I give up on pictures...800 or more stocked safely in my digital, wrenching them out like pulling a hunk of chicken away from a starving goat.. Am covered in mosquito welts..a ten hour wait at the airport for Lindsey..

Thursday night: arrived early, two hours to wait..to be told the plane was delayed, coming in at 2am...not 8:45 pm ...we head upstairs to the big bar for a Safari..then down and out to another to watch CNN for the first time since Zimbabwe..Whaaaaa??? What the heck is the US doing in Somalia?? Way too close for comfort, the Somalians fleeing into Kenya and Tanzania, the papers alude to possible strikes here...yikes!

I'm with Ben (the son of an ICA project worker - aged 20, my interpreter, my body guard...) we settle in and wait,around 10:30 or so, we're told, her flight further delayed, TILL 6 AM...maybe...maybe 4:30, maybe 5:30. We head back to the big bar, closed and darkened now, pull some cusions off the chairs, line them up and lie down, Ben on watch...then the bugs...hundreds of them, windows wide open, interior courtyard doors - it's a hive of swarming bugs. I pull Masai table clothes out from under spoons, forks...wrap my feet and head in them, lie back down, more mosquitos, more searing whining....give up..around midnight, Ben is gone, back to the bar to get cognac.. I am alone, dancing around the huge bars, in and out around the tables, a universe to myself...running away from the bugs..
An hour later he comes back, locked out of the airport he has searched for the guard all this time...who doesn't believe i am up there...we are relegated to the downstairs waiting area, just the two of us, a big bottle of cogniac, water, my sketch book with six hours to go....

a night to remember, this guy tells me of his brother's murder three years before, how he was arrested wrongly and spent two years in jail before they acquitted him...never found the murderer...I am drawing all night, his face, sketching, writing the words i am hearing, the story, sipping cognac, writing, drawing.....
the plane comes in finally, people flooding back into the airport to meet it, I am delerious with the tales i am hearing, the description of a boy whose father left when he was one, growing up, tough hard, on the streets, a mom single handedly raising five kids alone...witnessing of the murder, helping his brother home, the blood on his shirt, the arrest, jail, fights, drugs, attempted suicide, poison...I start to cry and can't stop...
Lindsey arrives....after a 27 hour journey...laughing, crying...taxi back into
Arusha, drag ourselves into a local bus and back to Mto Wa Mbu, surreal....
Sleep, oh heavenly sleep....
4pm: head out with Charles in the pickup, along with a huge wonderful smiling health care worker Esther, through miles and potholes of banana trees, up up up, into her family home... the father in his late 80s, gregarious, strong, proud, I love him, his wife, a daughter, her two kids and a small grandson...this huge loving family, we squeeze into their darkened living area, Christ and crosses hang with family photos, pages of calendar, newspaper clippings on the walls.
We talk; They've had 12 kids, 30 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren...the family expands, one daughter so sick with HIV bedridden, all down on their knees waiting for God to take her away, the magic of ARVs, the love of the Lord "she crawls up from the grave" and gets stronger, healthier, no stigma, no shame here, this huge loving family pulling together, pooling resources, everyone helping, caring for her and she's going to make it...
Thistime it's not the grandparents doing it, it is the GREAT GRANDPARENTS.. lodging and caring for the tribe icredible story of love and strength...we are treated to a plate of jackfruit cut straight off the tree, the chickens clucking amongst the children, the little boy asleep in the arms of his great granddad....

a great day one for Lindsey, and for me, another unforgettable experience in this land i so love.

tomorrow, to the Manyara Park with ten little kids, from the Blessed Comfort Orphanage here in Mto Wa Mbu..one on his knees running his fingers across my dark red toenails, another in my arms stroking white skin maybe for the first time, Lindsey today swinging another around and around, she wouldn't let go...thank you Uncle David for your hugely generous donation, this is where it will go....!