to celebrate the Norwegian national holiday on the 17^th of May with other Norwegians at the residence of the Norwegian ambassador. We had planned to be gone just for the weekend, but as we were leaving town on Sunday morning our car broke down. It literally ground to a halt and would not go anymore. We were able to roll back down the hill and across the highway into a rather deserted gas station. From there we called friends in Dar, and ultimately our new Norwegian friends who were also in town for the holiday were able to come and tow us back into town.

It was about an hour through city traffic, and somehow we managed to break three steel towropes on the way, one in the middle of a major intersection. We arrived safely back at the guesthouse by the early afternoon, but had to wait until Tuesday for a reputable mechanic to look at the car and diagnose the problem. Initially he thought it would be easy to fix, but sadly he kept finding more things wrong with the car, so we ended up getting stuck in Dar for the full week. On the way back the next Sunday we stopped and visited the friends who towed us back and gave them a new towrope to compensate for the one we broke. We had met them one time before the weekend of May 17^th. I think I mentioned that in my last post. They are a nice Norwegian couple with two small children. They have also arrived just recently in Tanzania and are learning Swahili at a different language school right now. They will be living in a small town about an hour away from where we will be, so we'll practically be neighbors. We were happy for the chances to get to spend some time with them, and get to know them better, despite the fact that it was mostly due to our car breaking down. We also had the chance to meet with our supervisor in Dar and plan our activities for the first few weeks after language school. The car is still not entirely healthy, but we will have to wait until we leave language school here in Iringa to take it to a proper mechanic and have the less pressing problems taken care of. Hopefully after that we won't have to deal with any more repairs for a while. We knew it was an old enough car that it would be needing some repairs sooner or later, but we had been hoping it wouldn't happen quite this soon.

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.