Alive and Well

For those who are reading this, just letting you know that I am alive and well, but internet connections are sparse and slow. What little time I have had, I have used to e-mail my family. I will post some stories once I return to the States, however. So until then, tutaonana!

Iringa Town!

Yesterday we traveled from Dar es Salaam to Iringa. It was a 10-hour trip, including a lunch break in Morogoro and a rest stop at a place called Al-Jazeera Restaurant to stretch our legs. Dar es Salaam was bustling with activity as we left, lots of people on their way to church as evidenced by the Bibles they were carrying.

Al-Jazeera Restaurant, as the sign implies

Tanzania is approximately half Christian and half Muslim.
We saw lots of churches and lots of mosques.

As we traveled through the countryside, there were lots of small towns along the paved road between Dar and Morogoro, a distance of 200 km (about 120 mi). On a two-lane road, that part of the trip took about 3.5 hours. Lunch was fantastic at a hotel buffet.

Hustle and bustle in the smaller towns between Dar and Iringa

As we passed Morogoro and went on toward Iringa, towns became fewer and farther between, though it was nowhere near as sparsely populated as the African country of Namibia where I traveled 4 years ago. We dealt with a few switchbacks through mountains and some road construction. I'd like to propose that not only are death and taxes inevitable, so is road construction!

Mountain switchbacks

Road construction

It was interesting to watch the scenery and people as we drove. Plains and mountains and a wildlife park. Some people dressed in Western clothes, others in the brightly colored dresses of Africa, and still others in traditional Maasai garb. We saw young boys herding cattle, villagers selling goods at roadside shops in the towns, people walking or biking everywhere, women carrying babies in wraps on their backs, and children just sitting along the roadside watching the cars pass.

Maasai men along the road; yes, one of them is talking on a cell phone!

Herding cattle


Bicycles carrying large loads!

Maasai man and child sitting along the road

Typical rural Tanzanian homes

In Mikumi National Park, we saw a herd of 6 elephants, including a baby and a very large one that we assume to be a male. This was particularly awesome to me because elephants were the one animal we really didn't see properly in Etosha Park in Naimbia. In fact, all we had managed to see was one elephant's rear end as it disappeared back into the bush. In Mikumi we also saw a bunch of baboons (including babies!) and a herd of impala. We saw 2 giraffes and a few zebra, but they were too far from the road to see properly or photograph. Some of my team members and I will likely take one of the weekends while we are here to go on a safari trip through Ruaha National Park where we will get much more opportunity to see the animals.

Entering Mikumi National Park (the highway passes through the park)

Baboons on the road!

They're considered pests, but I think they're so cute!!

Elephants!

Impala

Another 300 km (180 mi) beyond Morogoro and we finally arrived in Iringa. Unfortunately it was after dark when we got here, but we spent the night at a quaint yet very comfortable Lutheran mission house.

Sunset over the mountains as we approached Iringa

The eating venues Global Volunteers usually uses in Iringa were all closed because it
was so late when we arrived, but we found a new place which turned out to have
DELICIOUS food. Kendra and I ordered the same dish and were surprised to receive a
plate piled higher than most American restaurants would serve, filled with chicken,
spaghetti, rice, egg, and chips (aka french fries). We dug into our Kilimanjaro-sized
plates and ate as much as we could! (Kilimanjaro is the tallest mountain in Africa and is
located in northern Tanzania.)

The room Kendra and I shared at the Lutheran guest house in Iringa. The white things above
the beds are mosquito nets, keeping us safe from malaria while we slept.

The bathroom with our room. Notice that the shower is not blocked off by any curtain;
the toilet, sink, and shower are just all together like old friends! And....it would have
been helpful to know that it was necessary to flip that switch to the left of the
bathroom door in order to get hot water. Oh well, lesson learned. (It was a very
cold shower that night, but it prepared us for Pommern!)

