I’ve been working from home this week, which means I get to wear shorts. As the short rainy season is in full swing, it is great not to be walking to the MS-TCDC campus for Kiswahili lessons. There are almost daily and multiple daily downpours, which means it isn’t so hot!
The Short Rains have arrived!
Now that my work these days are in the world of English, my Kiswahili isn’t developing at the same pace.
I finished a chapter revision for an anthology project that is part of the CollECT research group for which I’m vice-chair and a co-editor of the anthology. CollECT stands for Colloquium on Epistemology, Context and Text in African Biblical Studies, which is a research group at VID Specialized University.
I also finalized by SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) presentation, that I will give in San Antonio on Saturday, 18 Nov., in the African Biblical Hermeneutics session with a them of ecological interpretations. This will be important to get feedback from African biblical scholars on my biblical eco-theological framework for my Marie Curie project. However, I’ve also put a considerable amount of time this past week as a respondent for the “Blessings and Curses” themed section for the Biblical Hebrew Poetry session. There are 4 papers to read, analyze, and develop a helpful response that extends the conversation. Two of them are rather technical Hebrew, which takes me a good amount of effort to understand. However, one paper is actually a PhD student from Duke University (supervisor Ellen Davis), who is using my PhD thesis (revised for a monograph) in reading curses in the Book of Amos. Wow! Who would actually read my book who didn’t have too?!? She has appropriated it well. I met her last year, as she came up to me after a paper I presented in the African Biblical Hermeneutics session. So, I’ve connected her with the CollECT research group, as she can join us via Zoom.
I’m still needing to get my head around one very technical paper of 16,510 words (most journal articles are 5,000-to 8,000 words). I have tomorrow before I take off, and if I need more time to process, I can do so while I traveling, but I hope to be done before I depart.
Today, Sunday, I preached at the Arusha Community Church. As it is all lay led, it is a rich, multi-denominational community of English-speaking worshipers. We had visitors from Madagascar today, and the bishop said it was like being in eternity already with all the multi-cultural representations.
After the service, Nanyoke came to greet me. What joy! Nanyokye is one of my former students from the MaaSae Girls Lutheran Secondary School. She is the first Maasai woman medical doctor in Tanzania! We caught up a bit. I saw her last in Feb 2020. In 2016, she joined one of my church groups as we traveled into the rural Maasai areas, that was on the way for her to visit her mother-in-law, who lives not too far outside the Northeastern gate of the Serengeti National Park (which used to be Maasai land).
Nanyokye, the first Maasai woman medical doctor in Tanzania
After church, I was invited to dinner at the home of the ELCA East Africa Director, Daudi. He has a Maasai dad and an American mom, and he grew up some of his life in Chicago. The other guest was Laura, who is an ELCA Lutheran on a Fullbright Scholarship doing anthropological research on the effects of climate change on education. She was also a volunteer in Monduli 25 years ago, and like me, has continued to relationships and looking for opportunities to be a blessing to the Maasai. There are some significant shared links despite the different projects. However, I sense we will be good collaborators until she returns to Minnesota next April.
Tonight, the power is going off and on. In addition, I see the lights dim and return to bright. I’ve heard a rumor that Tanesco, the Tanzanian electrical company, has gone bankrupt. I’ll have to check this out. With the rains now, there should be a good amount of water accumulating in the hydro-electrical dam reservoirs. So, hopefully, it will get better.
One prayer request: My gardener, Jackson, (he basically came with the house I found out), got 4 bee stings on Saturday. I gave him some Benadryl pills and water to take right away, helped him put on some topical Benadryl gel (which I love for mosquito bites), and sent him home to rest with 2 more doses of Benadryl. On sting was to the right of his mouth on his cheek and another sting on the eyebrow above it. The side of his face was rather swollen. The colleague here, Randy, has his phone number—which I don’t, so I asked him to check in on Jackson to see if he is OK. I haven’t heard back yet. So, say a prayer for Jackson.
Mungu akubariki! (God bless you!)