Catch up comments

Flying in to Arusha.  Notice I corrected the spelling.  It was very cool.  As we were flying in, the sun was at about the same level as the clouds and the texture was incredible.  I wished I could give you a picture, but my camera was packed up above.   This went on for about 15 minutes as the pilot was flying pretty level just above the clouds.  Some simple things are worth a lot. 

At the airport , Kilimanjaro - Arusha,  about 90% of the people got off the plane.  We were told to stay and so we stepped outside on the airplane stairs to catch the heat and humidity.  Arusha is big place for starting Safaris.   Also there were a lot of people on the plane that were doing volunteer work of one kind or another.

  The guy sitting in my row was a doctor and was going to be doing Cleft palette surgeries for a week.  This is like what the Smile Train does, but he was not affiliated with them.   There is a large incidence of the this type of birth defect and people are often too poor to get it fixed.  And then the child is ostracized and doesn't attend school.  Smile Train fixes these in an efficient way at about $250 for each.  Absolutely incredible.   Sorry for the ad for them, but they truly work wonders in changing people's lives for a minimal amount.  

We arrived in Dar after another hour flight and we got through immigration with a very friendly interview.  One of our teammates took a bit to get her Visa processed.   If you ever go, you can get and pay for this ahead of time and I suggest you do that.  Philip picked us up in a van and we got to the hotel in 30 minutes.  Not much traffic at 11 at night.  We are staying at the Peacock hotel.  Rooms are simple, nice with no real extras, but the bed is comfortable and we have wireless internet, running at 42%.  Good enough to do a Skype call home tonight.  Breakfast buffet was great with Omelets, fish fritters, thin pancakes, croisants, and juices - passion fruit and watermelon are common.   Fourteen of the 15 of our team met at breakfast.   

We then went to Coco beach,  Very nice area ,  pictures to come later.  Lots of rock areas and nice sandy areas.  A number of kids were on the beach, but not as many as I would have thought.  One of our team decided to go swimming and walked/swam out to some kids and tried to get them go further out.  They would not go. They did not speak English.   Later we found out why they would not go.  The ocean is about waist high for a long ways out, but the bottom becomes coral and the coral sticks and breaks off in your feet.  ouch.  

We ate lunch at what I would consider to be a US version of a Benegins or TJ Fridays  restaurant.  We didn't really want to eat there, but it had air conditioning and we really really needed that. 

For dinner, we had a buffet at a meeting with our hosts.  It was good time to meet them and sample the eats and they were good.  Fish, chicken and beef, a good soup, rice, deserts,   lots of variety.   I was kind of fearing what the food might be like, but it has turned out to be great.  Lots of taste and good use of spices.  

Our hosts, which are the organizations that will be utilizing our consulting skills were intelligent and excited about us coming.  They understand the challenges of their organizations and they want to serve their constituents better.  I enjoyed the conversations and it put me at ease.  It will be good working with these guys.  

We are off  to a historical site tomorrow. 

  My new word for the day  hamjambo   meaning "hello" in a group setting.