More Christmas News

So I wanted to update you all also on the other Christmas celebrations I have had. First of all, the day of Christmas Eve- I had a great relaxing morning, making crepes with syrup and nutella and singing along to the entire double C.D. of Handel's Messiah for fun. After an afternoon with the kids, I spent an enjoyable Christmas Eve by myself at my house, listening to music, baking Oma's christmas cookies which turned out really well, chatting with my mom on the phone, and then with friends on msn- so I wasn't even really alone, which was great. Christmas Day I went to Starehe for the morning, stopped at Mama Sophia's for an hour hanging out with her family, then headed through the downpour to Trent and Rhonda's house in town, where the Lipinskis (and Rhonda's parents who are here) were joined also by Simon and Greta. We had a crazy good turkey dinner (I contributed a tomato salad) followed by dessert (I contibuted my Oma's christmas cookies that I baked...) and a gift exchange (I got some Kenyan coffee and a couple of mugs, which will be very useful, and I gave 3 wooden carved candlesticks that I got from the market in town). We all enjoyed it a lot! Finally, today I went out to the farm with Simon and Greta, and had some fun time with the Starehe boys there (they are the exiles- living there because of behavioural issues for a few months now), singing some Christmas carols, reading scripture, learning spoons, (oh- side note, not sure if I mentioned it yet, but I've introduced the game 'spoons' to Tanzanian children- it is wonderful:) and eating some more of my cookies. It was so good to see them, and I hope to make it out to the farm more often in the new year.
Anyways, that's the summary of my christmas events. I had a great time, and have lots to be thankful for- God is good. I hope everyone at home had a good Christmas too. Blessings to everyone who is reading this!

Christmas with the kids...

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with the kids at Starehe.

It involved some singing, (Silent Night and O Come All Ye Faithful, both 1st verses in English and Kiswahili) reading cards people sent for the kids, some Bible reading from Luke by Rhonda and some from Isaiah from my bible study by Robert and Steven, a song by the mamas (which was fabulous- they can ALL sing!!), and then a big chicken, rice and beans dinner which was amazing, followed by soda, and then gift bags for everyone. It was a great afternoon, everything worked smoothly, and the kids enjoyed it a lot, especially the chicken. :) The Lipinskis, Rhonda's parents, Simon and Greta and I will celebrate together on Christmas Day, and I'm bringing my attempt at recreating Oma's Christmas cookies. Hopefully they will turn out!

Steve the cook? You must mean someone else...

I know you are all wondering why this entry begins with a picture of food. Maybe you think Steve is showing a meal someone cooked for him, or a fun time at a restaurant in town. But no... this is much better...

So this evening I used my last piece of precious chicken. As I think I've mentioned already, meat is expensive and often sketchy. So, this was the one piece I had frozen from the bag of chicken Patti and I bought over a month ago. I decided to use Patti's recipe for butter chicken that I think she found online. I proceeded to cook it- a bit sceptical of whether or not I could recreate that experiment. Remember, for those of you who at this point are forgetting, (or for those who don't know me well enough to know) I am not a cook. I am a beginner, barely knowing anything about it. So then I finished the butter chicken, and finished the rice, and put it together and began to eat. At the time I was talking with my friend Laura on msn. I suddenly interrupted the flow of the conversation and began expressing wonder and amazement. I had managed to produce the most amazing meal! It was just incredible! Such flavour! I couldn't get over it. I mean, if my Omas produced something this good it would be no big deal, they routinely cook amazing dinners. But how long has it been since I've had Oma's cooking?? And this is ME we are talking about. So I had to apologize to Laura, because of the abrupt tangent that captured my attention. I told her some things just become very worthy of celebration over here. My butter chicken is clearly one of those things.

So, mock Steve's lack of cooking skills no longer- he has managed to produce a truly excellent meal. (not that this means I have become an expert- don't take this to mean I'm bragging about having become a chef- I still know very little, including how in the world this meal turned out so well :) So, hopefully much more food-related learning and goodness to come...

Steve's Reading List...

So since I knew I'd be living by myself for most of the year, I brought with me some friends for company... i.e. half my library. (well, for those of you who know just how big my library is, it really isn't anywhere close to half- but still a good number of books) So I thought I'd do a bit of book reviewing to tell you what I've been reading and do a few recommendations while I'm at it. I've really had some good stuff to read.

