TTT - The Trumble Travels: Tanzania

From: Dan Trumble
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Subject: The Trumble Travels - Tanzania - March 2007

Jambo from Tanzania!

On Sunday I flew from Ethiopia to Tanzania. The flight was fine (no need to use the air sickness bag this time!). I was picked up at the Kilimanjaro airport by Horace and Christian and taken about 40-45 KM into Arusha, the city where Compassion’s office is located. After checking into the hotel some of us ate together and I had Chinese (that makes 11 countries where I’ve eaten Chinese food).

After lunch some of us went to the Arusha National Park, a large park where exotic African creatures roam about freely. There were monkeys, baboons, guinea fowl, giraffes, water buck, zebras, buffalo, warthogs, flamingoes and dik diks (something like a really small deer). Some of them were too far away for me to get much in the way of meaningful pictures but some turned out okay. We drove around the park for maybe 2 hours before heading back. On the way back we stopped by a church that is one of Compassion’s church partners and the Sunday evening service was still going on. We ended up in the service a bit and I spoke briefly while Christian translated (Swahili is the main language here).

On Monday Horace and I ate at Steers, a hamburger place (it’s a chain out of South Africa). I had an Egg Burger…pretty good.

The weather is warm here (a bit too warm for my tastes) but overall it is quite nice and the people are very gracious. I was in the breakfast area of the hotel on Tuesday sitting at a 4-person table when another American asked if she could join me. It turns out that she is from North Carolina but she and her husband run an orphanage in Tanzania and she is trying to get legal to practice law in Tanzania (she can already practice in the UK). Anyway, kind of an interesting story, she met her Chilean husband while they were studying Chinese in Taiwan, they lived in mainland China for 4 years and Hong Kong for 6. They have adopted a child from Ethiopia, one from South Africa, one from Tanzania and have had a birth child within the past year.

So, I leave for home this afternoon. I fly from Arusha to Nairobi, Kenya where I catch a flight that will stop briefly in Uganda on the way to Brussels, then it’s on to Chicago and home on Thursday night (if all goes according to the current schedule).

Unless there is some particularly noteworthy happenings on the way home, there will be just one other TTT message related to this trip (more on Ethiopia). That will not get sent until I’m back in the States.

Arrival in Tanzania