Stone Town, Zanzibar

I have now been in Tanzania for 9 days. i came down to Arusha from Nairobi on a bus, stayed the night and took a 10 hour bus to Dar Es Salaam. The 10 hour bus turned into a 12 hour ride, 6 hours of which there were two screaming, kicking toddlers behind me. I then stayed two nights in Dar and took the ferry to Zanzibar, and have been in the main port town since.

I really haven't seen a huge difference between Kenya and Tanzania. Kenyans speak more english, and Tanzanians speak very proper swahili. They also dress a bit differetly, Tanzanians cover their whole body in traditional fabrics, where kenyans usually wear them only around their waist. But Zanzibar is so different. It is like being in Venice without the water. There are all these tiney little allyways, and tall buidings. The archtecture is beautiful. Kind of a mix of Indian, Ariabian and African. This was the main slave and spice capital for the East, so there were lots of different people groups trying to rule it, hence the indian and arabian influences. The people who are here now are 99% muslim, and 1% christian, buddist, and hindu.

Right now we are about 1 week into Ramadan. Ramadan is a month of fasting for muslims. they fast from sun up to sun down. The women are also extra careful to cover themselves when outside. I don't know how they can stand the heat. they wear a dress, then a boubou (black cloak) that covers their arms and legs. Then on top of that a head scarf. The first day i was here i sweated through my clothes, and i was wearing a skirt and tank top. They also expect the forign women to cover their legs down to the knee and their shoulders. I find this a bit strange becuase all of the shops sell these tiney little beach dresses, but i guess they don't expect you to wear them? Two days ago i was wearing a dress that came down to my knees, but it was a bit windy outside, and it flipped up in front of a bunch of people. this is the thrid time this has happened to me in the last six months. i was mortified. i have been trying to be so respectful, always covering my shoulders when i go outside, and this happens in front of a bunch of people. at least i was wearing underwear.

About four days ago i went on a spice tour. It was so interesting to see how the spices in all my little jars at home, are grown. They had peppercorns, cardamon, cinnamon (acutaly is the bark of the tree), turmeric, vanilla (oh my gosh it smelled like heaven!) and on and on. it was so interesting.

After my time here though, i am beginning to wonder where all the money is going. They have so much money pouring into this little island from just tourism alone, but yet there are still many living below the poverty line. I guess it is the same old story of corruption and greed.

I am not exactly sure where i will go next. Tomorrow i am heading north on the island for a couple of days, and then back to the mainland. from there maybe down south? i really want to go to Malawi and Zambia, i hope it works out!

love to you all!
Suzanne 

Happy Birthday Mama!

This is about nine days early, but i don't know where i will be in nine days. Somewhere deep in Tanzania, but i wanted to make sure that you got your Birthday present! I love you so much and am so thankful for all that you have done for me. I would not be me without you. You are always there to support me in whatever crazy things i chose to do. Your constant support and love have shown me what is truly important in this world. I love you so much, and hope you have a wonderful Birthday! 

Lessons in Pain

What if all your circumstances-good, bar, or ugly- can be a source of strength to you? What if God is using a bad situation to strengthen your belief? Maybe he wants to teach you a bit of patience and perseverance? Just stay close to him and don’t panic.

Graham Cooke

Part of growing up is pain. Physical, mental, emotional these are all places that people feel pain. In my somewhat short life I have definitely dealt with physical, and some mental and emotional pain. But my emotional pain has always been about me. Not to go too much into detail, but I didn't have the best time growing up. That was just my life. I didn’t even know that I was depressed until I went to college and became happy. I wish someone had pointed out how depressed I was when I was younger. In our society so much rides on your academic achievements. I have some learning disabilities that are just severe enough to make school suck, but not so severe that I was put in the special needs class room and labeled as different. Those kids that went for “resource room” as we called it in elementary school, were weird. Kids are so mean at that age. They don’t know what makes a person stand out or can understand what separates some kids from others, but they pick up on those things. I definitely picked up on those cues, and wanted nothing to do with the resource room. I don’t know if in the long run being in the resource room would have made my life any easier, but it would have at least given me more of a sense of something being different about me, and there fore I might have accepted my differences a lot sooner.

Also in my life I have had a bit of a battle with anxiety, which really sucks, and is something that I think you just have to work out with your God. In my situation it was all about control. I would get into situation where I felt unsafe, and didn’t have a comfort place to go, and I would become so scared and anxious. The first time I came to Kenya, I was having anxiety attacks everyday. A system, which at first glance, seems like utter chaos, can be pretty shocking to a person coming from a neat orderly society. I tried a number of things, counseling, pills, but in the end I came to the realization that God is in control and he is the only one that can do anything about it. This has brought me a lot of peace, I still have trouble with anxiety from time to time, but I just go to God and tell me that he is the only one in control, which really just reminds me of this fact, because God is God and already knows this about himself.

But to get back to the point, after much too much information about myself, I think that pain, and what you chose to do with that pain, evolves as you get older. Something that I have come to understand is that God is not in our lives to make things better or easier. I don’t know why I didn’t realize this a long time ago; he never took away my dyslexia, back pain, or anxiety. But now that I am a bit more grown up and dealing with things outside of myself, I am beginning to realize that life is hard, and God doesn’t just take these things away. It is us who are supposed to lean on God and learn from what we are going through. Which I have to admit, sucks. Before it has always been about myself, and me trying to find an escape for what I am going through, but I am beginning to understand that sometimes people must go through the rough times in order to become what God wants us to be. 


