Before the race I had been blessed with many opportunities to travel, including the opportunity to travel to Africa. I spent four months studying abroad in Arusha, Tanzania in 2009. When I found out that my World Race route was going to Tanzania, I was looking forward to coming back and selfishly hoping that I would get to see Arusha and some of my friends that live there. I ended up being placed in Mbeya, Tanzania, which is REALLY FAR away from Arusha.
I was a little bummed.
On the positive side, I knew that the next month we had a debrief in Nairobi, Kenya, and that Arusha was on the way! So I began hoping a praying that our bus would break down in Arusha. I felt okay about this because I knew that Mbeya to Nairobi would be a terribly uncomfortable, long ride. I pit stop in Arusha could only make it better!
Well, God heard me and arranged for our teams to stop in Arusha for the night! Woohoo!! We got to stop there as part of the plan, including a night at a hostel (with showers!). I was very excited about this.
However, God wanted to bless me even more!
After our tickets to Arusha and one night in a hostel had already been booked, we found out that our leaders wanted us to stay one more night there because they were still arranging things for debrief in Nairobi.
Sweet!! TWO nights!
Through facebook I was able to arrange meetings with two people that I knew in Arusha through church and school. The first one I met was Jen, who works in a ministry that gives poor women a job making sandals. The two of us (and some other racers) visited her workshop and then went out to eat for a delicious meal and some gelato! Check out her website here- www.shiningalight.org.
After hanging out with Jen I headed over to Makumira University to see Mr. Stubbs, my music professor. He has lived with his family in Tanzania for six years working to build a music program at the university. Through his class I learned how to play the amadinda though not very well) and make an African drum! It was very cool to go back to the university, see the classroom, and even see the drums that we played three years ago!
The view from the music room
In 2009 Mr. Stubbs arranged for our group to do a home stay with some choir members that he knew, and I stayed with a woman named Catherine and her family. Catherine is now a student at Makumira, and Mr. Stubbs has her in class every day. We were talking in his house (which is on campus) when he told me this, so I asked him to call her and see if she could come over and say hi!
Ever since I left the US, I was hoping that I would be able to see Catherine. I even packed with me a photo of me, her, and her mother in 2009. I had the photo with me when I went to Makumira, and originally I gave the photo to Mr. Stubbs to give to her.
See, Catherine lives in Arusha, so she goes home every weekend to be with her family. I was there on a Friday. Really, she shouldn’t have been at school, but exams were starting on Monday, so she stayed on campus to study.
Lucky me!! And thanks to God for having SUCH GOOD TIMING!
Mr. Stubbs called her and said, “There’s someone here who wants to see you,” but he didn’t tell her who it was.
I was sitting on the couch when she walked up the steps. She saw me through the open door and stood there, shocked, covering her mouth. I stood up as she took a couple of steps backwards and said, “Surprise!!”
We had a very nice conversation, catching up about life- the race, her choir, families… it was so good. She told me that when Mr. Stubbs called her she thought to herself, “What is this about?” I responded, “It was a surprise!,” and she said, “Yes, it was a very big surprise!!” Imagine seeing someone you haven’t seen for three years when you had no idea they were on the same continent as you!
The next morning I went back to the compound where we lived, Arusha Resort Centre. I went to the restaurant where we ate every day and saw Juma, one of the servers. He remembered my face right away. It amazes me Africans who work service jobs, seeing hundreds of foreigners every year, remember one face!! It must be the red hair.
Our last night in Arusha a group of us went to Njiro Centre, which is a small plaza that has a nice grocery store, a movie theater, and a bunch of restaurants. It was really fun to share my experience in Arusha with some of the other racers… they really enjoyed the night, and we had a lot of fun dancing in a totally empty club for about an hour at the end of the night!
After being in Kenya for a couple of weeks I was able to meet up with one more person that I went to church with in 2009 – Judy She lives in Arusha but was spending a lot of time in Nairobi with her husband, so we were able to meet one morning at a mall. It was amazing to see her and her husband again, to exchange stories, and to hear the always-insightful view of someone who has lived in Africa for almost thirty years!
I thank God that I was able to keep in touch with these amazing people, to travel to Africa again, and to once more see their beautiful faces! It was a very good surprise.
