A Flying Trip

Almost 20 hours in the air without a glitch! A minor baggage problem in Nairobi, that did not seem minor at the time, and an overnight sit in Kenyatta Airport were a bit trying, but beyond that, smooth. A total surprise greeted Dave and me at the gate at PDX when attendants informed us we'd be flying first-class on the 767 to Amsterdam, thanks to the intervention of our next-door neighbor, Wayne Sloan, a Delta flight attendant, who often works on that PDX-Amsterdam flight. That leg of the journey gave us the luxury ot comfort, good food, and abundant attention. After a short breather at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, we were stuffed into a fully-loaded KLM 747 bound for Nairobi for an uneventful if crowded 7½ hours. Then, that long overnight in Nairobi and several waits queued up to discuss luggage, and the next morning, boarding a Precision Airways 737 for a 75-minute flight to Dar es Salaam.

During that flight, the most memorable moment of the whole trip: looking down at the snows of Kilimanjaro, that great, legendary mountain near the Equator, nearly 6 km tall, it's year-around snows the subject of countless stories, and now amazement at how quickly those glaciers are disappearing. Although surrounded by clouds, the peak was starklhy visible below us, a marvelous treat.

We then soon descended to the sunny, muggy, tropical heat of Dar es Salaam, and the expected hurdles of buying a visa and of customs, a process that moved surprisingly quickly—the clerk handing me my passport with a brand new visa and the cheerful, smiling greeting, “Here you are, Babu,” that were a splendid welcome to Africa. Babu is my Tanzanian nickname (it's meaning simply “Grandfather,” which here is a welcome honorific, not a put-down). Next came the search for baggage and our relief at seeing all four of our heavily-packed bags, three of them near the 50-pound limit (in fact, the one large trunk that was on my ticket amazed us when the Delta scale read exactly 50, the limit before added charges) and the equal surprise when we were waved through customs with no check. By the way, lest you think we travel with huge amounts of clothing, those heavy bags are loaded with gifts, computers, computer parts, and more destined for our friends in Dodoma.

Then, out the main door and seeing our friends, Edwin and Kangoye, waiting for us, Dave's first steps on African soil, my sense of returning home, an overwhelming moment. My special friend, Kangoye, whom Annette and I met in Dodoma in 2009, now a college student in Dar studying plant and soil chemistry, greeted us joyfully, as did Edwin, Lahash's East Africa staff leader whom we were meeting for the first time. We are soon loaded into a taxi that takes us into the churning life and movement of a great African city, the streets crowded with vehicles, countless daladalas, medium-sized buses that are the transit lifeline for throngs of people, the little bajaji tricycle taxis that flit about, moving one or twos persons or stuffed with cargo, weaving among an endless stream, often at a stand-still, of trucks and cars along streets where thousands of pedestrians are all about us, often dashing across the street, a scene anyone who has spent time in a teeming African city can describe graphically with dumbfounded amazement that what appears to be chaos goes on without major loss of life and vehicles.

We arrive finally at a comfortable bed-and-breakfast where we will eat and sleep until leaving tomorrow morning to catch our Dodoma-bound bus and the seven-hour trip that awaits us, into the interior of Tanzania. After settling in here, we had an unscheduled afternoon which we used mostly for visiting Kangoye's college, the Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology, in a large complex of buildings near Dar's city center. Kangoye showed us about eagerly, guiding us to laboratories of various sorts, lecture rooms, and finally the dormitory where he lives in a tiny room with three other students. He introduced us to Elias, one of his roommates, and several other friends of his, who greeted us with much laughter and hand-shaking and a certain puzzlement about the presence of two Americans on campus. Our suggestion that we were the prime minister and minister of education from America brought on much laughter and yells, and again there was that amazing feeling that although we were total outsiders on the scene, we were welcomed, our presence truly enjoyed.

During that flight, the most memorable moment of the whole trip: looking down at the snows of Kilimanjaro, that great, legendary mountain near the Equator, nearly 6 km tall, it's year-around snows the subject of countless stories, and now amazement at how quickly those glaciers are disappearing. Although surrounded by clouds, the peak was starkly visible below, a marvelous treat.

We then soon descended to the sunny, muggy, tropical heat of Dar es Salaam, and the expected hurdles of buying a visa and of customs, a process that moved surprisingly quickly—the clerk handing me my passport with a brand new visa and the cheerful, smiling greeting, “Here you are, Babu,” that were a splendid welcome to Africa. Babu is my Tanzanian nickname (it's meaning simply “Grandfather,” which here is a welcome honorific, not a put-down). Next came the search for baggage and our huge relief at seeing all four of our heavily-packed bags, three of them near the 50-pound limit (in fact, the one large trunk that was on my ticket amazed us when the Delta scale read exactly 50, the limit before added charges) and the equal surprise when we were waved through customs with no check. By the way, lest you think we travel with huge amounts of clothing, those heavy bags are loaded with gifts, computers, computer parts, and more that's destined for our friends in Dodoma.

Then, out the main door and seeing our friends, Edwin and Kangoye, waiting for us, Dave's first steps on African soil, my sense of returning home, an overwhelming moment. My special friend, Kangoye, whom Annette and I met in Dodoma in 2009, now a college student in Dar studying plant and soil chemistry, greeted us joyfully, as did Edwin, Lahash's East Africa staff leader whom we were meeting for the first time. We were soon loaded into a taxi for a trip into the city, taking us again into the churning life and movement of a great African city, the streets crowded with vehicles, countless daladalas, the medium-sized buses that are the transit lifeline for throngs of people, the little bajaji tricycle taxis that flit about, moving one or twos persons or stuffed with cargo, weaving among an endless stream, often at a stand-still, of trucks and cars along streets where thousands of pedestrians are all about us, often dashing across the street, a scene anyone who has spent time in a teeming African city can describe graphically with dumbfounded amazement that what appears to be chaos goes on without major loss of life and vehicles.

We arrived finally at a bed-and-breakfast where we will eat and sleep until leaving tomorrow morning to catch our Dodoma-bound bus and the seven-hour trip that awaits us, into the interior of Tanzania. After settling in here, we had an unscheduled afternoon which we used mostly for visiting Kangoye's college, the Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology, in a large complex of buildings near Dar's city center. Kangoye showed us about eagerly, guiding us to laboratories of various sorts, lecture rooms, and finally the dormitory where he lives in a tiny room with three other students. He introduced us to Elias, one of his roommates, and several other friends of his, who greeted us with much laughter and hand-shaking and a certain puzzlement about the presence of two Americans on campus. Our suggestion that we were the prime minister and minister of education from America brought on much laughter and yells, and again there was that amazing feeling that although we were total outsiders on the scene, we were welcomed, our presence truly enjoyed.