Arusha, Moshi and Tanga Oh My

O.K. back on line two locations from when I last posted.

First a small mea-culpa. Charla, I was so busy in Arusha that I didn't have a chance to get any photos of the clock tower or anything. And, the &%#$ Moshi club wasted so much of our single full day that any time I could have had going into town, finding your old house etc... was spent hanging out at the Honey Badger Lodge and Cultural Centre (where I was staying) for an entire morning. However, I did meet a woman who thinks she may know your mom! Remind me when I get home and I'll tell you the story.

For the rest of you... where to pick up.

Arusha is a pretty cool place. The host clubs were amazing to the point where a recent arrival to Arusha from South Africa - Wayne - basically appointed himself as our driver for three days and insisted upon taking as many of us as possible to as many places as possible.

The highlights were the Mezerani Snake Farm & Masai Cultural Centre in Mezerani. And, yes that is one location. The snake farm is basically a cheesey zooish, interpretive centre for some incredibly venomous snakes, crocodiles and incredibly, a raptor rehabilitation centre! There was an amazing grey Goshawk being rehabbed there for a broken wing and they have full intention of releasing it if at all possible. For me, holding baby crocodiles and a Rufous Beaked Snake were pretty cool.

However, one of the coolest things so far was when we got a chance to see history in the making (or in the wrapping up depending on how you look at it). We spent an entire morning at the ICTR, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. This is the UN backed tribunal that has been investigating, indicting and trying the architechts and participants of 800,000 Tutsi at the hands of the Hutuu in 1994. We got about 2 hours with one of the lead prosecutors - a Canadian from Ottawa - and then got to sit in the gallery of the trial for the former Rwandan Minister of Health. Pretty sobering place. Everywhere you walk in the building, which is huge, there are reminders ofwhy the ICTR exists and what they are hoping to achieve.

As many of you know I'm a pretty laid-back person. Not much bothers me. My Swahili at this point has progressed to the "greeting, order cold beer, where's the bathroom" stage. However, we went to this little market. I've named it "The Gauntlet Market". They sell mass-produced handi-crafts of all shape and size. However once you go through three or four stalls you realize that everybody is selling the same thing. In the rain & mud, this activity - for me anyways - got old really fast. So I'm walking along down the rows of mud & trinkets with a couple of people in each stall calling out "Brother brother come see my shop". And I'm not really interested but I'm a pretty polite person so I'm saying "Pole" (sorry), "Hapana" (no), Pole, Hapana... for about 45 minutes. I should mention that this was a group activity and I'm not a shopper at the best of times and at this point I'm now just basically waiting for the others to finish. In the rain. And the mud. And the noise. And at point point a guy reaches out of a stall grabs my arm and pulls me towards the entrance. My response was a very loud "back off", which he didn't understand and kept pulling me toward the entrance of the shop. My next response was "Toka!". At which point he dropped my arm and retreated to the dryness of the stall. Toka means essentially piss-off.

So, yeah, nobody gets anything from Arusha. Sorry.

Where to next? Oh yeah Moshi. Moshi could have been cool if someone there, who shall remain nameless, had pulled his head out of the orifice it was stuck in and actually done his job instead of stranding Bill and I at our hosts house for 1/2 a day.

Our hosts in Moshi were lovely. Dr. Peter is a retired translator. He's a Phd in Psychology and a Phd in Theology. His wife is Mama Lucy. Together they run the Honey Badger Lodge and Campground. Now, the really great part is that they use the profits from Honey Badger to run their own school called the Second Chance Academy. It's a school that gives children who've failed their Standard 7 exams another chance to move on. In Tanzania if you fail your standard 7's, the government is officially done with you. Imagine having your education cut out from under you at 12 years old!. Anyways, they treated us like royalty, insisted we eat in their home and toured us through the school. I gave Mama 200 pencils for the kids, for which I was blessed, hugged, kissed on the both cheeks by all 300lbs of her.

