As my midsection expands to a never before reached diameter I find it hard to believe there is actually a little baby in there. I feel this little one move throughout the entire day, yet the thought of actually being a parent feels so foreign.

Just one year ago we were about to hit the beach for Christmas where we merrily drank pina-coladas and relaxed in the warm East African sun. This year we find ourselves pasty from lack of sun and getting ready to bundle up even more as we head home to Colorado. I’m lucky my winter coat still, although just barely, zips up. And next year we are looking at having a nine month old mtoto (child in Swahili). Seriously, what a whirl wind of change, you just never know what life has in store for you next.

We find ourselves talking about this little baby all the time. It’s like our brains are stuck on repeat… baby this, baby that, baby, baby, baby. As we have decided to wait until our mtoto is born to find out gender, this is inevitably our most discussed conversation. Most days I feel certain it’s a boy and Brian seems to stick to his guns that it’s a girl, but as this is the first for either of us, I guess it’s fair to say we don’t really know what we are talking about. Honestly though, we wouldn’t change knowing gender for anything.

The last few months have been interesting for us as we continue to digest and define within ourselves what it means to be a couple bringing a new life into this world. As we look to the future I’m sure this will continue to be an ongoing process. Who will we be as parents on an infant, a toddler, a child, and so on? Do we, or will we, want more children? If so when and how? Will we choose to adopt or produce more of our own, or possibly both? Some days the list of decision making feels endless and other days we both can’t wait to meet this little person. There is actually a little person in there… what a crazy thought.  

An unexpected but very exciting surprise turned our paths in a different direction this past July. As we were both gearing up for the coming year with graduate school headed my way and Brian headed back to his old stomping grounds at work, we were taken for somewhat of a loop when we found out that we will be expecting our first child this coming March! Our hearts and thoughts took somewhat of a spin and now we find ourselves headed on a very new kind of journey, parenthood!

One of our greatest joys so far has been calling our good friend back in Chamwino to share the news that we are now expecting a baby! With the purchase of a five dollar calling card we were in touch talking and laughing almost like we hadn’t made the thousand plus mile journey around the world. In our best Swhaili we told this friend that we have a young child growing in my stomach. His response was, “do you have a child or a pregnant?” We all laughed and said yes, we indeed don’t yet have a child, we have a pregnant!

The end of this week will mark 19 weeks for us! We have heard people talk about how quickly pregnancy goes, but seriously, to be almost half way done is crazy! We had an ultrasound back in August just to make sure everything was going well and we couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw a little person moving around on the screen. At that point our little baby had arms and elbows and feet and knees. It was so cute! I’m not sure either of us had thought of an ultrasound as cute before, but this one was just cute!

We have been so blessed by our community here in Seattle. The other day we had a friends share with us their infant car seat. It’s currently hanging out in our living room and I keep looking at it and thinking, wow that is for real!

As we continue to progress I wonder what kind of parents will we be like? Which one will be stricter, who might be apt to play the role of the good cop? Or another big question, or shall I say debate, has been how young is too young to try and get the baby on ski’s? We get more excited every day as we continue to fall in love with this little being inside of me.

We have decided to wait until the little baby is born to find out what gender it will be. We will be so excited to have either a girl or a boy!

So here is the first of hopefully many postings to come on our new journey.

We have been back in the US for six weeks. Can time really pass that quickly? Some days it feels so strange to be here, not necessarily because we are here, but more because we were actually gone. So often it feels as though we were never gone. But we were and while we find ourselves relishing in reuniting friendships and spending what feels like gifted time with family there is this desire to not forget where it is we have been.

A question we get a lot is how, or if, we are experiencing culture shock. The answer would be yes but it looks different than we had once thought it would. We have heard how people returning from developing countries often struggle with the high cost of items such as food, clothing, books. For us it is more the vast amounts of these items with endless choices.

