Lesson in Africa #1

We're here!

Sorry it's taken us so long to get a grip and let you all know - which is kind of pertinent really, as lesson in Africa #1 is: "Relax, this could take a while".

Our flights over were fairly hard work, but under the circumstances probably pretty good. After the excitement of the own TV screens, real customer service (quite a surprise after being used to Easyjet) and food, the kids all managed to sleep - Caleb in his Skycot for a bit, and then on Libby's lap; and the other two lying down on two seats each. Libby denies sleeping, as do I, but Libby swears she poked me and I didn't move. But I didn't feel like I'd slept.

When we arrived at Dar Es Salaam (Dar hereafter, for my fingers' sake) it was dripping with humidity and, more surprisingly, with rain. A helpful chappy helped us with our luggage, and pointed out to us which queues to wait in - wrongly as it turns out. Russell from the Dar office turned up with our residence permit in the nick of time (i.e. while we were waiting in the queue!) I am grateful to God that I didn't know that we wouldn't have been let in without it! We had enough to deal with.

We then had a bit of a wait because the chap who had been on our flight and was meant to be travelling on to Dodoma with us had accidentally wandered out of the holding area - which meant (obviously) that he had to go through all the immigration/customs etc to get back into the airport!

We then had another wait, for the MAF plane, as the BA flight had arrived unexpectedly on time and we were not expected for at least another half an hour. The plane finally arrived and after all the rigmarole of weighing all our luggage (and estimating our own weights) we took off.

Unfortunately, about ten minutes into the flight, our pilot was informed that there were a further two passengers, whom he had not known about, due to take the flight! We therefore had to turn around, and go back to Dar! It also meant that the plane had insufficient fuel to get us to Dodoma, and so we had to refuel. Which meant waiting until the guy with the fuel truck felt like turning up! Actually, this didn't take too long (around half an hour). However, in the meantime the weather turned a bit nasty, so we were stuck for quite a while waiting for the rain to diminish.

This meant we had ample time to sit around soaking in our first taste of Tanzania (and the rain!) Just for the record, our first purchase in Tanzania was a packet of Pringles!

Anyway, we eventually made it to Dodoma (after a flight in a Cessna Grand Caravan for those who are interested in that kind of thing! - for those who aren't that's the bigger of the two planes that MAF Tanzania fly - a 12-seater). We had a very warm welcome (in more ways than one!) with all the MAF families waiting near the airstrip to greet us. We learnt and promptly forgot everyones' names, and then went to lunch with one of the MAF families.

Since then we have:

1. Spent one night in the MAF guesthouse

2. Moved into our 'first' house and unpacked all our stuff (we will be moving again in a month or two):

3. Slept under mosquito nets
4. Swam (or nearly drowned in Bethany's case) in the pool here on the compound.
5. Been to 'Two Sisters' (the Asian supermarket - where you can buy most things, if you're prepared to pay); 'Saba Saba' (the second hand market); and the main market.
6. Spent 80,000 shillings.
7. Been out to dinner 5 times.
8. Attended one prayer meeting.
9. Missed one church meeting.
10. Been too hot (day) and too cold (night).
11. Cleaned our hands (a lot); our children (in a bucket); the floors (a lot); our fruit and veg (in sterilising solution); our water (in the filter), and our milk (in a big pan).
12. Not been ill yet!

I think that's probably enough to digest for now. Congratulations if you've got this far!

All in all, we are very happy (if tired), and grateful to God for keeping us together (in all ways!) over the last week. Thank you for your prayers.