Being thankful – eight

This is part eight of our short series on some of the cultural/practical/emotional differences we’ve experienced between our two lives (in the UK and in Tanzania). Use the ‘Blog Archive’ list in the right-hand column to find the previous parts.

Things we miss about Tanzania:
Big thunderstorms (but not the power outages that came with them). One of the amazing things about living near the equator is the frequency of electric storms. There is nothing more impressive than seeing a massive storm cloud marching its way towards you, especially towards the end of the dry season when you could literally smell the freshness of the rain as it fell on dusty roads. There were many times when we could literally hear the rain coming – almost all roofs in Tanzania are made with corrugated metal and so make a lot of noise, both inside and out, when it is raining! Of course nine times out of ten the power would go out when a big storm rolled into town. Don’t ask us why – that doesn’t seem to happen when we have such storms in the UK – but I guess that’s the price you pay for seeing something so amazing!

Things we like about the UK:
Privacy of life and property. Although we loved the sociable, friendly nature of life in Tanzania, one thing we are really appreciating now we are back is the ease in which we can get our own space and privacy when we need it. Although this can certainly be a curse, cocooning ourselves in our own bubble and not thinking of others before ourselves, it is important from time to time that we get our own space. It was so tiring sometimes in Mbeya, knowing that at any time someone would come to the door needing to see us about one thing or another. Most of the time we would be happy to see people, however we all know there are times when we just want to be left alone. It is nice that we can enjoy that a bit while we are back.