We are in the Mwanza Airport right now as I’m writing waiting for our flight back to Dar Es Salaam. We flew to Mwanza from Kigoma earlier today. We started this morning with chai at Editha and Bishop Sadock Makaya’s home one last time. Chai is what they call breakfast and for sure it’s more than just tea. 
I always have Africafe Coffee in the morning and Mama Askofu (Mama Bishop is what most people call her) has a awesome compliment of food with it, eggs, toast, japati, honey, fresh mangos, bananas and so on. Chai is my favorite meal in Tanzania. I guess because I love eggs, honey, and mangos. We said our goodbye’s to the Bishop. Mama accompanied us to the Airport along with Christopher our driver and Daudi Ndahana, our dear friend and principal of KBC. We also had the leader of Kasulu Cathedral Choir with us. He was leaving on a earlier flight. His name is Asante. That’s a wonderful name. It means “thank you” in Kiswahili. We dropped him off first and then quickly went to the Kigoma market for some things that Mama and Cathy wanted to purchase there. I bought another shirt that I liked very much when I saw it in one the shops. We then departed for the Airport and were on our way to Mwanza shortly after.
In Mwanza we met up with Herman Makaya, the Bishop’s brother. Herman brought us to see his shop in one of the main markets and we then visited the St. Nicolas Anglican Cathedral which was a short distance away. After that Herman took us to the Victoria Palace Hotel owned and operated by one of this friends. Good place, nicely constructed with excellent food I must say. We both had an early dinner which consisted of local fish from Lake Victoria. Some time back I had tasted fish from Mwanza in Kasulu when someone had brought some back during their travels. It was very good, so I was glad to get a chance to sample some again today. Ah! There goes the call for our flight. I’ll finish this later.
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After we had our dinner, Herman drove us over to a large fish market where another one of his friends runs an import / export business. This was fascinating. They dry fish there on long wooden racks and then ship it to various cities around Lake Victoria, including over to Kenya, Uganda and the DRC. There is also an large section of the market devoted to shipping these very small minnow like fish. They are barely an inch long. A lot of them were being packaged as chicken feed. But I know I’ve also seen these particular fish available in Kasulu and are also harvested in Kigoma from Lake Tanganyika for human consumption. They are a favorite of many locals I have met in Kasulu. Anyway, what fascinated me the most while visiting the market where these huge pelicans or cranes. 
I’m not sure which they are, but they had a wing span of about 8 feet at least. Yet even with their bulky size they flew around like seagulls at a New England fishing dock foraging for fishy left overs.
From what we experienced and saw, Mwanza is a busy city. Outside of the city area there appears to be a lot of agriculture (farming). There looked to be a lot of rice fields as well as other cultivated spreads of land when viewing the city from the air. It really was a nice break in our journey to visit Mwanza. I’m really not sure why we were unable to be book on the earlier flight to Dar but no matter, it was an afternoon well spent getting to know one of the Bishops brothers and experiencing an area of Tanzania we had not previously been too. And of course, our bags made the earlier flight, but that meant we did not have to wait for it at the carousel. It was waiting for us safely at the Precision Air desk when we got to Dar this evening.
We are in our hotel now and are looking forward to one more short day tomorrow in the city. We have some bills to attend to with our computer equipment vendor and then at about 1 PM we’ll head out to the airport to start our journey home. We are hoping to see Bishop Makaya one last time as he is traveling into Dar at around the time we will arrive at the airport to check in.
I know that most of what I am writing is information today. I’d like to reflect a bit about our trip, but I think I’ll just give that some time before I do. I’m not sure I can put it all into words yet. This has been one of the best and most rewarding trips I’ve had. I’m really finding it hard to leave right now. I know we will get hit with some reverse culture shock when we get home. In Tanzania, you don’t see much prep for Christmas. No one is announcing how many shopping days are left. There are no box stores pulling all nighters on “black friday”. No one is stressing out about purchasing the “perfect” present. No one is thinking about all they need to get done before the holiday. They are going to get up on Christmas morning and go to worship God and be thankful for the birth of Jesus, then go home and celebrate with their families with a modest meal and a grateful heart. You know, I could really live with that concept.
The peace of the Lord be with you.
Bill