The afternoon we did get to spend out was up at the trailhead of the Marangu route for Kilimanjar. This was kinda bittersweet for me. I loved being on the base of the mountain but really really wanted to be amongst the people heading up. Something to plan for in the future. We did walk down to the Marangu waterfall which was very cool. Of course, if there's a fast flowing river with the potential for a semi-dry crossing I'm going to take that chance. So, I deftly hopped across the first 2/3 of the stones, doing quite well, when of course I missed one and ended up somewhere between my ankles and knees in the Marangu river. That combined with the wind and spray coming off the falls meant that my ride back to Moshi was wet and cold. Great photos though!

Good bye Moshi. Good bye un-named jackass. Hello Tanga. Acutally, hello over-crowded, hot, smelly 4 hour bus ride to Segera. In Segera I was the first of the five of us off the bus, jumped down into a screaming crowd of people all of whom either wanted to sell me a bag of oranges or steal my backpack. Let me tell ya, when you're in that situation and a perfect stranger calls your full name, you follow them! The name shouter was the President of the Tanga Rotary Club who had done his homework and memorized our names and faces. Getting the bags from the bus to their trucks was an exercise is hand to hand combat. In the space of 8 feet we had to push, shove & shoulder block just to hang on to our bags. And that was with the Rotarians helping.

Tanga was very cool! Our hosts had actually read our profiles and so split us up for vocational visits. We got to spend time with people we were interested in and had things in common with. For me that meant about three hours with at group called SEMMA (Sustainable Environmental Management through Mariculture Activities). They word with women and men to set them up in business that are environmentally sound, profitable and easily managed. Their two big projects are kelp cultivation for the pharmaceutical industry and Mud Crab fattening. Very impressed with them.

The rest of our stay in Tanga was spent touring old German ruins and buildings. They have an active historical preservation society called Urithi that is attempting to stave off building demolition and redevelopment in favour of reclaiming old buildings and making them suitable for modern use.

Kaden and Ainsley also got pen pals out of Tanga. My hosts have three little girls that were thrilled with the idea of trading letters with a couple of Canadian kids.

And finally, today we flew to Zanzibar. Also known as the best place in the world. I may just tell Shan to sell the house, cars, furniture etc... bring the kids and move here. Flying into Zanzibar from Tanga was um interesting. We flew a 12 seat, single propeller, Cesna 280 which seemed to jump around with every tiny breath of a crosswind. Dana called her pre-departure photos her "Tell my mom I love her" shots.

But here we are. The girls are staying in the burbs of Stone Town while Bill and I are right in the heart of Stone Town. We're in a two-floor, three story walkup that's been around since the early 1800's. My "room" is actually the covered, open terrace above the courtyard. Stone Town is so immensley tight that you can barely get one car down the inside streets. We walked around the old town tonight, had a drink on the beach at the edge of the Indian ocean and then back up through the winding alleys and coral sand walls.

Th th that's all folks. At least for now. We're in Stone Town for two nights and then across Zanzibar to Jambiani for four days of sun and ver few official responsibilities. Can't imagine what we might get up to.

One More Night

You'd think that in the last week before leaving, I might post more than twice. You might think that if you were insane.

Between being insanely busy at work - and having more than a little guilt at leaving the Nature Centre so short-staffed, unavoidable as it was - and shuttling the kids to and from their various commitments, and waging a four-member war on whatever virus decided to land on the family, posting twice seems like a lot.

Anyways, it's 11:45 Friday night. Bags are packed. Work stuff is put to bed. Kids are sleeping. New camera has been tested, checked & suitably played with. Passport is in money belt and my suitcase is surprisingly not full. If it wasn't for this thing, I'd be a little more full, however Eagle Creek has made it possible to fold and pack: one pair of dress pants, three-sleeve button front shirts, one pair of MEC rad pants, one pair of convertible pants, two wicking T-shirts, and two pairs of shorts into something smaller than a medium three ring binder.

I think tomorrow will be spent making breakfast. playing tea-party with Ainsley, riding bikes with Kaden (rain permitting) and reassuring Shannon that really, I am allowed to go to Africa and leave her with the kids for 44 days. Does she win the "Best Wife Ever" award? Of course she does. Although I'll apparently be funding a number of "Spa Days" when I get home.

G'night all. Next post will be from: a. London, b. Doha c. Dar es Salaam or d. Wherever the plane takes us.

