OK, so we bought a somewhat expensive wood carving of a cheetah in Arusha. I've photographed it next to a German beer stein (thanks Johanna aus Esslingen am Neckar) to show the large size.
The guy in the shop did a serious wrap job on it using newspapers and tape. I carried it on the airplane in my backpack which led to two international encounters with airport security. In Amsterdam as we were passing through security to get to our gate for our London flight, the security woman said to me in Dutch-accented English, "would you mind if looked inside your bag?" I said "sure, I have a wood carving." She asked, "is it a cat?" When I told her it was a cheetah, she said it looked good on the X-ray and was all in one piece. I think she had to verify that it wasn't an actual live (or dead) cat that I was transporting across international borders.
(Sister) Mary had a two foot tall giraffe but security did not ask her if she had a giraffe in her carry on bag. OK, so then in London we had to go through security again to connect to our Minneapolis flight. London is the original high security airport so I expected to be questioned again. Sure enough, my bag was flagged by the X-ray scanning guy. I had to empty out the contents of my bag in front of a security guy who then ran the package through the machine by itself. He brought it back and said in a great British accent "it's a Leopard or a cat shape, isn't it?" I'm just glad we didn't have to unwrap it and then re-wrap it. I think Carla did have to unwrap one of her carvings in Amsterdam. Now we know that those scanning machines can actually detect cat shaped objects.
Speaking of cat shaped objects, here's a classic Mr. Mahler pose. Mahler was Makiko's original Best Friend Forever but Tailwheel took over that role easily. We told Makiko she had to get a cat in Japan and we made sure she didn't pack up Mr. Tailwheel in her suitcase mainly because she wouldn't get through security with him. Say this in your best Japanese: "It's a house cat or a puma shape, right?"
These photos are out of order a bit but here goes. In Arusha we visited the Plaster House, a temporary care home for kids who have just had surgery to correct bone malformities and burn contractures or who are awaiting repeated surgeries. Our Lutheran Medical Mission Man Mark Jacobson in Arusha helped start the Plaster House. This is the construction site of the new cast house.
This is what the "surprise dessert" looked like at the lodge in Arusha. The papaya was the best. We had fresh local fruit at every meal.
There was teamwork in making our rooms slug-free as one Mary helped rid the other Mary's room of a giant slug crawling up the wall. This was a snail walking outside of Mary's room presumably heading toward her wall.
In about 2000, Janice Aune, Mark's wife formed a group of widows who weave baskets, make jewelry and make textiles with a loom. They earn their living in this trade. We all bought a little of everything from The Widow's Might.
This is Selian Hospital, another Mark Jacobson project that we toured. Mark, who's been in Tanzania for 30 years just won an American Medical Association award for his work. http://first-lutheran.org/2013/02/dr-mark-jacobson-receives-award/
Our church is involved in some really important projects in Tanzania improving the health care, the education, and the spiritual life of many people.
This is the current Plaster House, a small rented space where about 50 kids are awaiting their cast removals or surgeries. They sang some songs for us as we talked with the director of the facility. A few mothers stay here with the really young kids but otherwise the kids come here to live for many weeks by themselves. The cook was stirring up a pot of ugali. The Plaster House is "in" Arusha but way up in the hills where getting to it is difficult on foot.
Here's a baby napping by himself with his legs in casts. Before sending kids to the Plaster House, they would send them home with casts where families found it too difficult to maintain clean and dry casts leading to complications.
No comments:
Post a Comment