Now it gets more interesting

On a day off from classes, a group of us decided to finally go to the beach; our hotel was very near the ocean, but no one had ventured into the water on their own yet. So, on Saturday Feb. 14 we took a bus to a beach with boats to ferry us to a nearby island. The day was gorgeous: hot, of course, with a strong sun and smooth water.

The beach where we caught a boat

The first boat was too full and heavy, so we decided to wait for the next one.

The island beach! Someone loaned us snorkels so we were able to see beautiful coral and extremely colorful fish. I wish we had an underwater camera because the coral dwellers where amazing. Oh well, you all will just have to visit some day...


Next, we decided to walk around the island. We were told this would take about 40 minutes, but between the many stops to watch crabs scuttle out of the way, and the sea urchin obstacles, we were gone for nearly 2 hours. All along the coast of the island we found these cool, extremely sharp rock formations.
Enter sea urchins. Their spines are poisoned and can cause lasting pain or numbness if stepped on. So, just avoid them, right?


What about when there are this many?

Sea urchin skeleton.

Sand dollar remains, unfortunately a bit broken.

Can anyone remember what these are called?

More cool rocks; Tony got a bit scraped up climbing on them, but it was worth it.

All in all, the island day was wonderful, despite the fact that almost all of us were extremely burnt afterwards. We all applied a high spf sunscreen at least once every 2 hours, but far be it from the tropical sun to be deterred by so little! One of our friends had brought a bottle of Aloe Vera, so over the next few days a very powerful threat if we mistreated this friend was a response of, "no aloe for you!"

Arriving in Tanzania

The Dar es Salaam airport: we bought our Tanzania visas in advance, so we got to skip to the short line and get through the airport quite quickly. Someone was there to pick us up right away and it felt wonderful to let someone else be in charge as he drove us to our hotel.

Our hotel room: we even had air conditioning!


A friendly lizard we were glad to have lurking around our door.

The view from the conference room where we had all our classes. The Indian Ocean!

Travel: Detroit, MI to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

I won't go over all the details again, but below are two pictures of airport sparrows in the Detroit airport. They're a little hard to see, but the first one is sitting on the window sill above and to the right of the plant; the second picture shows one on the floor between the rows of seats.

Our hotel room in New York

The next morning, we got on our first Emirates flight to go to Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Food! Very good for an airline meal.

Every seat has its own console - besides movies, TV shows, and games, you can also use two external cameras to keep track of what it looks like outside the plane. It also give stats such as altitude, estimated arrival time, etc.

Dubai airport

The desert leaving Dubai.

49 Hours Later

We're back! We arrived back at our Michigan home at midnight on Sunday. Our journey started 49 hours earlier when we woke up in Tanzania on Friday morning at 7am local time. We saw a few friends off on their way to various places in Tanzania, then packed up and waited for our taxi to take us to the airport. Our flight left on time at 5:20 pm (local time) from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, arriving to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, around midnight. We napped a bit until 8:30am Saturday, when we boarded our next plane, the new Emirates Airline's A-380. Between all the movies, TV, games, and food, the 14 hr. flight passed rather quickly, although we were getting tired at this point and it was hard to sleep on the plane. We arrived in New York early in the afternoon, local time, got through customs easily, then waited 5.5 hours for our next flight. Than another hour, and another hour...I suppose Delta felt that they had to delay our flight just to complete our Delta experience. But, despite being two hours delayed, two good friends picked us up at the airport and brought us home after we finally landed in Detroit. We were exhausted after 49 hrs. without being in a bed and 43 hrs. of actual travel. And now that's we're back, we can finally post pictures! So, I'm going to start at the beginning of the trip and do separate posts with pictures for particular events or days. Sorry we couldn't post these pictures earlier, but I hope they're worth the wait!

Hello again from Africa! Ironically enough, we came to the office to use the internet and found to our surprise that the power was on and the internet was good. Ahhhhhhh. Then, as soon as we clicked on Internet Explorer, the power went out. now we are about to lose it again....

Pili Pili Ho Ho

Well, we have a little internet again. Still using generator power but hopefully it will last long enough to post this. I will not waste time going back to correct mistakes so forgive the spelling and puncuation mistakes. Also, this is tony, not Rachel.

Wednesday we got to go to a tanzanian outdoor market. We had a list of things that we had to find out and we also had a translater. It was a great time. You definitely cannot survive without kiswahili here. we had heard that you can get by with english in Dar, wich might be true, but anywhere else you would be lost. The people in the market were very friendly although we heard many shouts of mzungu (white person) anouncing that we were coming. Many of the merchants enjoyed teaching us new words in Kiswahili. Parachichi is avacado. Mchichi is Spinach. Ndizi is Banana. Nanasi is Pineapple. Rachel bought a fungu (small pile) of Mangos for 500 shillings (40 cents). I bought a fungu of passion fruit wich nobody seamed to be able to say in Kiswahili.

Well, I will wrap it up for now. We will be telling lots of stories with pictures once we get back to the states and better internet. thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.

First Week

We're quite enjoying our stay in Tanzania, although the heat can be a challenge for Tony. Also, internet is quite limited, so this will be a short post. Some new experiences this week include riding our first tuk-tuk, walking around in downtown Dar es Salaam, lots of Tanzanian food, learning an incredible amount about Tanzanian culture and the Church in East Africa; plus, Tony has gotten to drive! On the left, of course! This can be challenging to a newcomer since traffic rules are sometime vague and right of way may at times be determined by chance. The official Kiswahili word for a round about here is "keepy-lefty" - there's quite a lot of British influence. In fact, since we don't have British or Australian accents, it is sometimes difficult for Tanzanians to understand our English. Our health and well-being continue to be good and we're very grateful for all our American, European, and Tanzanian teachers who will help us adjust to Tanzania. So long for now!

In the Southern Hemisphere at Last!

After our extended layover in New York, we flew Emirates Airline to Dubai, then Dar es Salaam; the plane ride was long, but quite comfortable and fun. We arrived at the hotel in Tanzania just in time for dinner, then rested up a bit before our first day of classes. Jet lag hasn't been a problem so far, praise God! We eat outside three times a day; the food has been great, and with the breeze coming off the ocean, the heat is not oppressive. We've just finished a good first day of classes learning about general safety in Tanzania and getting to know the other orientation participants. There are nine of us total and we're enjoying the group. We probably won't be able to write very often since the computer is 1.5 miles from where we're staying, but thank you all for your prayers and we thank the Lord for a safe trip.