Category: Other Page 63 of 181

The five hour flight from Dubai to Dar es Salaam seemed really short after the other parts of our trip.

But the contrast between Dubai and Dar is enough to boggle the mind.

Dubai is one of the richest cities in the world, and the airport is practically a small city.  It has three terminals, and Terminal 3 is the largest building in the world by floor space and the largest airport terminal in the world.  Yeah.  Imagine huge glass ceilings and gigantic sparkling pillars and marble floors.  And Dubai has only 2 million people.

Dar, on the other hand, has over 5 million people.  However, its one and only airport’s arrival terminal consists of two rooms.  Two.  Rooms.  You walk into the immigration room straight off the tarmac, and go from there into the baggage claim/customs room.  Our flight had over 200 people on it, so you can imagine that we all got up close and personal in the airport.

Talk about culture shock.

We arrived around 3 pm but didn’t get out of the airport until 4:30.  Things go a little slow in there, especially when waiting for 13 pieces of luggage.

Our wonderful friends Ben and Lauren (and Zawadi!) were waiting for us….what a welcome, wonderful sight after so many good-byes and so many hours of travel!  They also made us dinner and brought us groceries.

And today was our first full day.

We are back in our previous house, the house Gil and I have lived in the longest since we’ve been married.  It is such a huge blessing to come back to a house, and we are so thankful for the family who stayed here while we were gone.

Today we spent our time unpacking, arranging, organizing…you get the idea.  We went to the Voda store to get our phones working again, and picked up some groceries.

It’s all very surreal.  One part of me feels like we never left, and that somehow last year was a very long, involved dream.  Another part of me feels like all of this is very familiar, but not where I belong, and that somehow that was a different person who lived that life in Tanzania.

It’s weird.

Long time habits that I had forgotten about are coming back to me.  How to smash the cockroaches in my cabinet.  To laugh, not scream, when I pick up my toaster and a gecko runs out.  What type of mayonnaise to buy.  What sweat feels like.  How to convert shillings.  Swahili.

They say that when people first move to another country, the first six months are the honeymoon period, when everything is exciting and adventurous.  Then they start hating everything for a while.  Eventually, they adapt and come to a happy medium in their new life.

I think that in re-entry to a country where you previously lived, you skip the honeymoon and go straight to the hatred.  Ugh.  The traffic.  The insane drivers who seem to have no value on human life or property.  The ticks (spent an hour today de-ticking our dog).  The cockroaches.  And to top it all off, we had no electricity today from 10 am until 7 pm (and no back-up systems currently working).  It’s almost as if Tanzania was laughing at me.  Oh yeah?  You really thought you wanted to live here?  What were you thinking?  

Thankfully, I’ve done this enough times to know that the “hatred” phase won’t last very long either.  I know I will get used to life again soon and maybe even be brave enough to drive in a few days.

You call me out upon the waters 

The great unknown where feet may fail

And there I find You in the mystery

In oceans deep

My faith will stand

I didn’t take any pictures today…..a little too overwhelming.  But here’s a post from a few years ago with pictures of our house, if you are interested.

Let me walk upon the waters, wherever you would call me.

 My poor little lonely key chain.

You don’t really think about how keys ground you in a sense of belonging until you don’t have them anymore.  You have house keys and car keys that give you a sense of place and permanence, and work keys that give you an identity.  

When I move overseas, I lose all my keys.  They come off one by one until I feel homeless and weightless and identity-less.  

It’s not as hard this time, since we have a house and a car waiting for us–that’s never happened before.  But as I looked at my empty key chain this afternoon, I couldn’t help but feel….loss.  And an uncomfortable sense that I don’t belong anywhere.

So when the walls come falling down on me

And when I’m lost in the current of a raging sea

I have this blessed assurance holding me

All I know is I’m not home yet

This is not where I belong

Take this world and give me Jesus

This is not where I belong

And this is the song that keeps going through my head.

I will have keys again soon, but may I not forget where I really belong.

Today.  The day before departure day.  What happened today?

Laundry.  Errands.  Picking up last minute prescriptions, taking back a couple things that just didn’t fit in the luggage, buying vitamins for a Tanzanian friend who I just found out is pregnant.  

Printing e-tickets.  Calling banks and credit cards to tell them we are traveling, so they won’t flip out and put holds on all our accounts.  

Stuffing, stuffing, stuffing more things in the tubs.  Weighing them again to make sure they are exactly 49.5 pounds each.  Drilling holes around the edges so that we can seal them with zip ties.  Labeling all of them with addresses.  

Gil did one last Chuck E. Cheese run for our poor beleaguered kids who are struggling with the good-byes and seeing all their toys disappear and all the chaos around them.  Josiah couldn’t make himself eat his ice cream tonight.  That’s when you know my little buddy is having a hard time.  

Grace wrote this in my planner a couple of months ago, as soon as we bought tickets.

