New House

This is it:

Again, I feel the need to qualify this blog with a fact that many, many houses in Harare have huge gardens like this and swimming pools, etc. It did take us 4 months to find this place because we had trouble finding a house that met most of our criteria: was not too far from the school, had a borehole (because city water isn't dependable), electricity most of the time (again power cuts are a serious problem in some areas more than others), room for guests, no serious renovation needs, etc.

This house – the Liemba Close house – is a lot homier than the last one, and we're loving it. It’s cozy, more manageable. It feels better suited for a family with small kids. Not so big they get lost. Not so small you feel you can’t carve out public vs. private spaces. I am thrilled to get to work on finally making a home for us.

Moving down the road was a completely different animal than moving across the world: a few days of loosely packing boxes, a few days of schlepping, one big push with a truck and some extra guys. Having a housekeeper at House A (Tari) and another housekeeper at House B (Pauline who worked for the last family for 12 years) to help with packing and unpacking and dusting and cleaning out refrigerators, etc. also made life a lot less stressful.

We had a few projects to oversee during the transition:
- The razing and reconstruction of the “Wendy house” – kids’ playhouse

- Finding a second-hand, in-ground trampoline and getting it installed...this is David's favorite project... (view from master bedroom window)

- Fencing in the pool and installing the swing set
- Retiling the bathroom
- Pulling up carpet and refinishing parquet floors in the master bedroom
- Repairing the refrigerator and washing machine
- Major pruning: pulling up or cutting back a lot of trees and bushes (oh, that’s not a hill…it’s actually a tree and some shrubs covered in vines)

I'll just say here that I will have to devote another blog to the garden. We have around 20 fruit trees and at least 20 different veggies, not to mention, I swear, about a hundred varieties of plant life. It was a project of the retired Hannaford couple who lived here for 15 years before us. (Very importantly, we employ their gardener now!)

Also, other blogs to come will feature the enormous project (and pleasure!) of furnishing the house which will preoccupy me full-time until we leave for the States June 18.

View from veranda (seen in first photo) of pecan tree

Under the pecan tree

View of house from behind pecan tree and on the tennis court:

Tennis anyone? (it's clay!)

Backyard jungle gym circa 1985

Moving Sale

So I lost it at one point in the packing process - not sure what happened, but I basically wanted to crinkle my nose Bewitched-style and just make it all go away...to Harare...but instead I just had to start over with what I was doing and do it right the second time around.

I had been dreading the moving sale (no yard or garage here). Was expecting to have waves of regret about getting rid of this or that item. Anticipating awkward haggling over prices on my life's possessions. Or worse, to spread the innards of my home on tables in the sun and have no one even show up. But it was surprisingly nice in several ways:

• I was providing people who came with a bargain: great prices for things they really needed.
• I was making money!
• Regarding the things I cared about, people that I liked were taking them, so it was almost like gift-giving. I could feel happy about that the new end table is sitting in K's house and that my best dictionary was at P's.
• I had the distinctly invigorating feeling of cleaning out the backs of closets and lightening my load.

Next for the shipments...

Moving On

I keep getting asked: are you excited about the move? Are you ready? Are you looking forward to your new life in Zimbabwe?

Life as it is has not allowed my mind much time to consider these things. The end of my work is like a tsunami, everything thought or read or discussed accumulating into a thick wall, pushing forward, consuming everything else. I leave the house before the kids are ready, come home in the darkness when they're already back in their pajamas. I wish I had more to show for all the hours I put in. It's slow, but I am past the biggest procrastination station, full steam ahead for the next six days. Driving me is the real desire for product and the letting go.

Next are the logistics for leaving: material and personal. Sorting out the household: give away (what to whom), sell, pack the bags to take on the flight, pack the bag to ship, arrange to have other things professionally wrapped and sent. Spend time with people: one-on-one, in couples, a tea party for Eliza's friends, an early German Christmas party. Buy things native for people that they will not think too odd to utilize. DHL them to the States for mom to wrap as our xmas gifts in absentia. Meet with teachers for a preschool semester summary. Make skype phone calls in anticipation that we will not have a good enough connection in Harare. Buy children's toothpaste and other items we imagine we might not find there.

Then I'm hoping there will be time for reflection. Two years is long enough to expect you might know something about a place, if only a stronger feeling of it than when you arrived. It's also good-bye to the Arab world which we've lived in for most of the last five years (Alhamdaleila!). It's not that I've got real problems with the place. I'm just looking forward to seeing how my life will be different in a non-majority Muslim area...and to seeing something other than marble, stone, sand and thorny bushes they call "trees" here.

