June 29, 2017 - After Africa

Fourteen years ago today, my sister and her neighbor comically set me up with a cute European guy who was working at their town YMCA for the summer.  We met over watermelon and beer, and when he said he wanted to visit Boston for the first time, one of them told him, "Lisa will show you around!"  When he came over a few days later to plan our Boston visit, my sister said, "So, you guys are going to the movies tonight?" I have maybe never blushed like that before in my life, and we ended up seeing Jim Carey's "Bruce Almighty."  I wasn't exactly a desperate spinster at the age of almost-23, but there was something about him that immediately felt special, different, right.  I am good at holding on to people in my life, and I knew pretty quickly that he was someone I never wanted to let go of.  The next four years of long distance until our eventual wedding day were emotional, complicated, incredible.  I was devoted to teaching high school in New York City - an intense job that I loved intensely - and Kristoffer was finishing up his graduate degrees before moving to Washington, DC.  Right after we were married, we moved to Kenya.  And then we moved again to Tanzania.  And life has now brought us to Maryland.  It is profound to think of all of the small and big decisions that brought us to those places, and how even one or two different decisions could have landed us, together or individually, elsewhere.  It all goes back to watermelon and beer. Although I know my sister takes the credit.  

So now that you've read all of my "wrap ups," it is time for me to say goodbye to this blog.  A couple of people have asked me what else I have been doing this last year, as I have already written so much about everyone else.  I intentionally did not try to find work, because I needed to get everyone settled, make our house a home, and adapt to life without staff (no joke).  And I did all of that!  The four times Kristoffer traveled it was for 2-3 weeks each time, and that was something else to get used to.  As I am a woman who needs other women (don't we all?!), I've been working on making friends and figuring out where I fit in here in our new community.  I will admit, in some ways that process has been easier and faster to do in my home country/culture than in Kenya or Tanzania as a foreigner sussing out other foreigners.  But in other ways, it has been a different challenge to "break in" because people here are settled and have established social lives, without the normal "filling friendship vacancies" that expats constantly need to do. I've made friends through the kids' elementary school primarily and these women are the mothers of our kids' friends, they are neighbors, Brownie and Soccer Moms, go to our church, or are in my book club!  I have met so many wonderful and kind women, and it is great to feel that I have found my proverbial "village" here.  I am also starting to consider part time consulting work for the fall when Aya goes to her nursery school five days a week. I'm ready to dust off parts of my brain that have been hiding in far off corners for awhile. We've tackled moving and living overseas and having three babies there.  Now I'm ready to tackle "American part-time-working-mom" a bit if I can find something that is a good fit.

People often ask me what I miss.  I usually say that, other than missing individual people, I greatly miss the diversity of expat life - living in a different culture and being surrounded by different languages and perspectives all the time.  In Grace's first grade class of 22 students, there were 15 different languages spoken at home.  I miss that.  And I miss the schools our kids went to - we seemed to have found "the right" school for each child at the right time and they were each very special.   Also, the beauty of East Africa.  The honesty of it.  The "in-your-face"ness of it.  Even the hard stuff...sometimes I miss that too.  

It is easy to identify what I don't miss as well.  The kids being sick all the time, worrying about malaria or other diseases, little relief from the heat, and inconsistent utlities (water and power).  The intricacies of managing people working in your home (even when you depend on and really like them, it's stressful!).  Being a target, more or less all the time, and being asked for more and more and more, when you're already being more generous than you can be.  That gets exhausting. I also don't miss the anxiety.  In hindsight, I think I probably should have been taking some kind of anti-anxiety medication for the last many years.  It was not paralyzing, but it was strong.  I had a lot of anxiety around emergencies - what if one of us got really sick and couldn't be medivac'ed in time?  And when Kristoffer would travel, it would be worse.  I hated driving off our little peninsula in case of a car accident when he was out of the country.  I felt the burden of not having any family around should something happen to me when he was away.  My anxiety is significantly better since we moved back, and that is a huge relief.

While the kids aren't babies anymore, this blog has largely served as their "baby book." We have a wonderful life that I am grateful for everyday.  It is not perfect, but it is really good.  Having seen up close the other side of the spectrum, I hope to always be humble and empathetic and generous to others when I can be.  To say that I've learned a lot about the world in the last decade would be a drastic understatement.  I like to think that I am more open-minded, more tolerant, more forgiving  (although that European guy I met 14 years ago might not agree!), but it is also possible that I am more cynical and jaded too, although we might have gotten out just in time to avoid any permanent damage.  At the very least I am more knowledgable, and I will appreciate that knowledge for a long time to come.

It is apropos that Jeffrey Gettleman, our friend, Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times now-former East Africa Bureau Chief, just published his book last month, called Love, Africa: A Memoir of Romance, War and Survival*.  It is an incredible read, made even cooler because I've never known the author of a memoir before.  Particularly for me, his descriptions of Kenya and the region during the time we lived there were poignant.  He brilliantly articulated many feelings that I can strongly identify with and there was a certain magic to reading a memoir that I connected with so personally.  His book made me feel deeply grateful for our time in East Africa and also relieved that it is over.  While we did not face nearly the level of intimacy, danger or intensity that Jeffrey and his wife Courtenay experienced, in this last year since we left I have walked around feeling that we did, indeed, survive something big. 

Speaking of Jeffrey Gettleman, we were emailing back and forth a bit in December and he asked me if we were missing Africa or not.  Part of my response to him is the right way to close this blog.  We are here now and life is good; I'm a person who leans towards happiness. But it is also true that, as I wrote to him, "I'll be missing pieces of Africa forever."

Cheers to that, and thank you for reading!

LMW

(*Note that Jeffrey Gettleman did not ask for, nor does he need, this book review, but really - if Africa is at all an interest of yours, you should read his memoir.  If you've ever fallen in love with a place or with a person?  If you've ever had a dream and done everything you could to make that dream come true?  If you're just a person who's not perfect, but you're trying to be a better version of yourself?  Read it! Read it! Read it!  It's really very powerful and, and you might even just fall a little bit in love with Africa too. Jeffrey Gettleman will now be reporting for the NYT as South Asia Bureau Chief based in India.  We will miss his East African stories, but look forward to following his next assignment.)

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September 6, 2012 - Six Months in Dar (part 3)

Part 3 of the series: NBO vs DAR

It is really hard not to compare Nairobi and Dar, given that they are both big East African cities.  I think overall we liked living in Nairobi and I can’t say we were unhappy there…but we were also quite ready to leave.  So far we are happy with our move to Dar…it is family friendly and as I’ve written about, we were able to make a pretty smooth transition. 

But in my head I am comparing these two places all the time, although I do try not be too hard on either of them.  I’ll share a little bit of what I think here…

Overall Development and Speed/Efficiancy: NBO.  NBO is much more “like” a modern western city (although definitely is not actually a modern western city), but DAR is following close behind.  We haven’t been to the movies here because there isn’t a movie theater very close to where we live.  There are not many big shopping malls here, as there were in NBO.  Even though I originally found NBO to be quite slow, it is a wee bit faster than DAR when it comes to conducting business (and, I imagine Kristoffer could tell you, government affairs as well). But DAR is moving quickly and is catching up to NBO in terms of mobile phone technology, building/construction, and service deliveries.

Banking:  NBO.  Although in both cities banking IS SO SLOW AND ANNOYING AND FEELS LIKE THE 1930s WHEN YOU HAVE TO WRITE EVERYTHING IN A DAMN LEDGER.  Oh sorry… but in NBO we did at least have a local bank account whereas we have now altogether given up on banking in DAR.  We just take cash out of the ATMs here daily.  It sucks.

Prices in General: DRAW.  Both countries are really expensive, but some things are more expensive here (for example, housing) and other things are more expensive there (for example, medical care).

Housing: DRAW.  DAR is more expensive than NBO, but there are a lot more options in NBO.  We are quite fortunate and ended up with great houses in both places.

Freedom: DAR.  Because driving is so much less insane in Dar I am comfortable driving on my own and therefore have a lot more freedom than I ever had in Nairobi.  Of course it was my own fault for being scared of driving there…I am sure I could have gotten used to it, but it would have made our life there a lot more stressful.  Here I am confident and feel secure driving. 

Transportation: DAR.  Not only is driving less crazy, but it is easier and safer for Kristoffer to bike here!  And traffic can be bad, but does not compare to NBO’s traffic.  That place is THE WORST!

Security:  slight advantage DAR.  DAR does not have the constant terrorist threat (from Al Shabaab in Somalia) looming over it and sort of everyday crime is believed to be less (and less violent) here than NBO.  But it is also getting worse and people often say, “It’s getting to be like Nairobi.”  But we do feel a bit safer here than we did in NBO, although after Kristoffer’s incident last year we are generally more paranoid.

Health Concerns: slight advantage NBO.  We didn’t worry about malaria in NBO so that is the slight advantage.  But in terms of stomach bugs and other random African illnesses, we are in the same boat here I think.

Medical Care: NBO.  Hands down.  I miss three things very much from Nairobi and our doctors are on that list (also, my friends and the beautiful flowers!).  Aga Khan University Hospital in NBO was a good hospital and I had a great doctor there for having babies.  I had the best doctor and leading cardiologist in East Africa as my general physician and cardiologist at Nairobi Hospital.  Grace and Noah were patients of the leading pediatrician, who I miss on a weekly basis.  DAR has a couple of good clinics, but they treat so many travelers that they are not really developing relationships with their patients and always make you feel a bit rushed/foreign.  If any of us were to get really sick we would be med-evac’ed to Nairobi to see the doctors I have mentioned above. 

School: DAR.  While I loved the little school Grace went to in Nairobi, had a very hard time saying goodbye to it, and would happily recommend it to anyone there, it can’t compare with the language and cultural opportunity our kids have by going to the Nordic School. 

Finding Stuff:  slight advantage NBO.  Nairobi had more options, but we still have a lot of choice here and there isn’t anything “big” that we can’t find.  For a price :)

Night Life: slight advantage NBO.  Ok, we aren’t really “night life” people in the first place.  NBO had a lot more restaurants and clubs and bars and movie theaters, but there are still a lot of good ones here and maybe they are more our speed because we aren’t going to bars and clubs too often anyway!

Stuff for Kids & Visitors: slight advantage NBO.  There are a few more activities with little ones in NBO (like Grace used to do Monkeynastix), and more cool places to visit with guests like the Giraffe Center and the Elephant Orphanage.  But in Dar we have the beach right here!

Poverty: slight disadvantage DAR.  In NBO, poverty was a lot more “in your face” because it was juxtaposed so closely with extreme wealth.  We saw poverty everyday where we lived. Here, because we live on this isolated little peninsula of mostly expats and upper middle class Tanzanians, we don’t see it very much in our daily lives but we do know that it is even worse than in Kenya.

Infrastructure:  DRAW.  The roads in DAR (although probably not the rest of the country) are much better than we expected them to be.  And they even make some NBO roads look bad!  Traffic is bad, but not as bad as NBO.  Electricity and water are more scarce and complicated here than in NBO (at least in our experience), but countrywide the problems are the same and I am sure it varies even in our expat community.  We hope that faster internet comes before we move away.  That would be icing on the cake!

Corruption:  DRAW.  I guess both countries are so corrupt that it is hard to tell which one is more or less.  Bummer.

Access to nature: DRAW.  A big benefit to living here is that we don't have to travel to get to the beach...but we are maybe slightly further away from good safari than we were in NBO.  But both countries have incredible places to see wildlife, explore beaches, climb mountains (although in a mountain-off I guess Mt. Kili beats Mt. Kenya...), observe nature.  I really look forward to seeing the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti while we live here.  Maybe I'll even get my hotair balloon ride one of these days.  And I'm still thinking of climbing THE mountain at some stage before we leave Africa.  I've got some time to make that happen, luckily!

Overall Atmosphere: DAR.  Nairobi just feels more stressful (or stressed out?) than Dar does.  The peninsula we live on is so family friendly that we have felt welcomed from the beginning.   The large Scandinavian community is also a big deal here, and of course there are also a lot of Americans in both places we’ve lived.  But DAR feels like a good fit for us.  The beach atmosphere is very calming and at least before the extreme heat starts up again, the weather has been fantastic for the last 3 months!

If you visited us (or live/d) in NBO you should come to DAR now so that you can make your own comparison!

LMW

September 5, 2012 - Six Months in Dar (part 2)

Part 2 of the series: Settling In

There were three very hard parts about getting settled in Dar.

First, we moved here at the peak of the hot season, which felt even hotter considering we came from a Danish and New England winter!  There was nothing we could do about this except suffer a bit and let our personal thermometers adjust.  I would say this was a particular challenge for Noah.

Second, we did not have a working generator at first so the first two weeks were even hotter without electricity (we have power outages every single day here – sometimes on and off all day long) for air conditioning.  We had food going bad without a cold fridge, and we had jet-lagged kids who couldn’t sleep in the extreme heat.

Third, getting sick!  So many new/different bugs/germs/parasites/whatever in the air/water here that it was a hard transition for me and the kids to make (not sure why Kristoffer had it so easy!).  If you'll recall that first month of living in Dar we were regular guests at the local clinic.  I am sure the extreme heat didn't help either!  Luckily, after that month it has been much easier. 

But other than that, I think we've done well.

We tried to go to anything we could get ourselves invited to (to the yacht club with friends, to Happy Hour, to someone’s house for tea, to a meeting of diplomatic spouses…).  As my mom told me once, it is best to cast your net wide in the beginning.  The trick to finding people you want to spend time with is to meet A LOT of people in the first.  So I think we did pretty well this time around – also because in Nairobi we were not good at doing that in the beginning and it took us a long time to have friends there.  This time we decided to push past our family’s “home-body” nature and be as extroverted as possible! 

Another aspect of settling in to Dar has been figuring out where to get stuff.  Since there is not one place that has just about everything (like Nakumatt in Nairobi, mostly), here you have to know where to get the best fruit (and all of it is not in the same place) or the certain groceries or the diesel or the luku, etc.  This required some effort but did not take THAT much time because we live on a small peninsula and do not have so many options.  Now I know which grocery store sells pesto and which one doesn't, where the cheese is best bang for your buck, where the best apples and oranges are, which guy charges too much for mango, etc.

After 6 months we feel pretty comfortable here in Dar - I would even go so far as to say we feel at home here.  Grace has recently told me, "I don't miss my old house anymore!"  I think I am almost there too (but, wow, I did really love our Nairobi house) and I know Kristoffer definitely shares her feelings.

LMW

June 12, 2012 - Christmas on Steroids

Last Wednesday was a very big day for the Welsiens in Dar es Salaam.  

Our shipment from America arrived containing 60 boxes (or, to be specific, 56 boxes, 2 kid bikes, 1 ironing board with various other tall/skinny things taped to it, and 1 tool box) full of joy.  This was all of our stuff that we left in my parents' basement when we moved to Kenya in 2007 along with gifts and supplies that we acquired since then.  It was almost all of our wedding presents, still almost brand new and in many cases never used, as we had only been 5 months when we left them behind.  It also contained books and books and books...for me, these are individual memories tied to people and places in my life, and it sounds super corny, but I have surely missed them.  It contained a one year supply of diapers, wipes, toothpaste, toothbrushes, deoderant, shampoo and conditioner, hair stuff, hand soap, laundry detergent and toilet bowl cleaner.  And winter wardrobes for G&N so they don't get pneumonia this time when we go to Denmark for Christmas. 

The best way I can describe the day an expat gets his/her/their shipment from home is "Christmas on Steroids."  You can't unpack fast enough...or in our case, you can't find places to put all of your stuff fast enough!  We have the space, but not necessarily the right storage furniture!  It sounds quite materialistic, I'm sure, but it just feels so good to have all of our stuff.  Sentimental stuff...practical stuff...old stuff...new stuff.  Our stuff! 

Here you can see it all - still crated and palatized on the "big truck".

And here you can see just some of the boxes unloaded in the house.  (I was the foreman so I couldn't take too many pictures!)

Noah's favorite item to unpack was I think our very big stuffed giraffe.  He loves to give him kisses and hugs.  Grace's favorite thing from the "big truck" was her Cars bike and Dora helmet.  (Although they have both been REALLY happy reuniting with all of their Christmas and birthday gifts...we have had lots of fun and happy playing at our house the last week.  No bored kids here!) My favorite thing was the play kitchen we had bought for the kids.  It took us 2 1/2 hours to put it together but it was well worth it in the end.  Ok, that AND my Fiestaware.  AND the diapers. Kristoffer's says his favorite thing was also the kids' play kitchen.  AND our Keurig!

Most boxes are empty, but a lot of things haven't found a home beyond our bedroom floor just yet.  We're working on it.  There have been a lot of things going on at our house at the same time, such as getting curtain rods installed (FINALLY) and, therefore, curtains, an island in the kitchen, improvements to Rose's quarters, painting of furniture, construction of proper mosquito nets.  So we've been quite busy over here, but really happy.  And enjoying our stuff just as much as we expected to.    I would say we are about two weeks away from being completely settled in our new home...and it feels really good to be this close to that milestone. 

LMW

May 14, 2012 - Settling in Update

We have all been here in Dar together for 2 1/2 months now and Kristoffer was here for a month before we joined him.  I think we've done a pretty good job on getting settled and each week we make more progress. Some updates:

• We got our Tanzanian driving licenses on Friday.  That was a really good experience, actually.  The place was like a modern DMV in America.  Maybe even better, because as "diplomats" we were sort of fast-tracked because our paperwork had already been approved by the World Bank. They did regular biometrics and everything.  And the license is an actual plastic card.  This is compared to our Kenyan driving licenses which were little cardboard books, hand written and stamped.  Tanzania is definitely ahead of Kenya in that regard. 
• We got our diplomatic license plates.  The day after our encounter with the police, of course.  And, I should note, that Kristoffer read my blog and couldn't believe it.  He said he was never worried the way I was and thought the police were nice.  We have different perceptions, for sure!  But maybe now that we have blue plates we won't have to deal with the cops again (assuming, we don't break the law again I guess).
• We finally picked out curtains for our house (we're still using sheets to cover our windows).  The bad news is that we can't figure out how to buy them because the place doesn't take credit card or wire transfer.  CASH ONLY.  And we don't have access to large amounts of cash here because...
• Banking in East Africa is decades behind the rest of the world (or at least feels that way).  We've been trying to get a Tanzanian bank account established for months.  We still don't have ATM cards, a check book or information on how to directly deposit some of Kristoffer's pay check.  Argh.  We are using our Danish bank account to withdraw cash from ATMs here every week.  To pay for everything.  It is really annoying.

And the really big news...

• Our boat is here!  We can actually see the ship that is carrying our stuff from America.  All of our wedding gifts from almost 5 years ago! One year of diapers and wipes and laundry detergent and  shampoo and toothpaste and toilet bowl cleaner and sunblock etc!  Grace's bike and helmet!  Toys from Christmas and birthdays!  Books!  Of course, our ship is currently the last in a very long queue of ships waiting to get into port.  That will take another 2-4 weeks :(  And then it has to unload.  And then it has to clear customs.  And then it has to get delivered to us.  But THEN all of our stuff will be here.  In our house.  With us.  It will be Christmas in July!  (well, hopefully June...but that might be stretching it).  I actually dream about it.  The unpacking will be...you know...unpacking...but we are so excited for our stuff to get here.  

I am hoping that by the end of July, we really feel done with "moving in".  Another sign of progress is that yesterday for the first time Grace told me, "Mama, I don't miss my old house anymore.  It is nice to be at our new house."  Even though I still miss our old house a little bit, it made me really happy to hear that she is feeling so good about being here.

LMW

April 4, 2012 - Don't Know Much

I snuck away this morning to a restaurant that has amazingly wonderful internet.  Yippee!  Internet at our house is not great these days, and I got sucked into reading three books in three days which also hogged my online time.  But now I'm back.  

Today is the one-month-anniversary of my arrival in Dar.  Remember that Kristoffer came one month ahead of us, so he has been here for two months.  It has been a productive month in many ways.  Things at our house are good (still some work being done here and there, and we still are on the hunt for affordable curtains), I am comfortably driving around and Grace is somewhat "settled" in her school (off for the week after being out last week sick...but hopefully next week will be the start of a good long stretch there).  The best news is that we are not sick and haven't visited the clinic in a whole week.  Go us!  There is still a lot of "settling in" to be done, but in ways that take more time.  

For example, this week I miss my friends.  Friends in the US.  Friends in Nairobi.  Friends in Denmark.  Just friends!  People who know and like me already.  It is hard starting over in a place and having to figure out who you are comfortable/compatible with and then trying to convince those people that you are friendworthy and all that.  I would like to zip through this phase and just have some people I can talk to aside from Kristoffer, Grace, Noah and Rose (no offense to them).  Luckily we have a play date tomorrow with a girl from Grace's class who happens to have a brother named Noah only 2 weeks younger than our Noah.  Fingers crossed their mom likes me!

Another example of still getting settled is that I feel I don't really know anything about Tanzania yet.  When we moved to Nairobi, we were instantly thrown into the upcoming election and learning all about Kenyan history and politics and its tribes, etc.  And then I got a job and learned a lot about the country when I was working at UNICEF.  We also didn't have kids so we probably had a lot more energy for exploring and discovering things (and we didn't have little people's nap schedules or feeding times or temperature preferences to be considering).  

