Tag: Life in Tanzania Page 1 of 26

What It Was Like To Go Back

On July 10, 2024

I had forgotten many things in four years: the feel of my bare feet on smooth tile floors. The sounds of critters in the ceiling above my head when trying to sleep. A fancy wooden chair leaking sawdust from termites.

We arrived at the Dar es Salaam airport at 3 a.m., an hour later than scheduled, which meant that four flights arrived at the same time, overwhelming the baggage workers. It took two hours to get our luggage, and we blearily exited the airport at 5. There were 11 of us total: six Medinas and five Snyders, them with a decade of living in Tanzania, us with 16 years. You probably think we should have known what we were doing.

Almost instantly, we all realized that we had also forgotten how hard it is to live in Dar es Salaam – especially arriving at the airport all on our own, with no car, no home, no SIM card. We felt like brand-new foreigners all over again.

Our AirBnb host had offered to send a car to the airport to meet us, but the driver missed the memo that his job was to lead the two vans that followed him with our luggage and the rest of us. Most houses do not have addresses, and the pin on AirBnb was incorrect, which meant that we spent a good portion of our first morning directing our van drivers in circles as we tried to find the house—with no address and no local cell service.

When we finally arrived at the AirBnb we discovered there were no towels and no top sheets and no drinkable water and a pre-paid electricity allotment of only eight units a day, which was barely enough to keep the lights on. So we dug into our jetlagged brains and remembered again how to buy more electricity and how to find bottled water and breakfast for our cranky children and cranky selves.

After the first few days, we planned to move to a bigger AirBnb because the Dunkers were flying in from Kenya to join us. But the day before, I discovered this second house did not exist.

Sometimes, all you can do is laugh. We resurrected this dormant skill.

Still, I asked myself, How did I love this place? Everything is hard. Everything is frustrating.

But then I remembered.

Soon after we discovered that we had nowhere to go, well, we suddenly had a place to go. Carley, who has been our friend since 2005, heard about our plight and invited us all to stay at the Young Life ministry center. We found ourselves staying at a place that was way better than any AirBnb. Our kids hung out with her amazing quadruplets while Gil and the Dunkers held the Reach Tanzania Bible School reunion and Ben and Lauren and I made plans for our team, who would be arriving soon.

I was reminded of how we navigated the hardness and frustrations of living in Dar for so many years: we had an extraordinary community. Oh, right. This is why nobody new was ever allowed to arrive without a host. Shame on me for assuming we could handle going back to Tanzania on our own without leaning on our community. In four years, I have become so American. I don’t want to inconvenience anyone. We can handle this independently. No, we couldn’t.

I Want to Need You

By Amy Medina

On September 21, 2023

In How Americans Think

I bonded with Mark and Jan when I called them ten days after arriving in Tanzania because I had a panic attack. I became friends with Prakash and Harsha when they invited Gil and me to sleep at their house that night.

Carol showed me how to grocery shop in a new country. I got to know Alyssa during her long hours combing lice out of my hair. Everest became an extension of our family during the years he fixed our plumbing, electricity, and immigration problems. We called Dan and Janet when Gil broke out in a sudden, high fever. Janelle and I became friends while being stranded by the old school car multiple times. Lucy and I shared our life stories while she patiently stretched my Swahili skills.

When thrust into a country where I had no extended family, didn’t speak the language, and had to learn new ways of surviving, I had to throw myself at the mercy of others. Yes, it was humiliating to be so dependent, but I didn’t have a choice. And when I got my feet under me and other new people arrived, they turned to me for a lifeline – and it was fulfilling and gratifying to help. Bonds formed quickly, deeply, permanently.

These weren’t just friendships based on casual, common interests. They were relationships built on necessity and desperation, forming an intricate web of the sorrows and joys of daily life.

When we relocated to a brand new city in California three years ago, I found myself frustrated that it took so long to make friends and feel like I was part of a community. In Tanzania, it had happened almost instantaneously. What was different? It slowly dawned on me: In America, I didn’t need to depend on anyone.

My Authentic Self Does Not Like Ticks

By Amy Medina

On July 14, 2021

In How Americans Think, Life in Tanzania

Last week I told my cousin about our year in Tanzania infamously called the War of the Ticks. It was so nightmarish that every day I pulled 25 of them off my tiny dog and I stopped even trying with our big dog and they had infested my kitchen and we rarely let the dogs in the house anymore but the ticks kept crawling in under the door anyway.

We paid the children money for the number of ticks they killed and so there were always cups of water sitting around with dead ticks drowned in them by my children. Drowning did not always work though, because ticks would go through the washing machine cycle and come out alive. I became an expert at beheading them with a fingernail. Sometimes the engorged ones would fall off the dogs and burst open which meant the live ticks would crawl through the dog blood and leave their tiny tracks on the floor.

When I found ticks in my daughter’s bed, we contemplated putting the dogs down. We had tried every tick prevention we could find, and until a friend of a friend sent us magical tick pills which killed them all in 24 hours, that year felt like some sort of creepy tick hell.

Some Things Just Make You Laugh With Delight

By Amy Medina

On October 23, 2019

In Other

On Gil’s bucket list for our last year in Tanzania was to see baby sea turtles hatch, one more time. We had seen this remarkable event several years ago, but our kids were too little to remember it. Gil had several contacts that were letting him know when a hatching would take place, but this particular beach is over two hours away, and he could never get us over there in time.

