Dad and Margot in Tanzania!

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  Zanzibar, Tanzania
Thursday, January 25, 2007

Hello All, Happy New Year!  I'm back in Dar after a fabulous three weeks of traveling with my Dad & Margot and then Kyle.   We went to Bagamoyo, Arusha, Zanzibar, and all around Dar.  It was really nice to have visitors and they had a great time.

I was getting a little anxious for them to get here around Christmas time because most of the people that I know in Dar were leaving for the holiday break.  The foreign exchange students finished their one semester, my Tanzanian student friends went back to their home regions, friends who work for NGOs went traveling or went home, and Dar in general seemed pretty empty.  It didn't even seem like Christmas; everything was business as usual.  I guess in the US and Europe, we over-hype the Christmas season but I'm not going to lie -- I did miss it a little.

My family did get a small Christmas tree, which was really adorable

02 Dinner at my house

.  It reminded me of the one Charlie Brown had.  And on Christmas morning there was a service at the church complete with Christmas carols in Swahili!  As I mentioned in the last entry, I did find some company for the Christmas weekend, the Glynns.  They invited me to stay at their house for a few days around Christmas.  It was wonderful.  They have two boys and a cousin around my age and the whole family was hilarious and really knowledgeable, which led to lots of great discussions.  We took a trip to Bagamoyo one day, had lots of good food, and watched a few movies.  I was really grateful to be a part of their celebration.  I spent the two days before Christmas with them and then Christmas day with my Tanzanian family.  The rest of the week I spent finishing up papers before my parents came into town.

When they finally arrived on Friday, my Tanzanian family went with me to meet them at the airport and convinced me to wear my Maasai halloween costume to surprise them.  It happened to have poured earlier in the morning so the roads were really bad.  We couldn't make it to the hotel where they had made a reservation.  Instead, they stayed at a place closer to the University, which ended up working out better.  Their visit was so much fun.   We had dinner with my family, my Rotary host, Saada and her husband, and the Glynns. We traveled around Dar and to Bagamoyo and spent the New Year in Zanzibar

03 Dad and Mama outside house

.  The following Wednesday, Kyle arrived and my parents headed off to Arusha for a safari.  I was really interested to hear what they had to say about the whole experience so I asked if they'd write part of this travel entry.  Their entry is included below.  Kyle is working on his entry too and it should be up sometime next week.  He's an English major so I expect good things from him!

Also, I just wanted to add a quick note of thanks to everyone who sent cards and gifts around the holidays.  It was so thoughtful and I really appreciated it!


Bill and Margot's Excellent Adventure in Tanzania

Jessica has asked us to contribute to a travelblog entry about our trip to Tanzania for 2+ weeks at the end of December/beginning of January. What intense pressure that request is, considering how fascinating Jessica's entries have been.

First, we'd like to report that Jessica is alive, well, and thriving, although life in Dar es Salaam isn't always easy

04 Dinner with Saada and Juma

.  She, indeed, has many wonderful people in her life who enrich her experience and who look after her.  Baba and Mama Ngao (her Dar parents) are among the world's most loving and upbeat people.  They treated us like celebrities.  They picked us up at the airport and then nearly got stuck in the mud and rain several times while driving to our remote hotel (most or many of the roads in Tanzania aren't paved).  We ended up not making it to our original hotel because the roads were so flooded out; but we ended up at a hotel that was much more conveniently located.  On our first night, they hosted us for dinner at their house, where they sang to us, gave us gifts, led us in prayer, and fed us a traditional African meal, although we were a little concerned because we were supposed to eat some of the meal with our hands and they don't use napkins!  You're supposed to wait until the end of the meal to wash your hands (I think we both wiped our hands a bit on our clothes in the interim.)  We laughed a lot with them.  They are wonderful people and Jessica is extremely fortunate to be living with them.  The next night, we had dinner with Jessica's Rotary host, Saada and her husband Juma, who have helped her immensely.  We also got to meet one of Jessica's friends, Danielle, a Canadian who is in TZ working on AIDs education.  Finally, we got together twice with the Irish/Tanzanian Glynns, Jessica's sort-of adopted family (remember that she met Brendan Glynn in a bar and then spent Xmas with them).  They are probably just a few years older than we are and we loved socializing with them

05 Dinner with Glynns and Danielle

.  We even went with them to a brand new Irish pub in Dar.  They have lived in Tanzania for about 6 years; Brendan is a consultant for the government.  We have been corresponding over e-mail to compare the Glynn family trees and to see if we have common roots.