The Change That's Coming

From THIS to THIS in roughly six weeks. Wishing soooooooo much I could focus on the family's transition instead of being overwhelmingly busy at work. Am thankful we have the additional income to help with the move though.

Birthday Reflections

Only three years ago I was hugely pregnant and waiting for my husband to leave Sudan to meet me in Chattanooga so we could have this baby. I think D & I were separated then for almost two months. He sent me flowers for my birthday.

I was going to write that it sure doesn't seem like three years since we left Sudan, but it hasn't been...(hello, memory). After Eliza was born, we moved back to Khartoum after Christmas to spend another year...well, 8 months. We came back for Sara & Brandon's wedding in September and stayed until Christmas again. After New Year, we moved to Jordan. And before we reach Christmas this year, we'll have moved on again, this time to Zimbabwe.

So that's life at 38.

Jordan went by very quickly. But it still will have been two full years, complete with visits from family who we've never had visit us abroad before. And that was a real treat.

There are many wonderful things about our coming life in Harare that we're anticipating. So I am excited about it and looking forward to it. It's the distance and potentially greater disconnect that are my only concerns. Flights there will be longer and more expensive. The internet connection will be slower. But we will (hopefully) have a house that is inviting and comfortable for guests, and I dream of hosting month-long visits from family and friends. That's really what I want from this life - to be able to share it.

Our remaining two months in Jordan will be busy with work at SC and preparing for our move that will be around the second week in December. In a week, ten Iraqi youth will start a training on making documentary fillms. This is a project that a few others and I created out of thin air over the summer, and it is exciting to think it will actually happen (cross your fingers). They will work with a director to make a short documentary about the lives of a few Iraqi kids and their experiences living as refugees in Jordan (and hopefully we'll have stories of kids in Lebanon, too). Then there's a workshop I'm organizing between SC staff in Lebanon and Jordan that will be a chance for "internal learning"...swapping their stories from the field, what their various educational programs have done well, "lessons learned," what they can borrow from each other, how they can coordinate programs better in the future, etc. That'll be in a month. I like the work. It's the best work I've had in a while, and I'm thankful (if a bit more stressed).

In the immediate future, we have a whole week off (Eid Holiday), then I have Eliza's third birthday to prepare for, then David will be gone for two weeks back to the States (in Chatt for 2 nights and one day to supervise the shipment). When he gets back, it'll be our first farewell party: Ben & Caroline are leaving. And that's when the good-byes start up again.

Some major events

Last month, David and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary which felt just as momentous as Miles's 5th birthday. (That sounds odd. They were momentous in their own ways.) I know I'm getting old, but there's still a short list of things that have lasted in my life for 5 solid years. Next year will mark 10 years that David and I have been together(!). We had a busy weekend, but the surprise night out together was back to the bathhouse for the coed hours.

Then there's the going back to work. I'm happy to be back with SC, this time as a consultant for the action learning component of the World Bank funded regional education initiative in Lebanon and Jordan that includes various programs from building and fully furnishing kindergartens to child-led activism projects that demand less violence in schools to uniforms and schools supplies, to parenting classes and teacher training on everything. And lots more. It's huge. The money comes from aid to displaced Iraqis but reaches even more Jordanian kids. I'm coordinating the collection of key lessons learned from all these programs to present them to a larger audience and hopefully influence regional policies and future directions of funding. I'm out in December, so we're planning on a first draft package by October and a mini-conference in November.

That's the other big news that most everyone knows now but that we haven't officially announced: our move to Harare, Zimbabwe in December. We are planning to move into the existing country director's house which is lovely, but we will need to furnish it, something we haven't had to do as a family abroad yet. I kind of insisted. The house is great, and I'm looking forward to having more control over how our house feels and looks, but it is going to be an investment on all fronts. Ah, the logistics of moving. If only I'd had my job the last six months and were off these months to prepare for the big move!

Next in the news is our trip to the States in less than three weeks. It looks packed and wild and crazy, but there are 5 or so days blocked off for the beach and another 5 or so days in the mountains, all catch up time with the family. This should have been a longer trip home, but alas --it coincides with my being newly employed, and the kids will need to get back to school. Do I sound stressed? Perhaps I should do my next blog while on the beach.