Tomorrow is the day.  We leave for San Francisco at 1:00, and our plane leaves around 5:00.  Sixteen hours non-stop to Dubai (in the middle east), a 15 hour layover, and then 5 more hours to 

Dar es Salaam, 

Tanzania, 

East Africa.

The other side of the world.  

I will try to blog from the airport tomorrow, and maybe from Dubai.  Otherwise, you’ll hear from me on the other side of the world.

Leaving one home for another, but ultimately, neither is where I really belong.  Just give me Jesus.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch…unless you work for Google.  

In addition to gyms, volleyball courts, gigantic gumball machines, bicycles, refrigerators full of free Odwalla juice, and the freedom to bring your dog to your office with you, Google has 23 restaurants on campus for their employees….for free.  Oh yeah, and they can bring family or friends for free too.  

I just happen to have a brother who works for Google.  So of course, we ask him for our free lunch from time to time.  That’s where we went today.  

If Google takes over the world someday, I am really glad I have a brother who works there.  

Other than that…well, let’s see.

I woke up at 5:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep.  

Darn adrenaline.  

I did some paperwork.  

I organized our important documents.

I went shopping and finally found a pair of sturdy, brown sandals I had been searching for. 

I helped Grace finish her scrapbook from this year.   

We went to dinner with good friends who have invested in my life and our ministry since I was a teenager. 

Tonight Lily had a nervous breakdown when the band-aid covering the (microscopic) cut on her knee came off in the bathtub.  Apparently the removal of such band-aid caused her knee to thus be in unbearable and unending pain.

I did not have the patience for this tonight.  

I sent her to bed and decided I needed to send myself to bed.  

We leave the day after tomorrow.  Thursday night is our last night in America.  

My head is too full of suitcases and documents and shoes and the tasks in front of me to really comprehend that thought.

I told Grace, “Guess what?  Zawadi is going to stay with us for a couple days next week while Ben and Lauren go away!”  

“YES!”  she yelled.  And then she gave me a funny look.  “Next week?”  

“Yep, Sweetie.  Next week we’ll be in Tanzania.”  

She knew this, of course.  It just sounds really strange when you say next week.  

Honestly, it’s one of the strangest thing to get through my brain.  I sit here in California, in the house where I grew up, with pavement outside and organized drivers and English speakers and wealth everywhere.  And this time next week, I’ll be on the other side of the world.  

Everything is different there.  It feels like a different planet.  I feel like a different person there.  It’s hard to wrap my head my head that I will be there next week, even though it’s the only thing I’ve thought about for days…weeks.  

Anyway.  

Today we went to the outlets to get Grace and Lily school shoes.  Because, of course, we apparently didn’t have enough to pack yet.  

Cousin Emma came to visit.  

Gil spent 5 hours detailing our car to get it ready to sell.  Anyone want to buy an Odyssey?

The living room now looks like this.  And I despaired as our “maximum” number of pieces crawled up from 10…to 11…to 12…to 13.

I went to Target to buy bigger tubs to replace some of the smaller tubs and prayed that the airline will have mercy on us.  

Next week, I’ll be unpacking them all, in my living room on the other side of the world.  

Adrenaline and butterflies have been my constant companions for the last few weeks.

I wake early every morning and instantly I’m up.  No alarm clock needed and no sleeping in these days.  Instantly my brain starts working and the blood starts pumping and the butterflies of excitement and anxiety start stirring up my stomach.  Many times, they all mix together into nausea.  

I’m going to attempt to blog every day for the next week or so, here and on the other side.  Have you ever wondered what it’s like to move overseas?  Well, here’s my diary.

We are now at my parents’ house until we leave.  Today, we took over their living room.  Actually, it’s more like we threw up all over their living room.  We unloaded every single thing that we want to take to Tanzania, in an attempt to get it organized for packing.  

Goal:  Fit all of this into 10 pieces of luggage.  

After the butterflies in my stomach took a few nose dives, I took a few deep breaths and dug in.  

Packing for plane travel is nothing like packing for a normal move.  In normal moves, you pack according to the room in the house, carefully labeling each box.

Packing for plane travel is all about weight and space.  Each luggage piece has to be a certain size and weigh no more than 50 pounds.  It’s like a giant game of Tetris.  There’s no “kitchen” or “bedroom” box here.  Everything is mixed up according to how it fits in the box.  For example, don’t pack a water bottle until you’ve filled up every inch of space inside it.

Get out the bathroom scale and keep handing tubs to your long-suffering husband so that you can check the weight.  Rearrange.  Add more.  Take more out.  Repeat.  

This is where I spent the entire day.  

Of course, between Gil and I, there was plenty of, What were we thinking when we bought this?  How on earth could we have this much stuff?  And many thoughts of wanting to set it all on fire.  

Tonight my aunt and uncle came over for dinner and brought extremely cool bubbles.  Thankfully, they don’t need to be packed.