Chase Tyler

I am more than happy to announce the arrival of my new nephew, Chase Tyler Bruns, born yesterday at 8:44am.  He weighs 7lb 13oz and is 19 inches long.  He has dark brown hair like his daddy.  Thus far he enjoys both sleeping and eating.  Mom (my sister Amy) and baby are both happy and healthy.  

Here is big brother Kaleb, who turns 3 next week, holding his little brother for the first time.  He seemed to enjoy it briefly, but then decided Chase was heavy and gave him away to someone else so he could  play with cars.

Happy birthday Chase!

Nyerere Day

Last Thursday was Nyerere Day.  Julius Nyerere was the first president of Tanzania, serving from 1964 until 1985.  He was and is still well-loved by the people here.  He was a teacher by profession and so that is what the country called him; not Mr. President, but Teacher.  In honor of his life and service to Tanzania, October 14th is a holiday.

To celebrate this holiday Brett and I went to a traditional music and dance performance.  The Sukuma are known throughout Tanzania for their drumming and dancing, particularly with snakes, though thankfully they left them at home last week.  The dancing was really good, much different than what you see driving by the discos here.  I'm sure you would love to see pictures of this event, but as I forgot my camera, you will just have to imagine the long grass and feathery skirts worn by all.

Breakfast

I thought you might be interested in what Baylor had for breakfast today.  I don't usually think what she eats for breakfast is blogworthy, but today was a bit unusual.

She started with half an egg mixed with tomatoes.  Then moved on to a big chunck of papaya.  If you've never had papaya, it tastes like feet.  Then a few bites of chapati, an Indian flat bread.  From there she devoured several slices each of carrots and zucchini.  And then it got more interesting.  She ate a fish finger.  Yes, a fish finger--minus the breading.  To end the meal she had 3/4 of a banana. And it wasn't one of those teeny African bananas, either; it was a big one.

We were not dining at home.  No fish fingers for breakfast at the Harrison house.  Or any other meal for that matter, yucky fish.

Our daughter does indeed love to eat.

A Visit

The first two weeks of September were made wonderful by the presence of Scott and Cheryl McFaddin. Cheryl is one of my best friends from college and I was more than excited that they were coming to visit.  They actually came also to check out the Geita situation to see if maybe God was leading them there as well.  You never know where He's going to take you.  They spent a lot of time getting to know our team and the work that's currently being done as well as the work planned for the future.  My English students especially loved having new people to practice with.  Cheryl opted for the full Africa experience and got her hair braided in the market by two of my friends.  It was entertaining for everyone involved.  

As you can see, Cheryl is currently pregnant with their third little boy and I applaud her adventurousness (I do realize that's not a real word) in coming to the middle of nowhere Tanzania while growing a tiny person inside her.  It's not the easiest thing in the world; there are lots of bumpy roads,  uncomfortable mattresses and no sonic blue coconut slushes.  Of course, that's sad for all of us.  Well, maybe just me.

Anyway, it was great visit.  Brett and I were were happy that Scott enjoys Trivial Pursuit as much as we do.  We look forward to the next showdown.

9 Months of Baylor

Sorry for my lack of posts lately.  We just got our good friends, Scott and Cheryl McFaddin, off to the airport after a fantastic two-week visit.

But this post is about Baylor.  I realize I haven't had much in the way of updates about her recently and that I need to appease the grandparents.

So, here it is.

Baylor is now over 9 months old.  She's 28 inches tall and weighs 17.4 lbs.  That puts her in the 57% and 19%, respectively.  I've decided she's on the skinny side because she never stops moving.  She's becoming an expert climber, already able to scale the couch and nearly escape the pack n play.  She took her first steps last week.  Her record is two.  She seems to prefer crawling, as she can move that way both quickly and easily.  I'm not sure when she'll decide walking is worth the extra effort.

