Amy Medina | Amy Medina

I Really Did Grow Up to Be a Princess

On November 1, 2015

When I was a little girl, I often imagined I was a princess. I loved the idea of being able to have anything I wanted. I had only one Cabbage Patch doll, while a girl in my class had sixteen. In my imaginary palace, I had a whole room full of them.

What I didn’t realize is that I already was nobility, and I still am.

After all, I am one of thetop 1% richest people in the world, even on a missionary’s salary. If you make over $30,000 a year, you are too. If that’s not a princess, I don’t know what is.

Growing up, I never felt wealthy in America. My parents lived on the “undesirable” side of town. My family never had a new car. My parents wouldn’t buy me a senior class ring. A girl in my class received $150 a month for her allowance. I had to work for the $20 a month that I received.

It didn’t change as an adult. When I was teaching kindergarten and Gil was in seminary, it seemed everyone had more than me. I drove a dumpy little Hyundai. Gil and I have never owned a house, and our apartment was full of used furniture. Everyone else had nicer clothes, fancy kitchens with marble counter tops, weekly pedicures, and gym memberships. I felt…poor. And I felt kind of sorry for myself.

Then I moved to Tanzania. We moved into a modest-sized house, average for California…but most Tanzanians live in one room. We have electricity and indoor plumbing, which puts us in the top 10% of residents. We own one 1999 Toyota mini-van, but the vast majority of Tanzanians are lucky to have even a bike. I have a college education, when only 5% of Tanzanians finish high school.

Suddenly, I was a princess.

Just yesterday, I was talking to a Tanzanian friend about her financial struggles. She has a sixth grade education. She receives $100 a month from her job, plus whatever else she can make selling charcoal. She supports three young children and a good-for-nothing husband who continually cheats on her. Twenty percent of her income goes to childcare, so that she can work. Ten percent goes to her daughter’s (supposedly free) public school education. At least sixty percent of her salary goes towards food. She lives in two rooms, cooks outside, and walks a few blocks to bring home water. Her life, in Tanzania, is average. She’s not even considered the poorest of the poor.

Living here has done wonders for my level of contentment. Sure, there are still people around me who are much richer than I am. Not everyone in Tanzania is poor! But when the vast majority is scratching by on so much less, suddenly my 1999 mini-van looks like a queen’s carriage. The air conditioner in my bedroom puts me in a palace. The never-ending supply of food in my refrigerator, the trips to the beach, the occasional dinner at a restaurant–all put me in the category of The Privileged.

In America, it was much harder to see myself this way. I was constantly bombarded by advertisements, shopping malls, and friends’ houses, all telling me that I wanted more, deserved more, needed more. In a country where even food stamp recipients get $400 a month, it’s easy to feel poor.

I’ve noticed that whenever I feel discontent with what I have, it’s because I am comparing up. He has a nicer house than me. She had a better vacation than I will ever have. Why does she have that, and I don’t? American commercialism, in general, encourages this.

But if the statistics are true, and Americans hold half of the world’s wealth, and anyone who makes $30,000 a year is in the top 1%…..well, then shouldn’t we be comparing down? It may seem that everyone around us has more than us, when in reality, in the grand scope of the world, we are the ones who have more….than pretty much everyone else.

I’m not about feeling guilty for being rich. And I’ve written many timesbefore on what I think us rich people should do with all our wealth. Today, I’m just thinking about contentment. About entering this holiday season with the perspective of someone who is one of the richest people in the world. Instead of comparing up, comparing down. Americans spend more on Halloween than the entire world spends on malaria in a year. Americans spend $465 billion on Christmas every year, and only $6.3 billion to fight AIDS overseas.

Someday, just like the servant who received 10 talents, I’ll have to stand before God and give account of how I spent my money. I think He’ll expect me to own up to being rich. At the very least, I can start with being content with what He has given me. After all, there’s not much more that’s disturbing than an ungrateful, dissatisfied princess.

Tanzania Shines

By Amy Medina

On October 30, 2015

In Other

It’s been a strange week.

We haven’t left our house except to take the kids the quarter mile to and from school. We anxiously combed the internet for information, hearing reports of tear gas, fires, and unhappy citizens around the country. Yet, our neighborhood was more silent than usual. Traffic was light; shops were closed.

