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Africa – The First Day
Well, we spent a week in Europe adjusting our body clocks to the new time and it took one measly flight to get us off whack again. Ugh. Our overnight flight was good and I did sleep about 3 hours but 3 hours does not a good night’s sleep make.
We arrived in Dar es Salaam early and easily got through customs and received all of our luggage. That was a huge blessing because you definitely don’t want anything to go wrong there. When we walked out of the humble airport into the morning heat and humidity (right now we’re on the coast – but have yet to actually see the coast) our colleague was waiting for us. Our luggage fit nicely into her land cruiser and she drove us to the SIL (Wycliffe’s international name) guest house after a stop at a gas station.
The gas station was interesting. We got there at 8:30am but the doors were locked. She asked someone about it and he said, “They usually open at 8.” Well, okay. So we waited outside for a while (maybe 20 minutes?) until someone came and opened the store. There we got a few familiar snacks to take with us and SIM cards that we will use to switch our cell phones over to Africa service. As soon as the U.S. cell companies give us the “international unlock codes” we’ll be up and running with our new numbers here. Pretty easy on the Africa side I’d say. For “minutes” you just buy these little cards as you need them. (I’m not sure technically how it all works.) Apparently electricity works much the same way. Our colleague left us for a moment to go “buy electricity” then started walking toward vending machines. We thought she may have been getting a caffeinated drink but no – she bought electricity. You go home and enter the code found on the little card purchased and voila – more power. You just monitor your own to know when to buy more. It’s very hard to explain as I hardly understand it myself.
So we made it to the guest house where there are 2 bedrooms (each with a room air conditioner), bathroom, kitchen, living room, washing machine, and wireless internet. (It’s on the same site as the SIL offices.) When we got here we ate a little snack then went to sleep until noon when another colleague picked us up and took us to have lunch with his family. That was much fun and we got a lot of our questions answered and just enjoyed hearing of their experiences here as they’ve only been in Tanzania 4 months coming here from their homeland of Ireland. (Although they did spend quite a number of years in Kenya as well.) It’s good to hear the real story of people who come here so when you start going through the emotions of transition you realize it’s all normal and everyone around you knows it. (No need to apologize or explain.)
On our way back to the guest house late afternoon we stopped to get something for dinner since there’s nothing much in the house to eat. We got a burger and fries (and ketchup). That ended up being the absolute greasiest meal I’ve ever had in my life. But that’s okay. Now we know. After dinner I layed on my bed to watch Fiddler on the Roof. Oops. Asleep again. Now it’s 11:00 at night and I’m sitting in bed under my mosquito net eating doritos (yes, real doritos) and blogging. I hope to get back to sleep soon so I can get back on track.
Tomorrow we’re being taken to a supermarket… and I’m not sure what else. We’re only in the guest house for 2 nights before moving to a Swiss run mission house where the first week of orientation is held.
As far as pictures, the battery in the camera is almost dead (terrible timing, I know) and the battery charger for that is in a late shipment that may not arrive for weeks. We can take pictures with the video camera so we’ll try to do that tomorrow and give you a feel (visually) of what it’s like here on the Tanzanian coast and in the guest house. We have to be fairly careful having equipment out in the open here but we’ll do our best.
I’m sorry this post is so long but I wanted you to get the full story of our first day here. I’ll post my first impressions soon.