Tumefika Tanzania!

We have now been in Tanzania for 15 days.  So much has happened that to try to catch up now would produce a long and probably boring blog post.  But perhaps I should touch on the highlights...

-We had safe travels (first week of September) including 30 total hours of travel.  Eight or so hours of that was spent in the London airport.
-We traveled with 11 check bags (10 of which were ours, one we brought on behalf of some friends), three carry-on size suitcases, and three backpacks.  All luggage and handbaggage arrived safely and intact with us!!
-We spent 11 days in Dar es Salaam doing a variety of tasks ranging from jetlag recovery to getting our Tanzanian Drivers Licenses to purchasing various household items to visiting friends to meetings with each of our department heads in Dar... the list goes on.  Basically we had a lot of logistics to attend to and added enough margin to keep sane in the process! 
-On September 17 we drove to Iringa, which is where we currently are living as we take a Swahili refresher course.  Our Swahili has returned MUCH faster than we expected and we are getting all sorts of encouragement from local people.  Perhaps more importantly we are gaining confidence that we will be able to communicate effectively here in this country and we continue to improve each day we are here.
-I finally learned the compound tenses!  I know this may not seem like a big deal, but the first time we were here I was more focused on the basics.  I was not able to understand these much less use them correctly, so this is bringing me a huge sense of accomplishment and encouragement! 

As you can see, it has been a busy few weeks.  We will try to keep you all posted, as this can be a great forum to post interesting stories and pictures between newsletters.

And now for some pictures...

 Micaiah was all smiles from the time our plane touched down in Dar es Salaam!  She is loving Tanzania and is happy to have met new and old friends along the way.

 This is where we stayed in Dar.  It is the SIL guesthouse and was very comfortable. We had to readjust to many things like not using tap water to brush our teeth and sleeping under mosquito nets.

 This is our new truck.  We bought it from another family that left TZ, so it was waiting for us when we arrived!

 There is an elephant in this picture.  You may not be able to see it, but you'll have to trust me. :)  One of the perks of driving from Dar to Iringa is passing through Mikumi National Park and seeing some wildlife along the way.  Micaiah had prayed that we would see elephants (rare to see from the road in this park!!), so this was a huge blessing!!

 Giraffes!! Hopefully you can see these better than the elephants.  :)

 Our home in Iringa.  We are staying in Banda #1 at Rivervalley Campsite.  It has been an adjustment to have all of our laundry hand-washed again.

Micaiah LOVES exploring here at the campsite!  She has been able to join some other kids (about) her age for part of her morning for school time and is hanging out with a Tanzanian lady to learn Swahili for the rest of the morning.  She is doing really well with her lessons and is consistently greeting and learning words!
 
-JLR

Ready to Go?

Surely I must be forgetting something.

We have our bags packed and are working on weighing them so they are just under our 50 pound allotment.  We're making sure they're labeled and that there are extra zip ties inside just in case they get search and need to be re-sealed.

But I must be forgetting something.

We leave tomorrow (lord-willing!!) and will spend today saying goodbye to family.  We spent a good portion of this past week traveling around and saying goodbyes to friends, but we're thankful to have almost all of our closest family here in town to visit and to say goodbye tomorrow.

But I still can't shake this nagging feeling that I'm forgetting something.

Our goal was to have some well-protected margin in our last two weeks here in St Louis.  We packed for 4-5 days straight and got a majority of it all done.  These past few days have just been finalizing the details, packing our hand baggage, etc.  It feels strange to have leftover time.  I think they call it "margin," but it's such a new concept to a type A person like me that it feels odd-- like I'm always forgetting something!  Once I'm able to shake this feeling, I'm confident that I will like this approach much better than the rush-around-like-a-chicken-with-my-head-cut-off approach... yeah, that wasn't working for me. :)

But what am I forgetting??

-JLR