Tag: Life in Tanzania Page 7 of 26

This Is What Hope Looks Like

On December 14, 2015

What do you think would happen, if on the next 4th of July, the U.S. president cancelled all official Independence Day celebrations and instead told everyone to pick up a trash bag and start cleaning their cities?

That’s exactly what happened last week. When we went out our gate on Independence Day, the smoke from a thousand trash fires filled the air. (Okay, so not exactly great for the lungs, but great for the city!)

Just six weeks into his presidency, Magufuli got out on the streets and picked up trash.

photo source here

But that’s not all.

Dr. John Pombe Magufuli was declared Tanzania’s fifth president on October 30th. Just a few days later, he made a surprise visit to the National Hospital in Dar es Salaam. Finding patients lying in the hallways, he sacked the hospital chief and broke up the board of governors, on the spot.

He then proceeded to cut the $100,000 budget set aside for his inauguration day down to $7000, and sent the remainder of the money to the hospital. Within a few days, scores of new beds had been purchased, and the broken MRI machine had been repaired.

And with that, Magufuli began his run as one of the most hard-working, honest, and forthright presidents this continent has ever seen.

He immediately, boldly took on the business tycoons who have bribed their way out of millions of dollars of import taxes.

When traveling to the capital for parliament meetings, he refused to fly and drove instead.

No longer are parliament ministers allowed expensive foreign trips abroad. Instead, they are encouraged to visit rural areas of Tanzania. No longer are government meetings allowed to be held in expensive hotels.

Traffic has gotten worse, because government officials are actually showing up for work. When he cancelled the Independence Day celebrations for a clean-up day instead, he re-routed the party money into road construction.

Hope is surging throughout his country. Everywhere, everyone is talking about it. For a continent that has been plagued by corruption, civil war, and horrendous tyrants in leadership, Magufuli’s Tanzania is soaring.

It’s a great time to live in Tanzania! Even America’s president could learn a few lessons. Pray with us that this is only the beginning of real, lasting change.

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)

Sometimes Africa Scares Me

By Amy Medina

On October 11, 2015

In Other

Africa and me, we have trust issues. I love this continent, but sometimes it scares me.

When I was 13, rebels took over the government of Liberiaand started a civil war. My family was on home assignment at the time, but all the other missionaries were evacuated. Our house was looted, the mission station was bombed, and I never got to say good-bye.

We relocated to Ethiopia, and I went to boarding school in Kenya. I was fourteen. The students were told to keep a bag packed of essentials; something that we could carry for at least a mile in case of an evacuation. I don’t even remember why we were told this; I think it had something to do with the Gulf War.

While I was in Kenya, a revolution started in Ethiopia. My mom and my brother were evacuated. My dad stayed behind, and spent his nights sleeping with some other men in a windowless hallway. One day in our apartment, he watched a stray bullet come through the roof.

Now we’ve been 11 years in Tanzania. It’s one of the only countries in Africa which has been peaceful since it’s independence–over 50 years now. For about 20 years, it had a socialist government, but in the mid-80’s, it became a democracy. However, since then, it’s been primarily a one-party government. During past elections, there’s only ever been one viable candidate for president. Makes the voting process pretty simple.

Until this year. For the first time in Tanzania’s history, two candidates are running for president. (Interestingly, one of them happens to be the grandfather of one of Grace’s best friends.) This is the third election cycle we’ve witnessed, and it’s strange to see two faces plastered on billboards instead of one.

Because of this, people are nervous. Will this election mirror other African countries? Will there be rioting and violence? Just a few years ago, 1000 people were killed in election violence in Kenya, our neighbor to the north.

A few weeks ago, our house worker asked me, “Will you stay in Tanzania in October?”

“Of course,” I answered. But her question made me anxious.

All universities are closed until November. We cancelled our training classes for this month. We’ve been carefully reading news updates and memos from outside agencies. One of them suggested, “Pack a bag of essentials.” It feels all too familiar.

The elections are two weeks from today. But what can we do? We stock our pantries; we fill up our gas tanks. And we pray: for peace, and for a government with integrity. We pray for safety but remember that’s not always the most important thing. Instead, that the gospel might go forth, no matter what.

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.

Thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven.

Road Tripping, Tanzania Style

By Amy Medina

On July 17, 2015

In Other

Road tripping in Tanzania is nothing like road tripping in America.

First of all, the roads are indeed paved, but all of them are only two lanes with no center divider. Which means that you share the space on the road with enormous buses and semi-trucks, at 70 miles at hour, many of them in chicken contests, passing into oncoming traffic. Heart attacks abound about every five minutes. There ain’t no cruise control out here.

Police stand on the side of the road with speed guns, which adds to the heart attacks since the legal speed limit is constantly changing. It often feels as if the color of your skin, not your speed, determines how often you are pulled over.

Bathrooms are as scarce as the ever-elusive leopard, yet when you do find one, you wish you had just used the bush along the side of the road. Fast food consists of mushy fries and tough meat…we ate a lot of peanut butter.

Yet when you see these pictures, I’m guessing you’ve never had these sort of sights on any of your American road trips. Makes it all worth it.

We have an intern, McKenna, visiting this summer, and we wanted to show her (and our kids) more of this breathtakingly beautiful country. We were not disappointed. It was a great week.

“Tree of Baboons”

Dinner

See the little bumps on the left? Baby. Oh yes.

Sure, let’s put a viciously aggressive King Cobra in a cage that has cardboard around the glass and holes in the wood. Then let’s provoke it so that it shows its hood to the visitors. Sounds like a great idea.

Occasionally in Africa, we do actually swing on vines.

Visiting a Masai village. Learning about the Masai is standard business in first grade at HOPAC, so we felt like it was important that our kids got to see the real thing.

….aaaaand they dressed me up. And then laughed at me. I can’t say I blame them. The Masai are some of the most beautifully elegant people I’ve ever seen. This white girl just can’t compete.

There she is in all her glory: Mount Kilimanjaro

We drove for a half hour on a road so bumpy we thought our teeth would fall out, but were rewarded at the end by a natural, crystal clear spring. Oh yeah….and monkeys jumping around over our heads, dropping seeds into the water. Utterly amazing.