This will be our last post from Tanzania.  After a lot of deliberation, we’ve decided to pack things up here and head back home, a bit earlier than we originally planned.  Our current trajectory puts us on American soil in about a week.

As a lot of you know, and as I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, it’s been particularly challenging for me to find much work in the village, and that’s really the main reason for our return.  To their credit, our village has largely avoided the standard, more pressing crises like drought, desertification, and deforestation that plague many parts of Africa and keep environmental development workers busy in those places.  And although there is always room for improvement – planting more trees, better land management, for example – the urgency here, and thus the villagers’ motivation to collaborate on projects, lies more with health issues, and probably rightly so.  The Mbeya region has one of the highest HIV infection rates in East Africa, a fact that overshadows most everything else.

Michelle has had an easier time keeping busy, and I’ve been happy to help out where I can with her work too, although teaching about sexual health to junior high kids is not really my area of expertise, to say the least.  But also, language and cultural barriers make it difficult to assess how much our efforts are really sinking in, and after a year of working in fits and starts on various fronts, we both agree that we could direct our energy and abilities more effectively back home.

Despite our decision to return early, we certainly have no regrets about coming to Tanzania in the first place.  Tanzania is a remarkably beautiful country filled with good-natured people, many of whom we’ll miss.  We’ve thoroughly enjoyed seeing the side of Tanzania most outsiders don’t, tackling the challenges of communicating in a new language, and living squarely within a culture so different than our own.  There are a lot of things we’ll miss about Tanzania.  It’s too early to say all the things we’ve learned from our time here, and I suspect those things will become clearer over time as we readjust to life American life.  But maybe one thing that’s become more solidified in our minds lately is that after we’ve spent the last several years sort of living in temporary situations, here and there, we’re ready to try grounding ourselves a little more permanently in life in America.  

So from here it’s on to Grand Rapids, where we’re looking forward to spending time with family and enjoying things like running water and pizza delivery.  And while I’m sure we’ll quickly be shocked by the mundane realities of everyday life - utility bills, heavy traffic, long Michigan winters, for example - we’ll take the bad with the good.  We’ll see you all soon!