She also thoroughly enjoys eating.  I'd be amazed at the amount of food she can pack away except that I've seen Brett eat, so I suppose it's only natural for her.  Her favorite food continues to be banana, and she'll eat anything if it's mixed with banana.  She's also a big fan of grilled chicken, butternut squash, yogurt, and anything that is a fruit, even papaya, which tastes like feet.  She likes to feed herself and is sometimes pretty good at it.  She's also discovered where I keep her puffs in my bag and will dig them out, pop off the lid, reach inside, pull them out and eat them until I take them away, which she does not like.  Food isn't the only thing she likes to put in her mouth though.  Actually, she'll put pretty much anything in there.

Baylor is a very loud girl.  She babbles all day long (another trait passed on by her father) and generally does not do it quietly, which recent visitors Scott and Cheryl can attest to.  She can say things that are words, but she doesn't know they're words, so we don't count them.  We're working pretty hard on getting her to say Baba, though.

Baylor is not a good sleeper, and still does not sleep through the night.  We are tired.  Rare are the moments we can enjoy times like these.  But we love her all the same, even sleepy.

Here is the most recent family pic, taken over a river that was suppose to have crocodiles and hippos, but didn't.

Maybe next time.

English Class

I never intended to teach English here in Geita.  With all the other pressing needs to meet, in addition to sharing the Good News, it just never crossed my mind that I would spend my time doing something that, to me, seemed unimportant.  When we moved here last September I would ask people in town what they felt were their greatest needs and about four times out of five the first answer was better access to water and the second was to learn English.  Better access to water is a huge problem to tackle and would like to help with it, but know it could take years.  Teaching English, though, now that is something I can do.

The ability to speak English here is the chance for a better life.  It would be difficult to be admitted to high school here without English and there's no chance of going to college without it.  By learning English you can work in the tourism industry, one of Tanzania's largest industries.  Speaking English makes you marketable.  It gives you an edge against other applicants.  Education and jobs are scarce here, so anything you can do to improve your chances is another step closer to ensuring you can provide a home, food and education for your family.

So about 4 months ago, I started my first English class.  I have 8 students, all adults, who come faithfully every week (though maybe a little bit late), do their homework and practice speaking with each other throughout the week since there are so few other English speakers to try their new vocabulary out on.  We have no books, and on occasion I have had to resort to writing on an old box because there wasn't any paper and once in the dirt outside because we had a problem getting in the classroom.  No one seems to mind that much.  Instead of giving them a worksheet, I write their practice sentences on the board and they copy them down in their notebooks.  Markers here have short lives.  I go through about 3 per class.   People have been asking when I'm going to open another class.  I'm hoping to do that later this fall.  We're looking for a better classroom situation.  I enjoy teaching the class; it's a lot of fun.  Sometimes you just never know what you'll end up doing.

Friends and Family Afternoon

A couple weeks ago we had a bunch of our friends and their families come to our house to spend a Saturday.  To invite more than one family at a time is fun, but magnifies the chaos by about a billion, because inviting someone's family here is not the same as inviting someone's family in the States.  Here, if you say say "family", it can mean anything from their immediate family of spouse and children, to whoever is living with them (which could include a few other relatives or even people not related at all) to every person they are even close to kind of related to.  Cousins here, for example, are only cousins if they are your mother's brother's children or your father's sister's children.  Your mother's sister's children and your father's brother's children are called your brothers and sisters.  So, if you only desire what we think of as the immediate family to show up, you have to be pretty specific in your invitation.  And even then, they might have 15 kids or can't possible come without their grandmother who is visiting.  Which is fine, the more the merrier, especially if it's an outdoor party.

So, we invited four of our friends' families to come and ended up with, I think, 18 people.  Some didn't even bring their whole families.  If they had, the number would have gone up to 26.  We ordered Tanzanian food from a local cafe and had a picnic on our porch.

Obama even visited us for the afternoon. 

Seriously, this kid's name is Obama.  He's a funny one, too.  Loves to put on other people's shoes (especially high heels) that are too big for him and walk around.  

This is Baylor with Margaret.  Baylor loves Margaret.  

And here we all are for a nice end of the day picture, with the exception of those of us taking pictures.

It was a fun day.  The kids played soccer and drank cokes and the adults learned about making sandbag homes while taking turns holding Baylor.  Everyone ate a lot, which I think is the true measure of enjoyment as a visitor here in Tanzania.