Yesterday, we kept the kids home from school. We heard the presidential results would be released sometime yesterday, and our area is a bit of a hot spot for the opposition. HOPAC closed early anyway, once it was confirmed that the results really were coming.

So, we spent another day at home. Gil and the kids prepared games for Josiah’s birthday on Saturday. Twice, military jets flew over, low to the ground. Everyone looked up in awe, except for Johnny, who ran into the house in fear. The government’s point was clear: No Messing Around.

It was one of the few times when I wished we had television. I kept refreshing the news page, over and over, about 67 times. But in the end, we didn’t need the newspaper to tell us the results. At 4:00 in the afternoon, we heard the cheering all around us, from miles around. Magufuli had been declared the winner. Cars honked, people celebrated, for at least the next hour. The air was electric with excitement.

Not everyone is happy, of course, especially the 40% who voted for the opposition, and I’m still not sure how I would have voted if I had been given the chance. But with just a few exceptions, it looks like Tanzania successfully pulled off a peaceful election, and that is remarkable. Was it fair? Was it lawful? Did the party leaders behave themselves? It’s hard to know for sure. The people, however, are to be commended for their dignified conduct.

Tanzania has a lot of problems. It continues to be one of the poorest countries in the world, and it has its fair share of corruption and infrastructure problems. But today, I am proud to be a guest in this country.

Tanzania has been one of the only countries in Africa to avoid war or major unrest since it’s independence. It’s been one of the only countries in Africa where it is assumed that the president will step down after his term is over. It’s been one of the only countries in Africa to hold peaceful elections, even when the race was tight.

“By the end of the 1980’s, not a single African head of state in three decades had allowed himself to be voted out of office. Of some 150 heads of state who had trodden the African stage, only six had voluntarily relinquished power. They included…Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere [the first president].”

(Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa) Nyerere set the foundation for peace, and Tanzanians have steadfastly persisted in that legacy.

Well done, Tanzania. You have much to be proud of. And congratulations (and Happy Birthday, ironically!) to Mr. John Magufuli, 5th president of the United Republic of Tanzania.

We All Wait.

By Amy Medina

On October 27, 2015

In Other

Saturday was filled with an air of anxious anticipation.

Motorcycles raced down the road in packs, with red and blue Chadema flags waving behind them. Young men crowded into the backs of pick-up trucks, shouting and cheering. Church parking lots were filled, as many held services on Saturday instead of Sunday. The grocery store was packed. The ATM machines were out of money. There was a line at the gas station, which hardly ever happens here.

Grace asked, “Mommy, one boy in my class says that his dad is hiding his car. Why would he do that?” People were excited, but people were nervous.

Sunday was election day. All was eerily quiet, as no one was working and no one was in church. Voters waited in long lines, sometimes for a number of hours, but proudly leaving with a purple pinkie finger.

Teachers sent out emails with, “If your child has to stay home this week, here’s some work for them to do.” Monday morning, we cautiously re-entered the world and took our kids to school. Many who live farther away stayed home.

So far, there is peace. But the presidential results have not yet been announced.

Collectively, the country holds its breath.

(picture from Shelby Rhee)

Wailing

By Amy Medina

On October 21, 2015

In Life in Tanzania, Poverty

Last week, the wailing crept through our open windows. I instantly recognized the sound: Someone nearby had died.

The funeral proceedings, which last for a few days, were set up right outside the wall around our yard. A hundred people sat on mats and plastic chairs. Sometimes they sang. Sometimes they wailed. Sometimes they just chatted quietly.

Eventually, I got the story. A young woman had died. She was only 32 years old, was married, and had four children. She lived a bit down the street from our house, but her father and sister live next door to us. We didn’t know her, but her children had played in our yard with our kids.

She died suddenly, of a strange illness that came on very quickly. They described it to me as “pressure” in her chest. Her heart? I asked. Yes, they said. I’m not sure what to make of that. Maybe a heart attack? But at age 32? She had been healthy, they said. They just shook their heads sadly and shrugged their shoulders.

It’s a story I’ve heard over and over again. The lunch cook at HOPAC died suddenly this past July. She had only been married two weeks. A student from our training program lost two baby boys when each was only 9 months old. A friend lost twin babies. Another friend lost two sisters within two years. And on. And on. All from strange, unexplained illnesses.

