Arrival in Iringa

(the following paragraphs were submitted by Clay)

Team Departure from Minnesota

Tracy, Dennis, Ruth, Judy, and Clay had an uneventful flight to Amsterdam on Friday, June 18. We each had one suitcase of our own clothes plus one suitcase of gifts for our partner parish and students. The suitcases weighed in at just under the 50 pound limit after some minor reshuffling of materials among the team. We expected to pay extra for Tracy to carry a 3rd suitcase containing medical supplies for the Ihimbo clinic, but the extra bag extortion fee turned out to be $200 rather than the $50 we expected.

The 3:20 pm flight departed by 4 pm after a short maintenance delay (on time for an international flight) and most of us spent more time watching movies than sleeping. There was a sunset over the North Atlantic, but it never got completely dark, and sunrise followed sunset by less than an hour. At Amsterdam airport we had a 4 hour layover, enough time to briefly misplace Tracy after a bit of shopping. Just before we contacted airport security to search for her in the holding room for misplaced toddlers and children, we found her waiting for us at the departure gate.

Arrival at First Pentecostal Church Tanzania (FPCT) Guest House

We have a one-hour layover at the Kilimanjaro airport, where we came within 20 miles of the lodge where Dean is resting after his descent from Mount Kilimanjaro. Dean will join us in Iringa after taking a public bus from Kilimanjaro/Arusha to Iringa. We fly on to Dar es Salaam and arrived around 11 pm on Saturday night.

Have you ever arrived at an airport, picked up your bags, and then encountered a line of limo drivers holding signs listing the name of the passenger that they are picking up? Our driver, Esau, was waiting with a sign that read “St. Stephens Gethsemane,” and our limo was a 25 passenger Toyota mini-bus. Just the right size for 5 Americans and their luggage. We changed some dollars to Tanzania shillings, loaded our suitcases, and headed off into road construction.

A half-hour drive took us to the FPCT guest house in Dar, just a block from the Indian Ocean. FPCT guest house is operated by the Pentecostal church as a source of revenue for the church. FPCT has about 20 guest rooms spread among a half dozen buildings. By 12:30 am we were comfortably settled in House 1 that has 3 rooms and 3 bathrooms, with everyone feeling fine except for a little jet lag and the rear-facing imprints of airline seats.

Bus Ride to Iringa

Breakfast is hard boiled eggs, toast with jam, bananas, and coffee. The team and our new bus driver, Shavani, are ready for our planned 7 am departure for Iringa, but our hosts are not. We plan to pay for our night’s stay ($105 for the whole team, including breakfast), but we discover that the manager of FPCT is not scheduled to arrive until 8 am, which is 8:30 or so Tanzania time. By 8:45 am we were on the road, into more road construction.

The trip from Dar to Iringa is an 8-hour ride, plus an hour and a half break for lunch. Once we get outside of the congestion and road construction near Dar, the traffic moved a little faster.

Road construction in Tanzania is similar to the U.S., with a lot less involvement of heavy machinery. Lots of roadway gets torn up, then it is left that way with not much work being done to put it back together.

During the trip to Iringa, we encounter 4 traffic stops, where a policeman on foot stands in the highway and waves the bus to the side of the road. A check of the bus registration documents ensues, along with animated discussions in Swahili. The Tanzania tradition is to make these traffic stops shorter and less troublesome by paying a few shillings to the policeman. But our driver Shavani isn’t paying anything, so the traffic stops take awhile.

(The following entry was submitted by Tracy)

Bumps in the Road (by Tracy)

When road construction isn’t slowing us down, there are the speed bumps. On the major highway across the country, about every 20 miles there are rumble strips, followed by a really big speed bump that requires us to slow to about 10 miles per hour. The speed bumps made me think about the times that God asks us to slow down, gives us speed bumps per se. We have this great driver who knows when to slow and when to change lanes. God can also provide someone to help us along the way! Well that was my deep thought of the day yesterday.

A personal message for my family: Austin and Aaron, you will not get a machete and Beth yes Dean does snore----the ladies all heard it through the wall last night! I am excited today to walk in the city of Iringa and experience Africa without being in a moving vehicle! Happy Father’s Day (I hope that the boys bought you a card!) and blessings to all back home.