September 2011 Update

[Maria]

Farah na amani! Joy and Peace!

Hello from Tanzania! The two months since my last letter to you have
been extremely busy, but very educational and beneficial to me.

First, I was blessed to find a wonderful language and culture teacher,
a lady named Methodia who grew up here in Bukoba, and also lived in
England and Germany for close to twenty years. I’d prayed to God for
weeks prior to my arrival here that He would send me the “right”
nurturer from the start, and so He has: Mama Methodia has adopted me
as her fifth child, and proudly declares that I will be speaking
Kiswahili by Christmas. We are using a method of language acquisition
where the first 100 hours of study do not involve me speaking, but
rather listening to her speak to me, just the way infants first listen
to their parents speak to them before they attempt to imitate sounds.
I’ve been surprised both at how much fun I am having, and also at how
quickly I seem to recognize many words. While I am not required to
speak Kiswahili in class, I am allowed to use it as I feel able in
normal activities, so I am becoming more comfortable greeting people
and holding very simple conversations. My greatest delight is walking
around town and having children attempt to greet me in English and
being able to respond to them in Kiswahili. Yesterday as I walked
along the beach to get to class, three children playing nearby watched
me very solemnly until I asked them, “Habari ya mchana?” (How is your
afternoon?) Their eyes got big and round, and the littlest boy who was
about two or three squeaked out, “Shikamoo! Nzuri!” (Shikamoo is a
greeting of respect to an elder. Nzuri means fine, or good.) It’s fun
when I start running into the same group of kids each day on my way to
school. There’s one family with three small children whose home I pass
each day, and without fail the kids start waving excitedly when they
see me. I feel less anxious about being in a foreign place and more
welcome with each passing day, for which I am extremely grateful.

Most people ask me what a typical day is like, so I will attempt to
answer that question very briefly. Every day starts at about 7 am,
when the bells for Matins ring next door at the church. We attend
Matins every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and on Tuesday, Thursday,
Saturday and Sunday it’s Matins and Liturgy. After service we enjoy a
hot breakfast made by Mama Christina, our cook and housekeeper. After
that it’s usually time for some chores—either going to the market or
to pay a water or electricity bill, stop by the bank, or stay home and
do laundry or clean my room. Then I spend an hour or so listening to
the language lessons from the previous day, which I record and can
store on my iPod. I also spend a little time each day preparing for
the next language session—we have a curriculum provided for us, but it
requires some thoughtful planning to execute well. Then I spend some
time answering emails or updating my Facebook account, which I know
many of you follow. It’s such a blessing to be able to communicate
with folks from home so easily! Usually Mama Christina has lunch ready
for us by 12:30, and by 12:45 I am out the door to walk down to the
lake for my class. In the afternoon when I return I make myself a cup
of tea and a snack and start the process of transferring the language
recordings from that day’s session onto my computer, and then
listening to them for another couple of hours, as well as reviewing
previous sessions. I also usually do some more emailing at that point.
By six we are back at church for Vespers, and then I make my own dinner
—usually something simple. The evening might include more study, doing
some relaxing reading, writing to my support team by email or “snail
mail,” or chatting with my roommates about the day. Sometimes I get to
call my family or friends, too! I try to get ready for bed by about
10, and am generally asleep by 11. On any particular day we might have
visitors drop by, which changes the schedule a bit, and I am learning
to be flexible with how to organize activities here.

Many people have asked for updates about how the work at the Orthodox
clinic is going. My primary responsibility during the first six months
to a year of service here is to focus entirely on language and
cultural acquisition. People here generally do not speak much English,
and without studying Kiswahili, I will not be able to care for
patients without a translator. As the clinic will be functioning with
the help of us as volunteers to staff it, there’s not provision for
the hiring of translators. It has been challenging for me to “stop”
being a nurse and to feel like I am “not working,” but the truth is
that by working hard at language study I am building the foundation
upon which my later nursing practice will depend. The Orthodox clinic
is currently awaiting registration through the Tanzanian government in
order to reopen. It was closed because it had originally been
registered as a “hospital,” but since we cannot meet the staffing
requirements to function as such, a new application had to be
submitted. Please keep the registration and government approval of the
clinic in your prayers. My hope is that the clinic will be ready to
open at the same time that I am ready to focus more on direct patient
care and less on language study, but I am also open to God’s will and
am trying to accept whatever He asks me to do.

As many of you are aware, I did have the opportunity to use my medical
background to conduct a health care needs assessment for the Turkana
in northern Kenya last month, which is one reason you haven’t heard
from me in a while. My fellow missionaries and I are also busy
preparing to welcome an OCMC medical mission team that will provide
medical care to rural areas in Tanzania for two weeks in October. My
next update will include more detailed information about the trip to
Kenya and about our preparations for the October team, and I’ll be
sending it out shortly after this letter.

Thank you to each and every one of you for your faithful prayerful and
financial support that sustains me here! I pray for all of you every
morning when I thank God for allowing me to be here, and I thank you,
too! Glory to God for all things!

Yours in Christ,
Maria

P.S. Please feel free to write back! Many of you wrote to me after my
last update and I can't tell you how much I enjoy hearing from ALL of
you! Have a very blessed feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos!