Potential New Apartment

Living room

Today, I visited an apartment, managed by Beth's husband, Tizo, that I may move into.  While living in the Shorts' guesthouse has been fine, they have a lot of visitors coming over the next few months, and I'd like to have a more permanent place.  The apartment looks great; I'm sitting down with Tizo soon to discuss the details, so hopefully, it'll work out.  Enjoy a look around!

Bedroom

In the living room, there are these interesting sconces on each of the four walls, each a different animal.  Of course the rhino is my favorite.  They are a bit odd, but I love them as they certainly make the room unique.  I love living places with interesting quirks. 

See, there's an antelope on that wall!

The Guest House

I am living in the Short's guest house for now; eventually, I hope to find my own place, but I'm quite comfortable here for now.  The guest house includes a large bedroom/sitting room, a bathroom, and an office; I'm using the bedroom and bathroom.  Tammy and I rearranged a good bit today and I have things fairly well set up now.  I look forward to decorating a bit as I have time.  I brought some scrapbook papers, some brightly colored fabric, and quite a few printed photos to use to brighten it up quickly.  

I don't have my own kitchen, so I'm eating with the Shorts and I'll chip in money for food and electricity.  The next picture is the view from my door looking towards their house.  

Arrival at Mt Kilimanjaro National Airport

And I have arrived!  It's a beautiful Wednesday afternoon here in Tanzania.  Kilimanjaro International Airport is pretty small; no pulling up to a gate here.  There are few enough flights that the people who live around here know what flights land at one time; Lewis says that there is a daily KLM flight that comes in in the evening so when you see a big plane at that time, you know that's what it is.

Once we got off the plane, I had to fill out a form for my tourist visa.  The forms were available in a tent out back, so I had that ready by the time I made it in the building.  The line for visas wasn't too long; I waited there while everyone else went ahead to get the luggage (not out of sight; arrivals is really all one big room).  I had no problems at all getting a tourist visa (despite the worried of the Italian check-in guy); five minutes later I was walking out the front door of the airport, to be met by this little welcoming committee:

I'd been on the flight with the girls, of course, but they'd run on ahead as the others were taking the luggage out to the cars.  Beth, an American who is married to a Tanzanian and lives in Monduli, has become a close friend of the Shorts' and she had come to drive one of the two cars needed to pick us all up.  She had made a nice sign for me, and her little boy was there to hold it up for me.  He's such a sweet kid. :)  (If you can't read it in the picture, it just says 'Welcome to Tanzania, Katy.'

It took two cars for all of and all of our stuff.  Beth had driven one, and Albert, the Shorts' neighbor and driver for the school, brought the other.  The one Albert drove, that you can see in the photo below, takes diesel and is a tough four-wheel-drive, which you need around here.  The other car we were in is also a four-wheel drive, but slightly smaller and not diesel.  In the end, all the luggage was piled into the brown car, leaving room for only Albert and Lewis.  The rest of us piled into the other.  I thought I took a better selfie than this in the car, but I think I took it on Michela's phone and I haven't remembered to get it from her yet.  And no...I am not driving.  This part of the world drives on the left.  :)

It's a nearly three hour trip from the airport to Monduli; we fortunately stopped at a nice gas station with a little shop about forty-five minutes in for cold drinks.  I got a pineapple Fanta...if you ever get the chance, try one!  They're amazing.  

And I'm Off!

And I’m off!  

I wonder if my parents ever realized how much trouble their children would still be even in their thirties...my flight this morning was at six am, meaning I needed to be at the airport around four, which meant leaving the house around three, which meant waking up around two...and yet they still volunteered to take me to the airport.

I flew to Newark, where I had an eight-hour layover (I don’t mind layovers, really; I like airports), which was just annoying because of how early I had to fly out to get there.  Surely there’s another flight to Newark later in the day?? From Newark, I took an overnight flight to Lisbon, Portugal. Well, I say ‘overnight’ as it was nearly six am when we landed, but with the time difference, it was more like arriving around midnight.  I did manage to get some sleep on the flight though. From Lisbon, I will take a flight to Venice and then the train to Milan, where I’ll stop for a few days to visit the church where I worked previously for a few days before continuing on to Tanzania.

Reviving the Blog: A New Adventure

Well, it's been nearly four years since my last proper update here.  I moved from Wuhan, China back to the US in 2015, and I've spent the last three years living in Nashville.  I wanted to be here for a few Thanksgivings and Christmases and birthdays with my family and friends, and I've enjoyed spending time on hobbies that aren't easy to take with me on the road.  I've been doing customer service for life insurance, which, while not a field I had ever imagined myself in, was a great job with great people and I've been blessed to have had that opportunity.  It's been good to be here, but the time has come to move on again.

I am leaving (in less than 48 hours--queue to-do-list panic) for a new chapter in my life.  Those of you who have known me a while know that I worked in Italy from 2006 to 2009, primarily in Milan alongside the Short family.  We have remained friends over the years, and they have now been in Monduli, Tanzania since 2014.  The oldest daughter in the family has been asking me ever since not if or will I come, but when are you getting here.  And now circumstances have worked out for me to join them in the work of Tanzania Christian Services.

Tanzania Christian Services is a church-of-Christ run nonprofit; the mission team in places runs Tanzania Christian Clinic and Alpha Omega Christian Secondary School.  With my previous experience in working with teenagers and teaching English, my role will be primarily with the school.

I'm looking forward to getting started!  I am leaving the US on August 27th (with a flight at 6 am...which means being at the airport around 4 am...I am not a morning person...), but I will be stopping in Italy for a few days on the way to visit friends from my years there.  Crazily enough, it works out to be only about $50 more to buy tickets that allow stopping there on the way than it would have to buy a plane ticket right to Tanzania.  I'm meeting the Shorts there, and we'll travel on to Tanzania together.  I should be actually arriving in Tanzania on September 5th.

I'm hoping to keep in touch with everyone through this blog and through other social media, as well as through a quarterly newsletter to my supporting churches.  Besides the blog, you can keep up with me these ways:

* My facebook page (primarily reposting what I write here, but if that format is easier for you to follow, feel free to follow my page): My Life in Monduli

* Instagram: foreverfreebird 

* Newsletter:  I have an email list to send out my quarterly newsletters; if you'd like to be on that list please send me a message through the contact box on the right side of the page with your email address.

More information to come in future posts; feel free to comment with any questions!


And with that, here we go again...