Sunday, January 20, 2008

We're here!

We arrived on Friday morning in Dar es Salaam. The heat and humidity was struck us as soon as we stepped off the plane, but so far it really hasn’t been as bad as we were expecting. It’s actually pretty pleasant, but it’s a good thing our hotel room has air conditioning. We are staying in a hotel for the first three weeks for orientation. Orientation starts on Monday. We decided to come a couple of days early to adjust and settle in. Daniel has been sleeping more than usual, but otherwise he seems to be handling the transition really well.

The plane trip went like a dream. Daniel was in a decent mood for the first flight and our seven hour layover at Heathrow, and then he pretty much slept through the entire ten hour flight to Dar, which is a good thing since it was an overnight flight. We were really hungry when we got to the hotel, along with another Wycliffe couple who were also on our flight. It took a while before we got to order food from the restaurant here, and then it took over two hours to actually get our food. When it came, they’d messed up the order and they came with six plates of food for the four of us. So things are a little different here : ) But since then everything has gone smoothly. They were having a conference here the first day, and I think we caught them a bit off guard. Most of the staff have very limited English. It will be really good to learn some Swahili to be able to communicate with people better.

Our hotel is near the beach, and Viggo and I went for a walk to check it out yesterday. We dipped our feet in, and we dipped Daniel too, but not for long because he was afraid of the water. He was kind of tired too, so maybe it will go better next time. It sounds like we will be pretty busy from Monday on with Orientation courses starting every day at 8:00. Daniel will be with some other kids and a nanny in a childcare room adjacent to the conference room. It will be his first experience with any other babysitter than his grandparents, so I hope things go well!

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

2 Weeks

Our beautiful family on Christmas Eve. Norwegians dress up a lot for Christmas. Daniel is wearing his 'bunad' (national costume type thing)

Norwegian Christmas sunrise over the frozen lake.

We had a lovely Christmas up in the mountains with Viggo's family. We had friends over this weekend to celebrate New Year's with us, and that was really nice too. We haven't been at home before for New Year's Eve, and I was really impressed by all the fireworks. Everyone (or, lots of people, that is) has their own private 'big' fireworks, and from our house we have a view over the water to the city and the island next to us, so we could see big fireworks going up in dozens of spots all around us at midnight. Our friends brought some 'rockets' with them, so we had some of our own too. Our friends' two-year-old thought it was all really scary, though, and stayed up clinging to his parents and saying "done, done," until they left after one.

We can't believe there are only two weeks left until we leave now. We leave on the 17th. We have plenty to do still, but I think it will all get done. My parents arrive on the seventh and will stay until the fourteenth (I think...). They're coming to see Daniel, but it will be a big help to have them here too to watch him and maybe help us with cleaning out the house and stuff like that. Viggo is at the doctor with Daniel right now. Daniel has had a bit of a cold for almost four weeks now, and diarrhea for the last few days. He still seems pretty healthy and happy though, so hopefully the doctor will say it is just normal winter virus stuff. We want him to get well before we leave!