Tanzania: Arusha 
Out of Africa(8)
Cold shower. No shower. Warm beer. No beer. No food. No electricity. Toilet is a hole in the ground. Tent side swiped by wild bush pig. Feet caked in mud. Robbed by a monkey. Lions almost attacked us. Pickpocketed. Cooking water drunk by an elephant. Stale butter and carrot sandwiches for 5 days straight. Felt up by a toothless driver on the daladala bus. Wiping snot from a child’s nose with bare hands and no soap. Gunfire in front of our room. Sleeping on the bathroom floor. 2 stolen cameras, 2 stolen shoes, 1 dead donkey, 2 dead puppies, children throwing up all over each other…Best time of our lives.
The end is near…
I peak back at Emele as we head to Dar from Zanzibar, the tears slowly but steadliy streaming down her face, the trip has touched her heart and for the first time in her life she has no strong desire to return home. Though perhaps more weighted on the beauty and people of Zanzibar, the [...]
Armed & Dangerous
A conversation weeks earlier… Has the house ever been robbed? Yes. Did the guard stop them? Yes. What happened? He shot at the thieves. When was that? 1997. We had been walking the path from the house to the center for weeks by ourselves so when David, our family coordinator insisted on an escort last [...]
A visit to Moshi…FYI: Toto was way off
We’d both played the song enough times to make anyone not part of our dynamic duo sick of Toto’s, “Africa”. But we thought we’d clarify a misstatement. Kilimanjaro cannot be seen from the Serengeti. In fact, though Arusha is just 74 km away from it’s base, it’s view is blocked by Mount Meru and can [...]