On the "life in Dar es Salaam isn't always easy" front: it is, indeed, very hot and humid.  When we were there, it was in the 80's with humidity in the 80 range.  This is Dar's summer, so we undoubtedly experienced some of the hottest weather.  Fortunately we had a hotel with AC (needless to say, Jessica stayed with us there).  As Jessica has said, the electricity does go out fairly regularly, which is annoying (it happened the night of our dinner with the Ngaos so we ate by candlelight).  Jessica's room at the Ngaos is perfectly fine, although with a tin roof, it can get quite hot especially when the electricity goes out and she can't run her fan.  As she has written before, university life can be a little frustrating since the faculty don't always show up for their own classes.  And getting on-line isn¡¦t easy either.  We visited one of the two University computer centers, which is tiny and very crowded; and now, there is a new policy that students can't use those computers for e-mail during the day.  So that explains why Jessica isn't always a regular e-mail correspondent.  Cell phones are staples in Tanzania though

06 Emerson & Green Zanzibar

.  Everyone, including the poorest people in rural areas, seem to have cell phones and they are "pay as you go."  Voice calls are relatively expensive, so Jessica text messages her friends constantly -- the "thumb generation" at work.

Getting around is also a challenge.  Jessica took us on a few dala dalas, the over-crowded, cheap (about 20 cents) mini-buses.  We took a lot of taxis too, although you have to haggle with every taxi driver on price; they initially try to charge you several times what they should.  Every taxi ride was preceded by about 5 minutes of intense negotiation.  You can't drink the running water so we were constantly in search of bottled water (also helpful for downing our daily malarial pills).  As you know, Jessica doesn't get hot showers at home which I suppose isn't so bad in Dar's hot weather.  Finally, there are those mosquitos!  We slept with mosquito nets in most hotels and had to slather on deet repellent at night or risk many bites.

We traveled with Jessica for the first 6 days: in Dar, Bagamoyo, and then exotic Muslim Zanzibar for 3 nights.  In a little role reversal, Jessica was fully in charge.  We hung back and let Jessica take care of us all along the way.  Using her Swahili, she conducted intense negotiations with every taxi driver and merchant

Children in Zanzibar

.  On the trip to Zanzibar, we arrived at the ferry to discover that it was sold out.  Jessica told us to "wait here" while she pushed her way into the crowded ticket office and managed to get us tickets for a bit of a premium (Tanzania's version of scalped tickets, I suppose).  When we left Jessica to go on safari, as Kyle arrived, we were reluctant to leave our capable guide to manage on our own!

We had a fabulous safari experience in three gorgeous national parks in the "northern circuit."  We spent six days in lush Lake Manyara National Park, Ngorogoro Crater (the "eighth wonder of the world"), and the renowned Serengeti seeing every bit of wildlife imaginable (although we were disappointed not to see cheetahs or leopards -- they are very rare).  Elephants, zebra, giraffe, hippos, lots of lions, hyena, the rare black rhino, all kinds of antelope, all kinds of birds, ostrich, monkeys, baboons, the list goes on.  The Crater is like a modern day Jurassic Park, a rich environment for so many animals.  The Serengenti is immense; mostly vast bush-covered plains filled with herds of migrating wildebeest and zebra.  We loved being in the Land Rover all day with our knowledgeable Maasai driver/guide, Lesikar.  We stayed at various "luxury" tented camps and lodges and enjoyed meeting and talking to other travelers around the campfire.  We should note that the climate in this part of the country is quite different from Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar

Dad and Margot at Maasai village

.  There is virtually no humidity; it's warm and sunny during the day and lovely and cool at night.

After our safari was over, we met up with Jessica and Kyle at Arusha National Park (they were just finishing a short safari of their own).  We had two fun days with them at a wonderful lodge run by a nice German couple with a beautiful pool and good food.  One day, we went hiking in the Park and around the craters in the foothills of Mt. Meru (the second highest peak after Kilimanjaro).  To hike in the parks in Tanzania, an armed ranger must accompany you, so there we were hiking with our ranger and his rifle.  It's amazing to us that Tanzania has such gorgeous and diverse landscape AND so much wildlife.  Jessica said that Arusha National Park looks like New Hampshire with giraffe.

We should also observe that most of Tanzania is, of course, quite poor.  Except for downtown Dar, which does have modern high rises, we mostly saw dirt and rocky roads with shacks that serve as retail stores.  In the countryside, we saw many thatched-roofed mud and dung huts, many local people hauling water in buckets on their heads, and many tending herds of cows and goats.  Cows are a form of wealth for the Maasai tribe in particular.  In most of Tanzania, a man pays his prospective wife's parents in cows in order to marry her

Hiking in Arusha Nat'l Park/Mt. Meru

.  Everywhere we went, both in the city and in the rural areas, we saw many people walking everywhere, many walking long distances; along the roads, in the fields and bush, everywhere.

Our trip to Tanzania was a rich experience for all of our senses.  We loved the safari, visiting Zanzibar, Bagamoyo, and Dar es Salaam, meeting Jessica's friends and "family" and especially being with Jessica.  Our primary reason for going was to visit Jessica and we were able to experience some of the adventures she has had.  Traveling with her and seeing her happy, healthy, and thriving was the highlight of our trip.  We are glad to know how well Jessica is doing and maybe we can sleep a little better knowing that she has many people looking after her.

Bill and Margot Glynn

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Jessica and Kyle	Lion	lionesses at Ngorogoro Crater	Mt. Kilimanjaro
Serengeti sunset	The Sultan of Zanzibar and his daughter	Zebra

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