This morning we've done some shopping in Iringa and met several people who will be an essential part of our time in Pommern. First we met Mama Tony (Swahili women often take the name "Mama" followed by the name of her oldest child/son). She is the cook for the boarding house where we will be staying in Pommern. Next we met Shadrack, who is the headmaster at the secondary school in Pommern. His uncle, a local pastor in Iringa, just passed away so he will be spending a couple of days here in Iringa before returning to Pommern. Finally, we met the general secretary to the bishop of the Iringa Diocese of the Lutheran Church. It is this Diocese that supports the Pommern Secondary School.

Eating breakfast at the Lutheran guest house: Kendra, me, Mama Tony,
Amy, Sonia, Jack, and Mohammed (photo taken by Edward)

At the bishop's office: Shadrack, Amy, Jack, and Sonia (photo taken by Edward)

Shopping with Mama Tony at a supermarket -- one room with shelves stacked high around
the perimeter. Mama Tony is at the counter; Kendra, Amy, and Jack are browsing the shelves.

The fruit and vegetable market where Mama Tony made some more purchases.
We carried her bags and tried to stay out of her way!

I was disappointed to learn that both the public primary school and the private secondary school are on vacation for the next two weeks, so there are not many students around. About 20 (out of 640) have stayed on campus at the secondary school, which is a boarding school, and I have been assured I will get to visit and work with them in small groups and then see the actual school the final 3 days we are here. Not what I was expecting, but that's Africa for you! We will also be helping to construct a kitchen at the secondary school while we are there, as well as assisting at the local clinic and just spending time with the children who live in the village.

Blessings and peace from Africa!

Greetings from Tanzania!

Well, a long flight from home to Paris, a day in Paris with an old friend, another long flight from Paris to Nairobi, and a short flight from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam later....and I have arrived in Tanzania!

The day in Paris was fabulous. The weather forecast had called for rain all day, but we lucked out and got all sun instead! It was wonderful to see my friend Laura, and we managed to accomplish several things in our short time together. We had a photo op with the Eiffel Tower, visited the Cathedral of Notre Dame, went to a short service at Laura's church, had a French meal at the same church, and spent about an hour and a half at the Louvre. That wasn't nearly enough time, as we only got to see about 3 main things (including the Mona Lisa!), but I think we did pretty well overall for the amount of time we had, and we had plenty of time to visit as well!

Myself and Laura in front of the Eiffel Tower

Cathedral of Notre Dame

Why yes, that is me and the Mona Lisa! It wasn't as big as I thought it would be, though.

I arrived in Dar es Salaam this morning. (Tanzania is 8 hours ahead of home time.) Mohammed from Global Volunteers was there to meet me as planned. I met Edward from GV on the way to hotel as well. We will have a small volunteer team with just 5 of us, but I hope we will have a great time. Sonia, Amy and her son Jack, and one more person I haven't met yet will join me on this adventure. Both Sonia and Amy have done this same GV trip before, so they will bring some unique background experience to the team.

Before I go, I thought I would leave you with some initial thoughts about Dar es Salaam. It's HOT! And HUMID! Thank goodness it's winter here, or it would be about 10 degrees worse, too.... (And it gets much better as we go inland and rise in elevation.) There were people EVERYWHERE on the city streets -- lots of people walking and lots of people driving. Many, many people jammed into some of the buses and vans. I was sweating just riding in the front seat (which is on the left side of the vehicle, by the way, where most of you would find your driver's seat -- Tanzania used to be a British colony) with a cross breeze blowing across the open windows as long as the vehicle was moving; I can't imagine being jammed in like sardines.

Most women were wearing brightly colored dresses, and some of them were carrying crazy loads balanced on their heads without any use of their hands. A few people along the way were cutting grass in the median by hand -- as in, using a machete of some sort, not your average lawn mower! A few woman along the way were sweeping sand off of the streets with brooms.

This picture was taken later on, in Pommern, but is
an example of what the women carry on their heads

A man cutting grass with a machete

A woman sweeping alongside the road

Many, many boys and men were walking between the lanes of traffic, which backed up for long periods of time, selling every possible item you could imagine. Speaking of traffic, I'm not sure I understand what the purpose of stoplights is in this city considering we went forward on red and stopped on green more often than the reverse. Perhaps I'll figure that one out next time I'm on the road....