Like James says in chapter 1:2-4 "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you maybe mature and complete, not lacking anything." I think that this is one of those verses that you can only understand and appreciate in hindsight. What? who wants to be told to think of hard times as pure joy? that sounds like a horrible idea. But once you have been through the kind of tough times that do bring you closer to God, you can understand what James is trying to tell us here. Only when you face hard times do you feel like drawing closer to God and asking for his help. Who looks to a higher power when you have everything you need? Which i think is exactly why Christianity is so much stronger in developing countries then any where in the west. but that is another story for another time. 


Hope everyone is well, and love to you all!
suz

Why i love it here.

In the past two years i have had:

1.  malaria twice
2. gotten worms from eating strange things
3. gotten flea bites from my puppy who occasionally sleeps in my bed
4. too many cuts and scrapes to count
5. been bitten by two dogs
6. seen my first dead body on the road
7. felt unbelievably awkward 
8. learned to really cook
9. learned to drive stick shift on the other side of the road
10. and many other wonderful, scary, and awkward things

But despite, or maybe because of all these things, i love it here. The circle of life is so much more closely knit. Everyone knows where their food comes from, what it takes to grow corn or how to kill a chicken. Everyone is involved in everyone else's life. So when it is time to have a baby, you know how to take care of it. and when someone dies it isn't a new experience. Most things here are a community experience. When something bad happens everyone comes together to offer support, and when something good happens everyone comes together to celebrate. There are so many examples of this it is hard to narrow down. i once attended a university graduation with 30 graduates. For each of those graduates, about 20-50 people turned up to celebrate with them. Weddings are huge affairs because the entire community is invited. there are often 500+ people.

And on the flip side when disaster strikes people are there to help. A friend once told me a story of a girl he watched get hit by a car in Nairobi. Everyone that saw, rushed to help. Some went to her, to help get her to the hospital, and some chased down the truck to make them pay for what they did. Sometimes if the driver of the vehicle drives off and the mob catches up with him, they will really beat him up. If this happened in the states, i know for a fact that very few people would help out. People just stand by and watch when bad things happen, thinking "oh the next person will help." That is never a thought here.

People often die here. This is not a good thing for the person who dies, or for the loved ones who lose that person, but it has really opened my eyes to how precious life is. When a child can get run over while walking home from school, or a person gets misdiagnosed and ends up dying from a simple disease, it makes life so much more fragile, and precious. Coming from the states i have to say that i have never lost someone close to me. Yes, i have lost my grandparents, and a few older family friends, but some how that isn't the same. It isn't less sad to lose an older person, but you don' t feel the loss of what they didn't get to experience in their lives. When children die you not only weep for them, but also for all that they missed out on.

To me, life here seems so much simpler. What matters in life, love, loss, God, community, family, relationships, seem so much more at the for front of peoples minds. or at least at the for front of my mind. I don't mean to say that this community is any better then any other, they all have their gives and takes. I guess in the end it is more about me and how i am experiencing this, and what i am learning about myself, God, and life. Being out of ones own culture can open a person's eyes to what is lacking or great about their own culture.

love to you all
suz

Kushangaza Zaidi Zaidi (lots more amazing stuff!)

Since i began thinking of funny things to share, i can't stop. so here are a few more!

1. I was sitting in church last week, and was thinking, "wow, they have pretty bars on these windows." Every building has bars on the windows for protection. They have all these pretty designs, or the bars are in the windows themselves (small squares of glass with heavy metal frames around them). But they aren't bars, like in prison, so after a while you don't really notice them. 
2. Everywhere has security guards, especially banks. The police are not reliable enough to come if there is anything going on, so most big businesses hire their own security. It is a bit alarming because places with actual stuff to steal, are armed with machine guns, and they carry them around so nonchalantly. But because of the war with Somalia, there have been a few terrorists attacks in Kenya, so there are even more security guards. At our local supermarket there are security guards with metal detector wands, but they have no idea how to use them. They always swipe my purse, and the wand beeps, but they never do anything about it. Granted i am a white women, so i don't really fit the extremist Muslim stereotype. 
3. When saying the alphabet, they say "zed" instead a "zee."
4. This is one of my favorite things about Kenya, everyone knows where food comes from. Even people that live in the city, know how corn is grown and how to butcher a chicken. As my dad likes to say, (speaking of people from the states, who live in big cities), "they think that milk comes from God through Safeway." 
5. Vegetarians are only for religious purposes. Kenya has many Indians that immigrated here to help build the railroad, and the Hindus do not eat meat. Muslims are only allowed to eat meat that has been prayed over, so if they are unsure, they will also abstain from meat. 
6. If it isn't visible, you aren't sick. Preventative medicine is becoming more common with the growth of the medical field, but it is definitely not as common as it is in the states. I try and take vitamins everyday, or else i feel tired. I also take some other medication for some long term conditions i have. This is very strange. 
7. Kenya destroys shoes. There are so many rocks, and i walk here much more then i do in the states, which completely destroys my shoes. I brought a pair of brand new birkenstocks with me, and they already are looking a bit sad.
8. Eyebrow raising. This is done to say "hi" especially to little kids.

That is all for now. Hope everyone is well! miss you all!

xox suz