The first visit to the grocery store ended with us buying almost nothing, mostly just walking around in what felt like a dazed haze wondering why in the world are some of these things were even there? In Tanzania we ate seasonally which meant when it was orange season we ate a ton of oranges and the same was with watermelon, guava, mango, pineapple, and zambalow (similar to grapes). When we first arrived in the grocery store we saw some of these items and just found ourselves questioning where it was they came from. It seems to us that the idea of privilege comes in many forms and one of those the ability to buy almost any type of food this world has to offer.

I snapped this picture at JFK International Airport when we first landed back in the Unites States. It felt like a welcome back to the world of unlimited choices and highly packaged foods.

Unlimiited choices of candy.

Another thought that keeps coming up is the pace of life. When we first landed in Paris and were making our way through the subway system with large bags in tow I had to laugh out loud at the fact that everybody was running. Or maybe it was just that it felt like everyone was running to us. Whichever way we turned we bumped into someone and for split second threw them off their bee lined course to where ever it was they were going. Comical actually, because how in the world did everyone all have to be somewhere else at exactly the same time? By the end of our two weeks in Europe our walking pace has picked up and it doesn’t necessarily feel so chaotic to be walking in the western world anymore.

Next week Brian returns to work. An incredible blessing that will relieve us of great financial burden as I return to school and we actually start paying rent again. The phrase ‘cold feet’ seems suiting here. While I am not alone in saying we are whole heartedly grateful for his return to work; I do feel as though we are alone in feeling scared of how the return will change our lives.

I was inspired by a friend’s blog the other day. This man is currently in Chamwino with his family and in his blog he described the pace of life there as slow, but his wording was perfect. He said he did not believe the pace of life was slower due to everyone being laid back, but rather because of a difference in priorities. Here in the states it feels as though we have a very task orientated set of priorities which makes this country move and progress and is in no way a negative thing. In Chamwino it feels as though they have a very people orientated set of priorities which slows the pace of life and moves tasks back a notch. If the task is to go to the market to buy food it may take hours because greeting people along the way to find out their state of being is more important than actually going to the market in the first place.

We have been mulling this over with each other for the last couple days and wondering how is it that we can hold onto some of the ‘people first’ priority while living within a culture that requires at least somewhat of a task orientated mindset to survive. For now we don’t have answers. Maybe that is sometimes the point to come to a place where you just don’t have answers but more questions.

Footprints at the Great Salt Lake

Our last post left off with Switzerland. After our time delighting in the spectacular scenery and Swiss chocolate, we headed up the west boarder of Germany. We hit up places like Triberg in the black forest and then made our up the Reign river to the town of Heidelberg and then Cologne. Our favorite food was the wienerschnitzel. All the beer was good and smooth, their specialty was serving 1 liter beers which was surprisingly very smooth and easy to drink without feeling sickly full.

a waterfall in the black forest

taking battle like the barbarians used to

inside the first worlds biggest cuckoo clock

Outside of the worlds first largest cuckoo clock (photo from Jess and Lance)

in heidelberg looking at one of the many castles we saw in Germany

we had to pee a lot after drinking these 1 liter beers

mmmm...german sausages!

Built 1368, it's only 643 years old located in a small town called Bacharach, Germany

school kids looking over the castle walls in St. George Germany

When in Cologne , you gotta visit the Cologne Cathedral

Cologne was our last stop before we hit Belgium. We spent the evening touring the city and drinking kolsch beers which came from Cologne. The evening was capped off with a hanging out with a huge yellow lab at the restaurant we went to for the kolsch beers and food. It was sad to say goodbye to Germany. It had so much variety and each location had a very different feel. The German’s were extremely fun and very friendly. We said Danke Schon to Germany and say Hallo to Belgium!

I thought I knew the taste of a belgian waffle until we actually went to Belgium. Big Difference

key hole view into a church at an Abbey. Visiting an actual Abbey in Belgium! We were all in heaven.

This wooden bench extending on both sides of the church in the Abbey took a guy 16 years to carve! Our guide (in pic) looked like a monk, and smelled of alcohol and cigarettes.

Enjoying the beer of Abbey De Floreffe. It was amazing.