Fast forward to now.  I have not read a Tanzanian paper since we got here (embarrassing, but true) and I am doing very little exploring.  I know that the government-owned electric company is broke and so we are using our generator A LOT because there is not a lot of power...and I know that regular Tanzanians are pretty pissed about the situation.  But I don't know much else.  I am sure with time I will learn more about the country, but we really live in so much of a self-contained bubble of expatriats that I could very well be living in ANY African country it seems.  Also the person I spend most of my time with is Kenyan (Rose) so I'm not learning anything new there.  The country seems to move slower than Kenya, but because we have such awesome landlords I haven't really felt anything at home to happen too slowly.  There are two things I find to be a bit annoying:

1. Flies.  They are everywhere and we can't kill them fast enough.  I hate them.  So they are beyond an annoyance, really.  I feel that they are my enemy.  The flies! AH!

2. There are quite a few good stores for grocery/fruit/veg shopping...but you will never find one store that has everything you need at the same time.  So when I go shopping to buy dinner, I have to go to 3 different stores on average to get everything I need.  And I am not cooking anything complicated, trust me.   That is annoying - especially since I have to shop every day or other day because our fridge doesn't stay that cold and things go bad in the heat.  I am still getting used to this.

Otherwise, we're doing fine.  Rose will be in Kenya for the next two weeks so I will be a crazy woman doing both of our jobs.  Not so thrilled about that, but I will of course survive.  And after that, I will try a lot harder to get to know a bit more about this place we call home.  I will look into a Kiswahili tutor at that time and hope more regular interaction with a Tanzanian will help me learn more about Tanzanian culture as well.

Kristoffer has a 4-day weekend for Easter and I look forward to that.  Feeling very happy that I brought Easter baskets with us for the kids.  I did some research and picked out the church that I want to go to here, so we'll go there for the first time on Easter as well.  Hope it can be a really nice holiday for us.  

LMW

March 24, 2012 - Sick Joke

I thought I was putting it out there to the universe with my blog the other day that I was all done with people in this house being sick.  And yet.  Grace started with a fever during last night and by the time she woke up this morning it was over 102 F (over 39 C) and she was pretty miserable.  So yes.  We spent a portion of our Saturday morning at the clinic.  Again.  One of the nurses said,  "Give it a few more weeks and they'll get all sorted out."  Let's freaking hope so! 

Little girl went to bed without a fever finally.  We discovered that she likes chewable tylenol a lot better than other fever reducers we've tried.  Noah is almost done his antibiotics and she has just started hers, for the same throat infection he has.  Kristoffer hesitantly asked the doctor, "So we're going to get it too?"  She mentioned something about it mostly affecting kids.  

So if I wasn't clear before, I will be explicit now:  PLEASE NO MORE INFECTIONS IN THIS HOUSE!  I think we should be all clear for at least the next half year.

LMW

March 22, 2012 - The New Norm?

I was back to the clinic yesterday when Noah suddenly spiked a high fever out of the blue (almost 102F or 39C).  Fearing malaria or dengue fever (so soon?  really?!), I rushed him over.  The check-in nurse said, "You come here a lot."  Yes.  Thanks.  I'm aware of that.

Luckily not malaria or dengue...he has a bacterial infection in his throat and ears.  Not that this is great or anything, but slightly less scary.  And so he now he is on antibiotics; he didn't have a great night with the fever going up and down.  I am left wondering...is this how living in Dar for the next three years is going to be?  Someone on antibiotics every other week?!  Please, NO!

LMW

March 21, 2012 - Tidbits

A random collection of updates...

Our refrigerator has been having an identity crisis since we got here.  It has to do with the "quality" of electricity, actually.  Mr. S says the electricity comes in 3 phases (what does that mean?) and in the afternoon/evening is the poorest quality.  So between 3-4 pm everyday, our refrigerator starts to break down.  Turning on and off, lights blinking, weird noises, warmer temp inside.  And then by the time we go to bed, it is fine again until the next afternoon.  So weird.

A guy from the generator company came and thought he had "fixed" the problem that gave me a shock.  When he went to show Mrs. S, he put his hand on the gennie and then HE got a bad shock too.  But that somehow inspired him to actually know the problem and we are waiting for a new part to fix it.  So it wasn't just that the gennie hates me.

Grace is at school, day 4 today.  The first two days I stayed the whole time (8:30 to 12) and then yesterday I left for 2 hours in the middle of the day.  Today she told me when we got there, "Mama, you can leave now."  So that is a good sign.  She also told me today, "Those people speak Danish like Far."  I asked her who "those people" were and she said, "everyone at school."  Then I told her, "You can speak Danish like Far too," to which she replied, "and English like you."  (I think the author of this recent NY Times article on bilingualism would be proud.)  Yesterday was the first day that Grace correctly pronounced the word "because", which she has always pronounced as "pause".  I have thought it was the cutest thing, and got a little sad that she is saying it correctly now.  Although she has always been very verbal, she is often speaking in a more sophisticated way these days.  Grace has also moved into a BIG girl bed.  Not her toddler bed anymore.  A queen-sized bed (thank you Hartwell family for donating Ben's bed to Grace!).  She looks like a wee little girl in such a big island of a bed...but she LOVES it.  Tonight is "parent's night" at her school.  I'm looking forward to meeting some new people (and improving my Danish, I suspect).

