Blogs from Mwanza, North, Tanzania, Africa - page 6

We got up yesterday and left the Guest House at 6:30 am to catch a 10:00 flight and needed about that much time to stand in wrong lines and get to the gate. However, there was no plane in sight so we waited until about 11:15 and took off. Nice plane and we went very close to Mt. Kilimanjaro. Jeremy, an intern for the summer, met us and negotiated a taxi for us out of the about 10 drivers fighting for his attention.There are now 17 of us counting the Howells, a very nice couple from MI and those of us from New Hope. That is a lot of rooms and a lot of food, but they have both been taken care of very nicely. We, the Roes, have a little 2 bedroom guest house to ... read more

Hello again, everybody. The three Roes are off again on another wonderful trip. God is so gracious to us and has blessed us so abundantly in our many travels. We are off to Tanzania in just a few hours. We are going to be with friends that are missonaries close to Mwanza, Tanzania on Lake Victoria. They have established new churches, started a Bible Institute to train pastors and started an orphanage close by that Chrissy hopes to visit often. Three college students have been interning with the work and arrived in May to help coach soccer with some secondary school teams and to give soccer camps in some of the villages where small churches have been established. The parents of two of the boys will meet us in Nairobi and our pastor arrived last week ... read more

I need to relate two daladala experiences with everyone. One is from Monday, one from today. On Monday, I went to the Saba Saba day celebrations (see previous entry). Our daladala had a live chicken in the back. And this chicken was not in any sort of cage. Now, to be fair, none of us knew that there was a live chicken in the trunk until about halfway through the trip when we started hearing noises. Since all daladala windows are practically permanently open, we figured that the noises were coming from outside. Until they seemed to follow us. Since we were sitting in the back seats, one of us dared to look bad and we saw a chicken jumping and screeching. We found it really funny but the locals seemed to think that we were ... read more

On Saturday, we took a trip to the Sukuma Cultural Museum. Our tour guide may have been one of the most unenthusiastic people I have ever met. I thought that he would have had Sukuma pride; however, he was just giving us the facts as if reading them out of a book. Boring. It was strange to see the different reactions when people realized that all of the things we were seeing could easily be seen in the United States - Angela compared a lot to Hawaii and I compared a lot to the Algonquins. It makes me wonder what makes everyone really so unique.... The best part of the muesum by far was the dancing. We received a one hour show of singing and dancing from all over Tanzania, but mostly from Sukumaland (essentially Mwanza ... read more

So now I've spent a little more time in Mwanza and have done more things that I'm beginning to realize how nice it is and how I could not spend an entire semester here because of how quiet it is. But luckily I only have to do three weeks. So things I've done recently: (1) I climbed another Kopje. It was a little bit harder but definitely much more fun. I've got some good pictures from it. These hikes, although a little hard, have made me realize how much I would enjoy rock climbing as a hobby. A few of us on the trip may try to go to a place in Virginia at some point next semester because this is really just way too much fun. (2) Later in the morning on Tuesday, Dino took ... read more