Well, we are finally here! Our last morning at Namwianga before heading off to another adventure in Tanzania & Kenya.
Yesterday, we heard that the body of the baby that had died had arrived back here from the hospital & they were going to have the funeral immediately. Most of our group elected to go as it was supposed to be about a 45 minute drive. It ended up being about 2.5 hours Each Way & the funeral was about an hour. They were glad to get to go as most of them had known her & it was good for them to experience grieving in this culture. Most of them came back with sun-burns, though, since they were riding in the back of a truck.
When you try to estimate how far something is around here, it’s really hard to tell as no-one really knows distances & they don’t often drive, so they can’t even tell you how long it takes to get there. The term “nearly there” can refer to just around the corner or still another hours drive!
Yesterday afternoon was spent saying goodbye to all the friends we have made here. We had many of the area children hanging around to see what goodies we would be handing out that we didn’t have room to pack. The missionaries are also getting lots of goodies as we just obviously brought way more than we will be taking back.
This morning (Monday) will be spent packing the big yellow school bus for our ride back to the Livingston airport for our 2 pm flight. More tears to come, I’m sure. While I am certainly excited to head back home, there is a little bit of me that is still sad – especially knowing we will probably never see many of these people again – especially the babies that we’ve become so attached to!! I think most of us are ready just to be boarding the plane for home, but we’ve still got 2 weeks of traveling before we can do that. We’re looking forward to seeing the Serengeti, Kilimanjaro, & Ngaruroro Crater, but unsure about the rest of the trip. We’ll just have to see!
Yesterday, we heard that the body of the baby that had died had arrived back here from the hospital & they were going to have the funeral immediately. Most of our group elected to go as it was supposed to be about a 45 minute drive. It ended up being about 2.5 hours Each Way & the funeral was about an hour. They were glad to get to go as most of them had known her & it was good for them to experience grieving in this culture. Most of them came back with sun-burns, though, since they were riding in the back of a truck.
When you try to estimate how far something is around here, it’s really hard to tell as no-one really knows distances & they don’t often drive, so they can’t even tell you how long it takes to get there. The term “nearly there” can refer to just around the corner or still another hours drive!
Yesterday afternoon was spent saying goodbye to all the friends we have made here. We had many of the area children hanging around to see what goodies we would be handing out that we didn’t have room to pack. The missionaries are also getting lots of goodies as we just obviously brought way more than we will be taking back.
This morning (Monday) will be spent packing the big yellow school bus for our ride back to the Livingston airport for our 2 pm flight. More tears to come, I’m sure. While I am certainly excited to head back home, there is a little bit of me that is still sad – especially knowing we will probably never see many of these people again – especially the babies that we’ve become so attached to!! I think most of us are ready just to be boarding the plane for home, but we’ve still got 2 weeks of traveling before we can do that. We’re looking forward to seeing the Serengeti, Kilimanjaro, & Ngaruroro Crater, but unsure about the rest of the trip. We’ll just have to see!
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