Our Prayers Are Answered

Jambo, from Tanzania.

We're staying in a Catholic guest home a few miles outside Arusha and about a 10 minute drive from the school.

Before we got here, we were concerned about the modern conveniences we'd have at the guest home. But our prayers have been answered. As you can see from the photos, all of the conveniences are here:
There's a modern flush toilet with flushing action when you pour the bucket of water into the bowl rather quickly.
The shower head is quite convenient for hanging the plastic bag that has a hose so you can dribble water on yourself and get fairly wet.
We have lights at night – notice the photo – provided by the convenient candles.
(Later in the evening, the electricity came back on. And, much of the time, the water runs. Usually, very noisily as it slowly fills the toilet. Prayerfully, we wait for tomorrow.)

We landed Tuesday night in Arusha at the Kilimanjaro airport about 8PM – almost exactly 24 hours from when we left our house.

The plane was full of two groups of people: volunteers on missions or EarthWatch types. Earthwatchers are apparently concerned about the environment and so they fly halfway across the world to drive around on the African plains and bother the wild animals. (We’ll be doing that next week too. And I’ll be watching the earth for big rocks and large bumps.)

The first night we stayed at a hotel just off the runway. In the morning, we could see across the Tanzanian plains for miles. There were several mountains – couldn't see “Kili” (as we locals call it) but many others in the 2-3000 foot range. And we could spot the runway.

We heard our first bottle birds at breakfast – take a big bottle of water empty it into a sink, and that's the sound they make. It's hard to imagine how evolution prepared them to be mistaken for a 2 liter bottle of Coke. But, que sera,sera.

The 30 mile drive into Arusha took us through very dry, flat landscape – sort of like eastern Colorado – up 2,000 feet or so past banana and coffee plantations and rice paddies. On the plains, mostly cattle herders and/or goat herders. Masai or a related tribe called Meru.

We continued over the USA river. Past the USA Post Office. (Another program of our government? I asked why it was named after America. “No, it's Usa, not USA.” Might be fun to send a postcard from USA, Tanzania.)

We stopped in town to pick up some essentials – Diet Coke, bottled water – and reached our guest house at about 10:30AM. A short ride to the school and then we're done traveling. For a few days.

On Wednesday afternoon we met 9 teachers and conducted a 3 hour course in how to use Word. Mostly they know Google and like to search the Internet. We're trying to get them proficient enough in Word so they can write up their own tests instead of relying on a secretary. (Although, I'd take it as a demotion if I had to do my own typing instead of giving it to someone else. Of course, I’m typing this by myself, so there you go.)

We feel safe here; partly because of the steel bars on our windows and partly because of the armed guard at the locked entrance gate.. Since we're close to town, we figured we'd walk. “Don't walk at night,” we were told. Barb asked, “When is it night?” “When it gets dark,” she was told. OK, a fair definition of night.

And night falls like a lead balloon. It's day and then it's night. We're close to the equator, so it's light at 6:30 and dark at 6:30. One of the staff members told us, “I sleep a lot while I'm here. It's great.” So I went to bed at about 8PM and got up at 11, 1, 3, and 5. In between those times, I got a lot of sleep.

A fashion note. The first morning at breakfast, I saw a strapping young male professional safari guide wearing Capri pants. What would Ernest Hemmingway do? If he had to wear Capri pants on safari, I think he’d shoot himself. (Oh, that’s right, he did. You don’t suppose? Nah, he had a different problem.)

In the next post, I’ll tell you about our experience trying to buy beer from the nuns that run our guest house.