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!