Headed Home?

I thought I would share a few thoughts before we headed back to Minnesota. Tonight we had our last dinner with the seven of us: Chips Mayai and pineapple. (FYI- Chips Mayai is a very self-explanatory title for this common Tanzanian dish. "Chips" the word for french fries which are always chunks of potato-no skinny fast food fries here. And eggs-"mayai" So really a fancy word for an omelet.) We used our "number system" for the last time. As you can imagine-it took a long time. After we finished hearing about everyone's day, I asked the group how they might answer the question "What was the best thing about Africa?" Quite expectantly they all gave me looks and groans amounting to "How can I possibly sum up three months of amazing experiences (wonderful and frustrating) into a simple answer?"
It was however a good conversation starter to talk about how far we have come from the thoughts and assumptions we had when we first arrived in Iringa.

For example-you might look back an an early blog Noel wrote about how we went into a restaurant for dinner early in our trip to be each given a different page of a menu with lots of different options. Only to be told when ordering that the options were "Chicken and Rice, Beef and Rice, or Fish and Rice"  Now after three months we don't even ask to see a menu in small, local establishments. We just assume (and usually correctly so) the options are Chicken/Rice and Fish/Rice. Sometimes Beef and Rice and sometimes Ugali instead of rice if you are feeling adventuresome.  No "sinene" or grasshoppers for us.

We then had our last night of milkshakes, made by our own Masaai warrior (Caleb). Now if only we could get him to wear a large plaid cloth as a dress and cute white sandals. He has done a great job making our milkshakes since the place with the Maasi waiter has had a broken down milkshake machine. They tell us it is ordered, we think is somewhere in Dar, which is the standard answer to any question you might ask..."It's coming from Dar."  We toasted the end of our trip with milkshakes.

We then gathered for a time of prayer and communion to close out or trip. We each talked about one person that we met that will be in our prayers. We limited it to one to keep us from going on and on. (Okay, some of us couldn't limit it one, but Annica and I did manage to limit it to just two)  We then prayed for so many of the people we have met who we are leaving a bit of our hearts with and whom remain in ours.

Then we were off to pack and weigh, and readjust and weigh, and repack and weigh again.
Now everyone is asleep, except for me of coarse. It will be an early morning. Dennis will be here around 8am to load the Land Cruiser and try to get most of our luggage strapped onto the roof. (I hope the forecast looks dry!) Then we head down to Dar. We will lose lots of altitude and gain lots of heat. Even though Dar is the center of commerce in Tanzania, no one speaks very highly of it here. It is crowded with traffic, pollution, and heat!! Our flight leaves Dar at midnight and if everything goes well we will spend some time in Amsterdam on our 7 hour layover before our last leg into Minneapolis.

We are excited for friends, family and community in Minnesota. We talked a little bit tonight about culture shock and how it might take us some time to readjust (not just the jet lag). However, we did agree that Tanzania has felt like a second home. We will leave part of who we are here in Iringa with the wonderful people we have meet and hopefully we will bring part of Africa with us to Minnesota. (Although probably not the weather:(

Blessings to all and looking forward to seeing you soon!
Carrie