The Steffensens World

Hi All,

I had planned to write a longer update, but the connection here is slow and it took longer to upload the photos than I planned. We caught the World Cup bug while in England, and it’s now halftime of the Finals. I ended up letting the photos upload over the first half, and now I’m trying to squeeze in an update over halftime. To keep it simple, here’s the body of an e-mail that Leslie sent yesterday:

“We are currently in Morogoro studying at the Lutheran Swahili language school. Morogoro is a beautiful place. The school is nestled next to the Uluguru mountains. The area is famous for the rare birds that live in the upper heights of the mountains. Kirk and I have gone on photo safaris trying to catch photos of them. A little green nectar-sucker keeps teasing us. When we are sitting in the garden with our tutor, she lands on a flowering bush and sticks her long beak into the red flowers. When we show up with the camera in hand, she disappears! The studies are going well. We are zipping along through the lessons. Kirk and I have our own tutor, Emmanuel Mandike. He’s a student waiting to hear if he’s gotten into college. He’s very patient with us. Greg and Henry are keeping pace with us under their own tutor. Charlotte got a little overwhelmed, so she now has a tutor that is teaching her at a kid’s level. I am amazed to witness how well the children are picking up a new language. One advantage to these two weeks is the networking with other missionaries we are in school with. We have two Roman Catholic nuns, Moravians from Denmark, Lutherans from Germany and the US, Methodists and Church of Christ. Each is with a different mission organization, but the effort is ecumenical. We have learned almost as much from these new friends as we have of Swahili.

The first week in London was fun but Kirk unexpectedly stayed behind in the US because it took much longer to get the house ready for the tenants than we planned. I enjoyed London, but it did get stressful being the only one and having to organize Greg and Charlotte everyday. We were proud of our accomplishment of avoiding tourists by learning the back alleyways of the town. We saw the Queen the very first morning (she drove past us in a motorcade with Prince Phillip), Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream open-air in Regents Park, the Tower, Hampton court, took a Harry Potter walking tour, and ate lots of fish and chips. Our second week in England was like a dream. We were living in the “Secret Garden” at Greenway, Agatha Christie’s holiday home. My parents rented the stable loft apartment through the National Trust (the best way to atsy in the UK!) We visited ruins of Tintagel castle (Cornwall) and Corfe Castle in Dartmoor. We saw countless thatched roofed cottages and visited with my mom’s cousins and her nanny, Ada’s family. We drove past Stonehenge on the solstice and visited Salisbury Cathedral. It was a grand-day-out adventure each day. I got stout on the clotted cream teas and local bitters. Kirk and I went down to the pub to watch one of the World cup matches with the local England fans. Our last day, we went to Windsor Castle and Eton. (We could live there, too!) Charlotte saw the queen a second time! A castle warden pointed out the royal car arriving and she looked out the window to see the queen getting in and driving off back to the second day of the Royal Ascot racing. So Miss Charlotte wins with a score of two times- the first day and the very last of our trip. Bookends it quite nicely, that!

We arrived in Dar es Salaam two weeks ago. It was a stressful trip – we had some problems with British airways that took two hours to iron out as we tried to leave London. The plane took off late. The visas weren’t at the airport as promised, but they arrived within the hour. Kirk handled details the day we arrived: getting cell phones, getting refunds from British Airways (they made us purchase tickets to Nairobi in case our visas didn’t materialize), buying bus tickets to Dodoma for Monday (our car had not arrived from Japan yet – mid-July maybe!), and we stayed at the Cefa House. Ah, the romance of being a missionary in a far off land!