Overlooking Brugge

Biking along a canal to the ocean. Along the way we made a mistake and ended up biking to the Netherlands. At least we can say we biked to another country.

We were on tandems. As you can tell, the person in the back had a way better time

Belgium was a happy place. It was full of green pastures, long canals, lots of chocolate, a huge variety of beers and lots of frites which equals happy farm animals and happy people. We stopped in Brussels and had mussels at the Grand Palace, and enjoyed some beligian beer while laughing at the manneken pis, we biked around the snow-globe like town of Bruges and ended up in another country while trying to bike to the coast. Belgium is a place we would like to return to some day, however Paris was our last stop and we were all anxious to see what one of the greatest cities in the world had to show us.

Enjoying the scene outside the Louvre

Eiffel

ice cream and the eiffle tower in one makes a great day

arc de triomphe at sunset

Girls in front of Moulin Rouge

Overlooking the city at Sacré-Coeur Basilica on our last day in Paris before returning home.

Paris was impressive to say the least. All this buildings, statues, monuments, museums and famous attractions where really impressive, but what I found even more impressive was how well planned the city was. I could not believe a city as big and old as Paris had been planned out so exceptionally well. It is something that would not be appreciated until you are there marveling at how big the city is and how efficient everything runs. And of course, it was full of amazing architecture, humungous buildings and museums. The arc de triomphe made me want to get a road bike and ride around it like they do in the Tour de France. Our favorite moment had to be when we walked into a small pizza restaurant near the eiffel tower where we ate this amazing pizza and had a great house wine paired with it all while laughing with our host who spoke only french with us and we had no idea what he was saying yet we understood him the entire time. Then we grabbed some ice cream and laid in the park under the eiffel tower. Later that night we came back with Jess and Lance to the same park with a bottle of wine and watched the sparkling lights on the tower. We sat there reminiscing and laughing at our stories created from our Europe trip with them. It was a great way to spend our last night in Paris, our last day of the europe trip and our last day of our 9 month trip living outside the US.

It was quite a ride and we could not have had a better time.

Our plane landed in Paris where we had a short stay for a night and two days to get familiar with the city before we would come back at the end of our trip.

First look at the Seine River

Holy Moly it's Notre Dame

Nutella Crepe! Nicole's second love after me (i think)

We headed right out to eastern France to visit Nicole’s uncle, aunt and cousins who live just outside of Geneva on the French boarder. We could step into Switzerland with a ten minute walk down a countryside road from their home. It couldn’t get much better with the scenery until you added the cows in the background with bells on them.

Looking over the french country side, into Switzerland at Lake Geneva and back into France at the start of the French Alps.

With Nicole's aunt Deborah and cousin Luke

Aunt Deborah and cousin Lily

Trying out stilts for the first time, you can see how it went

Her cousin showed us both up on the stilts skills

After visiting family for the week we embarked on our next journey to meet our friends Jessica and Lance in Switzerland. We went to the town of Interlaken to marvel at the marvelous Alps. It was a place that I have never experienced before. Everywhere we went, it felt like we were in a place that was made up. It was almost to surreal and difficult to take it in all at once. We spent the next two days enjoying the scenery, eating swiss cheese and chocolate, riding gondolas and bikes around one of the most beautiful places we have ever been to.

Taking in the view on the train as we leave France to meet our friends Jess and Lance in Switzerland! Riding trains is a new favorite hobby of ours, I think we will just try and ride trains all over the US from now on. Who cares how long it will take to get there.

Hello Switzerland, the most beautiful place on earth.

Hello Jess and Lance, two of our best friends on earth!

Again riding trains is great and Switzerland is stunning.

in a few minutes we will be riding on a gondola to the top of that huge wall of rock behind us where the town of Gimmelwald lies

Gimmelwald in the French Alps

Nik on the worlds most scenic swing set

people found a way to make life up in the mountains before america was a country

cow bells

we visited a cheese shop

we decided this will be our retirement home

in switzerland, you just drink water out of the tap on the street

these are used to keep avalanches from starting

park bench view

on the way down on the gondola

bike ride around a lake

refueling with espresso and bakery goods

and no meal is complete with out swiss chocolate

That pretty much shows our time in eastern France and Switzerland. There are too many pictures to try and do all of our trip at once so next blog will be pictures of Germany, Belgium and hopefully Paris again.

