Logistics, Luggage and Loading

It's taken 6 months, but we have finally been able to move our household goods out of Tanzania!

Andrew flew down to Dodoma last Thursday to load up all our boxes:

With a bit of help from friends, all was safely stowed on board!

Then Andrew flew out of Dodoma for what will probably be his final time. The MAF base in Dodoma is closing down and will no longer be operational. MAF Tanzania is down-sizing as the country develops, with a much smaller base operating out of Arusha and a limited service in Dar es Salaam and Mbeya. The end of an era for MAF in Dodoma...

We have had a long and complicated wait for our boxes from Dodoma. There were several factors which delayed the removal of our household goods...
-First, we were not able to import anything to Nairobi without a Kenyan work permit. This took a long time to be issued; it came at last in mid-April.
-Next, we needed clearance from the export people in Tanzania. Without the correct paperwork and an inspection by customs, we could not take goods out of Tanzania. Waiting for the appropriate people to sign the appropriate papers took longer than anticipated.
-Finally, it was tricky to line up the logistics of having a plane available and Andrew available on the same day!
Many months and many prayers later, we are thankful to finally have the boxes in Kenya!

However, our boxes are not yet with us. They will not yet be unpacked. They are in storage at the airport until we can get the correct paperwork/ visa clearance to move them on to South Sudan...
It seems like such a long time ago since I started packing up all those boxes in Dodoma, back in November/ December last year! It will feel like Christmas when we finally get to unpack them, once we have moved into our new home in Juba!

Meanwhile, it is time to get out the suitcases and pack up our clothes and odds and ends here in Nairobi. The Chaos of packing has once again been unleashed...

With a trip to England before the move to Juba, my brain hurts from trying to work out the logistics of which suitcases to take to England (what can I manage to carry on my own with 3 kids, before Andrew joins us after a couple of weeks?) and which suitcases to pack up for Juba:

The mossie nets have been unearthed from forgotten suitcases that came with us from Dodoma in January. Since we will be needing mosquito nets again in South Sudan, I decided to wash the gathered dust off them and put them through the washing machine. Washing the nets is the easy part. Trying to hang a mosquito net on a washing line is the tricky part- they get all tangled up! I wrestled a long time with this bunk-bed net before I managed to get it strung up on the line!

The rooms in our Kenya home have started to look disorderly as I begin the preliminary sorting for packing up. When we leave this home in 2 weeks, it has to be ready to be handed back to the landlord, with every trace of the Parker family erased. I marvel at how much extra stuff we have to pack up, accumulated from random garage sales over the past 5 months!

Looking at the disorder and chaos caused by packing always makes me feel tired! The working out of what should go where and what should fit where is the exhausting part, but once I roll my sleeves up and start actually packing, I know I will feel much better. Thankfully, there is no shortage of tea in this tea-producing nation of Kenya, as I feel a lot of tea breaks will be necessary over the next 2 weeks of sorting, packing and getting ready to move the five of us on again for a new adventure in another country!