We arrived at our new home a week ago Monday. We were there a week setting up our house. Msalato Theological College had renovated a faculty house for us. It is very comfortable but has no hot water for the shower, which makes Kirk grumble. You have to heat the water on the stove, pour it into a shower bag (meant for campers), and add cold water to get the right temp. So, getting everyone bathed is a process when multiplied by five! The faculty had a party to welcome us and we have been visiting different houses for dinner. Everyone is very kind to us. They have bent over backwards to help us adjust. Charlotte immediately dissappeared and has only been seen for brief baths and asleep in her bed. Otherwise she is out playing with the campus children. The first morning I got up and noticed her bed was empty. I called for her and she wasn’t in the house. I spied her wandering around outside and thought it was way too early for her to bother the Okoth children (she’s keeping Sam hours - EARLY bird). I went out on the porch to call her and paused - I could see she was just following a hen and her chicks through the campus. There are chicks all around. She marched around with them for a good half hour. George Okoth is the one who was at VTS when I began there. He has Jeremiah (10), Deborah (8), and Rachel (4). Dickson Chillongani (the dean) has two boys, Imani (9) and John (2). They play soccer, sand-sifting, swing making and climbing trees. Macunde, a fellow teacher, has a granddaughter (7) is mostly mute (may be partially deaf) and Charlotte enjoys working with her to count aloud. Henry is spending most of his days divided between playing with the Okoth and Chillongani children and with Greg. When I pass by, H pretends to be cool and that he wasn’t sifting sand. Greg goes out when they play soccer and amazes the little ones with feats of strength. The two of them play board games with a Klutz set we brought. Greg likes to go out and hunt for beasties. We have amazing lizards, gekkos, spiders, bats (one was in the house), birds, termite mounds, etc.

I was able to participate in two full days of curriculum review. The diocese wanted Msalato to review and rewrite some of the standards of learning. It was very good for me to watch, listen and add my expertise as a recent graduate. The diploma course is like junior college, so we are really trying to set a good foundation the first year and then dig deeper the second. My books will come in handy when they arrive. Once I figure out which class I am teaching, I will be very busy writing the lectures. I’ll prepare them in such a way that they will be useful to pass down to the next theologian who takes it up. I was able to see how the faculty works and get a feel for personalities. I had a long chat with Mary, an ordained woman. I told her of my idea to collect the history of women’s ordination in TZ and she seemed enthusiastic. There are under a dozen at this time, so I should be able to track them down for interviews.

Kirk has been into town to shop in the markets. He’s getting very good. We had a lot of small items to buy for setting up house. His first purchase was a teapot and cups set for me (aww, such a good man!) One day, Kirk came back with 24 hangers. He said he thought he must have bought every hanger in Dodoma. When I went in yesterday, there were hangers on display everywhere in the hundred duka shops (big kiosks, really.) Word had gotten out that there was a white guy in town paying top dollar for hangers! Yesterday, I went in to town with a long list. I had a student, Daniel, helping me. I can report that there are no cotton balls in Dodoma. There is no word for them. I finally found cotton wool, in a roll, at the pharmacy. Luckily, when our shipment comes, I am fairly certain I packed a few bags of cotton squares in there! Also, there are two choices for shampoo: Pert or Head and Shoulders. Amazing, but that’s pretty much what we use back in VA. I also bought a healthy supply of shampoo at Sam’s Club with Mom at Easter. The shipment should get here by September. I can’t find a screen door spring either. And no lamps. Not a one. We may have to make do with our flashlights for bedtime reading. There is no store that just has stuff. It’s really hit-or-miss. As I had told Kirk when describing life in TZ, we are camping in a flea market. We remember Walmart fondly now…

We have two lovely help-sisters who are taking care of us, Seche (”seh chay”) and Alice. Laundry and cleaning are a whole ‘nother issue here. I tried to do dishes last night - big mistake. No insinkerator, no drying rack, leakey pipes and Kirk knocked the power out, so I was in the dark. Trash must be burned in the yard. Laundry is done in the bathtub with a rock and hung out to dry. So you can’t just “start a load” and do something else while it is cycling through. The floors need sweeping and mopping every day because of the sand. Cooking takes a long time, but our kitchen is really fairly modern. Today they are soaking our mosquito nets in permethrin. It is all hard work. We are very grateful to have them with us! Seche’s father is a retired pastor. She is probaby 18 and our neighbor calls her “the pixie” as she is so petite and cute. She is a sewing wiz and works on projects for the school. Alice is the wife of the school driver, Moses. She is very popular and is known to be just completely capable and a great cook. There is much more to tell, but this has gone very long. Today I will work on my official correspondences and the first newsletter. Kirk is working on getting the Vonage phone line up and running, but we may have to get the connection a bit faster to make it work. Therefore, it may be late July when that comes. He says it WILL work, eventually. Keep us in your prayers as we balance to joy of being here with the rude awakening of being here!”