Mozambique, Africa

We've made it to Africa. A long ride, but it was actually not so bad as the first time we came to Africa as Newlyweds. Back then I hadn't had back surgery so it was murder to be on a 15 hour flight. I figured this time would be awful because of the girls...but they did a great job. They slept about eight hours and each seat had a personal movie player. That kept us all engaged for a long time. Don't get me wrong, it was arduous, just not as much as I thought it would be. That is a good thing!
Adjusting is always interesting. Sometimes really intense, like when your daughter is throwing up and has a fever for four days and no one knows what is wrong, and you are thinking, "Malaria? Yellow Fever? Cholera? Crazy African illness?" Sometimes it is just one tiny thing after another like having none of your own pans to cook in so you use the sterling silver ones they give you and they burn everything in sight. Hence having to make eggs in the microwave for Mikaela. Or when you have to distill your water in this big, ugly silver thing that sits in your kitchen and may clean your water but it still tastes like dirt. We cook with it and wash veggies in it with bleach and brush our teeth with it. The welcome book talks about how mundane things, routine things, get under your skin because there are just so many, all day, that are different or hard or non-intuitive; one example is our kitchen sink has the hot water on the right and cold on the left and you pull up to turn it off and you push it down to turn it on. Weird.
Madison likes school and has been really fortunate to get a great teacher for kindergarten. They also made an exception and let her into the first grade gymnastics class--I begged and they felt pity on me. She starts on Tuesday. One of the slides is her at her fist day of school and Mikaela in her pijamas as we were still adjusting to time zones.
It is more chilly here than we thought, the girls have to wear sweaters but I am happy as a clam. It is like Fall or Spring weather when you wear jeans and a t-shirt or even a sweater at times. The sun is beautiful and we live 30 seconds from the beach. The beaches are disgusting and where we visited there was a dead rat-yuck! Our friends asked if we saw any hypodermic needles---we won't be going there anymore. Life will be a little easier when we have a car and can get ourselves around and go to the nicer beaches up the coast a bit.
All in all, we are happy and surviving. We are in a temporary house, but it is big and nice and we really have no complaints. We just have to get used to a key for everything and the laundry room being outside by the gaurds little bathroom that always smells disgusting. Other than that, there is comfy furniture and we have internet! Not so many mosquitos since it is winter, so we are really doing well. In the group of pictures after the slide show I will put in some of Madison's pictures of the house, the yard and the guard. Then we will send more when our new house is ready.
Love to all--from Africa :)