October 2014 Newsletter

My October newsletter is uploaded and ready to be read!

You can also download a PDF of the newsletter here: Found in Translation 10/2014

How to celebrate a postponed birthday

I finally celebrated turning 30 this past weekend. If you didn't already know I postponed my birthday by a week so that I could celebrate with some close friends.

So, how does one go about celebrating a postponed decade changing birthday?

Hm, this way:

Have coffee with a good friend (sadly, no picture of this part of the process).

Make dinner for some friends.
We had vegetable stir-fry with peanut sauce...delicious.

Also, make a weird coffee drink that you've never tried before for those friends.
It is called "European Coffee" and includes whipped egg whites. That is not whipped cream on top...

Have 'Happy Birthday' candles on top of a cake. Thanks Mom and Dad for the candles!!!

Ah yes, the picture of some of the friends that came over for dinner.

Have your housemate make yogurt and strain it as a substitute for cream cheese. That process has to be planned out because it can take up to a week to get enough. This is serious from scratch baking.
Then make a delicious mango cheesecake.

See a tree like this, hugging a rock, reaching desperately for more sun.

Enjoy a beautiful hike through some Tanzanian countryside and pick a hilltop to try and reach.

I will say it was kind of odd having a week where I was no longer in my 20s, but not quite 30. I would say postponing your birthday is a fun activity if you want to mix it up a bit, but shouldn't be a regular occurence.

I'm 30...sort of

This past Friday I turned 30. I have been looking forward to turning 30 this whole year and it finally has happened!!!

Well...actually I am writing this post the Saturday before I turn 30. It will go live after my birthday, but for now (at the time of writing) I am 29.

Ok, why am I writing this so early?

Because I spent my birthday on the largest island in the largest lake in Africa: Kerewe.

This is no island-get-away vacation. No leis greeted me as I disembarked from the ferry.

I've been working with a team of surveyors. We are looking at incorporating the Kara and Kerewe language communities into our translation work at the office, but before we can do that we have to have an official survey of these languages and then report back regarding our findings. So, I am part of a team of 4 who are spending 9 days on the Kara and Kerewe islands surveying these languages.

I don't know if I will have internet access while I am out there, but wanted to be faithful to posting a blog on Monday. So, if you sent me a birthday message and didn't hear back from me, don't worry, I haven't seen the message yet. Hopefully, I'll be able to respond later this week.

Officially, I postponed my birthday to the 26th of this month (check facebook, you'll see), so if you didn't send me message, you still have a few days ;).

My normal: Ants

Three years ago, when I was attending my first Bible study in Musoma, someone brought out cookies to share. What a wonderful treat! We opened the container to find the cookies covered in ants. One would think that this would dissuade consumption, but it didn't. We blew ants off the cookies and just thanked God for the additional protein we were ingesting.

It is not all of my food that gets overrun by the cohabiting ants (currently it is just the Blue Band and peanut butter).

Some ants want water, some want food, some want the cement that makes up my walls, others simply like to exist in my house. Sometimes they just walk along the wall or across the hallway and I look at them thinking "I wish you weren't here, but I'm also used to you and haven't figured out how to be rid of you...hm."

I want to add here that having ants in the house is not necessarily a sign if uncleanliness...it just happens sometimes. Trust me, I keep on top of my kitchen in particular.

Anyway, I've come to be used to them. I make sure to use the peanut butter that has the most ants in it for my smoothies (that way they get blended well and I don't have to think about it). This leaves the cleaner peanut butter for other uses.

If I see a particularly indicative trail of ants, I attack with vehemence and ruin their nest.

This mass of ants lead me to a nest in the cement.

A small pile of defeated ants.

Other times I just look at them and think, "I'm tired, I don't want to go hunting today."

My normal: Ziplock bags

Ziplock bags aren't available here in Musoma. Knowing this I brought some ziplock bags with me when I first came to Tanzania. I am STILL using those same bags. Not because I haven't needed to use them. Rather, because here in Musoma, we wash them out and reuse them.

It is really nifty that we have floor to ceiling tile in my kitchen because the wet bags stick to the tiles. They can hang there until all dry and ready to be used again.

Notice the variegated color of some of these bags...they've been used a few times.

Not washing out ziplock bags was one of the things I had to think through while in the States. I remember standing there holding a ziplock bag for a couple minutes before finally convincing myself that I was allowed to throw it away.

Actually, I didn't convince myself now that I think of it. I asked my older sister to tell me that I was allowed to throw it away. I'm pretty sure she looked at me with a bit of confusion before giving me permission.