movin' on up...

...to the east side...

(of Tanzania, that is)

Yep, we have finally moved! After months of waiting (sometimes not so patiently) we have arrived. We are now officially living in Dar es Salaam. So far, we are really happy. We feel like we are where God wants us. I would like to stay I absolutely LOVE living here, but there are a few things that are keeping me from being able to say that...

(1) It is seriously hot here. No joke, you can't get away from it. The humidity is no lie like 100%. We just dropped $1000 on 2 air conditioning units for our 2 bedrooms. Did we ever think we would spend that kind of money on a/c?? No, but we realized after our first night here we had no other option. Down to our skibbies, we moved our bed to the middle of the room so that it was directly under the ceiling fan, we layed there and we sweat. We were miserable. The next day the a/c units were installed and we decided we would never again leave the comfort of our bedroom (just kidding...but not really).

(2) The traffic is pretty nasty. We come from Atlanta, normal traffic doesn't bother me that much. I can handle it..you know? This is not normal, these people are crazy. They make me crazy. Nobody follows the rules. It's one big game of: dodging pedestrians, cows, sheep, goats, motorcycles, and bicycles, cutting people off even if you are the only two cars on the road, buses stopping in the middle of the road to pick up passengers because pulling into the bus lane would take too much effort, memorizing which potholes your car can take and which ones it can't, making one lane into three...and on and on. It's the whole "me first" mentality...my time is more important than yours, I need to be somewhere type thing. I hate it...sometimes me and Nate roll down our windows and yell "shame on you" out the window in Swahili. It doesn't make matters any better, but at least we can make our frustrations known.

But on the other side...we have tons of new places to eat (as opposed to the same 3 restaurants in Morogoro), we have grocery stores, malls (yes, there are 2 now!), and the beach!! As soon as we get all settled, I am very much looking forward to taking a beach trip and relaxing knowing that everything is done! 

This is where we live: