Africa, Here We Come!

Last fall, a day before Dave Hanson and I were scheduled to get on a Continental plane to begin flights to Tanzania, I got the unwelcome diagnosis of shingles. The physical pain was intense; the disappointment was even greater pain. Actually, the acute shingles pain went away rather quickly, and the disappointment drained off when Dave and I started planning for a February trip.


Now, the time has passed, and we're within a few days of boarding a Delta flight for Amsterdam, then via KLM to Nairobi, Kenya, and, after an overnight at Kenyatta Airport, on Thursday morning, a short flight to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. My good friend, Kangoye Mahende, will be at the Dar airport to meet us, and so will a new friend, Edwin Angote, who is Lahash's East Africa coordinator. We'll visit the Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology, where Kangoye is a student, before an overnight hotel stay. Then, early Friday, we'll leave the steamy, tropical climate of Dar on a bus, riding five hours into the interior of Tanzania to Dodoma. Dodoma is higher and drier than Dar, but still very warm at this time of year. Annette and I were in Dodoma at almost the same time in 2009, so now I'll meet many good friends who will quickly becomes Dave's friends as well. We'll settle in for a two-week stay.

Although Internet access is not nearly as convenient as here, I will have opportunities to write posts on this blog. Since Annette is not with me, this blog will be a useful means of communication for us, and we'll be glad if others look over our shoulders to find out what's going on.

Dave and I will be carrying on six laptops when we board our flight. Both us volunteer at Free Geek, a Portland non-profit that recycles and refurbishes used computers. Most of the laptops we're carrying were rebuilt at Free Geek and are grants to Grace and Healing Ministry, with whom we will work in Dodoma. Dave and I intend to set up computer skills classes for older children and adults using the laptops we are bringing. We'll also attempt to repair some non-working computers.