Have you shifted yet?

Shifting via Jimmy's Small Dump TruckThis isn't a question about driving cars.  In Ugandan English, to move is to go somewhere for a trip or journey, as in, "Last weekend I moved to Mbarara for Sunday's dedication of their new church."  "To move" is used anytime you're going to be physically moving your body from one place to another - "What are you doing after Bible Study?" "I'm moving to my home." 

"To shift" is what Americans think of as "moving".  To shift involves renting a truck and relocating all of your belongings to another domicile.  So for the last couple months Krista and I have been moving about town with a realtor, looking for a place to shift to.  We really appreciated having a place arranged for us when we arrived in Uganda and it was wisely leased only on a 6-month term, so now that we're more familiar with Kampala and with the places we frequent, we've been looking for an apartment or house closer to downtown, the Kampala congregation, and the major routes out of town for when we go up-country. 

Our New Apartment - From the Front DoorThe place we've found is a wonderful cozy apartment, 2nd floor, with great amenities.  At 1200 sq feet, it's half the size of the house we'd been renting, but it still has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a dining area and nice living room with a great little patio.  The kitchen is excellent and there's a little patio off the kitchen that our housekeeper has claimed as "her" work space. Our apartment complex has 6 units - 4 of them in one building and then 2 smaller houses - in the compound.  The compound has hired what they call in Uganda "a boy" - a young man who does the gardening, washes the cars, opens the gate, and provides daytime security for the property.  We also have a night boy who comically seems to go to sleep earlier than Krista and I do but at least he's outside and (hopefully) a light sleeper.  He opens the gate when someone comes home late and provides security.  We no longer have a view of the lake, and we are a little lower in altitude, which means we get some mosquitoes at night, which we never saw at our old house.  We have a little view across to one of the other hills of Kampala.  The compound has some mature trees and we have a palm tree right outside our bedroom window which feels pretty exotic for this guy from Seattle.  Finally, we have bars on our windows, like almost every other home in Uganda.  Our Living Room from the Bedroom HallwayOur last house had a team of security guards patrolling the compound and the gated community had been built and designed for shared security, so there were no bars on the windows.  Now, being on the second floor, having a much smaller space, knowing our groundskeeper and night-time security man well, and having bars on the windows makes for a much more comfortable stay for Krista when I'm upcountry and she remains in Kampala.  We're in a great quiet location and still get a breeze coming down the hill.  We keep saying to each other, "I'm so happy with our new home!" 

Having had only 6 months to accumulate things, we moved our entire house in two trips with a dump truck (lifting a fridge over the side of a truck isn't easy), and were almost completely unpacked the day after we arrived at our new apartment!  We've even got our curtains hung - fortunately they were the same height (almost) as our last house.  And we have 16 curtain panels left over!  Our apartment hasn't been occupied in over a year I think, so there are some issues that still need to be ironed out (like our showers which don't have enough hot water pressure to get more than a trickle out of them), but that'll come in time.  Now we've got to get some internet access and a cooker (stove) and we'll be set!  Please pray for us as we continue to settle in to our new place.  And if anyone asks you what the Trumps have been up to, go ahead and let them know that we've shifted!  -Shauen