Yesterday we had an unusual experience which illustrates the contrasts in life here in Tanzania, even for the ordinary population which now is approaching 50 million. It was Saturday so we decided to drive to the site the Mountain Club had chosen for a weekend camp out. It was on the lower slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro at a place called  Bondeni Estate which is now a huge Dutch agricultural facility growing coffee beans and other things. Don’t forget that the mountain encompasses an area about 60 by 90 miles and rises abruptly from the plains of East Africa. There are a lot of things going on in different areas of that space including the 140 people who climb the mountain each day and the hotel/camps which support them. It is still the greatest challenge that most people will face in their lifetime which when the mountain is viewed in all its glory is almost irresistible. But after climbing to about 17,000 feet the majority think, “why in the world did I ever decide to do this”!

I packed my tools and some gloves in case of a breakdown and we started off. The trip took a little over an hour, the latter half of which was on barely visible road past a large papyrus swamp. Domestic animals had eaten almost everything in sight because it is so dry and the rains are about to start. We finally got to the Estate and the directions then became incomprehensible (originally sent to all Mountain Club members by internet). We stumbled and drove around the fields and greenhouses for at least 30 minutes and finally someone from another car had the courage to ask the operators where the camp site was. We just peeked in the gate of the large house and manicured grounds where the manager lived. It was a paradise with a house which looked like something out of the magazine “Southern Living” even featuring a carefully cared for large swimming pool.

 Although the outing sounded exciting we had decided just to have a picnic and return home because it was movie night for our resident children. At the camping site someone had rigged a canvas draped outdoor toilet with a raised one seater. Opposite on the surrounding hills were little houses and huts each surrounded by a small garden spot clinging to a very steep slope. Each one had no indoor plumbing or toilet and they either hauled or hiked for all their water to the bottom of the hills in the creek. We sat up our safari chairs under a tree and ate lunch while visiting with the overnight campers. Peggy had just finished baking homemade bread before we left the house so our peanut butter sandwiches tasted very fine.

After we got home the phone rang and it was our Maasai friend, a teacher at a government school more than 80 miles away on the edge of Maasai land. He is the one who brought four orphan girls to our village more than two years ago. Two weeks ago we had taken two medical friends and their wives from the States to visit the village where the girls had once resided. Our Maasai guide, the teacher, is one of few in his clan, now numbering in the hundreds, who have an education. That part of Tanzania is undergoing a severe drought. So severe that many of their animals are dying and others are so weak that they can barely get up to walk for a drink of water 2-10 miles away. Some animals just lay down outside a hut and die. In the distance on the outskirts of a settlement there are fairly fresh cow bones which the hyenas haven’t gotten yet. There are huge dust clouds rising on the horizon with an occasional little twister nearby. We must have met over 200 children who gathered at various places we stopped some of which were barely three years old and had a baby on their backs. At the end of the tour our guide took us to the unfinished small block house of his parents; (estimated to be in their sixties), which he is bringing to completion with his small teaching salary (no windows or doors yet, just dirt floors but the roof is on). He is doing this in addition to supporting four girls who ran away from the village because they did not want to submit to female circumcision or to be married at 10 years old. He also boards them and bears their school expenses. Women in Maasai culture are for having babies and keeping care of the home, not for school. A good looking young man served us some traditional Maasai food and spoke fair English as he told us he wanted to become a nurse. This was almost an unheard of ambition primarily because of the low standard of education among the Massai and the next big hurtle-the money to do it! The Maasai have very little money, just cows and goats which are their wealth. They measure payment of dowry costs and other things in terms of the number of animals they will have to give up. Our guide’s father had just taken another new wife and she had a newborn in a nearby hut. The four guests obviously had many questions after we left this village.

But the next morning; they asked us how much it would cost to finance three years of nursing education. My estimate turned out to be on the high side when enquiring at a local nurse training program higher up the mountain. They made a commitment to underwrite the costs and we will see that it is done through a friend working at the hospital. Another ray of hope in a village of desolation. This blog is already too long so I am going to save the next one for what the Lord has taught me over the last year. We have learned a lot, I have learned a lot even though verging on being an old man.