Mission to Tanzania 4th Letter
Dear Americans-
After 3 days of dust, animals, extraordinary scenery and many long hours in Toyota Land Cruisers, we have arrived safely back in Arusha. Everyone is safe, healthy and as sane as they might ever be.
Yesterday we left our safari lodge in the early morning (8:30am) and proceeded to the Ngorogoro Crater. For those of you with outer space on the brain, this crater was not created by a meteorite crashing into the earth (someone actually asked that me that before we left!). It is, however, an actual crater. It's very large and is an excellent habitat for some animals, especially in the dry season. There are very few trees to obsturct the viewpoints from the approximately 500 Toyota Land Cruisers moving about the crater floor at any one time. Actually, there were only about 40. That being said, perhaps you won't be surprised that as soon as we descended into the crater, we immediately saw lard herds of wildebeasts and zebra, so much so that after about 2 hours our reaction to these magnificent creates was something like, "hey look, another zebra/wildebeast — keep driving."
Later in the morning we our Toyota Land Cruiser came to a sudden halt. Our guide whipped out his binoculars and said very reverently, "It's a black rhino." We moved into prime viewing position. Since there are only 17 total rhinos left in Ngorogoro, this was a sublime experience. But there was more...
It was at 12:42pm (give or take a few minutes) that we saw a cheetah sitting by the side of the road. This caused much rejoicing in our land rovers as cheetahs are not a common sight. Then only a few minutes later, we saw another cheetah walking through the grass. After about 30 seconds, this cheetah accelerated to top speed and chased a rabbit right by our Toyota Land Cruisers. Suffice it to say that witnessing a cheetah running in Africa is a life-giving experience. The rabbit was not so fortunate. The cheetah caught him (or her) in meere seconds, carried the still twitching rabbit into the taller grass and sat down to have lunch. We have the entire event on video — that's definately must-see TV.
Soon after the cheetah sat down to lunch, we did the same. Then we proceeded from the picnic site for not more than 2 minutes when we saw a gaggle of Toyota Land Cruisers converging on a spot down the road. We joined the crowd and discovered a pride of 8 lions (one baby — we named her "Nala") literally laying within feet of the road. Actually, that's not quite true, because two of the lions were sitting in the road! We spend about two hours in this spot, often within 2–3 feet of one of the lions. Many smiles, delirious laughter and approximately 4,000 pictures were had by all.
Later we saw elepahnt and cape buffalo. For those of you scoring at home, that mean's we viewing every members of "the big five" in one day. Our guides told us it was one of those "once-a-year" days. We told them that they were getting a very big tip.
Today we spent the morning at Tarangire National Park and saw many elephants, zebras (oh, look, another 50 zebras) and some very cool baobob trees. Then it was time for our safari to come to an end — so we drove back to Arusha and immediately went to an ATM to replenish our funds. I tried to withdraw one million Tanzanian Shillings (about $950.00) from said ATM but, alas, it had a 200,000 shilling limit. Still, taking 200,000 of anything out of an ATM makes a person feel immensely smart, handsome and powerful. All of you must try it.
Tomorrow we shift from being toursits to doing mission work. We will visit Selian Lutheran Hospital to meet the staff and see their work. Then we will go to a center for disabled children that is marketing handmade crafts as a means of support. Then we will hit Costco, I mean Shoprite, to get what we need for our visit to Kikarara Church and the AIDs orphans they serve. We are all looking forward to the shift.
That's enough for now. If your're still with me, let me end like this — one of our safari guides is a Lutheran Christian (Lutherans the adjective here) and one is a Muslim. And they are the best of friends and one day even hope to own their own safari business. Each of them told us that one of the things they love about Tanzania is that religion doesn't divide the country. Think for a moment how remarkable this is when some of Tanzania's neighbors are among the most turbulent nations of earth — Rwanda, Burundi, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique. Remarkable.
Speaking for the group, let me say we appreciate your prayers as we finally get ready to do what we came here to do.
Peace,
Pastor Rick Sherrill, for the entire wonderfully zany bunch
P.S. The first person who counts how many times I used the words "Toyota Land Cruiser" wins a mention in the next e-mail update.
P.S.S. My time on this computer is about to run out so I don't have time to spell check. Forgive this greivious sin.