1 Mar: Surprise!

We woke up at 5am because the daladala has been showing up at 530 lately. Of course today, it didnt show up until 615. There is no way to accurately describe riding on this thing. At any moment, every piece of this vehicle will come apart, akin to the Bluesmobile at the end of The Blues Brothers.

We arrivedat our destination and walked the remaining seven kilometers to Nyabula parish. We sat and waited for the bishop while Brian fell asleep in a chair, and I applied my Ultrathon. I admit, we were both afraid this would be a wasted Saturday consisting of awkward silences filled with random nicities (an actual word, or no?) until the daladala came back through at 4pm. On the contrary. We met briefly with the bishop to help edit his letter to whom it may concern regarding the kindergarten project. We then took a brief tour of the parish, which was incredible. It consists of a church, trade school, dispensary, primary school, solar power, and more. We were then treated to a breakfast of tea, milk (first dairy of the trip!) Coke, buns, and fruit.

When we finished we took a ride in the Bishops tinted 4x4 which by standards around here was like riding in limo into Iringatown. The plan was for us to sit in and just listen to a meeting about education at Ruaha University. The university was very nice, and we were surprised when at the opening of the meeting the director of the committee (Organization for the Social Development of Orphans, or OSDO) began the meeting by greeting the guests from America, who are here to listen and suggest ideas for building a school for orphans. This would have been a lovely impromptu introduction, but much to our surprise, we realized it had been scripted. They knew we were coming.

Our input was to be "greatly valued and appreciated." We had no problem with offering suggestions, but felt a little awkward sitting there in our t-shirts with what was clearly high society in the area. The organization consisted of a medical doctor, a lawyer, two PhDs, the university president and secretary, and others. The problem at hand was that construction had been halted due to lack of funding (seems to be a common problem around here). Brayn, having had experience with this at St. Johns University, proposed the idea of trying to find a sister college or high school in Minnesota, which seemed a good idea since Ruaha University is in fact a Catholic school. The warmed up to the idea and were suddenly referring to us as their "American ambassadors." I leaned over and asked Brayn:

"How did we get here?"
"The Bishop from Nyabula took us."
"The who from what?"

Oh by the way, the bishop bailed in the middle of the meeting. Had another meeting I guess. At the end of the meeting, we had a meal, and we got a little tour of the school. On the way out, I felt like maybe I should remind them that in fact we are just two dudes who just happened to be born somewhere else, but we just said thank you and went on our way. We first stopped at a place to set up our safari. The prices have significantly risen over the past year unfortunately, but this was definitely one of those "dont worry about money" moments and we decided to spring for two nights and stay inside the park itself, despite the penny-pinching voices inside my head.

On the way back, our cab driver started in with the usual buttering up that we have come to recognize before people ask us for money. This guy was bold enough to ask for $400 to buy himself a new license to get a better job. Sorry guy, "our commitment here is to education."

After a couple Konyagi-Fantas, we crashed hard. Long day.

Insets: The church at Nyabula, the entrance to Nyabula, the grotto at Nyabula, and two downtrodden wazungus with OSDO

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