The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoevsky- 19th Century Russian novel, about a guy that is in a way Dostoevsky's vision of someone as close to Jesus as it gets, who is considered an innocent idiot by everyone else and who just doesn't fit into wealthy Russian society of the time- stirs up some interesting ideas of society's reaction to a Jesus-figure. Long and slow, but really great character development.

The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis- a collection of letters written by a experienced demon to his demon nephew about how to ensnare a young man. Very witty and at the same time convicting.

Cross-Cultural Servanthood, by Duane Elmer- this book focuses a lot on what it means to be humbly learning and not having superiority when working in a different culture- very key for me here, and dealing with some of the things I feel are not very well done by missionaries working here making it hard for me to figure out what it means for me.

The New Friars, by Scott Bessenecker- Wow. This book talks about young people moving into slums and garbage dump communities in major poor-country cities to be an incarnation of the Gospel to the poorest and most desperate people, and traces their radical lifestyles to historic monastic/missions movements in the church. I've had to question my own unwillingness to give up comforts here and how separate my life in Mwanza is from the most desperate... what will it look like for Jesus to change me into someone willing to go into the garbage dumps to be with people there??? And can he accomplish such an impossible task given how selfish I still am even though it looks like I've given up a lot to come here to Mwanza to hang out with the kids at Starehe? I really recommend this one.

The Bible Jesus Read, by Philip Yancey- An overview of his understanding of why it is good to read the Old Testiment... making some insights into how much there is for us to relate with in the wide range of people's experiences with God.

Reading the Bible with the Damned, by Bob Ekblad- Wow. I've finally finished this one. It is one of the most life-stirring Gospel-revealing books I've encountered. It is all about seeing the Bible through the eyes of God's liberating of the outcasts of today who are usually ignored and who are the very ones most needing to meet a God who specifically reaches out to them. So good!

Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller- I was sceptical of this one, because it seemed like such a fad-book, but it is really good. It is a collections of rambling, on all sorts of topics, and very honest and revealing, i.e. very much something that I like and can relate to. He has a lot of really interesting insights in how his journey has been and where it is going, and usually doesn't end up giving some new fad party line like I expected it to.

Race Against Time, by Stephen Lewis- Also an amazing book. Lewis writes so compellingly about AIDS, about crisis and life in Africa, and the response of the West/the UN/etc. And where the world could be heading if people were willing to care deeply. Not a book that will change everything and fix all the problems, but great to open people's eyes to see what's been going on in the world.

1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus, by Charles Mann- I read bits of this for my cultural-historical geography class at WLU (a course I loved while not enjoying the not-nice professor) Its title is clear, and it goes into the richness of civilization in the americas before the Wazungu came (some things apply so well both to my present home in Tanzania and back home...) It especially highlights the scope of the disastrous spread of disease that came with Europeans that he argues was the main reason for the weakness of Native cultures to resist the dirty hairy Europeans who came. Very well written.

Many more books to come from the Library of Steve, especially some African novels I've picked up lately and some of the history I brought with me from home. Hope you enjoyed seeing what I've been reading, since reading is what I do mostly when I sit by myself most nights and enjoy the quiet restful time.

Wow!

So now that I've done a few of the basic general description blog entries, and more will continue to come, I'll mix in a bit of where I'm at now, not just generally what I'm doing or where I am.
Mostly I've been doing very well, enjoying life here, loving my work with the kids. The biggest factor to my being able to say that I'm doing well is that much to my surprise, God has proven himself to be near enough to me that I'm not overcome with being alone and away from everyone back home. I miss everyone, of course, but God is showing me that I can function without the tangible support structures of home, because He is enough. I actually feel like He's enough, not just knowing in my head that He should be. And my response to that- is wow! He can do pretty amazing things if He can bring me to Africa for 10 months and guide me in not being anxious or lonely. The better you know me the more you realize how amazing it really is- if how I'm doing would be still dependent on how many long conversations I participate in over coffee sharing life, making decisions, figuring stuff out, etc., I'd be completely starved right now- but the great thing is He can change people in ways that would seem to be impossible. Bwana asifiwe is what I have to say to that. (praise the Lord!)

