The Final Countdown

With less than 6 days left in our Dodoma home, the farewells and "last times" of doing certain things or seeing particular places are accumulating.

This period of farewells and last-times seems to be a rather long-drawn out process this time around! With the school holidays starting and then Christmas a month before our departure, we had to do some of the goodbyes and final-times earlier on on December. Since then, there has been a steady stream of last-time events.

It is always sad to say good-bye or to leave places. Often, looking ahead to new adventures softens the blow of farewells, but this time around we have not really known exactly where we are going, with the sad state of affairs in South Sudan. The underlying uncertainty of not being sure where we are going next has made the process of finishing in Tanzania more stressful. We have not known what we should be looking forward to or getting excited about to help us let go of people and places here.

We heard last week that we will be based in Nairobi for a minimum of 3 months. After this period, we will re-assess how safe it will be to move to our next assignment with MAF in Juba. In the meantime, we continue to pack up and say our goodbyes, ready to fly from Dodoma on Monday (January 20th) direct to Nairobi.

Now we are trying to do the mental shift of getting ready to live in Kenya longer than we anticipated. However, our household good and boxes will stay in Dodoma until we know when or where we will be based for the longer term. Just our suitcases will come with us next week.

I started packing up our boxes originally (see previous blog post, "Bubble Wrap and Boxes") expecting to see the contents by the end of February, once settled into our Juba home. Now I am having to rethink what we may need for the longer period of 3+ months! I may need to unpack some boxes to take children's toys and books with us in our suitcases next week!

The practicalities of packing up always take more time than anticipiated. Sometimes there are unwelcome hiccoughs along the way which slow things down...like this:
Our kitchen sink was horribly blocked when we arrived here after our New Year trip away. We asked the MAF workmen to come in and take a look, as we could not empty any water down the plug-hole, despite some vigorous plunging! Jeremiah came- he looked- and he flushed out the drain pipe. Unfortunately, no preparation was in put in place for the results. And the results were NASTY!!!

 A pipe-load of stinking gunge and grime came shooting out of the flushed pipe!! "SPLAT!"- the foul-smelling black gunk was plastered all over the kitchen floor, up the walls, splattered across the towel, tea-towels and filled up the wooden cupboard under our kitchen sink.
YUK!
I was rather annoyed. A bucket over the pipe while it was flushed could have prevented such a revolting mess.
The stench was horrid.
The mess was disgusting.
The interrruption to the day's tasks was frustrating.
It took 5 of us, including Jane, Pendo and I, most of their working day to clean up. The nasty smell still lingers in the wood under the sink. What an irritating set-back. However, on the plus side, my sink now flows like a dream, thanks to the flushed pipe!!

Thankfully, such set-backs don't happen very often! The clock is now ticking for the final packing of clothes, bathroom goods, our just-in-case medicines and for cleaning out the kitchen cupboards, fridge and trying to sell the last items like our washing machine and car. Tomorrow, we have our formal MAF farewell at the hangar and on Friday afternoon we have our farewell with our wider community of Dodoma friends. The last in a long line of farewells and lasts!

Mid-December
 I took the children to their last Friday Afternoon Bible Club. We were given a lovely send-off by our friends there, including the tasty cup-cake arrangement they made for us:

Our final Sunday School:

The last time I drove the MAF school bus to pick up the children after school when term ended on December 17th:

Esther, Ben and I all had to say Goodbye to CAMS school, where Esther' and Ben began their school careers:

Our last Christmas event with MAF Tanzania:

 Ian was with us for this event and raised our morale when he won the men's race in the pre-dinner games! His reward was a certificate, gift and a congratulatory hand-shake from all!

And last weekend, Esther and I said "Goodbye" to our good friends Rachel and Melissa, who have featured on this blog when we as a family have flown with Andrew to visit them out in the isolated village where they live and work, where Melissa's husband is a doctor with the organisation AIM. Their family visited Dodoma last weekend and this is the last time we will see them in Dodoma. For this farewell, the ladies did a Girl's Goodbye with a princess theme, which was lots of fun! 

It is still hard to believe that by this time next week, we will have done the final MAF farewells, last trips into Dodoma and last visit to Dodoma's cathedral for the Sunday service! And I will have to write the final blog post for Tales from Tanzania, as we move countries and start to adapt to our temporary home in Nairobi!