Bagamoyo

It has been about a week since I last updated the blog and a lot has happened. We are all currently healthy (which I think is still an important thing to have achieved afetr all this time here...well ok, a little bit of malaria thrown in but who is counting). The kids left Tuesday night (May 15th) with Roman's mom from Kilimanjaro airport. They have arrived in Kingston safely and according to my dad, Jack even went to school today. Hannah starts next week and her first priority was to go and play in her play room. When you are 4, these things are important.

We decided to give Roman's mom a classy send off by taking her last Friday on the bus to Dar es salaam (again) to visit some of the last few sights she needed to see before leaving Tanzania. She has been a real trooper. It is not easy living here and I know she was out of her comfort zone a good proportion of the time. The cockroahces here are larger than life and difficult to kill. She had a 'killing' routine every night before bed and my heart did go out to her (I pretty much ignore them by this point...you need to block it out of your mind or it will make you crazy). Nevertheless, she wasn't quite ready to block them out. The poverty also got to her and she often would comment on simple things that would make life easier for the people here that simply aren't done...and she was right about almost all of them. The one thing that really got her was the size of the Masai huts. They are very small (you cannot stand up inside) and poorly ventilated. She could not understand why they continue to make them so small!! I gave some basic answers like, well they are supposed to be temporary, as the villages are dissassembled every few years so the clan can move to new land. They are only for sleeping was another answer. It wasn't until we had our hike with our Masai guide, Jonathon that I thought to ask why the huts were so small when Masai tend to be so tall? He thought about it for a minute and answered 'why it is simple, the huts are the work of women and Masai women are not as tall as the men nor do they have ladders or other tools to make the walls or roof higher'. I think she and I were both satisfied with that.

After a not too bad bus ride we arrived in Dar with the excitement of seeing Malinga again and spending time with him.
We picked him up Friday just before lunch at his school. I think he looked smaller than we had all remembered but he was definitely beeming from ear to ear with his trademark smile.
We left that afternoon for Bagamoyo which is 72 kms up the north coast of Dar on the Indian Ocean. Bagamoyo is now a sleepy old fishing village that also has a well known arts college and cooperative. It looks like nothing as you drive through it with old primitive derelect buildings and palm trees but it holds such historical significance for East Africa, and, for world history. Fishermen and farmers were the first to settle there in the late 18th century. The site is the closest mainland site to Zanzibar with Zanzibar only an hour away by boat (whereas it is 3 hours from Dar es salaam). The site, like Zanzibar was settled as well by the Omanis who were involved in the slave trade. Its closeness to Zanzibar is what was so enticing as it was less work to shuttle the slaves (who had ust walked from central or West Africa) to Zanzibar for trade to the rest of the world. Ivory export was also big here as well. Bagamoyo means 'lay down my heart' or 'be quiet my heart' thought to have come from the lament of slaves who thought they would not see their homeland again. There are also several memorials to Dr. Livingstone who I have spoken of previously, and, who helped abolish slavery. The first Anglican church in this part of Tanznaia is there and is now called the Livingston memorial church. It is a tiny little stone church with a tin roof. Livingstone actually visited the church while alive. I took a picture of myself in the little doorway that he passed through. He is considered a pretty important person in these parts for obvious reasons. The two other points of interest we visited before the rain started was 'The Cross By the Sea', which is where father Antoine Horner of the French Holy Ghost fathers first crossed from Zanzibar to the East African mainland. It was the site of the first Christian (actually Catholic) church on the mainland. The other site we saw was the site of the old 'Freedom Village' where the Holy Ghost Fathers set up a mission. Once they were established they 'bought' the freedom of many young men and women. Some of the slaves stayed at the mission site and it got the name freedom village. I have read a bit more about this village and it seems that only a few thousand had their freedom purchased because the mission did not have a lot of money. But, the symbolic nature of what the missionaries did was felt to be more important for that time.
We only stayed in Bagamoyo for about 24 hours. We had planned to stay right until Sunday but left on Saturday as the beach was not a good swimming beach at this time of year after extensive rains during the rainy season. We ended up going to a water park (yes, just like home and even called 'Wet and Wild') at Kunduchi Beach just outside Dar. The kids had a blast while I arranged a last minute trip to Zanzibar. We weren't going to go but I felt that Roman's mom wanted to see it. The kids fell into bed that night (literally). Malinga slept at the hotel with us in Dar for our last night with him for a while. In the morning the mood was a bit down as we all knew we would be saying goodbye to him. We don't have a date yet for when we will have full guardianship and until then, he can't come home with us. I anticipate it will be a couple of months. He is eager to come to Canada but was not disappointed about not coming with us as we had not given him any dates or timelines in order to prevent him from having a big disappointment. To be honest, I think Roman was the gloomiest of all....I was trying to see the positive side of it all and just focus on the fact that he will come to Canada, we just don't know exactly when.
After Malinga was picked up (with lots of Jack's hand me downs in tow) to go back to the orphanage, we headed for the airport for our 15 minute flight to Zanzibar..yes, it really is 15 minutes.
We have learned how to utilize our Tanzanian resident permit well and I managed at the last minute to book us into the Zamani Kempinski Hotel (at the resident rate which is half of what you would normally pay to stay there in low season but still expensive by my standards). I justified the cost as we have been pretty frugal on a day to day basis( yeah, whatever..just rationalizing my need for creature comforts for a few days!). It is on the North Coast of Zanzibar. I was told it was a magical place and it definitely came close to living up to that. See the pictures I have posted. It truly had the magical blue Azure water and white sand. We were the only people on the beach for miles around. Jack and I went sea kayaking off the massive jetty that the hotel has built that goes hundreds of yards into the ocean and is fully equipped with decks for sunbathing, water sports, a full bar and toilets!!.

I gotta go now as Roman and I are climbing Kilimanjaro tomorrow (via the Rongai route). It will take us 6 days. We will climb with one of the medical students who has been here in Kilema for the last month (Dharma Mcbride). Dharma should be a good climbing partner as he is very outdoorsy and very in tune with nature...a really peaceful guy who is a pleasure to be around. We are hoping that the three of us will be able to push each other on if things get tough. It will take us 6 days (summit on day 5 at night). We will climb with licenced guides and porters to carry our stuff....but, (deep sigh) NO PORT-A-POTTY!!!.
I'll keep you posted on how it all goes. Please send us some good Karma...see you in a week!