Later.

Nice Timing

Five more sleeps until we get on the plane and...

I have a cold.

That's right, in a act of pure, wilful defiance my normally iron-clad immune system has gone on strike and let the children's colds come screaming in.

I don't think I can handle any more grapefruit juice, Advil, exposure to Kleenex, sniffling etc... Really, it's getting old. Considering when I do get colds they hang around for three to four days and this one's been really stuck on for a day and a half, I should be feeling great by Thursday. However, if my immune system doesn't pull it together, the two of us are going to be having a serious talk.

On the upside, if I still have a cold when I get on the plane, at least I can infect 200 or so other people. Misery loves company. Right?

It's A Great Problem to Have

We never dreamed it would get this big.

Tonight we counted the bundles and put the boxes on a bathroom scale. To date we have 12,730 pencils weighing in at 150lbs -coincidentally the maximum weight in extra baggage I can take.

Do you know how much room in an average sized house 12,730 pencils takes up? It's 127 bundles of 100 pencils each. Each bundles weighs about 19 oz. 100 pencils is about what the average sized adult can successfully brace against their body with one hand - ensuring that they don't move to fast lest those 100 pencils break free and skitter across the floor just as you try to wrap an elastic band around them. Also, when the elastic band inevitably breaks as you wind it for a third time, it's really hard to control those 100 pencils. So far I've been smacked in the eye, the lip, the cheek, the wrist and the knee by snapping elastic bands.

Five and 1/2-year-olds really like opening packages of pencils. Two and 1/2-year-olds really, really like spreading pencil packaging throughout the house. Seven and 1/2 year-old Rottweilers have absolutely no interest in pencils or packaging. If it's supper time for said dog & they are being ignored, then they really care about pencils and packaging and will do their level-headed best to sit in the middle of the controlled piles and wiggle them into chaos while whining and barking.

12,730 pencils generated a surprisingly small amount of waste. It didn't quite fill a blue box with paper once the boxes were collapsed. Plastic waste was less that three grocery bags full. Unfortunately the plastic used in pencil packaging is not recyclable.

So that's behind the scenes with Kaden's incredibly successful "Kids Helping Kids" pencil project. Many, many people need to be thanked. Mom and Dad for bringing in all the BC pencils. Kaden's cousin Jessica for her shoebox full of cool stuff. The Wards for their usual amazing level of support for everything we do. Shan's Dad Merv for pencils, errands and general assistance. My brother and his wife. Shan's sister and her husband. Meghan and Deet. Nat. Sean and Katy. Charla and Matt for harassing their co-workers. G.W. Smith school for kicking things off and letting the media in. The Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School Environment Club for collecting 2075 pencils and $271 in cash. Sue and the rest of the staff and students at St. Martin de Porres Elementary for collecting over 2300 pencils & cash. Shannon's co-workers. My co-workers. Sherry and Jerry Hedlund & Grand Central Stichin' for 630 pencils today. Our Mayor's Mom! Colin from the City Rec Department who made the first cash donation - $20. Jeff Stokoe & Leo Pare from the Advocate. CHTV & CTV news. And many many other people & groups, both close friends and complete strangers who helped with this either through cash donations or through pencils. If I didn't list your name it's only because I'm exhausted not ungrateful. And of course, my four GSE team mates who will be helping deliver these to kids who really need them.

Ten Work Days Left

So, there are ten work days left until we climb on the plane and fly from Calgary to London, London to Doha, Qatar, Doha to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Thanks to everybody who helped make getting to Africa possible. You are (in no particular order), the Ward family, the entire Waskasoo Park Interpretive Program staff, Rotary International District 5360, anybody who's helping Shannon while I'm gone, my folks and of course Shannon, Kaden & Ainsley. If the'dy once said "Don't go", I wouldn't have gone. But they didn't, they've been amazing. Thank you.

So, to keep you all up to speed, I along with four team members from Central Alberta, am spending May 5 - June 19 in East Africa; specifically Tanzania and Uganda. We're travelling under the Group Study Exchange program, sponsored by the Rotary Foundation.

There's still a bunch to do both at home and at work so this first post is deliberately short.

Later.