Thursday, August 25, 2011

Just Hop On The Bus

Dear Friends and Family,


I am taking the time to write as much as I can to you because soon enough our travel will again put us in a position where we are not able to.


Last night finally brought us all together again. Javen and I traveled by African bus across Tanzania while Nikki and the kids and the rest of the team drove across the country in the Land Rover. Three days later we have all arrived safely in Kigoma, and what a beautiful place Kigoma is.


Situated on Lake Tanganyika, Kigoma is a port city much like a Carribean fishing village or port. The town is in the process of being developed by the government and the Chinese have even taken a flyer on Kigoma, investing in infrastructure with the promise of port locations in return. If you travel north on one of the main roads out of Kigoma, you climb some hills and begin to pass coffee farms and pineapple groves on the hills that overlook the mountainous border of Burundi. It can truly be breathtaking. But that is a little about the destination, the real exciting part is the journeys that got us here...


Snapshots From our Bus Ride


Javen and I began our trip to Kigoma being taxied to the Dar Es Salaam bus terminal. This was the underbelly of a major African city exposed - at 5:30 am and before sun even rose. Both directions of street that lead to this terminal were piling up for miles as we bottle-necked into this little two lane entrance into a terminal shaped like a two-sided comb. As we pulled in, porters and escorts and vendors are yelling and reaching into the car wanting to know where we are headed and the driver diverts them by shouting "Arusha!" several times. Arusha is the major safari city in Tanzania and it makes perfect sense the two mzungu (white guys) would be headed that way.


By the time we parked and exited the taxi, word of us being there and heading to Arusha tavelled ahead of us in the sea of people, probably 1,000 strong in each of the 4 to 6 different terminals. The mob was calling out to us as we passed, trying to sell us the best bus and convince us to hand our bags off to the next guy hoping to make a few bucks, or to make out with new bags full of American booty. By the time our driver walked us to a bus that was run by the company that we were ticketed with, we had to catch our breaths and check our pockets more than a few times.


In any case, after about five minutes of being left at the Sumry High Class bus we thought was taking us to Kigoma, Javen and I were rebuffed when we tried to board and told this bus was the wrong bus and our bus to Kigoma wasn't at the terminal yet. That had to be impossible because there was no more space for a bus among the 40 or 50 that were already there and we were supposed to be leaving in about 15 minutes. The thought of being the only 2 mzungu stranded at a bus stop in Dar really was a little uncomfortable. We began to ask the bus driver where to find our bus and in his hurry to get his loaded he was less than helpful. At some point, from the pressing crowd around us, came a voice that called to us in a mixture of English and Swahili, "Where are you headed and what bus?" With Javen trying to engage the bus driver for a clear answer, I turned to this fellow, a mid-thirties African with noticeably more education than most you meet in Tanzania, and said, "Sumry High Class Kigoma." His reply was brief but the same as everyone of the hundreds of Africans wanting to make some sort of profit from us, "Come with me!"


Ok, now I have to take a second to point a few things out. Javen and I have been in Africa no more than 48 hours. Javen speaks Swahili, but is clearly less than comfortable in this position and we are the only two white guys in a sea of Tanzanians all hustling something at the bus depot. The bus depot itself is best described as a small city. It is its own self sufficient system of shops and ticket offices and professional peddlers and hustlers that never leave because their entire lives function around the commerce and bustle of travelers that move through several times a day. And even this doesn't paint the full picture. Because shops and offices are Western terms that get us to think of neatly placed and functioning buildings. This is the Wild West at best, it is a shanty-town and people sleeping on benches and food vendors cooking out of coal ovens made from old bus wheels. This is Africa.