Two different places in the middle of the city, there were complexes of large grain bins. Felt like home!! :) There is a striking combination of old rundown buildings and nice new ones, though many more of the former.

Our hotel is right on the coast of the Indian Ocean, and it's a fantastically pretty view. I'm fighting jetlag and tiredness like none other right now. It was right about this time yesterday when it really hit me too. Right now I've had a total of about 5 hours of sleep (two half-hour dozes and one four-hour sleep during which I woke up multiple times -- and all of those snoozes happened on airplanes) in the past 46 hours. I really need to fight through the jetlag though and find something to do this afternoon to keep me awake. Then hopefully I can sleep well tonight and finally make the 8-hour time shift adjustment. That said, I think I'll go explore the many shops around our hotel. Tutaonana!

Map from the Slipway Hotel's website showing where the hotel is located. It's actually on
Msasani Bay, hence the reason that in the pictures below you can see land in the distance!

Looking toward the left from our hotel. There is an artisan market
right behind those white cars where I did some shopping later on.

Looking right from the hotel. That flat roof low on the left is where we ate several meals.

Tutaonana

Tutaonana! (That's "Good-bye!" in Swahili.)

I leave tomorrow for my travel experience. I will have a long layover in Paris where I will get to meet up with a good friend from junior high and high school, Laura. We'll spend some time together seeing the sights, and then I'll fly on to Tanzania.

I don't fully know what to expect for Internet or how often I might be able to post, but I'll see what I can do. Until then, I'm heading to a land of....

incredible wildlife,

Wildebeest, zebras, and giraffes in Etosha National Park, Namibia

amazing scenery,

Ruacana Falls, along the Namibia/Angola border

and fascinating people.

A beautiful girl in Philipi, South Africa

See you soon! Tutaonana!

A Couple of Other Blogs

If you are interested in learning more about Pommern, I recommend the following two blogs. They were written by a Global Volunteers team who traveled to Tanzania in January and provide a lot of wonderful information about the trip. Of particular interest may be some of the photos on the first blog linked here.

http://gvtanzania2010.weebly.com/index.html

http://tanzaniateamjournal.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html (Read from bottom to top, except that the January 13th post is out of order.)

Getting Ready

Almost two years after first hearing about an organization called Global Volunteers along with their work in Tanzania, Africa, I'm getting ready to fly out of the U.S. in just a few days.

There are so many things that need to be done yet, the least of which is blogging, but blogging sounded like more fun than many of the other options. Let's see... There's packing, figuring out money and debit cards and credit cards, lining up the house-sitter, packing some more, shopping for the things I hadn't gotten earlier, trying to learn a bit more Swahili, getting the house moderately clean before I leave, and did I mention packing?

I can't take much with me -- a duffel bag in the checked luggage and a backpack for a carry-on. This coming from the person who fills her car to overflowing just for a weekend back home at my parents' house! But as I pack, I'm mindful of how materialistic I (and many Americans, for that matter) are.

We are encouraged to bring with us photos of home to share with the students at the school, but I don't know that I can bring myself to do that. I don't know how I can even begin to explain how I have a whole house and it's all just for me. I don't know how to explain how the car-to-people ratio is darn close to 1-to-1 in my town when there are only 5 or 6 motorized vehicles in all of Pommern (pop. about 3,000), one of which is the vehicle that transports the Global Volunteers to and from the capital city.

I could take pictures of my classroom at school, but how could I explain the immense amount of technology in each individual classroom in every school building in every school district in our whole state, not to mention much of the country? I complain about the condition of the student desks in my classroom, but they would look like thrones in the classrooms of Pommern.

And none of these details are to imply that the people of Africa or Tanzania or Pommern are downtrodden. From my previous travel experiences in Africa, they live just fine with what they have and are some of the happiest people I have ever met. From the gospel of Luke, Jesus said, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."

God has graced me with abundance, and I travel to Tanzania for the next three weeks to share a small bit of that gracious abundance with others. I go to teach, but I hope that I will be taught even more. Please pray for safe travels and rich experiences for myself and the others on our service team!

Playing with beach balls in Philipi, South Africa, in May 2006