In GHSP, housing is the responsibility of host institutions, and ours has done a great job putting us up in university-owned apartments. Our building is 4 stories and within a small compound with a gate.  It feels quite secure.

We live about a 10 minute Bajaj ride from work, on the second floor, in a 3 bedroom apartment. Two GHSP colleagues share their own apartment next door. The apartments come furnished, with running (mostly hot) water, and have wall AC units in each room.

The view of our front door from the inside, with “room shoes” I bought in Japan (we’re a shoes-free house here) and a wanna-be tatami mat we bought down the street. 👠👢👞🆓

Most of the keys here look like smaller versions of something you might find in Game of Thrones. They don’t seem all that secure but they get the job done. 🔑🗝

Olivia showing off our living room and huge sectional couch. All the furniture you see was here when we arrived. The coffee table is typical for Tanzania. Our host family had something similar and you can see the little stools that tuck under, as the coffee table doubles as a dining table for most. We also have a dining set in the same room opposite the couch, pictured below. And the first of hopefully many house plants. 🛋🌿

We’re eating homemade flatbread pizza and drinking hibiscus water. Cooking here has been fun. We don’t go out much so we’ve embraced the weekly meal plan. 🍽🍕

The kitchen was renovated before we moved in and is just perfect for our purposes. 🙌🍴

We have a gas range/ oven (a portion of the propane tank can be seen to the right). Importantly, the oven is in Celsius, so my first banana bread attempt ran a little hot. ♨️🍞

We have to filter all the water we drink, which has quickly become a way of life. And the water filter system looks much better with our permanent art installation from our niece and nephew above. 💦🎨

We sleep under a bed net to prevent mosquito bites. We also take malaria prophylaxis, but bites are no fun, even if the risk of malaria is low. We also have screens on our windows but mosquitos are pesky and they’re a still a part of indoor middle-class apartment living. 🛌💤

And a little bit about technology/electronics cause I’m writing this post and not Olivia. All internet here is mobile – there are no cable or fiber-optic connections in most Dar residential areas. So cellular companies compete for business.  We both use different cell companies for our iPhones (which are pre-pay and as easy to switch as changing out your SIM card) and yet a third for our wireless hotspot – the little black box in the photo above. It is smaller than a deck of cards, battery powered, and can connect up to eight devices at one time. Speeds aren’t amazing but the portability is nice. I take it to work everyday with me. 📱💻📶

Power here is 240V, as it is in most of the world, so it’ll fry our 120V electronics from the states (as it did my hair clippers🔋⚠️). We brought a couple voltage converters that will step down voltage for our smaller appliances, like our burr coffee grinder (and yes, we did bring it 💛☕️). Luckily, Apple power adapters accept both voltages so don’t require conversion. You can also see in the photo above that the universal power strip we bought here works with multiple plug prong designs, which comes in handy as we have a mix of US and Tanzanian types now. 🔌

We have a guest room and hope to welcome many visitors! This room has the best ocean breeze in the apartment and doubles as our ironing room when guests aren’t in town (and this weekend they are!) 👫👬👭

And Olivia’s favorite room is the yoga room. The morning light is wonderful (not pictured here) and the anthro candle is nice too. 🌞🕯

And of course there’s the hood. We’ve got a small duka down the street with all the basic necessities (eggs, milk, TP, etc), a supermarket about 2km away, and Dar has Uber!  🚖 At the end of a 10 minute walk there is the beach, which in our case includes a beach club with cold drinks, always ready for cheers. 🍻