Back at the bus stop, Javen decided to put the driver of the bus we were left with in touch with the porter asking us to follow him. After a few seconds of discussion, the driver seemed to shrug Javen off by telling him to go with the porter. What other options were there at this point? So we followed him. Behind the last row of buses we followed him. Through a small ally behind those buses and out the back of the bus depot we followed him. Into a dark and empty dirt parking lot scattered with broken down buses we followed him. To a Sumry High Class bus, jacked up on all sides, with tires off and a few mechanics scrambling around it we followed him. Sure enough, this was the bus to Kigoma. The one Tanzanian man standing beside it with his travel bag confirmed to us minutes later that he too was waiting for this bus to be road readied for our trip to Kigoma. It certainly looked like a few tires were more than this bus would need for a 2 day journey. Another bus and two middle-of-nowhere breakdowns later we would discover that was exactly the case.


In any case, we boarded the bus an hour later and took a trip that was full of many more stories I will have to save for another day. We stayed overnight in a smaller bus depot with its community of peddles, met villagers as we waited for repairs to the shoddy bus, narrowly avoided collisions, drove through Maasai country, and met two policemen packing AK-47s with whom we made great conversation and new friends. We were even asked to come to one of their homes and to pray with his family. At the same time our families were living their own stories out as they drove across the country a day behind us. Right now we are still exchanging those stories and will soon share them with you.


There is less than a week until we depart for Zambia to begin our Advanced Mission Training. Another four days of travel until we reach the Overland Missions base camp next to Victoria Falls and begin the mission we are here for. Amazing how God is already putting our team through certain tests - as if we are being prepared for more than just a training course. Something inside is telling me we are going to set this entire class on fire. And maybe a few villages too. After all, we aren't in Africa just for the ride...


------
Love you all. Cannot wait to share more.


--
The Garrett Family
Overland Missions
813.486.7632
On YouTube:
"Tanzania Ablaze.avi""Burning For Tanzania.avi"
"Tanzania Ablaze (short version).avi"
www.OverlandMissions.com

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Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Touchdown. August 18, 2011

All in safely for the evening. Got in at 2:30 am and in bed this morning by 5, just as the Imam began early morning prayer. I can remember from Turkey the way the air comes to life with animals yelping and buzzing just before prayer, as if they know the time...

Spent the day hopping around here in Dar Es Salaam...extremely crazy, just like I would imagine an African city to be. The first thing that hits you as you exit the plane on the tarmac ramp is the smell - and it truly is something special - almost something I have smelled before. It is like the smell of pretzels roasting over a shopping cart fire outside of the old Yankee stadium and the smell of an open air market in Chinatown combined, amplified, and laced with this sweetly acrid undertone, likely from the garbage. The poverty, the chaos, the momentum of this place is a step above anything I have witnessed in the islands, although along the same lines.

The Highlights:

Nikki and Donna took the girls to the textile market and bought materials for a few African dresses. 
Ate at a cafe today (see if it is a highlight in like 12 more hours!!!) and at an Asian restaurant...both very yummy. After dinner got to share the leftovers with 2 street families and Angelina and Bibi prayed for the blind mother, who asked Christ for salvation and then promised to meet us in the same spot tomorrow night. We will bring her a conga (?spelling?) because all she owned was on her and her baby's back, and it wasn't much. We then bought 5 kids ice cream. The poverty in the city is overwhelming. You don't see it during the day other than everything looks old and poor, but at night the homeless women and children and cripples huddle together on the streets, and I am talking in groups of 2 to like 40 or 50...and it is on every street.

In general the people are very friendly. Even Giuseppe is amazed at the world around him, staring at everything and shouting out and laughing to the countless people who cat-call him and want his attention.

At this point I am still a bit emotionless; still very tired and still in a task-oriented mode so the emotions are only coming in small situational waves or bursts. I am finding myself constantly thinking and looking for threats - most of the ones I am concerned about are the ones I cannot actually see like bacteria and infection, and this preoccupation is keeping me from feeling quite a bit right now. Most of the rest will come with the hard work of re-training oursleves to not do the habitual things like touching faces and biting fingers, as well ans with the new habits of constant washing and mess containment.

Ahhh. Intro to Dar lasts one more day. Then its immersion by fire into Tanzania on the cross national pleasure bus!