Stepping Outside My Comfort Zone: Traveling To Dar
It is always a busy time getting ready for our trip. We are leaving our U.S. life behind for over two weeks. I know that’s a really short-term trip for full-time missionaries, but for folks with non-mission-releated “day jobs” and lives like us, over two weeks takes some planning:
There’s the bills that will come in and need to be paid while we’re gone. That’s relativeley easy these days thanks to the wonders of online banking. There’s arranging for a house/cat sitter. We have two cats, both of which are very needy in different ways and who have become even more needy since our third cat died this winter. There are the travel drugs, needed because Tanzania is a Malaria zone; and making sure that we have enough of the everyday drugs that folks of our age seem to accumulate. And, of course, there is getthing the “day jobs” set so that they can be left for such a relatively long period of time.
As we get closer to the time to leave, UPS and FEDEX packages of items we are planning to bring with us start to arrive. Orgainzational piles of things to back build up in various corners. Eventually the day comes when it’s all packed, we go the the airport and then spend entiely too much time sitting up right in cramped airline seats.
Don’t get me wrong: Air Emerates does an execelent job of feeding, hydrating and entertaining us on the trips to Dubai and onward to Dar es Salaam. But I get almost no sleep under these conditions. Something that isn’t too surprising when you consider that the major leg of this trip starts at noon ET and ends around mid-night that same day.
We have now successfully negotiated these flights and are in Dar es Salaam. We’ve gotten cleaned up and consumed an excellent dirrner here at the hotel. Right now I can barely keep my eyes open, so I will edit this again tomorrow, and, I hope, add a picture or two………
