Ask and You Shall Recieve...

Well for the past 7 days we have had a power outage. It hasn't been too bad- two of the days I spent at Mikumi National Park and the powerless days here at LJS gave me time to study. Although, candle light makes it pretty hard to run through note cards. Another storm hit last night, but luckily we are spending the weekend in Dodoma (city north of Morogoro) so we have power and internet.

On the 30th we went to a village called Usingwe. On the way there PH took a wrong turn down a cow path and we drove aimlessly through the African bush for a good 45 minutes before we decided to turn around. At one point there was a small albeit obvious stump covered in elephant thorns (vicious 2 inch long spikes aptly named for their resemblance to elephant tusks). But being the courageous adventurers we were, we decided to brave the challenge that lay before us and proceeded to run it over at a speed upward of 40 Km/hr. As you may have guessed, it popped our tire and we hobbled our way out of the bush to a nearby village. We folded up the seats and got out the equipment for changing a tire, but as luck would have it, half the pieces, including essential parts of the jack, were missing, YAY! Fortunately, a local who used to work in a garage made due with the tools we had and changed our tire. It took about an hour to get the tire changed so we spent a lot of time talking with the children who had gathered around the car. Actually, Omgea and I spent a lot of time talking to the children, Kim spent a lot of time under a tree trying to not puke. Kim got the same flu that I had the day before. I was able to spend my sick time in bed with a bottles of water and my computer. Unfortunately, Kim had to spend her sick day lost in the African bush, in 90+ degree heat, mobbed by children. It wasn't a pretty site.

Once we were ready to go, we offered to give a ride to a maasai woman and her child who were also headed to Usingwe. The mob of children around the car interpreted this as an offer to give all of them a ride as well. They graciously accepted our imaginary offer and all of them lunged for the open car door at the EXACT SAME TIME. Keep in mind there were already 4 people in the back seat, including myself, and now we were instantly adding 12 children. I imagine from the outside it looked like one of those Japanese train cars where the police officers cram passengers into the cabin so tightly that they look like sardines. But from inside, it was like a scene from Dawn of the Dead when the zombie horde tries to attack. The children were biting, scratching, clawing, ANYTHING so they could get in the car. PH got out and was picking up children and throwing them aside, I was frantically trying to get the door closed, the Maasai women was shielding her child who, of course, was crying, Kim was in the front seat about to toss her cookies, and Omega just sat there laughing hysterically. We finally got moving and made it to Usingwe.

We of course sat down immediately and had tea and bread. Kim was too sick to eat so one of the local men went out into the woods in search of a natural remedy. He came back about 15 minutes later with some tree bark. It was roughly the color of Kim's sickly pallored face except it had dots of green, yellow, and orange mold. They soaked it in water, which turned an opaque grey, and Kim drank the cloudy concoction. At first she was about to charf, but the she felt better. The color returned to her face and she was nearly her healthy self again. That is until about halfway through the service, when she darted for the church door and ran to a nearby bush. As she vomited she had an audience, all the village children ran to the window to stare and point. The children were so loud and distracting we just decided to halt the service and watch Kim for a little bit. After she finished and wandered into the bush, the congregation continued on with the service.

On the 1st, we went to a village called Nngaiti. Within the first hour of travel we popped a tire... again. But this time it happened in a town, right next to a garage. After we changed the tire (I'm getting pretty good at changing tires f.y.i.), we continued on our way to Nngaiti, which is conveniently located in the middle of a vast assemblage of fields, mud holes, and savanna. We offroaded through the bush for almost 2 hour whereupon we luckily stumbled into Nngaiti. The "village" consists of a church, a half-assembled brick house, and a shack labeled "shoppe" which sells warm soda. That is it. I have no idea how we found it, Moreto and Kidege have no idea how we found, even PH seemed pleasantly surprised. Everything was going according to plan until the second half of the service. The sun hid behind some clouds and a turbulent wind rose out of the south unleashing a tempestuous torrent of rain. Everyone crammed to one side of the church fearing the already structurally unsound southern wall might collapse. It didn't and we got thought the service alright, although we were much more wet then when we started. Ironically, one of the biggest prayer concerns was rain for the parched fields. All I can say is -"Ask and you shall receive".

The recent rain made the drive home through the fields fun because all the dirt turned into mud. It took us about 3 hours to finally get home. We had left that morning at 8:30... we got back by 10:30 p.m.

' On Monday the second we quit Swahili lessons after lunch, loaded up the truck, and made our way to Mikumi National Park. Before we were even in the front gate we saw warthogs, impala, giraffe, and a large herd of elephant spanning as far as the eye could see. We checked in, enjoyed a chilled glass of passion fruit juice, and made our way to our rooms. The accommodations were AMAZING. I had my own cabana with a toilet room, shower room, guest bedroom, and master bedroom. Each hut had its own patio overlooking the savanna which always had animals frolicking by. The lodge had two bars, a pool, and the restaurant overlooked a watering hole frequented by animals. But we didn't spend much daytime there because we were out driving in the savanna. I won't say much about the animals, the pictures speak for themselves, I hope to post some of them to facebook shortly. But near the end of the first day we had a very close encounter with a lion. Heading back toward the lodge, we drove down a road we had just went the opposite way on not 5 minutes before. And there lying in the middle of the road was a big male lion. He was just sitting there, enjoying the sun, taking a nap. We got so close, our bumper could have hit him. Eventually he turned over to see what exactly was going on behind him and slowly made his way off the road to the shade of nearby tree. At one point I could have stuck my hand out the window and touched him. It was great. That night we enjoyed a very western three course meal in the restaurant and went to bed so we could wake up by 5:00 to drink some coffee and head back out into the park. We saw just about every animal, the only thing we didn't see was the rare and elusive leopard. It was by far my favorite thing about the trip so far, rivaled only by the worship services with the African people.

Today, we are back studying Swahili. Its going slowly but surely.

Low: I apparently scratch my mosquito bites in my sleep. My feet and legs are covered in scabs and are bleeding constantly. No amount of bandages or anti-itching cream will stop me.

High: Mikumi park, everything about it was magical. I was really sad when it was time to go.