Hot, Hot, Hot in Dar Es Salaam

So hot in Dar Es Salaam!!  Thank goodness for air conditioning in houses, vehicles, and stores.  I can see why people die in heat waves in big cities when the power can't keep up with all the air conditioning needs.  Wow.  How do people survive?!  It's hard to breathe when it's so hot!  Made me appreciate the cold in Nairobi.  And by the way, now that we are back from Tanzania, it has turned cold again.  Cold and rainy in Nairobi.  So it's been basically cold for 7 months!!  And at the equator too.  Who would have guessed?  But elsewhere in Kenya and Tanzania, it is hot, hot, hot.

Sister Jones gave me this lovely picture of Elder Akpu (on left) and Elder Cotts (on right) at a baptism in Dar Es Salaam.  Elder Akpu and Elder Cotts stopped by to the Jones's when we were there and we had a great visit with them.  They even ate lunch with us (it was the feeding of the 5000 or rather the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes -- there was enough and we were filled).  But I totally forgot to take a picture of the missionaries.  They looked so cool -- so black and white with dark Elder Akpu and very blond Elder Cotts.  I was so mad at myself for not taking a photo.  So to Elder Cotts parents:  he looked great.  And not even sun burned for the amount of time he spends out in the sun.

Do you think Elder Torrie could pull a handcart loaded with huge containers of water like these people do?  Maybe in his younger years.  This handcart is much smaller than most.  Don't know how they push and pull them up hills and down and loaded with heavy stuff.

Bananas growing in the backyard of the house where we stayed.

I'm entranced with these fan palms!

They feel so interesting too.  So firm and cool and smooth.

Monday all day Elder Torrie spent training Elder Jones on all the financial ins and outs.  So fun to find out that they both served missions in Japan in the Japan Nagoya Mission in their youth.  They overlapped about two months with LeRon going home and Elder Jones coming in.  So they had the same mission president -- President Sato.  And then to make a further coincidence, both Elder Torrie's and Elder Jones's fathers served in the same mission in their youths -- the Northern Great Lakes Mission in the United States.  Probably not at the same time though.

Enoch assists Elder Jones with things to do with missionary apartments and office computers.  They sent him back to the store to get cordless mouses (do you call them mice?)  Enoch had never heard of cordless mice.  I wonder if he's heard of Three Blind Mice?  If I was the farmer's wife, I would have cut off more than their tails.

And this is John, who helps Sister Jones with Immigration in Tanzania.  And his lovely wife of course.  I told him how much I love their white smiles.  John said, "Well, we have to smile because if you can't see our white teeth, you can't see our faces at all!"  So funny.  President and Sister Hicken:  John and his wife say a big hello to you.

Sister Jones, Sister Mwingira, Sister Torrie

Now here are LeRon and me with Elder and Sister Jones.  We had a lot of fun with them.  So good to get to know them.  They are doing a great job in Dar Es Salaam.  The missionaries and the members love them, we can tell.

We drove past the Mbezi Beach LDS Church.  Notice the sign in Swahili.  Everyone speaks Swahili in Tanzania.  Even the church meetings are in Swahili.  But maybe because we were there, it was part Swahili and part English.  At least it was in the Kinondoni Branch that we attended on Sunday.  The chapel was beautiful and very clean and the people were friendly.  Did they ever sing enthusiastically!  They put our western wards to shame.

We visited the Mbezi Beach sisters.  Lovely young women.  Sister Njoroge on the left and Sister Bungei on the right.

Don't I look sick next to these lovely ladies?  Sister Njoroge, me, Sister Bungei, and Sister Atieno.  Good missionaries and fun, nice young women.  They are in a threesome.  Not enough sister missionaries for them to be two-by-two.

 

Now we're on the way to the airport to fly back to cold Nairobi.  I snapped quite a few pictures out the windows but not too many turned out.  The street markets were very similar to Kenya's.

Tried to get a picture of the cemetery.  I've never seen such unkept cemeteries as I've seen in Kenya and Tanzania.  

More street vendors.

These are the only foraging animals I saw in Dar Es Salaam.  In Nairobi, we often see cattle as well as goats and sheep.  These goats were on the side of the road.

More street scenes.  Lots of Muslim women wrapped up.  Where we stayed we heard the Muslim Call to Prayer every day but it was a lot longer (very much longer) than we've heard it in Turkey, Jordan, Israel.  I really like the call to prayer.  Every muezzin does it a little differently.  Some can really sing; others can't but they try.  They call the faithful to prayer five times a day.

On the way to the airport we sat in a "parking lot" on the road for about 45 minutes waiting for traffic to move.  We really got hemmed in.  Big trucks in front, beside, and behind.  Glad it was daylight.  I would have worried if it had been night and we were white.  Not a good situation to be in.

Hawkers were selling their wares while we waited.  Mostly pop, water, fruit.  We didn't buy any.

So interesting to see men carrying things on their heads.  In Nairobi, we mostly see women carrying the heavy loads on their heads.  The men generally push and pull heavily loaded handcarts.  They're very strong.

The farmer in us noticed the grain bins and grain elevator. 

Here are the grain bins by the flour mill.

And now we are entering the airport.  Whew!  We just made it.  I like these white uniforms.  Police in Dar Es Salaam wear white whereas in Nairobi they wear gray (I think).  These white uniforms really stood out.

Last look at Dar Es Salaam and the Indian Ocean.

The sun low in the sky at 5:30 p.m. was gorgeous.

I got seats on the left side of the plane so we could see Mt. Kilimanjaro.  That gray peaked thing that is poking through the clouds is Mt. Kilimanjaro.  (It looks like a dark mass of perhaps water but it is really the mountain).  Was hard to photograph in the waning light.  Click on it to enlarge and you'll be able to see it really is the mountain.  It was exciting to see it for a few seconds.  Mt. Kilimanjaro is the tallest mountain in all of Africa at 16,000 ft and 19,000 feet above sea level.