Tanzania Trip and WHRI Farm Reunion

During the end of November we took a week long trip to Tanzania (passing through Kenya).  We were doing two things.  First, we were visiting a school called Nassa Theological College near Mwanza in Tanzania, right on the coast of Lake Victoria.  It is the Bible college for the Africa Inland Church denomination in Tanzania.  This denomination is one of World Renew's development partners, so we were checking out the school.  We might write about the school visit another time, but this post is just to show fun pictures from our travels and pictures of our WHRI reunion which was the second reason for the journey. 

 

After visiting the school we went on to Arusha to visit Neil and Christy Rowe Miller.  Neil was one of our leaders and teachers at the WHRI farm, where we studied agriculture for one year.  Neil is now working in Tanzania.  It turned into a farm reunion because we took with us Emily who was doing an internship in Uganda.  Geoff doing an internship in Tanzania also came.  And then Ben and Marissa who were each doing work in Kenya came as well. 

 

So enjoy some pictures.  First, here are some men in Uganda carrying matooke.  We passed by dozens of bicycles loaded down like this, perhaps on their way to the border.

 

It took us 2 days of driving to reach the school.  Driving can be hectic, but God kept us safe and gave us energy for it.  Once we got to Tanzania, the roads became very well paved, and there was much less traffic.

Here is a photo taken from a hill above the school in Tanzania.  You can see Speke Bay, part of Lake Victoria.

Here are some animals we saw while touring the school.  I think this one is a red-headed rock agama.

Here is Emily holding a leopard tortoise.

Here is a baby bat that Emily found.  We think it looks like Gollum.

Here is a nasty big black scorpion.  The students quickly took off its stinger after the picture.

 

The map showed what looked like a highway from the school to the city of Arusha in Northern Tanzania.  To our surprise and delight it turned out that the main road passed through Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater National Park.  However, the fees in expensive US dollars was not a fun surprise.  But thankfully it turned out to be a great game drive even just quickly passing through.  (I don't recommend traveling through these parks in your own vehicle though because the roads were tough to plow through).  We'll show you just a few of the many animals we saw.

 

This is a bat-eared fox.  We also saw a serval cat, but we missed taking a photo of it.

This is a pack of striped mongooses.

This is a secretary bird.

The grasslands went on forever.  So flat.

 

This is Emily with us who was doing an internship in Uganda and staying with us some of the time.

We passed by several Masai villages and many herdsmen.

This is the Ngorongoro crater.  It was quite breathtaking, much like the Grand Canyon.

 

This is Mount Meru next to Arusha.

Here is most of us from the WHRI farm reunion on a hike.

A few people decided to go down into the middle of this small crater, and climb up the steep slopes.  If you look closely you can find Neil and Ben.

Silly synchronized jumping picture.

 

In Arusha on the way to church we had a good time trying to figure out the meaning of this picture on this bus.  Jesus holding a lamb, in a forest, and next to him it says, "the shark", with pictures of a shark and dolphins below.   Maybe they are trying to capture that Jesus brings both gentle grace and the judgment of a fierce shark?

 

Colorful bananas

On the way back home through Tanzania and Kenya we got a glimpse of Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance.

Then we randomly passed by a bunch of camels, possibly some kind of camel market.

In Kenya we spent the night in Nakuru and got to go to an American style restaurant called the Java House.  I had a hamburger, fries, and a chocolate chip cookie sundae.  We really enjoyed ice cream and milkshakes as a rare treat!