Safari and Home

On Thursday, 8/13/2009 we were picked up at our hotel by Pastor Joyce and her two little boys as well as Alfred. It was time to leave Lushoto and make the 7 hour drive to Arusha, where we would be going on Safari. By this point we had become pretty good at entertaining ourselves in the car, so the 7 hours went by pretty quickly. It is just such a beautiful country, that everywhere you look it looks like a postcard. We seriously have probably close to 100 pictures of mountains and are not sure what was taken when. It was just alway so beautiful. We had to drive back down the mountain, and it was just breathtaking again. By this time we had been in Lushoto for well over a week, so it was nothing driving down the winding mountain roads while sitting sideways in the car. Trucks and buses coming directly at you were just normal at this point.
We, of course, had a flat tire on the way to Arusha. I think we somehow attracted them because we had several while we were there. So, while Kiondo and Alfred fixed the tire, some of us found a nice private spot and turned it into a bathroom used the facilities, and then once the tire was fixed we were on our way again.
On our way there we passed many Masai people. The Masai are tribal people, who are nomadic herders who still live throughout Tanzania and Kenya. The drought has gotten so bad in Kenya, that many of the Masai have begun to come down to Tanzania to join with the tribes here. This is a Maisi Village

We arrived in Arusha and we were staying at the Lutheran hostel. We got into our rooms and I just about had a little celebration over the fact that we had shower curtains. It was SO exciting. Seriously. Many of the bathrooms in other countries do not have any seperation between the shower and the rest of the bathroom. The bathroom is basically a room with tile, with a sink, toilet and shower head coming out of the wall. It is great for cleaning because you can just spray water all over, but this means that when you take a shower the entire bathroom gets soaked. I was particularly successful and being ablet to soak the entire bathroom in my 20 minute 45 second shower. SO, now that we had shower curtains and would not soak the entire bathroom, it was very, very exciting. It was also very exciting that we had 2, yes 2 whole, rolls of toilet paper, AND soap.

The things we take for granted...

So after we got settled, we left the hotel and did a little shopping in Arusha. This was really the first, and one of the very few, chances we had to shop for anything. After that we went to dinner and then to our rooms to go to bed. We were being picked up the next day by the Safari company at 8am.

Friday morning came and it was time to say goodbye to our Shepherd, Alfred and Pastor Joyce, as well as our favorite driver Kiondo. We had a small prayer circle outside the hotel and said our goodbyes, as they headed back to Lushoto and we headed to Safari at Lake Manyara National Park. When we first arrived at the park, we were going to eat lunch first. We were told not to leave any food unattended and to close the windows of the safari car.

Why?

Baboons.

Apparantly if you leave windows open they will make themselves right at home.

In your car.

So after lunch it was off for the safari. It was an absolutely amazing experience and we had SO much fun. It was sureal to see so much wildlife all around us. It again left us in awe of the the beauty that God has created. It was really amazing to see all of these animals existing together.

Baboons all over the road.

A warthog. Or in Swahili: Pumba. Being on safari and learning all the names of the animals in Swahili gave us complete understanding of where they came up with the names for the characters in the movie, The Lion King.

Here are the hippos. We learned that they do not swim, they are standing in the water. We also learned that they are not the nicest animals.

A Giraffe or Twiga. Which we learned makes no noise

Zebra...can't remember the swahili word

Gazelle

Zebra crossing the road. Just another day in Tanzania.

We all loved this scene, because if you look closely you can see so many species of animals just happily existing together.

They did note that Tanzania is going through a serious drought and as we were driving through the national park, our driver would point out areas that used to be covered in water but were now just dry land. Please pray for water.

Bird's nests.

This used to be water.

Thursday night we stayed at a Safari Lodge. We seriously thought we were in hotel heaven. We didn't have shower curtains, but that didn't matter because there was a WALL between the shower and the rest of the bathroom. We also had a bathmat. Oh the excitement over the bathmat! We had huge mosquito nets over our beds. Why is this exciting? Because you were less likely to get tangled if you got up in the middle of the night. We had extra blankets for the bed. We had hangers! We even had more than one bath towel, and a hand towel! AND a wash cloth. We didn't know what to do with ourselves we were so excited. Lisa noted that she dried her face on a seperate towel because it was an option. I think I stood under the HOT water for almost a 1/2 hour. And not because I was that dirty, but because I could.

But along with all of our new, exciting accomodations, came alot of guilt. Pastor Sharon noted that our bathroom at this hotel was bigger than some of the houses we were in while we were with Irente in Lushoto. When and if they get to shower, it is with a bucket of water that they have to go and get and then carry back to their homes. As we sat around the table that night we were excited to eat, but the prayer we said was one of thanks. It is a very strange position to be in--thankful for all that you have--but SO aware of all that others are lacking as far as material things. Which led us to a place of realizing again that the material things are not what is important to our brothers and sisters in Christ at Irente. It was a concept we all wanted to be able to bring home with us. We talked about the beauty in the land and animals we had seen that day. We realized that we had met people that week who would probably never get to see this, and they live in the same country. We became keenly aware of the abundance that we would each be returning to and we thanked God for opening our eyes and our hearts to how others live and find joy in their lives. After a week of living in such simplicity it is a struggle to find words to explain the emotions that came with leaving. One thing is for sure, each one of us has left a piece of our hearts there with our new faith filled family in Irente, Tanzania.

Friday morning we were picked up at the lodge and we were headed to the Ngorongoro Crater.

The Ngorongoro Crater is the largest unbroken caldera in the world. It is full of animals, and on the side of the crater lives some Masai people. It was beautiful. We saw so many animals and were completely taken by the entire experience.

Catching a ride...

These lions are literally feet from our cars. At one point the mama lion came walking down the road--you know, completely normal, a lion just comes walking down the road--and she greeted all of the cubs, and then walked down a small hill and laid right between the safari cars and her babies.

Wildebeast.

Inside the crater.

It was amazing and the pictures really do speak for themselves...

After our day in the crater we headed back to another hotel. If you are counting, that is 6 hotels now since we left LCR on 8/1. We had dinner and then went to our rooms to pack and re-pack, and pray that the suitcases were still under weight. We went to bed for the last time in Tanzania. The next morning was Sunday, 8/16/2009. We were picked up and taken to the airport by the safari company. Our flight was not until 4pm that day, but we had the safari company come get us at 10am. We had to be out of our hotel rooms by 10am and we decided we would rather sit at the airport than at the hotel. Well, it wasn't the most well thought out plan because we got to the airport but we were not allowed to go in yet because we were too early.

So! What do you do outside of the airport on a Sunday morning?!

Worship.

duh :)

We finally got into the airport, went through all of the security, boarded and then took off. On our way out of Tanzania we were given one last beautiful look at Mt. Kilimanjaro, as our plane flew right over the mountain. The pilot announced we would be flying over the mountain and everyone on the plane went to the windows to see.

Since I was one of those who completely slept through Kenya the first time and had absolutely no recollection of ever being there, I had to take pictures this time. So this is flying into Nairobi Kenya.

We had a nice welcome home lunch when we arrived back at LCR and are thankful for all the love and prayers that were sent out way during our trip. We hope you join us on 10/4/2009 from 5-7pm to hear more about our time in Tanzania.