A New Adventure - Tanzania!

I scheduled this trip to Africa to accomplish a myriad of objectives, including visiting an orphanage in Tanzania, going on safari in the Serengeti, and doing research for expanding the Batsiranai project in Zimbabwe. The journey has been a difficult one, with many ups and downs.

My first mistake was booking a flight from San Francisco to Tanzania via Johannesburg and Ethiopia with no rest stop in between. 27 hours in the air, 14 hours of layover time. Never again.

When I finally got to Kilimanjaro, it was four o'clock in the morning, and, after I collected my luggage, a uniformed woman asked me to leave the terminal because she was "locking up" the airport. So I was sitting outside in the dark at 4:00 a.m. in a completely foreign country, carrying $2000 cash, a Macbook, 2 iPhones, my Zim phone, a camera, etc., wondering where my ride was. He finally came about a 1/2 hour later, and drove me to my hotel in Arusha, 50 minutes away. My head and throat hurt (a sign of a cold coming on) and I was exhausted, so I checked in, and then slept the entire day and night, getting up only once to eat my room service dinner.

The following day I felt better, and left for Mto wa Mbu, about an hour and a half from Arusha, to visit the kids at the Children Concern Foundation orphanage that my friend Betsy is supporting. The kids were wonderful. They hugged me, jumped on me, clung like little vines around my arms and legs. I brought lots of art supplies, and we made thank you cards for Betsy and her friend K.C. who are doing wonderful work with the orphanage. In fact, they have raised enough money to build two new dormitories and two classrooms!

The next day I decided to teach the kids about collage art. The kids were really engaged, and did some beautiful collages from natural and "found" objects.

The dedicated directors of the orphanage, Peter and Andrew, took me out to the site where the new classrooms and dormitories are being constructed. The kids are going to have a much better life after they move here, each one getting their own bed for the first time in their lives.

I had planned two safaris while in Tanzania, so I gathered my guide, Samwel, and driver, Amos, and we took off for Ngorongoro crater and Tarangire National Park--two of the best places on earth to see wildlife.

I saw lots of animals--zebra, wildebeest, elephants, giraffe, lions, hyenas, impala--and a variety of beautiful birds. The animals are so beautiful in their natural habitat. I never tire of seeing the bold array of stripes in a huddle of zebras, or watching a giraffe glide along, it's impossibly long neck undulating gracefully with each stride.

If only my trip had stayed this pleasant... More to come. 

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