Mwanza

Friday was a travel day from Dar to Mwanza. We are still in Tanzania, but now on the southern coast of Lake Victoria instead of on the eastern shore of Africa. Tanzania is a large country supported by safari tourism and mining. We flew the local carrier, Precision Air. Wasn't quite as bad as Big Sky (scare), but right in the same category. We had one stop on our way and landed on a dirt strip in Masumo. We had quite an audience lined up along the fence line to see the aircraft come & go. With my eyes closed, it reminded me of flying out of John Wayne in Newport Beach. Evidentally the dirt strip is a little on the short side so the pilot powered up the engine before releasing the break. I'm quite sure we used every inch of that strip before we lifted off.

This weekend we stayed at a fairly nice hotel right on the lake. Jon, our UK guy, recruited us to watch his team in the Rugby world cup finals against South Africa. Unfortunately the UK lost. I thought hockey was brutal until watching rugby. WOW.

Yesterday we took a 2 hour cruise on the hotel boat. It was awesome to get out on the lake and see Mwanza. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck visited our client last month and did the same exact cruise. I don't think we generated quite as much interest. Nobody was waiting for us when we returned.

A few of us walked into the town center yesterday. We saw many interesting people....women cooking muffins by campfire right on the street, many fresh (?) fish stands, little kids playing soccer, Masai people, and young boys who ask for money when we take their picture. I'm still armed with DumDum suckers, so they seem to be pleased with candy. It's so hard to describe what we've seen. These people work so hard just to survive.

Today we learned all about the agriculture programs our client has in this area. AIDS Relief is huge here in the lake region as well. They said between 10 -15 % of the population is affected. So many needs in various forms of support. Kids raising younger siblings, rejection, stigma, nutrition issues, distance issues for medical care, income generation. Makes you stop and think about the stresses we think we have. I have a huge respect for our client and the life time commitment people have made to helping others.

We are experiencing first hand the connectivity issues faced by our client. I'll update you all when I can.

Thanks for the weekend scores. I'm glad Boston made it to the series. My two favorite teams will be battling it out....hopefully not in snow. I have to go with the underdogs.

GO ROCKIES!!

Love,

Jen