Noah is the cutest little guy.  He climbs on everything.  He is everywhere.  Trying to run even!  He has figured out where the latch on the gate is to go upstairs and I fear will soon be able to undo it by himself.  He knows how to get water from the filter.  He can almost say - and tries very hard to say - ball consistently.  He also says Mama and "Yeah" and MMMMMM when he is hungry.  Grace and Noah play a game where she yells NO and he says YEAH.  Over and and over and over again.  I love it.  He is still not all the way back to sleeping through the night like he was before we left the US, but I hope we're getting closer to that.  He is eating great the last few days, which is a relief because we learned at the doctor's last week that he hasn't gained any weight since he left Nairobi  four months ago (he probably did, but has had 3 different viruses since then so he must have lost what he gained).  

Kristoffer seems happy at work, although is still learning a lot and figuring out his place in the system.  His boss is back and is here now permanently I think, so that should help.  His Kiswahili is getting better and better, and I think soon I will start taking lessons if I can find a tutor to come to the house.  If I leave East Africa after living her for 6 or 7 years and can't speak more than the 7 phrases I know now...that would be a shame!  So I actually have to start studying and now that Grace is into some kind of schedule, I hope to be able to do so (maybe starting in May...Rose will be going on leave to Kenya for over 2 weeks in April so I won't have any help with Noah...and I don't think HE is ready for Kiswahili lessons).

Lots of rain last night and this morning.  Is the rainy season finally actually here?  Because after that comes the "cooler" weather and we are all ready for that! 

LMW

March 17, 2012 - Catching Up

We have not had any Internet other than on our cell phones this week, and I can’t blog from my phone.  I think the Internet situation is actually the most frustrating part of being here. 

I last left you with Grace and Noah both a bit sick.

Tuesday followed up with me being sick as well.  Kidney infection.  I had been brushing off my symptoms as related to the heat or jet-lag, but on Tuesday they were undeniable.  I was promptly loaded up on the strongest antibiotic around.

Wednesday morning I went to my first “spouse club” meeting for UN/World Bank spouses.  It was a very nice and diverse group of women, but just as in Nairobi the group is a little bit consumed with conducting proper meetings and fundraising, which are not super high on my list of priorities just right now.  I hope to make connections with some of the women who have smaller children, and I also learned about two other “newcomers” groups that I will try to participate in a bit as well.  As I told my mom, when you move to some place new it is important to cast your net wide in order to find some fish worth catching. 

The big event came towards the end of the day.  I went to show Kristoffer where to put the diesel in the generator and I received (what felt to me like) a really big electrical shock!  I have never had that experience before, and it was extremely unpleasant.  Painful even.  I was instantly worried about my pacemaker.  My google-search-from-my-cell-phone indicated that it is very unlikely that harm came to my pacemaker, particularly because it was probably not “on” at the moment I got shocked.  But I felt weird until the next morning.  Sheesh. 

The kids have been eating and sleeping better; for Noah this is all dependent on him not getting too hot.   Sometimes I feel bad keeping him home in the house most of the time, but when we take him out during the day he really doesn’t do so well.  Luckily his virus seems to be gone and he is generally much more himself.

Thursday was a big day for Grace, as we headed to her school for the first day.  I stayed with her the whole time from start to finish (as the school requested) and was very proud of her.  The school is very different from her school in Nairobi, so I think it was good that I stayed to give her a bit of security as she figures out this new place.  She didn’t talk to other kids or play with them, but she did listen well to the teachers and she ate really well at snack and lunch.  She didn’t speak too much Danish, but seemed to understand a lot of what was said.  They even sang one of the songs she knows pretty well (tak, Farmor!).  And when we left she said she wanted to go back the next day (too bad school was closed on Friday for a teacher’s meeting!).  There was no crying at all, so I think it can be counted as a big success.  She will adapt quickly to their new systems and the teachers say that in just a few weeks (or less?) she will easily be speaking Danish, and a little Swedish and Norwegian too (like some of the other kids).  Looking forward to taking her on Monday and maybe leaving her alone for a bit of that time too.

Thursday was also the day that our security guards started.  We have a day guard, whose name we still can’t understand (is it awful if I just refer to him as DG from now on?) and a night guard named Abdullah.  Seems like a pretty boring job to me just watching our house and opening/closing the gate as needed for 12 hours, but it does make us feel a bit more safe.  At night, we are basically like a fortress.  There is a guard at the first gate which gets to Mr. and Mrs. S’ house…along with 3 dogs – 1 German Shephard and 2 Dobermans…and then another gate with our guard before our house.  Just try!

On Friday Kristoffer didn’t work (still has a couple of “getting settled” days he can take off) so we ran a whole bunch of errands, including trying to get new and improved Internet.  The verdict on that is still out, but at least we have something for now. Kristoffer and I went out to dinner last night at an Italian restaurant.  We sat outside and it was my first time being out at night here.  I was really paranoid about getting bitten so I am not sure I relaxed enough, but the food was good and it was nice to see a little bit of the night life.

It’s great that our generator is working (even though it tried to kill me, and yes someone will be checking on it this week to make sure it is properly grounded) because we haven’t had any outages this week.  Kristoffer is in a good routine of running to work Monday morning, biking home and then to/from work the rest of the week, finally running home Friday afternoon.  I am more and more comfortable driving around by myself.  The only weird part for me now is going in reverse because I can’t seem to get used to looking over my left shoulder instead of my right.

