Friends and Vuvumw

About a half mile from our house is a local swimming hole called Vuvumwa. It has provided us with a few pretty fun afternoons of swimming with our group of friends. We have developed a gang of a dozen or so 8-12 year who are probably our closest friends here. we hang out with these guys daily, playing soccer, swimming, or just walking around. It makes us feel like kids again, kind of like an african version of little rascals. except with two big white kids. Anyway, they showed us the ropes at Vuvumwa, and whenever we get fast enough internet we will be able to upload some pretty sweet pictures of matt showing off his acrobatic abilities.

Stuck in Dar es Salaam, and forced into the life of luxury

Typically, there are two airlines, Precision Air and Air Tanzania, that fly daily to and from Kigoma. However, Air Tanzania has temporarily run out of fuel, and thus Precision Air has acquired all their passengers. Which resulted in an unexpected four day delay in Dar, as the earliest available tickets were for Tuesday. Thus, a one day stay with the incredibly nice, welcoming, generous (and unfairly attractive) Stoner famiy- Molly, Robert, daughter Rose and poodle Tess- turned into a 4 day taste of the high life. The Stoners have been in Tanzania working for the Clinton Foundation's Climate Change Initiative since about July, and previously worked were stationed in Malawi. Matt and I have agreed that their lives are what we one day hope to replicate. Pictures will be added shortly, and will hopefully do justice to the level of comfort provided for us, but in short they live in a beautiful, equatorial villa with a large porch and balconies, with views of the Indian ocean and a constant sea breeze. We expect it will be months before we enjoy this level of luxury, wifi, electricity, running water, and english conversations again.

Safe and Sound in Dar Es Salaam

Well, we made it to Dar in safetly, though just barely. After losing the majority of a night of sleep in boston due to last minute packing, then being unable to sleep on the red eye to heathrow, then spending most of our ten hour layover frantically sight seeing in London, we somehow thought it would be a good idea to take just a little nap as we waited at the terminal to board our flight to Dar. An hour later, I awoke to an empty terminal and matt yelling at me to wake up. I still dont know what woke him up, but i am pretty sure that we were the absolute last passengers to make it through the gate. But we made it, so all is good. And hopefully this is a sign of luck being on our side.