Arriving in Tanzania (Part 1)

The journey to Mwanza, Tanzania was long – but thanks to Qatar airlines (with their amazing food and endless on-demand movie options) – it was a very comfortable 40 hours of travel. The entire trip felt a little surreal, however, as we stood in line at the international terminal of LAX loaded down with luggage knowing we would not be calling the US home for the next 3.5 years. It wasn’t until we arrived at the Kilimanjaro airport in Arusha (almost 35 hours later), though, that it really started to hit us. As the airplane came to a stop, the doors opened, and a set of old metal stairs were pulled up for us to disembark the plane from – we suddenly felt the energy of Africa around us. In an instant, everything was different. The colors, the smells, the sounds. Kiswahili filled the air. Technology from the 1980s (a paper list to check our names off a list of arrivals, an outdated x-ray machine for luggage) abounded. After boarding our next flight to Mwanza, I couldn’t stop staring out the window of the plane, gazing down on the plains of Africa. Orange dirt roads crisscrossed the land below me – but hardly any cars (and certainly no paved roads) could be seen. Our flight path took us directly over the Serengeti and skirted the edge of the Ngorongoro Crater; it was hard to imagine the wildlife that were roaming below us. My entire life I have always dreamed of visiting Africa. Now here we were!

Our first week in Mwanza was a complete blur. We were picked up by fellow missioners at the Mwanza Airport (a very small airport that brought back memories of the North Bend, Oregon airport from when I was a child) and crammed into 2 vehicles with all our luggage. It was hot. And as we started to drive, I felt like I had stepped into a documentary. Which is why I love traveling to new places. The things that we read about and watch on screens suddenly become real: no longer just some faraway imagining, but flesh and blood. Women walked the roads in beautifully colored dresses – large buckets and baskets balanced atop their heads. Both men and women worked in the fields, hoeing corn, squash, and beans. Birds I never knew about circled above and stood near the roads.

We stayed for one week in a lovely Airbnb in the Isamilo neighborhood (very near where the kids now go to school). That first week was simply trying to adapt to a massive 10-hour time zone change (we had to completely flip-flop our internal clocks), as well as recover from 40+ hours with no sleep and a covid infection that I somehow caught along the way (thank goodness no-one else tested positive). The kids did amazing, never complaining once. We learned how to take showers on a very limited hot-water schedule, washed our own clothing by hand in buckets, and figured out how to cook on a small gas stove with a very different menu of food choices. I think the fruit of Tanzania saved us our first week. In no particular order, some of our favorite fruits so far: watermelon, passion fruit, mango, papaya, guava, bananas, pineapple.  Everything is so sweet and ripe and luckily for us using the US dollar, affordable. We ate (and continue to eat) a lot of fruit that first week.

House hunting was a blur, as well, since we had only 8 days to find more permanent housing and we were recovering from both jet lag and for myself, covid. We found a wonderful home just a 12 minute drive from the kids’ school. It was actually much bigger and nicer than what I was expecting to live in for the next few years, but it fit our budget and was available immediately. Josephine was a little upset as she had visions/expectations of our family living in a mud brick hut with no electricity or running water (we have houses like this scattered throughout our neighborhood so she reminds us of this frequently while walking). We’ve tried to explain to her multiple times that the romantic ideal of that might just run itself short after a couple months – but she continues to insist she would prefer that. I remind her she is welcome to join the Peace Corps as a single adult when she’s bit older. =)

So the house was a surprise: lots of room, high ceilings so that the rooms stay relatively cool during the day. The yard is planted with corn. Lots and lots of corn. One thing we have learned here in Tanzania is if there is space to grow something: plant food. Makes sense to me. We have hot water – one of those instant water heaters that as long as you keep the water pressure low enough puts out nice, hot water. We have a refrigerator. We have a stove. Most of the time we have electricity (that seems to come and go in spurts … sometimes we can go 3 days in a row with long power outages during the daytime and evenings – other weeks we will go almost an entire week without losing power … so I’ve quit trying to figure it out and am just letting it be what it is). But here in Tanzania we don’t heat or cool the house, and all our cooking is done with portable gas (those that cannot afford gas use charcoal stoves or wood fires). So when the electricity goes out the main loss is hot water for the shower and lights. We brought 5 solar camping lights with us and already have put them to good use. I actually don’t mind the electricity going out too much. It makes it easier to get to bed on time.