The place we are staying for the night has excellent internet access so we wanted to give you a glimpse of our last days in Chamwino via pictures. So here goes…

Brian teaching the kids to throw the frisbee.

Us with our dear friend currently studying in form three.

Brian and our neighbor boys.

Our neighbor helping me wear my khanga on my head.

Us and the neighbors.

Brian with more nieghbors. The bibi 'grandmother' has a special place in our hearts.

Us with another neighbor! Getting married this month, congrats!

First experience with njugu. Mmm... so good, I will miss them a lot!

The fundi or specialist we had make some cloth gifts for us. Also a very wonderful woman who helped us out many times during our stay.

The mama who fed us many many times!

Our dear friends in Dodoma.

My good friend who is about to finish her certificate program in business.

Kiddos at the children's center playing during free play.

One of the smallest children at the center. He smiles all day!

Mwalimu 'teacher' and I with some of the children at the children's center.

Brian and the Mama who cooks for the children's center. A good friend to us.

Oh, the little guy on the left has the most fun personality. He made us laugh every day!

Dear dear friends of ours.

A good friend who taught us lots of Swahili and was so much fun to spend time with.

Bibi, the girls, and Brian.

Again with me.

A couple very close to us. These people helped us so many times we could never say thank you enough.

Their whole beautiful family! Many good times with these people, we will miss having dance parties with them!

Mama with baby Brian, the little one named after Brian. It was his baptism.

Baby Brian being baptized.

Brian with another good friend. A man we have now known since 2008 and grew to know more during our time in Chamwino.

The village chair man and his wife on our last day in Chamwino.

Watching music with the kids.

Over the last couple of days, we have been trying to grasp the reality of knowing that we are leaving this life in Chamwino. We are at a loss of words to describe what is like to not know if we will ever see friends from Chamwino and Tanzania again. We can’t just come back in eight months or two years, heck we are not sure if we will ever be able to come back again. As we often say here, if God wishes we will see Chamwino again. We are going to miss those we came to know, love and depend on so much while here. There are many people who felt like they have become family to us. As we said our goodbye’s, we were told that we are relatives here and no longer just friends. It is difficult to comprehend this when we have been spending almost every day for the past eight months with our closest friends in Chamwino. Nicole mentioned in the last post about the bibi and her two granddaughters; there are many others who we can’t imagine leaving and not knowing their daily happenings. After all, we can’t just skype or email or check their facebook. It is people like our friend Nasson, who have enriched our lives beyond what we thought was possible when people from different countries, languages, cultures or continents meet. Nasson is one of those people that you just want to be around every day. He has this joy in his life that just radiates and permeates everyone around him. He has a gift in telling a monotonous story that would normally be a 10 second explanation but turns it into a five minute story that has us bent over laughing the entire time. He is a man with a very good heart and soul. He has brought so much joy into our lives and there will be a big void without him.

We knew this day would come, but there was no way to prepare for it. We have gone through many different emotions. How different will things be for us when we return to America? We have our routine here, but life in America does not operate like life here. The everyday basics that must happen do not work in our American culture. Greeting all of our neighbors in the morning is not necessary. Will it be difficult transitioning to a place where it is not normal to ask every person you meet on the way to work how their morning is, how they woke up, how their family woke up, had they eaten breakfast yet or to give my greetings to their father? It is automatic for us to ask this now, but soon it won’t even need to enter my head. Greeting elders in the respectful manner by saying shikamo (shee-ka-mo) is completely absent when greeting elders back home; but it is automatic for me to say this and feel like I must say this to my parents or grandparents. It will be the basics that will really be difficult to transition from like saying asante (thank you) and pole sana (very sorry) in English instead of Kiswahili. I have already made several mistakes in switching fully back to English like the other day when I was making bookings for our hostel and I finished with saying asante instead of thank you. Those will be the fun mistakes and rewards in a way for merging as much as possible into another culture and language.