Today we were invited to the home of some friends of friends from Nairobi and had a lovely few hours with their family and another friend.  Their oldest is 5 ½ years old and Grace really warmed up to her so it was a great connection to make.  They have been very helpful throughout the process of our move, even when we were still in Nairobi and I was emailing a million questions. 

Speaking of Nairobi, there are SO many Nairobi "people" here.  In addition to meeting one American woman who had her baby a few days after Noah was born in our Nairobi hospital, at the clinic on Wednesday I bumped into a woman who was actually in my little Nairobi book club. I didn’t know her very well and had forgotten that she moved here almost 2 years ago.  CRAZY!  And so nice to see a familiar-ish face!  In the spouse club there were two other women who had moved from Nairobi in the last year. 

It took me 11 days before I had my first “holy crap, I live here” moment, which I think is not too bad (I definitely had that moment a lot earlier on in Nairobi).  I almost cried for no reason at all…or just because sometimes it feels a bit overwhelming.  But mostly it has still been easier than I expected it to be. Rose seems to be doing well here so far, and I thank God that she is here. 

I am hoping to blog more regularly again and will eventually get past doing just a day-by-day play-by-play…but as I have not been able to email much this week I figure it is still the best way to keep our families and friends informed. 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day – the only Irish thing I have found here is the butter (don't ask me why they have Irish butter!?) but the kids were dressed appropriately for the occasion.  If only our Internet was fast enough to post pictures L.  Something to keep striving for...

With only a few more mosquito bites under our belt (I think we’re still in single digits), we are doing pretty well in Dar  Hope the same for you wherever you are.

LMW

March 12, 2012 - The Down Side

We were bound to have a tougher day and that came today. 

During the night the rainy season officially started with a big storm, complete with rain, thunder, lightning and some serious wind.  We lost power, which caused Grace to wake up because she was so hot, which caused Noah to wake up because he always wakes up when she screams.  From 2:30 to 4 am Grace was in our bed, where we were hot and sticky and not sleeping.  At 4 am the power came back on and we persuaded her to sleep in her own A/C.  Even though the power went out again at 6 am, she managed to sleep until 8.  But I was tired from all the opening and closing of windows (more labor intensive in our house than you would imagine) and coaxing of children.  We should now have a few weeks of rain and then a cooler season starting in April.

When Grace officially woke up, she complained of stomach pains.  Her complaints worsened along with her symptoms.  Noah has had diarrhea since Thursday (after his brief fever) and she started with it today.  By noon, we were at the doctor’s clinic.  A blood test* indicated that Noah just has a virus, which he has seemed prone to his entire life, but Grace actually does have a bacterial infection and was started on antibiotics.  We also learned that Noah’s “heat rash” is really a fungus.  Awesome.  I did like the doctor, a German lady, and thought she was good with the kids.  Obviously trained in tropical medicine, she knows her stuff.  But the clinic is not just for kids and is pretty much the only place for anyone to go, so it really busy with lots of waiting.  I guess that’s just something we have to get used to.  At least it is only 3 minutes away, unlike our 20-minute drive to Dr. Nesbitt in Nairobi.  I am hoping that both kids getting sick the first week is not indicative of how often they’ll be sick in the next few years.

The reality of living here is setting in a bit more, as the doctor told me, “You’re not in Nairobi anymore!”  She was referring to the water and how we have to be WAY more careful because the water is just full of parasites and bacteria.  We thought we were being careful, but somehow Grace got infected in just a week of being here so obviously we weren’t careful enough.  We are trying new strategies now, and we are probably going to install a fancy water filtration system in the house to help us keep vigilant.

When we got home from the doctor’s office, our generator was working!  Mr. S’s son came to tell me that he bought a certain amount of diesel for it but that I should buy more because who knows how long this outage will be and it is already dwindling.  I left the sick ones home with Rose and brought one of the shamba boys, Emmanual, with me to search for diesel (something I never actually had to do in Nairobi, even though lots of my friends had to do it).  The gas station I went to was out of diesel so I ended up going right back home.  This was an interesting car ride because Emmanual doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Kiswahili (unless we just wanted to say and goodbye to each other over and over again).  We were pretty quiet.  At home Mr. S’s son knew another place to try so he came with me this time and taught me how to go about buying diesel for one’s generator.  Never something I thought I would know how to do, but lets it add it to my expat-resume.  When we got home, he had the boys poured the diesel into the generator, but they spilled some which caused a shut down and now it is not working exactly as it should.  Of course!  So tomorrow the company will come back.  PRAY that it gets us through the night because it seems there is no end in sight to this power outage.

Before and after the diesel drama I made two different trips back to the doctor with samples from the kids.   So it was kind of a crazy day. Thank God for Rose. Both kids in bed now, neither feeling 100% great but hopefully on the mend.  And I am hoping tomorrow is less eventful.

LMW

*Note the difference between G & N, each getting the same finger-prick blood test.  G cried before, during and after for about 5 minutes in total. Very dramatic.  When the lab guy pricked Noah’s finger he smiled and giggled.  It was the highlight of my day I think!

March 11, 2012 - Striking Gold!

So much to say.  Not enough running internet to say it!

