License to Plaid

 

This was outside of one of the preaching points in Ipogoro (or Ipogolo depending on who you asked.) I loved all of the flashy colors and I especially loved the mismatched combinations that people wore giving me creative license to wear conflicting plaids.

 

 

This was at Ipogolo next to the new sanctuary they are building. Sue, Laura, Mary, and I led the kids in as many kid song/games that we could think of. This looks like The Hokey Pokey or maybe The Chicken Dance.

 

 

This is our room in Iringa with its bed net to protect against the mosquitoes. I didn't really see any mosquitoes anywhere but some people in our group think they got bit some at night. We all took anit-Malaria medicine every morning at breakfast continuing a week after we returned to the Malaria-free US. Some Malaria medicine causes extreme nightmares so I was glad to make it through our trip without any episodes of night terrors.

 

 

This view is looking down toward Ipogoro from the hilltop city of Iringa.

 

 

Sister Mary and Frau Doktor Eng

 

 

Here's a group song at the hilltop preaching point.

 

 

Here you can see an eagle-like bird flying above the river in Tarangire Park.

 

 

Reedbuck

 

 

Tarangire is located in a low elevation area of the rift zone. Ask a geologist to explain my last sentence. The weather here was probably the hotest we experienced on the trip aside from the sweltering heat on the airplane before we took off from Dar es Salaam to Amsterdam. As the temperature climbed and people began to sweat and fan themselves the pilot came on and said there was something wrong with the air conditioning system that the plane hooks up to at the terminal. I asked Bill if we should pop off our shirts to show how blazingly hot it was. Before we even finished laughing about this idea, a large woman had taken off her shirt and was sitting there on the airplane in only a bra. Classic.

 

 

The elephants behaved like the giraffes--when they saw us pull up, they started slowly moving in the opposite direction leaving us to wonder what effect the safari business has on the actual lives and routines of the animals. If you observe it, you've altered it.

 

 

This is the Arusha Lutheran Medical Center, the hospital that our medical missionary Mark Jacobson helped to open about 5 years ago. Dr. Jacobson talked about how great it is to have international money coming in to Africa earmarked for AIDS treatment but he wondered if some of that money could save many more lives if it were put towards Malaria prevention, for example.

 

 

This stained glass was really nice. We attended the morning chapel service before meeting with Dr. Jacobson. There were several foreign doctors present at the hospital including a Canadian doctor who gave up her practice to come to Africa to work. She was touring around the continent trying to decide where she'll settle in to practice medicine.