Dear [you],
I'm very sorry for the last post. It's very long. It might not make sense...just one of those epiphanies inspired by an amazing lecturer/writer with a wildly cool British accent.

Speaking of wildly cool British accents, I'm currently staying in the home of Andy and Suzie Hart; Andy's a veterinarian doing all sorts of interesting animal- and non-animal-related projects with the Anglican church of Tanzania. Suzie is charming mother who is running an amazing arts and crafts workshop where disabled people are finding meaningful employment and Christ while making really cool things with beads, recycled cardboard, elephant dung, and plant fibers. I've spent a lot of time with their friends, Philip and Fiona. Philip is a theology professor with permanently off-balance glasses who is unmistakeably the British reincarnation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Very soon I shall be unrecognizeably shaved, dressed in clean, unrumpelled clothing, and speaking with a culturally refined accent in a compelling and confident tone of voice about world politics and rugby. I shall not tackle cricket as the natives themselves do not understand it either...

Yesterday we built a solar cooker. Hoping against hope that it will catch on: the use of charcoal and wood fires for cooking is ruining the forests of this beautiful country, and the lungs of the beautiful and industrious women who cook in it. The cookfire smoke they inhale is the equivalent of smoking two to three packs of cigarettes. Per day. And charcoal is expensive...the sun is cheap.

We doubt: will people want this new technology? We laughed yesterday; in our frustration with people who refuse new technologies and techniques, we forgot ourselves. The water we drink is filtered and boiled, much like all the other expatriates in Iringa. The difference with our house is that we set our water out in clear plastic bottles on a sheet of bati (roofing metal) and let it sit in the sun for a day or two, depending on cloud cover. It's scientifically proven to be more effective at killing harmful organisms than boiling water for ten minutes. And, it saves over ten dollars a month on the electric bill. And, it my opinion, it's easier than taking care of pots and pots of boiling water.

How many people in the expat community have copied this? After months of watching this new technique, and visiting and drinking the water with no ill effects? None. We enlightened, change-loving Wazungu, just like the frustrating Tanzanians, refuse to adopt something new until it catches our eye, or necessity forces change...irony is wonderful. We had a good laugh. Human nature is amazing sometime in the ways it absolutely defies logic.

In other news, Philip, Andy, Fiona, Suzie and I sat down the other night to watch an absolutely charming (British, of course) movie: Love Actually. Basically, it's ten different, interwoven stories following people as they approach Christmas and deal with...well...as little Sam says, "What could be worse than the total agony of being in love?" Love is so many different lights: a man chosing between his wife and his secretary. A widower and his lovesick stepson. A jaded old rocker without friends. The Prime Minister and his househelp. A writer who speaks no Portuguese and a maid who speaks no English. Two body doubles. The lonely best man. Not all of the endings are happy...but they are all amazing.

The best part of watching, of course, was the setting: London. The Brits were all very amused every time I shouted, "Oooh! I've been there." But I have!

Cheers!
Dan