Day 2: Dodoma

I probably won't be updating this everyday, but since I had some time this morning I wrote another entry. I'm using Miriam's computer to upload this and will probably write something else once my own internet is installed. I'm not entirely sure when that will be though...

It’s 7:45 on Wednesday morning and I’m sitting at my kitchen table boiling some water so I can have a cup of tea. I’m also listening to the sounds outside and trying to place them. I just heard a turkey gobble. I heard a rooster earlier and there are a few dogs nearby as well. At night the sound of crickets chirping dominates the area. It’s a nice change from the sounds of the city, though I would expect that I’ll probably come to miss those at some point.

I woke up at about 6:45 this morning and found a note under my front door from a woman named Catherine who lives in apartment 8 of the little compound here. She dropped off a bottle of water. I’ll have to meet her soon to say hi and thank you. I’m not entirely sure how many apartments there are in this compound, but I now know there are at least 8. The compound is surrounded by a tall fence and there is a gate at the entrance. There is always a guard at the gate, but I’ve only met one of the guards so far.

My apartment itself is comprised of 4 rooms- the living room/sitting room, the kitchen/dining room, a bedroom and a bathroom. It’s actually quite a large place. The living room has a couch, three chairs, a small table and a long cabinet that resembles the short china hutch in my Aunt Linda’s dining room. There are large windows along one wall that have white and yellow floral curtains on them. The windows themselves don’t have glass in them. There are sturdy screens, thin, white crisscrossed metal bars and larger white bars that cover the windows. I’m sure this will help keep things cool, but it certainly allows lots of noise to get in. My overactive imagination and I will have to get used to that.

The kitchen has a refrigerator/freezer, cabinets, a sink, a toaster and a small cooking stove with two burners and an oven. There’s also a spare counter-top set of two burners just in case. Apparently you can either use one burner and the oven at the same time or both burners at the same time. Using both burners and the oven at the same time is a no-no. I don’t remember what would happen if you did that, but I don’t think I’ll try to find out. The other half of the room has a desk and a table with four chairs in it. The table in chairs were originally in the living room, but I moved them into this room because it seemed like a better place for them. There is a ceiling fan which helps to circulate the air.

My bedroom has a tall armoire, a small table, a chair and a twin-sized bed in it. There is a canopy-like frame on the bed with a rectangular-shaped mosquito net on it. I tucked the net under the mattress leaving a small whole to crawl into bed and then tucked that in as well. It was interesting to sleep under a mosquito net. I felt like I was in a large, transparent box. I brought a net with me, but since there was already a net in place I just left mine in its bag.

The bathroom has a toilet, a sink, a wall-mounted water heater and a shower in it. There’s a switch in the kitchen that I have to flip about 20-25 minutes before I want to use the hot water. You turn the switch off before you get into the shower.

The apartment floor is made of concrete and the walls are painted white. All of the windows except the ones in the living room have glass on them, but it’s not a solid pane of glass. They’re short panes of class mounted on metal that move to adjust the airflow allowed into the apartment. The kitchen window looks to have 10 of these small panes in it.

Miriam is coming by today at about 11:30 to show Sarah and me around town. We’re going to go to a bank so we can exchange money, see our new office, go to the market and just try to get a sense of where everything is. I’m not entirely sure what we’ll be doing tomorrow, but Friday is a national holiday here so nothing much will be going on. However, we are going to go on a safari. Sandy McCann, an Episcopal missionary from the Diocese of Atlanta, sent Magi a text message while we were on the bus yesterday and suggested going to Moro Goro which is between Dar Es Salaam and Dodoma. Sandy teaches at a theological college here in Dodoma and she and her husband Martin, who is a doctor I believe and runs a medical lab (I think pathology) in the city, have been here for three years. I’ve heard about Sandy and Martin, so it will be great to meet them.