Here At Last

Whew!  I am so glad to be here!  I will probably say, over the next 3 weeks, that I love it here, at least a hundred times! I love it here.

Easy flights, albeit long.  Met a group of folks from WA who are traveling to Moshi to help drill and install a new water well in a neighboring village.  Makes me wonder . . . if someone did a statistical analysis of all the projects that tiny little private groups accomplish, and compared it to the projects that the huge charitable foundations fund -- which would yield an improved lifestyle for the 'ordinary' people in these villages across sub-saharan Africa.  And which group of funders -- small vs huge-- would be more cost effective with its impact on individuals and local societies/cultures.

Janet, Julie and Ema met us at the airport.  Janet and Julie are sisters who started Michii Women's Group along with their cousin who lives in Dar es Salaam.  Their brother Ema is who generally drives us around when we are here; he also is overseeing, as project manager, our latrine/toilet project in Minjingu.  I think project management here is probably just a bit different from project management in Denver,  Anchorage or New Haven!

My Swahili cd's have been immensely helpful.  Actually was able to carry on a limited conversation with the immigration officer who stamped my passport.  Now it is simply a matter of learning lots and lots of vocabulary words.  This language is quite lovely.  It sounds, with all its rounded consonants, like water tumbling over stones in a stream.  Swahili is an amalgam of the native languages with the addition of Arabic and it suits the people, their place and their culture well.  It evokes the landscape and the softness of the sunrise and sunset.  There isn't any harshness to it, no gutterals, not many sibilants; just a lovely smoothness on the ear.

The air here smells of the bush; there is always a hint of woodsmoke, since many, many people still cook on wood or charcoal braziers.  The flat topped acacia trees, favorite of giraffes, are emblematic of Tanzania.  The giraffe is the national animal, protected, not hunted.  Giraffe is 'twiga' in Swahili.  The earth is reddish clay mostly.  Kilimanjaro is right outside my window and it was lovely as the sun rose and highlighted the glaciers on the summit.  Birds work me this morning at dawn.  I guess one can take the girl out of the tropics and plant her in the arctic, but one can never take quite all the tropics out of the girl!

Today is errand day -- register my sim card (new regulation) so I can use the phone; find an ATM so I have some shillings; hang out with Janet and Julie to more or less plan our upcoming itinerary.  But, this is Tanzania, and an plan is really more of an idea of what we might want to have happen as opposed to a schedule which we will follow.  As Janet said years ago "Americans have watches, Tanzanians have time".

Early tomorrow we will head out to Ketumbeine, which is where the Masaii secondary school is, along with the NAAPOK women who are beaders.  There is totally no internet out there; there isn't even electricity at the school, and the missionary and his wife (who organized the NAAPOK women) have solar and a generator. 

Next post will be when we come back from Ketumbeine.  (Did I mention that Kathy and Stan, from Oakland, who are 2 volunteers with Asante are here and we are all traveling together until the end of February when they go to Uganda?)

Asante sana for all your prayers and positive thoughts.  Kwaheri for now.