Hello everyone! Here is a brief update of KB’s and my current situation:
We’re living in Morogoro Tanzania working for a power company. She’s working on a charity school project (as part of the company’s corporate responsibility program) and I’m helping run the office in Morogoro. We plan on being here two years and look forward to having lots of visitors. We live an hour and a half from a game reserve and have a very nice 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom house with kitchen, living room, and a dining room. Again, and we can’t stress this enough, KB and I look forward to sharing it with as many friends as possible. Right now we have a guard, gardener and a housekeeper who also cooks!! There is a ‘convenience shack (note-not store) up the street that sells beer and eggs. Life is pretty sweet. Except at times the 3rd world poverty can start to weigh on a person, animals have been sneaking into our house at night and our electricity goes out twice a week. But this isn’t complaining, we think it’s awesome and all part of the adventure! Alright friends, here’s my first letter out!
15/3/11
We made it into Dar alright. Best and easiest ‘long’ flight I can imagine. If/when you guys come and visit, try and get the DC to Addis Adabba direct flight. I could go on and on about it but will just leave it at this, new seats, great selection of movies, and nice amenities (sandwiches in the back all the time). Had a 3 hour layover in Addis, ate Ethiopian (something that KB excels at ordering), played Bananagrams and then headed to Dar. Uneventful night in Dar, and an eventful 8 hour drive from Dar to Morogoro (will spare you all the details).
Traffic in Dar is miserable but Morogoro is beautiful. Mountains and jungle collide!!! When we arrived our house wasn’t ready (no mosquito nets around our bed yet) so we stayed in the ‘finest’ hotel in Morogoro, TZ, “the Oasis.”It has a pool (major plus) and I decided to get a ‘good base layer’ of a tan on… Big mistake when one forgets that at 3-4 degrees from the equator, the sun is not only always there, but DIRECT. Ooops…
The Country Director, my boss, lives next door to us with his Spanish wife and their two children ( boy 7 and girl 4). The entire family is a hoot and the CD invited us out to a big BBQ on Saturday night on the outskirts of town that border the jungle and the mountains. The party was a lot of fun and after 3 hours of dancing (at 1 AM), we had to head home, even though the party was still going (a-la a DC wedding that KB and I recently attended)… It was a great way to meet the ex-pat community and everyone here has a funny attitude towards their life. No one ever really imagines that they’d end up in Morogoro, Tz. Maybe in a place like Nairobi or even Dar… but Morogoro is so random… everyone keeps this tongue in cheek attitude and even those who have been here for a while still seem to have to pinch themselves every once in a while to make sure that they are not dreaming… (When break-dancing in central Tanzania at 12:30 AM it becomes clear why pinching oneself is a good idea)…
Sunday afternoon we unpacked and I went for a run. It’s a bit disconcerting running down the road with all of these machete wielding locals who, when you run by, throw their hands up in the air and cheer you on (either that or curse out the American infidel… trying to get the hang of Swahili). We then went to CD’s kid’s birthday party at the local country club. It’s only about a mile down the road and KB and I can walk to some cute places around our area (think old school Akumal). Not much to report on the birthday except a lot of screaming little kids and the realization that I may never have enough energy to try and keep kids like that in line.
Our first day of work! KB and I got up at 630 and headed over to the CD’s house (we don’t have a car or a driver yet so we’re carpooling with him, first to the school then to work). about 80 yards out of the house, the tire develops a flat (the majority of the roads here are just like the ones from Las Ranitas to Punta Allen)… About 3 minutes after the car breaks down, 2 guys walk up the road with machete’s in their hands. They start yelling at me (at this point I’m trying to get the lug nuts off the car and don’t realize that they are saying, “step aside Mazungo”) drop their machete’s and change the tire themselves… Within 20 minutes we were on our way. At one point, we needed a hammer to get the old wheel off of the axle and lo and behold, one of the guys picks up a giant rock and knocks the wheel off of the axle (that works too)…
KB met her TZ contact, Stellar yesterday and had a really informative meeting. They’re giving me plenty of projects and have me dealing with personnel and the hiring of locals. For now I’ll stick to nepotism so what the hell (any of my old roommates want a job? We’re busy getting settled in.
TheGlobalDuo
theglobalduo 