As we were driving to the beach for our vacation last week, Gil got a text: There would be a hatching the very next day, and it was only about a mile away from where we would be staying. How very, very kind of our gracious God!

Watching baby sea turtles hatch is one of life’s most extraordinary experiences. The conservationist who opened the nest told us that we must not touch the turtles or carry them to the ocean. It’s extremely important that they make the journey themselves, because as these tiny creatures frantically bolt their way towards the sea, their pea-sized brains are actually taking a GPS pin during their frenzied 50 meter journey. And someday, thirty years from now and after swimming thousands of miles, the females lucky enough to survive will return to the exact same beach to lay their own eggs.

Some things are just so astonishing, all you can do is stand in awe, marvel in wonder, laugh with delight.

Dear Tanzanian Friends, I’m Sorry for Being a Jerk Sometimes

By Amy Medina

On September 15, 2019

In Other

Dear Tanzanian friends,

You know that feature on Facebook that says, “You have memories to look back on today?” I click on that notification hesitatingly, because more often than not, I wince at what I see. Oh my goodness–I used to write the most ridiculous things on Facebook. I guess everybody did, but many of my old posts reveal the ethnocentric, immature attitudes I had in my early years in Tanzania.

Complaining about electricity. Complaining about bugs. Complaining about dust. (Meanwhile, hoping that my friends back at home would realize what I saint I was for putting up with these “hardships.”) Having a “white savior” mentality. Poking fun at the “amusing” things I saw in your country, many times arrogantly implying that, given the circumstances, I could do things so much better. Pointing out a lot that was wrong, and not enough that was right.

Ugh. How did you put up with me? Or, now that I know better, I should ask, How do you put up with me? Since I probably haven’t changed as much as I think I have.

I was chatting with a Tanzanian co-worker (and friend) the other day, and we got onto the topic of missionaries and money. Even though this friend grew up around missionaries, she was fascinated to hear about how missionaries receive financial support from churches in their home countries. “I think a lot of the Tanzanians at Haven of Peace Academy have just assumed that you were getting paid more than we are,” she told me. My jaw dropped to the ground, because HOPAC doesn’t pay missionary teachers at all–we get a housing stipend, but not a salary. I immediately felt sick to my stomach. How many of our Tanzanian friends, for how many years, have assumed that we are getting rich off of their country?

Because here, though we live on support from back home, we are rich. Western missionaries in African countries live in this weird place where in our home countries, we are considered poor (like, churches invite us to use their food pantries which are for poor people), but when we are in Africa, we are incredibly privileged. Just the fact that we own a car and a couple of laptops and have the money available to fly back and forth between countries puts us in the top one percent wealthiest people in the world.

We wrestle with this tension all the time. But the truth is, as much as western missionaries come to Tanzania with this idea that we are “sacrificing” to be here, we really are vastly richer (both in money and opportunity) than almost all of the people who live here. So I can’t imagine how annoying and condescending it must feel to you when we gripe about insignificant things that you have contentedly lived with your entire life.

We must seem pretty wimpy.

But that’s not all. We came to your country with our own ideas about what you needed, not bothering (for a while, at least), to even ask you what you did need. We assumed that you needed us, without considering that we actually needed you even more. We had strategy meetings where we didn’t include you; we wasted time and resources because we didn’t ask for your help. While we were still figuring that out, you loved us anyway.

One Sunday at our African church, the pastor preached a message on the importance of missions. We were technically the only “missionaries” in the room, though I understood the message as a call to the whole congregation to be involved in mission work. Nevertheless, after the service, an African woman who I didn’t know came up to me with an envelope of money. “God bless you for your service,” she told me. I was speechless. It remains one of the most humbling moments of my life.

Then there’s the problem that missionaries can be cliquish. Missionaries tend to gravitate towards each other, to friendships that are familiar and easy. A Tanzanian once told me, “The missionary community is hard to break into.” I don’t blame you for being hurt or offended by that. It shouldn’t be that way. And yet, you chose to be my friend anyway.

I’m sure there are some of you reading this who would want to remind me of the good things missionaries have done in your country. You tend to be incredibly gracious. I’m not writing today to make a case for burning down missions. I’m not saying that my time here–or that of my fellow missionaries–is a waste. But there does tend to be an aura of sainthood that surrounds missionaries–both here and in our home countries, and I’ve had enough of that.

We are weak. Sometimes we are idiots. Sometimes we are downright arrogant and ethnocentric. Coming to that realization is really good for us, and should make us more effective.

We love your country, and we love you. Thanks for loving us, being patient with us while we learn, and gently helping us to see things from your perspective. We are so thankful for God’s grace and your grace as we live out the privilege of being missionaries in your country.

Sincerely,

Amy

P.S. I write for A Life Overseas, which reaches thousands of missionaries and expat workers all around the globe. I would love to write a piece that contains insight and constructive criticism from locals in communities that have received missionaries. If that’s you, would you consider writing to me at everyoneneedsalittlegrace@gmail.com with answers to these questions? I won’t use any names, so feel free to be completely honest.

In what ways have foreign missionaries been the most helpful and harmful to your community?

What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve seen missionaries make, and how could they avoid those mistakes?

Or, if you are a writer and want to submit your own post to A Life Overseas, ask me how to do that too!