I first want to appologize for my lack of blogging these past few weeks. I have been in transition, without internet and my computer. However, I bought a new chord so I have my computer back, yay! The past few days I have spent settling into my new home for the next few weeks and our last ministry spot in Africa. I know, crazy! It feels like just yesterday that I was freaking out because we were going to Africa in a few days and I had no idea what to expect. Let me tell you a little about the past few days and the upcoming month.
My team and I are alone this month, which despite how much we love the rest of our squad is wonderful. We took a 33 hour bus ride on a bumpy road to get to Tanzania. The landscape was beautiful and although my bum was sore I was fine until our bus was stopped an hour away from Dar es Salam in the middle of the night. According to the police man we would have to stay on the side of the road for the night because it was against the law to travel at that hour. What?! It was so ridiculous that people started laughing, luckily no one cuffed em up side the head for laughing at a time such as this.. I must admit that I was among the laughers.. either I was going crazy from lack of sleep or I just heard the police man say we could not travel anymore because we were breaking the law. Was that a joke? Nope. After sitting and debating for what felt like hours we somehow came to the conclusion that we would continue on and then stopped a little while later and I guess someone told us it was okay to travel again. I don’t really know what was going on at that point all I know is that eventually we arrived at a hot, muggy, odd smelling hostel that had showers. Half of our squad lugged our stuff up the stairs and the other half put theirs back onto the bus. Yes they had another 20 some odd hour bus ride to their final destination. I don’t know how they did it. They are troopers!
First thing I did that night at 3 am, was take a shower and changed out of my dusty, dirty clothes. (I don’t think my hair has ever been so knotted and sticky in my life!) Sleep consumed our time until we were picked up by our new contact at 10:30 am.With all of our stuff we jumped in a matooka that said U.S.A. and had an American flag on it. Half an hour later we had arrived at our new home in Kunduchi, Tanzania. Yes, a beach village. Meaning village on the beach. Hallelujah! We might still have a bucket shower and we might still have a squatty but it’s high class, we have a bed and electricity, even a fridge and a tv and couches! WOW. I think I forgot what all of that even was. Haha! Our contacts are amazing. We are staying with a family from our contacts church, where he is the pastor. It’s only been a couple days but I feel so connected with them all already even though it is hard communicating. That has definitely been a challenge this month. The pastor has two daughters who I adore. Sarah who is around my age and Jesca who is five. Our contact has two sons, one who we haven’t met and one named Abraham who is seven. I love spending my time playing with Abraham and Jesca they are a hoot! They love to sing the alphabet, teach me their songs one of which repeats over and over “shake your booty” and they love to say the days of the week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. No, there is no such thing as Thursday. Yesterday I got out some plain paper and some pens and the three of us colored. I wrote out the days of the week and Jesca copied them. Yes I wrote Thursday and no she didn’t. LOL. I don’t get it, but it’s hilarious! Ministry this month could be anything really. We’re rooting for beach volley ball ministry, VBS, and Women’s tea time. Today we had church where we sang 2 songs without rehearsing before hand and Elle and Logan spoke. Tomorrow we are doing construction work. I’ll keep you updated 🙂