We both would love to stay longer, but we can’t and that is when it is time to stop looking at the grass on the other side of the fence and take in everything that has been given to us. We are so incredibly thankful for our time here. Thankful for the people we have come to know. Thankful for the people we will miss.

However, we are also so excited to return because home is where we came from and honestly where we belong. The other day, we saw a group of women we know sitting together in a circle and picking out the rocks in rice that they were preparing for guests coming to town. As I watched them chatting up some conversation that was probably just small talk I was reminded again that they have something we don’t, a sense of belonging. They were just picking rocks out of rice, but what was really going on was a group of friends sitting and sharing their lives together. We miss that. We have been stretched beyond our limits in more ways than one, we have been given so much from the people we have met, enriched beyond our imaginations, we have gone to the lowest of lows and the highest of highs; and yet we know that without a doubt we have a home in another place and that is where we our community is. We long to be back with our family and friends, with our community of people that has shaped and developed us over the last 20 plus years of our lives.

We left America to go on a journey to find out more of who we are as individuals and as a couple and in hopes that we had something to offer too. We found out a lot about ourselves and made relationships that will be in our hearts forever. Kama Mungu akipenda tutarudi tena- if God wishes we will return again.

Last night a good friend talked to us about how when we stay in a place we cannot fully leave as we will always leave part of heart in that place. So today we start our journey back to where part of our hearts are and we leave a piece of ourselves here. Tutaonana Tanzania, tutakumisi wewe kabisa. See you later Tanzania we will miss you for sure.

As is often the case in my life, I feel now that I have more questions than answers. I was calling it the “grey affect” for awhile. Meaning life is always a lot more of grey than either black or white, that both truly exist in every place. Now I think I might not say grey, I would say colorful. Yes, grey is too dull and while no place is without its shares of both joy and hardships every place is colorful and full of life.

Saying goodbye is difficult. It’s always difficult right? Man, it was hard to leave Seattle and then again to leave Colorado. It has been hard being away and now it’s hard to leave here. For those of you that have followed our blog with us during this time we are very thankful. It is our greatest hope that you have had the opportunity to see a glimpse of a place that exists very far from your home and that here too there are people similar to yourselves moving forward with you in this thing called life.

In a short summery I wanted to tell you about a family that has touched our hearts here.

The child is called Stella. She is nine years old and the older sister to a rambunctious four year girl named Lina. Stella first stood out to us at Sunday school because of her boldness in participating in class and the incredible skills she had in leadership. She was not shy in correcting our Swahili or inviting us to her home.

As it turns out we had actually already heard of Stella two year ago, but had forgotten. Two years ago Stella and Lina’s Mama died and we had heard of them through our good friend who now resides in Seattle. The girls are now being raised by their Bibi (grandmother) and Babu (grandfather). This is heart breaking, but if I can take a moment to highlight the Bibi. This Bibi is such a leader in the community. She along with another woman leads one of the traditional women’s music groups here in the church. She is a presence here for sure.

The two girls are always so well cared for and as an observer they appear to be so well adjusted. They are, if I can simply, say beautifully Gogo. They speak both Swahili and Gogo and have been given a great gift from their Bibi; that is a deep sense of belonging.

Some of my most favorite memories come from visiting their home. Once while singing with the children an elderly woman came and led us all in traditional Gogo children’s songs. Another time the Bibi attempted to teach us more Gogo through Swahili and we both thought our heads were going to pop! Other times we simply got to be with this family.

This is why it is hard to say goodbye. Stella told me once that because her Mama died I could be her mama in a way. While no person will ever fully replace her mama I was honored to in some small way be part of this family. Brian and I called their Bibi, our Bibi. In just a few days we won’t be around to visit Stella and Leena and their Bibi. In walking down the streets we won’t be greeted by hugs from these children and many others.

We can only hope that our lives have been forever changed from these people, that in knowing them we are better people.

