Departure?

After hugs all around, the big group has gone.  Gary, Carol, their daughter Jennifer and her friend Julie took the Land Cruiser and the luggage and left with Dennis driving.  Peter drove the Cruiser with only Don and Eunice, but the group will swell to 14 when the other travelers are picked up at Chilinze.  The new arrivals left Arusha where they were stranded because of the explosions here in Dar.  Their plane will arrive here about 10 PM (without them), mine about an hour later, still more or less on schedule, only 25 minutes behind last I checked.

Joseph will be picking me and another woman up at 8:30 PM to go to the airport.  He will pick up Kelsey in the morning for her 9:30 AM ferryboat ride to Zanzibar.  She will meet Amy Schulz and her two friends in Zanzibar for a little end-of-the-trip R&R.  For us, this marks the end of the medical adventure.  Kelsey and I spent some time debriefing the experience.  I think it is safe to summarize saying we both loved it, adventures and all!  She has some thoughtful comments on future rotations, which we will use.  I have great hope for our developing connections with St. Kate’s, IMER and Concordia.

For lunch we all went to “Steer.”  The receipts have “Magic Kingdom” written on them.  But I do not know if it is a subsidiary of Disney or not.  Could be!  The place is a collection of fast food restaurants in an American style.  There was an Asian one, a MacDonald’s style burger place, a bakery and a pizza place in this building.  On the outside were the usual street vendors.  Inside US, outside TZ.

The traffic was bad; no, horrific is more accurate.  It took 2 and ½ hours to get to the place.  We dropped Dennis off first at Wama.  I have no idea what that means.  The name of the business, I think.  It is where BkB buys their vehicles.  Two congregations have bought motorbikes for their partners and Dennis was hoping to get them shipped by truck to Iringa.  Unfortunately, they were buried far back in the container and will take several men to unload enough to get at them.  He felt thwarted. 

Dennis has been our steady pillar.  He is reassuring when we need it, confident when we need it, always wise, smart as a whip and widely experienced.  Dennis was adopted by Benjamin Ngede when Benjamin married Dennis’ mother Sarah.  I deeply respected and admired Benjamin Ngede and no less his son.

It is now 5:40 PM our time, 8:40 AM yours.  I am not sure just how much if anymore I will be able to write before I get home.  It has been fun keeping a little record of this month-long adventure!  I look at the ground below my feet, then at the palm trees here at FPCT and the Indian Ocean and realize I am very far away from home.  Very far.  It is a surreal experience, life changing in so many ways.  It isn’t just me that wants to share the stories.  My experience is that everyone who comes here wants to do the same.  The stories are endless, many tragic and heartrending.  Others are heartwarming and hopeful.  I can’t help but think I am a better person for having been here.  I hope you will come and see for yourself!

For me, departure tonight now seems highly likely.  In the mean time, follow Amy and friends and Kelsey at http://safarinjema2011.blogspot.com/

Ken