I have arrived in Tanzania, my 6th country on the race. A play by play of our bus ride down here is sure to come as it was one of the most eventful few days of the race so far. Travel usually turns out to be quite interesting. My team will be working with a pastor in Kunduchi. It is a small beach village on the Indian Ocean, just north of Dar es Salam. It is the first time a team has worked with this pastor so a lot of this month will most likely be building relationships with his family and the church. As I know more I will be sure to pass it on.
Normal is hard to come by on the race. Such as the day we arrive after a 33 hour bus ride our contacts tell us we are going to be going to a wedding with them. That sounds like fun right? Until we find out the wedding is that night. We are fresh off the bus not to mention we don’t exactly keep wedding attire in our packs. So we scrounge around and pull together what we can to make us look a little decent for the impeding awkward situation. The party was to start at 6:30 so the pastor says to be ready by 7. We eat dinner and leave by 8. All of this is a little upsetting to my punctuality but I took off my watch to make it easier. So we walk in to the wedding with fabulously dressed beautiful Tanzanian’s and scrounge around for some seats. Turns out we have just entered what is called a send off where the bride’s family has a big party to give the girl away to the groom’s family. We sit for a while and are offered drinks. Well we haven’t made it to an ATM yet so Logan asks if they are free. The waitress gets freaked out and runs away (literally). The pastor sneaks over and says “you not thirsty, here these are free, you like free” This is a little embarrassing as everyone around hears but thankfully not all speak English.
Normal is hard to come by on the race. Such as the day we arrive after a 33 hour bus ride our contacts tell us we are going to be going to a wedding with them. That sounds like fun right? Until we find out the wedding is that night. We are fresh off the bus not to mention we don’t exactly keep wedding attire in our packs. So we scrounge around and pull together what we can to make us look a little decent for the impeding awkward situation. The party was to start at 6:30 so the pastor says to be ready by 7. We eat dinner and leave by 8. All of this is a little upsetting to my punctuality but I took off my watch to make it easier. So we walk in to the wedding with fabulously dressed beautiful Tanzanian’s and scrounge around for some seats. Turns out we have just entered what is called a send off where the bride’s family has a big party to give the girl away to the groom’s family. We sit for a while and are offered drinks. Well we haven’t made it to an ATM yet so Logan asks if they are free. The waitress gets freaked out and runs away (literally). The pastor sneaks over and says “you not thirsty, here these are free, you like free” This is a little embarrassing as everyone around hears but thankfully not all speak English.
After a while the pastor states we can go if we like. So we get up to leave but are quickly stopped as we are almost out and told we cannot leave without eating. My heart sinks. First off we have just eaten. Second there is no telling what we are about to get served. Thankfully as I enter the line our hosts wife falls in step behind me and says “whatever you take you must eat, just say no if you don’t want it” I made it through the line with mostly edible food which was an accomplishment as most of my team had heaps of food on their plates. We made it through the event but found out the wedding would be Saturday and that we were invited to that as well. It should be a fun and interesting experience.
I will write more once we find internet. Blessings to all.
