Fun times!

 

We’ve been at language school for one week and we were so ready for the weekend. So far we have learned greetings, some verbs, nouns, tenses, numbers, months and days of the week.

It seems it is always windy here and today it seems to be exceptionally windy. It is very dry right now and the next rainy season doesn’t start till the end of October. The sky is very blue and the stars are so bright. We can see the Milky Way and it is so clear and easy to see. The dirt is very sandy and below the sand it is red clay. The people of TZ are so friendly and helpful.

This morning we walked to some gullies. They are at the base of a mountain and collects the run off during the rainy seasons. We had fun climbing around them and found some quartz rocks. Luke even found an arrowhead.

Our cabin has a very nice porch, one large room which has our bed and a single bed. The small back room, which has no door, has a set of bunkbeds. Off this room is our bathroom. It is bigger than the guest house in Dar but is still small for 4 people. Our week days are busy so we aren’t around the cabin much.

Things we need to remember when taking a shower is turn the water heater on 45-60 minutes before showering. Don’t get any water in your mouth. The water comes from the river by our cabin. We get all wet, turn the water off and then suds up. Turn the water back on and rinse off. The next person should wait ½ an hour before showering. If we don’t do it this way we will run out of hot water, just part of life for us right now in Africa.

We've arrived!

We had a very good trip to TZ. We had just enough time to go into London to see Buckingham palace, the double decker buses, Big Ben, Westminster Abby and the red phone booths (Laura’s favorite). It was perfect weather be walking around London. Our pilot said it would be overcast and rainy and it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day.

We arrived in Dar es Salaam (TZ capitol) around 6:30 Tuesday morning.  All of our luggage arrived except one tote. We are praying it arrives by Saturday when we leave for language school. It has the DVD players in it that the kids are hoping to have at language school plus some of Keith’s techy stuff.  The kids slept a good bit on the second flight so that was a huge blessing. It is much easier for the kids to curl up in a plane seat than it is for us adults.

We are staying at the guest house at the offices in Dar. It was wonderful to take a shower this morning when we arrived. It never rains this time of year in Dar and guess what it has rained off and on all day today. I guess we just brought the rain with us. But as Luke said we kept in our suitcases while in London because it was a sunny day.

Upon arriving at the offices/guest house we met a family that is driving to language school on Saturday so we will be able to follow them. We were thrilled to hear that. We don’t have to navigate the TZ roads alone.