What the french toast....

Teacher quits - life goes crazy for a while!
We were heading to work last Monday. Typical Monday, a little crazy, trying to pick up everyone, running a little late, dodging chickens in the road...nothing out of the ordinary for most of us on a Monday.  Then, the news hit us - one of the new teachers quit.  It's 8:05.  School begins in 25 minutes.  Just to be clear, there are not a whole line of substitute teachers you can call in a pinch to come fill in.  So, we (by we, I mean Ben) scrambled and rearranged everyones schedule to fill the holes.  The teacher didn't give any notice...just said I won't be back next week.  The news, unfortunately, didn't reach us until the LAST minute!  So, long story short - Lisa is now teaching all 3 forms of English!  To say she's busy now is a bit of an understatement.

Teaching - highs and lows
Teaching has been busy these past couple of weeks.  The principal was out quite a bit last week dealing with some issues and, of course, that teacher quit. So, the rest of us were scrambling trying to cover classes.  I love to teach through experience. If I can go on a field trip, build something, do something, etc... with my students I'm happy. Unfortunately, here I've fallen into the 'ole lecture and notes trap.  I make up all sorts of excuses - lack of resources, language barriers, loads of content to cover in short amounts of time....oh yeah, and the students insist on taking lots of notes!  But, I know there's a better way.  Finally on Friday, we did an activity I was happy with.  We put four eggs on end and stacked books on top of them to show the strength of the shape of eggs.  We kept piling on books (the new textbooks were part of them on top of the eggs!).  Just as the bell rang, the  eggs exploded under the weight of probably 40 books.  The kids yelled and jumped back.  I had egg all over the place. It was great!

Girl Challenges
Girls here have a rough life.  I don't think that's a biased statement.  They are expected to work from the time they get home until well after dark, leaving little time for studying.  They are constantly harassed for different things, but one seemingly constant thing is sex.  In general, they just seem to have additional burdens on their shoulders that males simply do not have to bear.  We lost two girl students from school this past week to some unfortunate circumstances.  Our director has said these girls face a battle every single day of their lives.  At first I thought perhaps he was just a bit of a "women's lib" sort of a guy.  But, after spending some time here, I realize what he says is so true.


Valentine's Day and other Muslim holidays
I know Valentine's Day is not a Muslim holiday. But, whatever we celebrated today was!  So, we did not go to school. Instead, we worked on school stuff in the morning here at the house and at school. Then, this afternoon we went into a place near Arusha called TGT.  There, we played squash, swam and ate nachos.  It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon!  Unfortunately, I may have hit a few of the speed bumps a tad hard on the drive home (there are about 25 speed bumps between here and Arusha!).  Lisa was not a bit happy especially when we realized something punctured the side of our water jugs and got water all over the groceries and her shoes!  Woops!

Into the Clouds

Mount Kilimanjaro rises beautifully from the plains below. If you are in Moshi, you can usually get a really nice view of the snow capped peaks. You can view it, that is, until the clouds start rolling in. Around mid-morning, the heat of the sun causes moisture to be driven from the savannas and forests below the mountain. Those clouds, of course, head toward the peak which ultimately occlude the view. Pretty quick, those lucent and majestic views are, quite literally, lost in the clouds.

I remember reading a book by John Eldridge called waking the dead. In it he describes a similar experience he had in Alaska. A mountain, beautiful when you are able to view it, but for the most part lost in the clouds. John compared that to how he spent a great deal of his "Christian life" - moments of clarity but quite a lot of confusion and uncertainty. At the time of reading it, I couldn't really relate to John's description. Yet, more and more, I think I understand what he was talking about.

On a small scale, our vision of water had been fogged in. For nearly a month now we've been fighting no water at our house. The stories ranged from "not enough pressure due to the dry weather"to "it's a broken relay pump" to "we're just not sure!" At the end of the day we were stuck driving with buckets to go fill them up so we could have water. Some people would tell us we could just fill water from the hydrant outside our house, but we thought it was a ridiculous suggestion since we believed the hydrant and our regular water source were connected. Finally, after a month of this headache, someone solved the issue. It turns out, if you just hook a hose up to that hydrant, sure enough it have water! Plus, there was plenty of pressure. We could fill our upper holding tank in a couple of hours from that hydrant. Misinformation and misjudgments had led to missed opportunities, at least for a hot shower, on our part. Never fear though, we are making up for lost time. I think roommate Ben has taken three showers a day since we found our new water trick!

On a more critical level that concept of being clouded in can also apply. Sometimes I get a glimpse of what it is I think I'm supposed to be doing here. When I'm in the classroom and things are clicking, I think "yeah baby...this is it!" But, all to quickly the clouds start rolling in. As a teacher there are many things that make this a tough place to teach. Language barriers, lack of resources, etc... can make even a seasoned professional struggle. Then, I look around the village at the huge issues - lack of water (seriously, not just Seth being too lazy to drive a little bit in a nice cushy car), lack of education, lack of fill in the blank. Then I think of my own personal shortcomings, fears and just plain issues. Soon, the clouds start rolling in. By Friday afternoon, that mountain peak is a vague apparition that seems like only a faint memory.

There are probably a fair number of very successful people who have figured out ways to stay clear, even in the fog. I know Moses spent a good deal of time in the fog. I'm always thankful when a pilot is able to navigate through a thick cloud bank too. But for me, I suppose I just need to stay fixed on those clear, vivid moments when the view spreads out before me. I should remember the confidence that comes along with those times of clarity. Chances are good there will be more clouds rolling in again this week. Since I haven't figured out a way to see through them, I pray I can find a point to keep my eyes fixed until the clouds lift again.