Here is a start for some photos

I promised photos so here is a start. The photos of Beth and the seed sorter are from the World Vegetable Center and the photo of me with two gentlemen,Sylvester and Stephen who took a two day bus ride to get to the Conference in Arusha from southern Tanzania. There is a photo of one of the workshops at the GSC garden.

The hyena and lions are from the Ngorongoro day trip. And the photo of the two cheetah tells the story. The cheetahs lost their kill to the hyena in the photo.

On the way home now

Hi there,

I am about halfway home at this point, sitting in Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. I started out on Saturday morning from Vicki's house in Uganda and flew back to Tanzania. After some quality time in the Kilimanjaro Airport I flew KLM to here. Now I get to explore this airport before my flight this afternoon to Atlanta. I will get into Orlando about 10 or 11 pm tonight.

Uganda was a great time reconnecting with Vicki and other friends like Hilda, Jolly and Patrick. Patrick is standing for member of parliment in the election this Friday. Please pray that the elections go smoothly and for protection for all during the process. Kampala has grown up a lot since I was there 7 years ago! I am sure that the increased business is good but it has made the traffic the worst I have seen. Cherry it is even worse than Bangkok! And all the cars have really impacted the air quality. I guess that is the price of progress.

Vicki's flats are beautiful. Only hers is nearly completed but you can see how lovely they will be. The compound is not landscaped yet so I got to give some suggestions. I will be fascinated to see how she goes on with it. It was just such a blessing to spend time with her. And the flats are outside of Kampala and back up to a slice of jungle so in the evening and mornings we were serenaded by turacos and plaintain eaters (birds) and a chorus of frogs and crickets. Very cool!!!

Thanks for coming with me on this trip and when I get home I will get photos posted, promise.

Love you all,

Wendy

What a great day!

Hi there everybody,

Yesterday Stan Doerr from ECHO mentioned that he was thinking of going out to see the Ngorongoro Crater today. Another board member Ron Tschetter and I decided to go with him. So this morning at 5 am we headed out in the dark to see the crater. The drive there was interesting once the sun came up. We passed a number of Maasai communities and some ancient baobab trees before we ever got to the Ngorongoro park. Once there we dropped down 600 meters (1800 feet) into the floor of the crater and started seeing herds of animals immediately. When I can post photos I will but here is the list of what we saw today: zebra, cape buffalo, elephant, lions, cheetahs who had just killed a baby wildebeast, hyena, hartebeast, Grant's gazelle, Thompson's gazelle, hippo, jackal, flamingos, martial eagle, marabou, ostrich, abdim storks, crowned cranes, weavers, swifts, and some amazing plants too. The wildebeast and zebras all had babies in the herds too. And yes Marissa I got some photos for you but I can't bring one back home for you.

tomorrow I leave Tanzania and head to Uganda for a quick visit with my dear friend Vicki. Love to you all.

Wendy

Vegetables and ugalli

Yesterday a group of us went to the World Vegetable Center. Who knew that was in Arusha? But it is a research center and we learned about their efforts to breed and preserve important african vegetables. Many that we in the west would not know. I found it very interesting and took lots of photos. Youmay have to wait until I get home for the photo essay though. The internet cafe I am using can't handle the photo card. Anyway we traveled to the Center in local transportation called Dalla-Dallas. Picture a 12 passenger van with 20 people and a chicken. I got t sit next to the woman with the chicken!

Another new experience for me was lunch yesterday. We ate at a local cafe near the hotel and had the local fare, ugalli. Which is wheat porridge (think paste) served with stewed meat and vegetables, some of which I had just learned were vegetables. The ugalli I could leave but the rest of it was pretty good. However we chose togo back to the great Indian restaurant that we ate at on Sunday for dinner last night. A good choice and I was amazed that they could deliver great food as the power had been off there all day. But it was delicious.

I have seen Maasai men in town but no pictures it seems rude to take a photo without their permission and I haven't had a chance to speak with any of them.

The conference began this morning and is going well. There were 150 registered although I am not sure that they all came the first day. It runs through thursday and then I head to Uganda on Friday to visit my dear friend Vicki.

That is it for now. Love to you all,

Wendy

Arusha Tanzania

Hi there everyone

I arrived last night very late so couldn't see much of the town (although I did see a mongoose cross the road in front of us on the way from Kilimanjaro Airport). this morning I saw that the hotel is right in the shadow of Mount Meru. Pretty cool.

This morning I went to church with some of the other folks from ECHO. We attended the Arusha Community Church, an interdenominational church and it was wonderful. I really enjoyed it. Not much else to report just wanted to check in so you all know where I am.

Wendy