Keeping Up with Kathrine

2018 has been a year full of twists and turns, goodbyes, heart ache, frustration, loneliness, confusion, and transition. 2018 has also been a year full of opportunity, laughter, friendship, travel, and clarity. I've been learning a lot about myself and my place in this world. It's been a very interesting ride, to say the least, but definitely one that has lead to a lot of self discovery and growth.  As of Wednesday, I've had the privilege of calling Karatu my home and the community here my family for an entire year. If you were one of the few who read my blogs when I first arrived in Tanzania, you are fully aware that I didn't transition as easily as I had hoped and spent more time than I'm proud of feeling sorry for myself. However, that being said, now I can't imagine myself anywhere else. This small, dusty/muddy (depending on the season) town has brought me serious joy over this last year. Joy in the form of new friends, my students, chipsi mayais, dogs,

I guess sporadic blogging is the best I can hope for here, so my apologies that I'm not more consistent. Most days, when I'm away from work, I find myself wanting to be anywhere but behind my computer. However, I made a promise that I would post an update, so here we go. I'm still living in Northern Tanzania, approaching my 8th month of living in a constant whirl of chaos and comfort where some days things are hard to comprehend and some days things are hard to communicate, but every day I'm growing a little more confident. Intercultural communication is rough and my Kiswahili isn't amazing, so there's definitely still room for improvement. However, for the time being, this is my home and it's about time it started feeling like it. I left East Africa for the first time since my arrival in December for my holiday. The meltdown I had when I stepped off the plane into the mayhem that was Amsterdam's airport at Christmastime was comparable to the meltdow