I had a restless night. During the power cuts our fan had stopped, and the room was hot and stuffy. Although we'll be on-the-go until past 10.0pm tonight, I cut my losses and had a shower and got on with packing. Ali had rung to say they'd hit a few problems in Kitwe. There'd been a mix-up about who was looking after the children, and meals had been missed and one kiddy was poorly - probably malaria. The set-up desperately needs the house parents to be on-site that the church had first planned for. Ali and Hannah were running out of money, too, so I sent some with Farayi who'll be seeing Jimmie. We said goodbye to Calla Lily Lodge - it's been a good choice. On the way to the Airport I rang Rukundo - as I had Gregory yesterday - to ensure he's all sorted out for our rendezvous en route to Dar es Salaam. Our flight from Kamazu Airport to Nairobi was very smooth, once we'd located Steven. He'd gone to an Airtel counter to see if he could send some urgent SMS messages.
At JKIA, Nairobi, I got an Internet connection on my phone, but couldn't manage to tether to my laptop in time to make much use before we were called to get ready for moving to Gate 04. Gregory was keeping us waiting, but finally made it onto the plane in time. This was an Embraer 190, and from Len's window seat he got a clear view of Kilimanjaro an the summit poked through through the cloud cover.
We collected our bags at Julius Nyerere Airport and started to hunt for Rukundo. Steven spotted him on the staircase and we soon headed for our hotel by taxi through the thick and dusty traffic. Marriotti Hotel lies just off the main Mandela Road highway. We decided to mix-and-match the room sharing: I'm with Rukundo, Gregory and Len are together, and Steven - who is most unconventional - is in a single room.
We quickly gather downstairs to eat with Pastor Luvanda and Steven's brother Jacob. My memory of Tanzanian food was the delicious beef stew and fearsome Changu fish. Both are available! Steven overplays his hand in Swahili, and asking for fish with boiled potatoes wrongly juxtaposes the adjectives and nouns. As he's presented with a dish of boiled fish, Gregory laughs hugely.
We plan out the next day's church visits (Rukundo and I get a 8.00am start), and the two days of the conference. My only worry is that the topics lean heavily towards what I've introduced so far. It going to be a squeeze to give the other guys a fair slice of the action.
I find the air-con is set to 16C, which is ridiculous, but it doesn't seem to moderate its icy blast when to set the temperature higher. My night's sleep is restless again- this time I'm too cold!
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