the First bit of the Second year

 Hi friends, 

"the wings of Kilimanjaro"

I know its been a hot minute since my last blog post and let me tell ya its been a busy few months! As most of you probably know I went back to the states for Christmas and New Years. It was an amazing visit home, but it was so hard to leave. I will do a longer post detailing my visit and all the exciting things we got up to, but for now I will stick to TZ: Year 2 so far. 

Getting Started

the bus route 

When I flew back I landed in Arusha (that’s where Mount Kilimanjaro is) its on the other side of the Serengeti from where I live. So, to get back to Musoma I had two options- 1) take a 12 hour bus ride through the Serengeti or 2) fly to mwanza then take a 4 hour bus ride. In my head it seemed easier (and cheaper) to just take a longer bus ride then to fly and lug by bags from the airport to the bus station and have an extra flight on top of everything that it took to get me back to TZ in the first place. HOWEVER, when I got to my hotel in Arusha and told them I wanted to take the bus in the morning, the lady asked me if I already had a ticket… all the busses I’ve taken here before (a fair amount) you just buy the ticket as you get on the bus, no big deal. So I told her no, I thought I could just get one in the morning. She told me I should go down to the stand and try to get one. 

Getting a ticket

I had a nasty cold for about two weeks before I flew back and all the flights and lack of sleep wasn’t helping matters. I decided to go up to my room, take a quick shower and a cat nap then I would figure out my ticket. When I finally went down to the ticket booth it was about 4:30 in the afternoon and all the tickets were sold out. I thought I was going have to stay at the hotel an extra night and buy a ticket for the next day but they told me about a different route, that instead of going through the Serengeti it goes round it and that bus had one seat left! Not really having any other options, I got the last seat. 

on the bus

Getting home

The next morning our bus took off at 6am sharp. It was a loooong ride with two potty stops (one at a stop over place and one on the side of the road where women went on one side and men went on the other… and they say chivalry is dead!) I had plenty of snacks left from the plain and you can always buy drinks and cookies that people put up in your window whenever you stop. Eventually we pulled into Musoma around 9:30 at night. A taxi driver grabbed by bags and I didn’t have the energy to argue with him and say that I wanted to take a bjaji (common tricycle taxi, always cheaper than a car taxi) so he drove me right up to my door and I was home!

Getting inside

The only issue was I forgot to get my keys out of my suitcase when I was in the hotel in arusha. I had planned to put them in my backpack for easy access when I reached this point in the trip, but oh well I figured I could just open my suitcase on the porch and grab them, it wouldn’t be a big deal… or so I thought. After looking in my bags for about 20 minutes and calling Doug to make sure I didn’t leave them there, I didn’t know what to do. I was so tired and I just wanted to get inside I asked the guard if he could break my door and I would replace it later, after I found my keys. One of the teachers who lives on the property here told me to hold on, that one of the sisters next door might have a key. While we were waiting on her to show up with a key or a solution of some kind the teacher was looking through my bag, as soon as sister showed up the teacher found my key in my suitcase, in my purse, in the inside pocket (ya know one of those places to keep it safe so you don’t loose it) so around 11:30 I finally got into my house! 

View of Kilimanjaro from the Plane 

Getting grossed out

At this point my jet lag was still a bit messed up and I had been sitting on a bus for about 16 hours so I decided I should walk around a bit before going straight to bed. So I started doing a little unpacking. I was going to put my left over sprite from the bus in my fridge and I opened it for a split second and closed it right away. One of the sisters, to be nice, turned off my main power. She didn’t know I had left a few things in my freezer that are hard to find here like cheese and butter. The fridge was absolutely disgusting.. ill spare you the details. But as it was about 1am at this point I sprayed a bunch of air fresher and went to bed.

Getting cleaned up 

Flight Path 

The next morning I was really missing home and it seemed like everything was going wrong. It kind of left like all of these were signs telling me to go home, be with Doug, start that part of my life. The one good thing about the fridge is, it was pretty light so I scooted it outside to clean it and hopefully not pass out over the smell and Sister came over to see what was going on. She felt so bad that she turned off my power she told me to go back inside and keep unpacking and that she would clean it. I felt bad but she didn’t let me help and I was still pretty sick with my cold so I let her. Not to mention I also had to clean the rest of the house because there was so much dust and dirt and cobwebs and lizard droppings and who knows what else everywhere. So while she was doing that I was trying my best to get my house back in order and by that night when I was going to sleep everything seemed to be getting back to normal and I really felt like I was home again. 

Getting better

also my gas stopped working. 

The next day (Saturday) I was feeling okay but I was still pretty sick and by the evening my body started aching all over. I was excited to go to church Sunday but by the time it was morning I felt like I couldn’t move. I had had night sweats all night long and my body hurt so much everywhere. I was taking Tylenol every 4 hours for the pain and I thought it might help me not be so hot. I was sitting in front of the fan with a cold rag constantly and couldn’t stop blowing my nose every 5 seconds. By Monday morning I had had enough and my temperature had gotten above 100 so I decided it was time to call one of the other missioners in Mwanza who has some nursing knowledge and used to live in Musoma and would know what clinic to go to… if any. She told me to take an antibiotic and get lots of rest and see how it went from there. So I started my Z-pac right away and it was a rough day and an even rougher night but Tuesday was better for sure and I had pretty much deduced that I had a cold that overlapped with a flair up of malaria. So Tuesday morning I took a double dose of my Malarone (anti-malaria medicine) along with the second dose of my antibiotic. 

Getting back to normal 

Today is Wednesday and I did the same, and I am feeling much better today. And last night was the first goodnights sleep I have gotten since before I got on the airplane! I am so happy to be back and now that my house is back in order, I couldn’t be more excited to start this new year in mission. Its hard being away from everyone I love, but its so much easier when this place feels so much like home to me. I know this is where God wants me right now and all of the obstacles getting here just makes it so much sweeter in the end. I am still resting and recovering a bit, but I’m so thankful I’m on the mend. Post about my visit home coming soon. <3

Peep Sir Joto's new Stl Blues Collar!

JOTO update:

My puppy isn’t a puppy anymore! Joto Mfuko had his first birthday in December and he defiantly grew a bit while I was away. The girls here took good care of him but he was super excited to see me! Despite how hyper he was when I first got back, I think he is growing out of his puppy stage a bit as he’s slightly more chill now and doesn’t bark *quite* as much as he used to :)