Mwanza, finally!

At long last, we arrive in Mwanza to finally begin the work we came here to do. Got up at 5:00am to take an interior flight from Dar to Mwanza via Kilamanjaro. You could see the mountain from the plane, and that was quite a wonderful sight.

The Mwanza airport is quite rudimentary; they do have a paved tarmac, but baggage claim consists of guys pushing your bags through a slot in wall, whilst you wait upon a cement platform. Hilarious.

Fred (the director of the Hisani orphanage) met us with a taxi. They couldn't get the trunk to open, so all our bags had to go pushed across our laps. That's 6 large suitcases upon us. Egads.

You would simply not believe the roads here. I swear the potholes are easily 2 feet deep, and I'm certainly not exagerating.It's amazing what they can maneuver a car through here. We are located in Buswelu, about 30 minutes outside of Mwanza. Once there, our first stop was Hisani, to quickly greet the kids and have a quick tour. (I will go into length about the compound in a later posting.)

The kids are gorgeous, smiling, and I instantly felt better about everything, just by seeing them once. They come rusing at you with, "hello madame, my name is...." I think I shook all 46 hands. Now to remember the names.

After this brief visit, we headed to our home for the next three months, which is quite a step up in comfort compared to the hostel in Dar. Mind you my toilet has no seat, but at least I have one! We do have electricitly (albeit spotty) and apparently the water consistency has been fairly good. I have my own room and bathroom, so that's a nice treat as well.

There are giant birds that look like Great Blue Herons. They perch at the tippy-top of trees, and snort like pigs. Really. I'm not kidding. There are quite a few geckos, green and somewhat iridescent. I'm finding quite a kinship with them, and like to make squeaky noises at them when they run. It's like my own little cartoon come to life.

The two volunteers who preceeded my team (phil & tom) have taken us into Mwanza for a basic lay of the land, lunch, and a laying in of supplies. We are all taking an hour at the internet cafe, which is how I'm able to send you this info! The cafe is well run, and has about 20 computers. I'm sure I'll be putting in some serious time here in the next few months.

I definitely have a spring in my step, now that the physical "journeying" is over for the time being. Part of my difficulty last week was pure loneliness. My two teammates are both 18, and have already started a romance. So, basically I was alone for the first week, without someone to talk to. Now that we're at the compound, I have Phil & Tom for company, so that should be very nice. When Phil & Tom leave in early January, another team of 4 volunteers will arrive, and then my team will become the "experts".

In the next week or two I hope to have some photos uploaded, and give more information about the sites, smells, tastes and sounds of this part of Africa. Right now, it's almost too much to describe.