Some recent examples of Him showing up in unexpected places to encourage and teach me....
Tini has been encouraging me to 'get out' and participate in what little social life there is in Mwanza among the NGO/volunteer type crowd (it really isn't a big crowd) of young people. As a result, I stumbled upon a young English-speaking Christian med school student who asked me the 2nd time we met if I was interested in studying the bible with him and a few others. I had to laugh- of course I'd want to do that, and I figured it would not happen while I was away for the year. Also, an elderly couple named Simon and Greta are at Starehe for a few months until January, and I get the privilege of praying with them (communal prayer has been really absent despite my attempts to suggest more) almost every day!! Finally, one of the kids who has spent most of the time I've been around at Starehe seeing me as his enemy for whatever reason, has suddenly decided to begin to look pleased when I smile toward him, and showed up 2 times in a row to bible study now that the rest of the older boys are home from school and not just the Standard 7 grads. What's going on? Some things have really discouraged me the past few weeks, and then God goes and dumps at least 3 huge blessings that I didn't dream could happen, leaving me wide-eyed and stunned, muttering Bwana asifiwe all the time because I can't get over it all. So exclaim Bwana asifiwe along with me and spread the word- He's not kidding when He says that nothing's impossible with God and that He is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine. Amen!

So, to continue describing things...

So before I went to Dar I had started the catching up on showing stuff about regular life here, beginning with my house. Here is stage 2. These are pictures of my immediate environment outside of my house. Nyanza Glass compound has maybe 25 houses, all pretty much the same as mine but mostly in much worse condition inhabited by what I would call middle class families who have nicer houses than average but are not fully removed from any other neighbourhood, with mostly outdoor cooking and lots of chickens and the occasional cow. They are either on the long winding road that leads from the main road (which heads straight into town) or on a little offshoot from it- and the winding road winds up a bit of a hill. 'Village life' begins at the back fence of the compound, with paths leading up into the hills which are very much still rural.

There is a nursery school across from my house, full of cute and funny little children, none of whom have anything to do with Starehe or my work. The kids make lots of noise around 8am when they are waiting to be let into class. If I happen to be up and out of the house by then (a very rare thing) they run up to touch me, grab my hand, and giggle a lot.

Most days when it is sunny, which is most days, I am involved in a game of hide-and-seek with this lizard. He has become my friend. He's always 'hiding' (he isn't very good at it- I find him nearly every day) and I always do the seeking. He likes the sunny places on the trees, always the same few trees, so my job isn't hard. I say hi to him/her and am on my way. I need a name for the lizard so I can stop saying hello to the generic name 'lizard' (mjuisi in kiswahili) or 'little friend' (rafiki kidogo). So you should all hold a meeting and decide on a nice name for him.

This is the field in front of my house- my house is the right one on the picture, and the school is somewhere to the left across the field.

There is a gatehouse where there is almost always a gateman/guard whose primary job as far as I'm concerned is to say hello to me whenever I leave or return- always in Kiswahili, and often with something beyond the typical 'habari' just to make sure I'm on my toes and still learning... There are 2 men, they have shifts it seems.

My road comes into the main road almost right at the corner where the Nyegezi road heads out from the main road, almost making a 4 way intersection but not quite. There are shops on the side of the Nyegezi road, from the corner all the way to Starehe pretty much. My side of the road, the side where my road is on and where Starehe is on, across from the shops, is just a dirt path including random garbage dump area and silly large advertisement for a cellphone company. One of the shops half way there (it is a short distance) is Mama Sophia's shop (her house is behind it) and this is Mama Sophia, my friend and surrogate mother who makes darn sure I'm keeping myself fed and who thinks I've never recovered properly from malaria because I've lost weight... She's the closest thing to an Oma I have here, both fussing about my eating habits and feeding me excellent food on occasion, and also worrying always if her food will taste good when everyone knows how wonderful it always is. While I'm on the topic of Mama Sophia, she has a son who has become my friend- he has a good job in the mines somewhere and comes home for a few days a month, and speaks english well but with a heavy accent. He has insisted that I visit whenever he comes back, and makes his mom and sister feed us (which is excellent, but a bit chauvinistic, which is completely natural in the culture.) His name is Nubi. He really likes televangelists, his job and ugali, and is about 40- Mama Sophia is around 60 and her mom who lives with her and only speaks Kisukuma is said to be over 100. Who knows...

