My Normal: Maombi

Maombi (mah-ohm-bee) = Requests

One of the biggest adjustments to life here in Musoma has been figuring out how to handle requests for money.

Depending on one another financially is a cultural norm and being indebted to one another actually can build relationships. It is completely opposite from how we, in the West, tend to view money and relationships. It is exceptionally challenging for me to navigate this particular area of my life, especially when the Bible enters into the picture.

This has been challenging me recently: "Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you." (Matthew 5:42)

There are many worldly wisdoms that say I shouldn't follow through on what Jesus says in Matthew 5:42, especially considering that I live somewhere where people actually do ask me for things all the time! But, Jesus didn't qualify this statement/command...so should I?

I recently started being particularly convicted not to qualify Jesus' commands, this one in particular. Because of this desire to do as people have asked of me, please finish reading this blog...or simply stop here if you have appreciated this cultural point and that has been enough.

A few weeks ago I introduced my neighbors, the Makwasas, to you.

Sarah, the three Makwasa boys and me.

Last week Mr. Makwasa came to Sarah and me with a request. He had been very sick several months ago and had to go to India for treatment (he even showed us his endoscopy photos, yay!!!). This has put him in a financial bind and he doesn't have the money to pay school fees, about $1,300, so that his kids can finish the school year.

He asked Sarah and me to ask our friends if any of them wanted to help him...so we are both doing exactly that. We are sharing his need with our friends and if anyone feels led to help him out I can give you information on how to go about that. Please email me at ronitodom@gmail.com by the end of Thanksgiving weekend (when the school fees are due) if you are feeling led to give something toward's the kids' school fees.

My Normal: Top-Up Cards

In the first two hours, on my very first day in Tanzania, nearly four years ago, I was told about top-up cards. I had no idea what this guy was talking about except that it related to phones and being able to call people. It honestly took me longer than I generally like to admit to understand how top-up cards work and that they are AWESOME!

So, basically you buy a certain amount of credit, say 10,000TZS (Tanzanian shillings), a little over $6. You enter the code that is on the card into your phone and then you have that much credit for texting, calling and internet (if your phone can do that). 10,000TZS usually lasts me about a month.

But the top-up cards don't stop there! That is how I purchase internet too. I get top-up cards for 25,000TZS and buy 6GB of internet and add it onto my dongle. 6GB usually lasts me a month.

This is the best one though: electricity. Yes, I pre-pay for my electricity, get a top-up receipt and when the power goes out (or before if I happen to think of it), I simply punch in the code and voila! I have power again. Granted, some times the power goes out because of a power cut...top-up cards can't help me in that circumstance. But otherwise, voila!

It definitely takes some getting used to and you have to be able to plan ahead a bit to ensure that you have phone, internet, or electricity credit, but hey! no hassles from these companies!

(Unlike the water company that has come and shut off my water twice in the last two months...)

My Normal: Oodles of Keys

I have never had a key to my parents' house. This was completely due to the fact that the door was never locked. Seriously! Ask any of the youth group kids. Did we lock our house? No! I literally got used to locking and unlocking doors for the first time in my life when I was in college. Sadly, it wasn't as natural or intuitive a task at it should have been.

I have now swung to the opposite side of security lifestyles and can't leave the house without a handful of keys. I have 3 house keys: one for the door, one for the metal grate on the door, and one for the gate to leave the property. I have 4 office keys: one for the door, one for the metal grate on the door, and two for my desk.

Thankfully, college taught me how to use a key, so now I can actually leave my house and enter my office!!!

Currently, I am backing up the finance office. This means that my key count has recently DOUBLED. Yes, there are 7 keys associated with the finance office and I use at least 5 of them each time I work over there.

So, this is my new normal: oodles of keys...that I actually know how to use!!!

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: The House

I've been wanting to do this since returning to Musoma and now I've finally gotten around to it.

Here is a tour of my house!

My Normal: Drinking Water

I mentioned a couple of times in recent blog posts that I was happy to return to “my normal”. I think I should elaborate on what “my normal” actually is. There are so many things about my life here that are quite different from American life. By taking time to write about these things you’ll be able to get a better picture of my day-to-day life.

An added bonus is that I will have to look at my life through the lens of what is unique and special about it. I think everyone has a unique and special life in one way or another, but we often forget to see those things. What we see as normal or mundane in our own lives can, from the outside, seem exciting and wonderful.

So, here starts a series of blog posts about my normal, mundane, exciting and wonderful life.

Lets start with basics: drinkable water.

The water that comes out of the tap is not drinkable. Actually, technically I guess it is drinkable if I didn’t mind getting any number of stomach issues. I don’t, however, want stomach issues.

In order to get drinkable water there are a few things I must do.

Fill a bucket with tap water.

The black bucket = bad water.

Dump the black bucket of water into a BioSand filter. This filter is first filled with large rocks, then smaller and smaller rocks then topped off with sand. As the water moves through the sand, and the biofilm created by the sand, pathogens and solids are filtered out of the water.

The blue bucket = good-ish water.

The sand filtered water can be drunk, theoretically. I haven’t worked up the guts to just drink the sand filtered water straight, and since I have another filtration method in the house, just to be safe, I send the water through that as well.

Pictured below is my Katadyn filter. The blue-bucket water gets poured into the top and comes out the bottom drinkable. We fill up bottles with the water and set it to the side so that we always have lots of drinkable water ready to be used.

The three tubes inside the top portion are called candles. (When I first heard that term I was confused about how a flame could stay lit inside a plastic cylinder with water being poured over it…but then I figured out that candle doesn’t always mean a wick and flame.)

Anyway, the water gets filtered through these candles and comes out completely safe and ready to be drunk!

And that is my normal drinking water process.

Top 5 (things I'm looking forward to)

A couple weeks ago I made a list of the top 5 things that I am going to miss about being in the States. I think it is only fair if I now list the top 5 things that I am looking forward to about being back in Tanzania.

Once again, getting to see my friends and “family” in Tanzania “goes without saying”.

5. Walking everywhere.

I live across the street from the office, and a 15 minute walk from the main market area of town. I can walk to get almost anything/everything that I need.

4. My house.

I only got to live there for 4 months before coming to the States. I’m excited about getting back to my bed, my coffee maker, my pots and pans…pretty much everything.

3. The market.

I am excited about getting to walk up to the market and get fresh produce. I love deciding what meal to make based on the most unique produce at the market on a given day. Oh, by unique I mean that there is a butternut squash, or pumpkin, maybe a particularly beautiful or large eggplant.

Mama Happy's stand.

2. Putting my training to use.

After studying in Dallas for a couple months, I am keyed up and ready to put that training to use.

1. My normal.

The nice thing about being back in my house, walking around Musoma, working at the office, and going to the market is that it is my routine. That is my normal. I am about to get back to my normal.