In Swahili, when someone gets better from an illness, you use the expression Amepona. Since it was always used with illness, I assumed it meant He has recovered. For example, if your friend was down with a bad cold and misses a couple of days of work, when he comes back, you might ask him how he is doing. Nimepona, he will respond. I am better.

One day, Lucy (my language tutor) and I were working on the story of Noah’s Ark. When we got to the part about Noah and his family living through the flood, Lucy said to me, Walipona.

Walipona! I repeated in surprise. But Noah and his family were not sick! So I got out my dictionary and looked up kupona.

The literal translation is not to recover. The literal translation is to survive.

In English when someone is sick, we would only say He survived if we were talking about a victim of cancer or a heart attack. But when referring to recovery from a common cold, a headache, or the stomach flu, we say, He recovered or He got better.

So what I discovered is that in Swahili, when you recover from any illness, the response is literally translated as I survived.

After living here all these years, after hearing of person after person dropping dead for unknown reasons, listening to the stories of almost every mother losing a child, I am beginning to understand.

Of course, I don’t really understand, because I have access to the best health care in Tanzania, and if that doesn’t suffice, I have access to better health care anywhere in the world. I really know nothing of the fear and apprehension of imminent illness and death.

The United States has 2.3 doctors for every 1000 people.

Tanzania has .02 doctors for every 1000 people, one of the lowest ratios in the world.

Once again, I am reminded of how privileged I really am. Once again, I ask what else God expects of me for blessing me so much.

Today, thank God if you live in a country where recovery is expected and survival is the norm. And pray for four young children–Vale, Tony, Aaron, and Jackie, who have just lost their mother and may never know why.

When the Adoption Horror Story Doesn’t Happen

By Amy Medina

On October 17, 2015

In Adoption

I’m sure you’ve all heard adoption horror stories. You know a cousin’s friend’s sister who brought home a child who made everyone’s lives a living hell.

The stories can be true, and they scare a lot of people away from adoption.

But today, I want to counter those stories with one that is just the opposite. This is my boy Johnny, who came home just two months ago, and two months shy of his fourth birthday.

Johnny sleeps in his own bed, in the room that he shares with his brother. He sleeps 11 hours every night and doesn’t wake up until morning.

Johnny has an incredible attention span. He can sit on the floor, by himself, with a 50 piece puzzle, and put it together and take it apart 5 times before he needs something else to do. He can sit quietly in church or during his siblings’ school productions.

Johnny is hysterically funny. He dances. He wiggles his hips. He loves being chased. He loves being tickled. He is Mr. Enthusiastic. When I tell him dinner is ready, you would think he had won the lottery. When he sees a car come into the driveway, he shouts, “Friends! Friends are here!” as if it was the president himself. When he burps, hiccups, or passes gas, he giggles and says, “I’m grumpy!” which has now officially become a part of our family’s vocabulary. When I am gone for 5 hours or 5 minutes, he runs to me and declares, “I missed you!”

Our older kids adore him. He plays well with them, but he also plays well by himself. He eats everything on his plate. He rarely whines. He rarely gets angry. Sure, he is not perfect. When the kid wants to be stubborn, he can be stubborn. But that’s happening less and less as he gets to know us and we get to know him.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know I don’t sugarcoat things. I try to tell it as it is, while still trying to keep my kids’ privacy. So let me assure you that I’m not exaggerating. Johnny fit into our family like one of those puzzle pieces he loves to put together. It’s only been two months, but it’s like he’s always been here.

When the adoption horror story doesn't happen

Sure, the first few weeks were tough. But I have been blown away by how quickly he has settled in, especially considering his history. He has adapted much faster, actually, than some of our other children who came home much younger than he did.

Older child adoption can be tricky, and if you are considering it, you’ve got to keep your eyes wide open and prepare yourself for the worst. But it also could be the best thing that’s ever happened to your family. Because that’s how Johnny feels to all of us.

We celebrated Johnny’s fourth birthday yesterday. It’s pretty special to celebrate with a kid who has never had a birthday party of his own, and never opened a present he could keep.

Personally, I think Johnny’s pretty happy being a son. And we’re pretty happy to make him one.