Kahawa

So Kahawa is the Kiswahili word for coffee. I may have written that already on another post. Anyways, I came across this picture in Bagamoyo and had to laugh- some things don't change.

Speaking of coffee, when I was in Dar I had a macchiato with mocha cake worthy of Waterloo's Symposium. It was a beautiful moment! (and alas it did not last- Mwanza has no such luxuries) I even managed to find extra dark Lindor in Dar, and true to Stevian fashion I managed to bring them home to Mwanza and donated them to the cause of Tini's birthday party where Tini and the other guests got to enjoy a little bit of chocolate goodness. What excitement! Almost too much to handle. Now that fancy drinks and lindor are gone, I'm back to my normal (but still quite excellent) Magic Bean coffee from near Mt. Kilimanjaro that I get to enjoy nearly every morning.

My Safari to Dar

Hello everyone! There are many things I want to catch you up on now that I have better internet connection, but I figure I'll first do anything that comes up as it comes up. So I got to spend a long weekend having a little safari (safari=Kiswahili for journey, regardless of where to and if there are big scary animals to see) to the big city of Dar es Salaam. Dar is the main city of Tanzania, on the coast, no longer officially the capital but still functioning as the place where almost everything important is based/done. It has a few million people, so it's pretty big- and my city Mwanza is the next biggest with only some hundreds of thousands of people- like the difference between Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo, but with much greater distance between and with KW looking much worse and with much less going for it. :) I went to Dar to visit Len and Marilyn Mittelstaedt, a missionary couple I met first in Mwanza 2 years ago, their family and mine go way back. While there I got to see the city and have fun/relax. While there, I got to see the downtown, which is pretty impressive and big (very impressive compared to Mwanza's downtown), go to the National Museum, visit the wood carvers at the Mwenge Carver's Village (where you can actually watch people carve all the wooden carvings you see in tourist shops across the country- but here you can get very nice ones direct from the source, and with good prices given my increasingly bold bargaining), check out the University of Dar es Salaam, meet some students and hang out with them, see the Kaole ruins including a 13th/14th century mosque, and visit Bagamoyo, a sleepy old historic town that has almost no importance anymore but still has old buildings like the fort the Germans built at the end of the 1800s. (i.e. history-buff heaven...) And of course relaxing and enjoyin the company of my friends Len and Marilyn and go to church where they are pastoring now. All in all, I had an amazing time... but I was glad to leave the heat and get back to Mwanza where it isn't nearly as hot, although still much hotter than Canada where I hear it is snowing. :( Stephen is sad to be missing the snow.

Pictures of my house!

I'm so excited right now! I figured out how to put pictures on my blog! Now you can all SEE how I'm doing IN ADDITION to my ramblings! Wow! So anyways, it takes a long time (and eats up my uploading budget for the broadband connection) so I will pick a few at a time to send, and eventually you'll have a more whole picture of what my life here looks like. So to start with, here's my house- House #8 of Nyanza Glass compound, Nyegezi (outside of Mwanza).
Here is my living room, complete with (very old) lazyboy chair and couch, candles for when the power goes out (fairly often) and my computer. This is where I spend most of my time at home, sitting and enjoying music, reading and coffee on my chair.
I have beautiful flowers growing outside- Harry and Elaine Mueller who are volunteers that often come for 1/2 a year for the last 5 years or so are not here now, but they have made the place look very nice.
And, here is my bedroom, with my bed covered by my mosquito net to keep me from getting bitten by malaria-infested mosquitoes. If they do bite me, it won't be while I'm sleeping!
So, I hope you enjoyed the little slide show- more to come later.

