Flashbacks

I keep having flashbacks to Tanzania. Kirt and I started our marriage in a little house at Makumira Seminary outside Arusha, Tanzania. When things feel difficult and strange here, we tell the kids about  Tanzania and the mouse poop that dropped from the cracks in the ceilings, the rats that ran between my feet while I cooked, the laundry that had to be scrubbed by hand, and the heat that never let up.

Sometimes I think we have such a healthy marriage because it was so rough in the beginning. There weren't any computers, internet, or cell phones yet. When we wanted to talk to folks at home, we had to write a letter giving them a time to call, hike to the Dik Dik hotel at the designated time, and hope that the country's phone lines were functioning. I had to type my papers on a manual typewriter and that was a good exercise in swearing. Getting food was an adventure. Mama Namsi would lead me through the rice paddies filled with snakes, take the harassment for being with a white woman, and remind me to only use one hand to steady my basket on my head or the men would lift my skirt.

I started giggling on the clean, air conditioned Malaysian bus folks thought might be uncomfortable for us when they urged us to take taxis. I remembered being crammed into the buses headed to Arusha where folks were hanging off the outside and goats and chickens were as welcome on board as everyone else. The only time I ever smacked someone was on one of those buses and I surprised both of us.

I will always be thankful to Dr. Leland Elhard for pushing me into that experience. He knew that things came easily for me and if I was going to make it as a pastor, then I needed to know discomfort and difficulty. I needed to know what it felt like to keep moving when I just wanted to curl up in a safe little ball or at least go home.

Malaysia is a walk in the park compared to Tanzania, but the rats in Georgetown last night did make us watch our step a little closer.