When we recognize the unlimited amount of blessing and opportunity we have in our lives, how do we live differently? Because somewhere in this world there are people so incredibly different and yet so incredibly similar to us and we all need each other.

Bibi leading Muheme music.

Stella in 2008 when we first visited.

Lina and I with Mwalimu Anna.

Stella leading the children in Gogo music.

One of our favorite pictures, an action shot of her smile. She is the one in the orange.

The community surrounding these children is so beautiful. We have been so encouraged to see the families taking part in the center by escorting their children and obtaining uniforms for them. There is one child in particular that we know quite well from our time here in Chamwino and it was so fun to watch her in class. In other settings she is really quite shy but today she has been smiling all day and participating in everything!

As there is external funding coming in, this center is able to provide nutritious food for the children two times per day. It appears this is a big hit with the children as they all kept telling me how sweet the porridge was this morning. In Swahili the phrase is ‘tamu sana’ (tah-moo sah-nah) meaning so sweet or so good!

The local team working on this center has put together a schedule that includes basic reading skills and math skills as well as arts such as music to encourage the preservation of traditional Gogo culture. Some of the children only speak their mother language which is Gogo so the class is taught in mix of both Swahili and Gogo. For the children only speaking Gogo learning Swahili so young will help them transition easier into Primary School as it is all in Swahili. Here is a sneak peak at the center in action…

Children looking through story books.

Singing a greetings song with the morning class.

Practicing writing on locally made chalk boards.

A close up of a child writing the letter A.

Working with the children as they practice writing.

Washing hands before morning porridge.

Again washing hands.

'Tamu sana' so sweet is this porridge.

Some of the girls enjoying their porridge- 'uji' (oo jee).

Class time.

Counting in Swahili.

Again counting.

Using the movable chalk board so on hot days class can take place outside under a tree.

picking grass to make small brooms to help clean up.

To date, I Nicole, have only climbed two large mountains, Mt. Rainer in Washington and now Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. I guess the saying is ‘go big or go home’ huh?! Both trips however, have had a similar effect as I was waking up at midnight to start the trek for the summit. The effect or maybe better said, the thought, is always what the heck am I doing? How did I get here? Then we are off and the sun is rising six and half hours later and we are close to the top. Pretty amazing.

I think it is safe to say that as a group, our thought was that this trip was more about the journey than the destination. This has somewhat become the phrase we are using to describe our experience here in Tanzania too. Anyway, we took the Macheme route which is a six day trip in total. It felt like we climbed up one side of the mountain and then walked all the way around to the other side to summit on day five. Every day we hiked about six to seven hours. On day three, we reached about 15,000 feet elevation and then promptly hiked back down to 12,000 feet to spend the night. It felt a little disheartening going down when we knew the point was to go up, but again it was about the journey.

We started the climb to the summit at midnight on the fifth day and reached the summit about 7:00am. The summit hike was more difficult than I had expected, but truly incredible on top. Oh yeah and this earned us the honor of being able to say we killed the Kili! Coming down was actually harder than going up, although it did feel good at first. After a dissension of about 8,000 feet we spent one final night on the mountain and then hiked out in the morning bidding the world’s tallest free standing mountain goodbye.

In pictures here is a glimpse of the trip.

Kili from our hotel pre-climb.

Brian and Chris acting as porters, day one.

Mmm... good good food every day!

Headed up day two.

Night three after reaching 15,000 feet and now back at 12,000 feet, still strong!

View of the mountain from our tent night three.

Our way back up to 15,000 feet day four.

Why we enjoy these two so much!

Chris and our porters beating the clouds, day four.

Summit! Or fake summit. We still had like 45 minutes to walk around the crater to the actual summit.

6:45 am Continuing on past the false summit

7:30am Actual summit, morning five!

Chris and Meggie ahead walking down past the glaciers

Nicole and our guide walking above the clouds among the glaciers

A rest just before heading back down.

View of the mountain on our hike down day six.

Mushrooms on the way down.

Drinking the Kili after hiking the Kili!

Yep, they climbed and drank the Kili too.