A typical week in the life of Steve

Wow- how lucky all of you readers are these days! 3 blog messages in a row, and more coming! Steve must be on a role- and maybe very excited about his new internet situation. J

First an untypical tidbit of life taking place outside in my yard this morning as I write- 2 roosters are having it out with each other, and one is definitely winning- lots of noise and random roosters running across the yard. Too funny! (at least 2 of my neighbours have chickens running around, but I’ve never seen a chicken war until today…)

Now to my main purpose for this morning- to answer the request of a few of you for a description of what a typical day or week looks like. Excuse my ramblings- this one is going to be long. J

On the typical day I wake up between 7 and 8, and get up around 8ish. I shower, which is worth mentioning because I almost always have wonderfully hot water with good pressure for which I am forever thankful for! I prepare my cup of coffee (the wonderful Magic Bean brand from Moshi, near Mt. Kilimanjaro- excellent coffee! It comes in classic, gold and continental, of which ‘continental’ is my favourite. I can buy this coffee at the U-Turn grocery store in town. A quick note on coffee- if you ask an innocent Tanzanian who knows no English for coffee, you will get a nasty surprise- a slap in the face- either it means I want a slap in the face, or is rude enough to warrant it- instead you should ask for kahawa). Sorry, I told you I’d go into tangents- you may worry it isn’t really me writing if I didn’t. I have a little French press to make my coffee, and it is pretty decent- a gift from Paul Poole-thanks Paul! I sit on my 1980’s lazyboy chair and put on some mellow morning tunes and enjoy a few minutes of relaxation. Sometimes I eat breakfast too, either cereal that’s way too expensive from the grocery store or some toasted bread with margarine, and sometimes fruit like banana or pineapple. Then I head out at 9 or 9:30. Most days I head to Starehe and spend the whole day there, minus a 1 or 1 ½ hour lunch break, until 6 or 6:30. I do bible study and/or highschool prep with the Standard 7 grads (5 boys, 3 of which will go to highschool in January) in the morning. At lunch I go home, eat leftovers, bread, beans, cucumber salad, soup, eggs or grilled cheese (i.e. 1 or 2 of the above, not all of those every day…J) In the afternoon I do some prep for the various study sessions, play with the little kids, hang out with the older ones, and from 4-5 do homework/study time with the kids who go to the Isamilo International School, the expensive British-system private school that a few lucky ones get to have support to go to. There are 11 of them in total, and usually Tini and I both help them, with other volunteers/staff helping the other kids who go to different schools. On the way home I often stop by at Mama Sophia’s to say hi, show her I’m still alive and pick up some veggies (onions, tomatoes, green peppers, spinach). Once home, I rest for a bit and then cook myself supper (unless there are other volunteers around in which case we take turns) and eat it, usually by 7:30 or 8. Then I sit and read, play Risk or Age of Empires on my computer, listen to music, pray, sing, etc. until going to bed at around 10:30-11:00. The 2 exceptions to this day are the weekend and the 2 mornings I have off. On Saturdays I help make sure chores are done at Starehe in the morning, give piano lessons with Steven and Paul Oscar, and hang out, and in the afternoon I go to KVCC the church in town where the 13 and up kids go for activities/sports/hanging out for the afternoon. Sundays I go to KVCC every other Sunday for church, and stay at Starehe the other Sundays, setting up sound and sometimes playing keyboard for the service a bit. Sometimes I’ve gone out to lunch with the Poseins Sundays in town, or I stay at Starehe and eat with the kids. Mornings off usually involve either a whole morning of wonderful resting, reading, singing, praying and now internet, or going to town via dalla dalla to pick up groceries from the U-Turn or the big market, and anything else I need to get or do. So that’s my typical day/week. My rambling is done for now. J Hope you enjoyed it.