Friday we hit the expat jackpot when we went to a “Happy Friday Playgroup”, with at least a dozen other expat families who get together at a different house each Friday to kick off the weekend.  An American colleague of Kristoffer’s was hosting, which was great, and a former colleague of mine at UNICEF (who moved here in August) was also there.  So awesome!  Could not have asked for a better event in our first week.  The bad part is that we didn’t bring Rose with us, so spent most of our time running after Grace and Noah instead of collecting phone numbers (expat note: must collect phone numbers!), but we did have several good conversations with people and hopefully made ourselves known as the newbies in town.  People couldn’t believe we were out and about already J Most people that we’ve met here are American or Danish!  I am going to call Dar “Little Denmark” in fact, because I can’t get over how many Danes are here.  Everywhere I go, I hear people speaking Danish!

Saturday’s successes involved purchasing a washing machine, finding an Italian gelateria, and finding a new little grocery where they sold good cheese options at more reasonable prices!  I officially know 3 people here and saw 2 of them when we were out.  Definitely a small community.

Today’s success involved going to the Dar es Salaam Yacht Club  (DYC) for an hour (where we saw the 3^rd person I know!).  It felt like being on vacation with our feet in the beautiful Indian Ocean.  We have to be recommended by someone who has been a member for at least a year before we too can have membership and regular access to the DYC.  We managed to find a Dane who will play the part so hopefully in another week or so we will “accepted” to the club and will have permanent weekend plans at the beach.

Biggest challenges remaining: internet and Noah’s adaptation to the heat.  I think Grace is coming around (although has definite anxiety about starting a new school soon), but Noah’s little body is really having a tough time.  We continue to work on mosquito prevention.  Keeping ants, geckos and flies out of the house is also an ongoing venture.

On the agenda for this week: introductory doctor appointments for the kids, my first “spouse club” meeting with other expat spouses, and hopefully spending some morning hours with Grace at her school before she officially starts.  Our generator is close to being installed and some other improvements have been made on the house.  We are in good shape!

 LMW

March 9, 2012 - Who's Got the Power?

Yesterday was all about power.  Our electricity went out at 9 am and we assumed it was a usual power cut.  But then Rose remembered something and discovered that we were actually out of “credit” with the electric company.  Let me explain.

You have to pre-pay for your electricity here.  You go to the power company – they have little shops set up all over the place – and you give them some money and they give you a receipt with a special number on it.  Then you go home and find your electricity meter, which is flashing a big 000 since you have no credit, and you type in your special number.  Then the meter shows the amount of money you paid and as you now use your electricity the number dwindles away until your credit is gone.

Ok!  So this was my first day home alone with K back at work and I was excited about the possibility of going out to buy more credit for both electricity and my new cell phone (pretty much the same system as the electricity – you buy credit and spend it down – which is also how we did it in Nairobi).  Rose sort of told me where to go to buy the electricity (she did it last week) and I got into my little Rav4 to explore on my own. 

The place was so close to our house – like 90 seconds drive (or I suppose a few minutes if one wasn’t afraid of fainting in the heat) – that I drove by it, and while trying to find a place to turn around I saw a sign for another similar place.  So I drove a little further until I found it, but of course the “machine” that lets you buy this electrical credit was not working there.  There was a little convenience store so I went in there where I found out I could buy both electrical and phone credit.  The manager was very nice and laughed at me when I told him, “I’m really new here!”

I safely drove myself home and proudly showed Rose our electrical credit.  Go me!  I’m officially independent and didn’t hit anything while driving on the “wrong”…I mean left…side of the road.  It was a very good feeling (even though I was driving granny style – really slow!).

Next problem: in the time that I had been out buying credit, the power did officially go out so that even if we had credit, we would have no power.  This turned into a 12 ½ hour outage during 97 or 98 degree heat (that’s like 36 or 37 degrees I think). We kept waiting and waiting, and getting hotter and hotter.  Noah won’t sleep when he is really hot so he didn’t nap all day.  Grace begged to watch a show but nothing was charged or working so that was impossible.  Both kids spent most of the day naked and playing in a big laundry bucket full of water (somehow it was better than the bathtub that they refused).   We took one field trip – yes, I drove again! This time with passengers! – to the air conditioned grocery store, but I had spent most of the money I had (and still don’t have my own ATM card) on phone and electrical credit that we couldn’t buy much and couldn’t loiter at the store too long.  To be honest, I told Kristoffer that I was too hot and exhausted to cook hot food anyway and he ended up going for pizza at 7:30.  Perhaps that made me a bad housewife on Day 1 and yes he was the one at the office all day, but at he had A/C and did not have two crazy-hot kids. The Dar version of me is a work in a progress.

At 9:30 or so last night the power came back on.  It turns out that a big transformer for the whole area that we live in blew out, and they are waiting for parts from Japan to arrive to fix it. I have no idea what is powering our electricity in the meantime.  Kristoffer went out with one of the boys* around the compound and typed in our electrical credit so that we could all get some nice A/C sleep last night.  Phew.

 *There are two “shamba” boys living here, working for the landlord **doing various jobs around the compound for them and now us (sweeping our driveway or bringing us a paraffin lantern at night if there is no power).  There is also a “fundi”, or carpenter, on the premises.  His name is Bahati and even though I can barely communicate with him, Rose and Kristoffer are doing a good job and really like him.*

**From now on, I will refer to the landlord as Mr. or Mrs. S.**

So yesterday I felt powerful because I could drive by myself, but powerless because we literally had no power.  Our generator is supposed to be installed and running any day now…but the electrician is not very predictable even though he keeps telling Mr. S that he is coming.

Today we have only had one short power cut but otherwise it is cooler today and the power is on.  Grace happily had 30 minutes of charged iPad time and Noah even took a little nap.

LMW