My Birthday... and the Mwanza Charity Ball

So as some of you might know, yesterday was my birthday. My first birthday celebrated away from Kitchener/Waterloo... So I thought I should tell you about my day. I got breakfast made for me by other volunteers. It comprised of french toast with syrup, eggs, and BACON, as well as apple juice and excellent Tanzanian coffee. (do you notice that my beloved OJ is missing from the list? That's because there is no such thing as decent OJ in Mwanza... :( but the rest was absolutely amazing, so I really can't complain at all...) I hung out with the little kids doing chores at Starehe all morning. Then I took a dalla dalla to Mkuyuni, the next suburb on the way to town, which has more stuff than Nyegezi. I hadn't stopped here yet. I found a great little fruit and veggies market with better prices than in town, and bought a black belt for 4000 shillings... i.e. $4. I needed it for the big evening. In the afternoon Tini helped me iron my suit (the suit that I had made for me in town from a very nice and skilled local tailor who somehow managed to produce a really good western-style suit for really cheap) and my white shirt, so along with borrowed shoes I was ready to go for the Grand Mwanza Charity Ball in the evening. It just so happened that the ball fell on the night of my birthday. It is an annual charity event where all the big-wigs (i.e. mostly all the Wazungus of Mwanza with a few non-wazungus)spend their money for orphanages and schools, including the one I'm at. Tini and I went together and met up with a few of her friends from town. There was a nice dinner, a live band playing, dancing, and a good chance to meet people who are also staying in Mwanza like me. I made a couple of friends. There was an incident with a drunken young woman trying to throw herself on me to induce me to get drunk on konyagi (the local liquer) which she had had much too much of already, and I guess I was looking like I needed to lose my innocence or something- very strange. Anyways, it was all in all a great day( minus the drunk girl). I also got calls from familyand a few cards/emails within a week of my birthday which I really appreciated. A bit more excitement in a day than I'm used to having... hahah.

I'm Still Alive!!

Hey everyone,
This message has 1 main purpose: it is to tell you all that I am still alive, despite the rumours likely going around resulting in my being out of commission (i.e. not heard from) for 2 months. Internet woes and malaria, but much more internet woes as malaria only lasted a week, kept me from communicating with you all, for which I'm very sorry. But, there is good news. I now have highspeed internet connection at my house! Hence the resurgence on the blog which will begin as of now. :) So, look forward to many more blog entries, as I have many planned during the time of silence that I can now write in the next few weeks. Yay!

some Tanzanian humour...

Things are going well here. There have been lots of good times already, including a good dose of humour. A few weeks ago when I was in town with Ron, one of the directors, trying to get internet from Africa online, I heard some funny things. First, he told me on the way in that he calls Africa Online “Africa Offline” because they are more ‘off’ than ‘on’. Then, when we got in, he informed the employee who came to help us that he wanted internet service for me, but that he had heard from many people that AO was unreliable and too expensive. The man looked at him in shock… but then they were both laughing. To top it off, Ron told the man that he had to tell us the real price, not the white person price, when the man told us how expensive it would be. Another time we were getting ready to leave a restaurant and the waitress asked Ron if he needed anything else- he told her he really didn’t need anything else- not even the bill. She laughed. So anyways, I’m having lots of fun here. The people are easy-going and like to laugh about things, and I’m starting to learn their (and Ron’s) sense of humour. Maybe one day I’ll even learn my first Kiswahili joke.

Life

So I just thought I'd give a few tidbits of info about life here. I live in Nyegezi, a village/suburb/extension of Mwanza city, at the Nyanza glass compound, which is like a little neighbourhood/subdivision with maybe 20 houses. I now live not at the main guest house with the other volunteers but at the 2nd house rented by Starehe Children's Home where long-time semi-permanent volunteers Harry and Elaine live when they are here. I'm slowly eating less food from the U-Turn grocery store and more from locals here in Nyegezi- a small shop sells flour, rice (with the occasional small pebble mixed in), sugar, etc. and Mama Sophia, my new friend/surrogate mother who sells me wonderful veggies at cheap prices and shows me how to cook them. She is very concerned that I learn how to cook properly, and will have taught me a lot by the time I get home. I spend most of my time at the orphanage, and am just now working out what my regular schedule will be like.

I'm in Mwanza!

So I have arrived. I am now in Mwanza, and loving it.
It is so good to be back.
We are safe, having a good time, needing prayer, and loving spending time with the kids.
I hope everyone at home is doing well too!

map showing Steve's house and the orphanage in Mwanza

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=-2.583132,32.92212&spn=0.005241,0.009978&t=k&z=17&om=1&msid=112180900996484320311.000436d43d27b96ceff29

Steve's Random Question for Week 1

Are you praying a)that Steve returns safely to Canada (like my Mom), b)that the Lord sends lions to Steve so He can shut their mouths (like Richard), c)that I don't come back (like Johnny Clem), d)without ceasing, i.e. 24/7 (like my Oma), or e)not at all... (shame on you...) ???

First Post

Hi everyone, this is my blog.
I'm pretty excited... it is my first time having my own blog.
You should all be excited with me.
Thanks for checking out my blog.
:)