Lyn and Mollie in Tanzania: Long Goodbye to Dar es Salaam

The following emails and pictures tell the story of our last days in DAR. All times on our emails are central time in the US.

Here is our frantic email to our daughter sent late on Thursday night from Dar es Salaam:

Sent: Thursday, March 7, 2013 2:18 PM
Subject: Airline problems

We were just checking on our flight from DAR and discovered that our reservation was for tonight and not tomorrow night as we had thought and we have missed it. We are having difficulty getting a hold of anybody to see if we could reschedule for Friday March 8th........................ Would you please check with Delta for us?
We will try to check with KLM in the morning, because we cannot reach them on the phone tonight.

So sorry for this mess up.

There is nothing like being being in our room and hearing the plane you should have been on flying overheard at 12:07 AM. No sleep tonight.

The following is our message to our friends and family.

On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 9:10 AM

> I am extremely embarrassed to be writing this email, but fortunately the end result is going to work out just fine. Last night we saw our second group off to MSP. We were scheduled to leave on the following day. I had checked the itinerary I had made back home which had us arriving in MSP on Saturday afternoon. I thought I would check our reservations on line and at 10:30 last night and I discovered that our tickets were for leaving on Thursday instead of Friday. An hour and 37 minutes later I am sure we heard the plane we should have flown on, fly over the hotel where we are staying.

Meg was our great helper and spent a long time on the phone rescheduling our flight which is now on Sunday at 11:58 pm. We will be arriving on Monday at 1:30 pm. Calls and emails to Delta were unanswered. Today we did what we had planned and rented a car to go the Bagomoyo with Nixon, a driver associated with the hotel, and we included our faithful bus driver Kurwa who wanted us to bring back information on Bagomoyo for him. Kurwa had been to Bagomoyo six times, but had never taken the tour. We had a wonderful time and it was especially nice to be sharing time with these two
gifted men. Although because this place was a huge slave trade area it was sobering. The fish market thrilled Lyn. Large plastic containers of cooking oil were arriving by water having been thrown off boats and floated into shore where the tax man was assessing a tax before the product was sent to market.

Our email may go out, due to the expiration of our modem, so please don't be alarmed if you do not hear from us in the next three days.

Love to all of you. I have learned a lesson I already knew a lot about; which is check the primary source. We are planning to use our time here to good use and will use the hotel driver to get around and to deliver us to the airport early on Sunday evening.
All our best,
>
> Mollie and Lyn

Wista's Chalet Courtyard

Outdoor dining

Beautifully Kept Garden

Carver's Market

One of many stores

Africa Art in new location shopping center location

Slipway shoreline

Cindy Bullock studying lunch menu at Slipway

Fishing off Slipway

Dar Streets

Free ride

Street Scene

Bago Moyo - "Lay Down Your Heart"

German Fort and formerly area for holding slaves
Our Bago Moyo Guide Paul, Kurwa and Nixon

German Cemetery

Cooking oil from Zanzibar floating in, going through customs and transport to market

Customs Building

Seashore

Fish Market with fish frying in background.
Lyn and Paul said the fish tasted sweet.

Red Snapper held by proud fisherman

Christian Monument

Kurwa at Monument dedicated to the arrival of Christians in Bago Moyo

Baking Rolls in an open-air kitchen connected to Catholic Retreat Center. Nixon was the only one who got a taste.

Former Catholic Church House/ Currently Museum

Chains which held slaves

Catholic Church

Chapel behind church

Bago Moyo Lunch at Poa Poa with Kurwa and Nixon

Village Museum

One of twenty one village homes at museum

Museum Dancers

Another Village Home

On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 10:14 AM, <lyn_mollie@comcast.net> wrote:

For all of you who are wondering about our adventure. We are leaving DAR  tonight at 11:58 pm. We are going to dinner in an hour and fifteen minutes and two hours later we have scheduled Nixon to take us to the airport.
Nixon has been driving us around since Friday when we went to Bagomoyo, a coastal town that is steeped in slave trade, a port for Zanzibar, and a former German Fort. Yesterday Lyn and I walked to a shopping center, about 1/2 mile. We only got slightly in trouble when Lyn took a picture and the guard came and told us it was illegal to take pictures of the shopping center. In the afternoon we went to a village museum that has twenty-one different homes from twenty-one different tribes. There was dancing which  we watched. There were three different tribal dances, but after two it was enough. It all went OK until Lyn wanted to go into one more house; I had had enough and as I was standing outside and a bat flew out of the house and passed me. Today Nixon drove us to the Azania Front Lutheran Church. The church was built like a Lutheran church from Germany; built during the German period. The service was very interesting despite out inability to understand Swahili. The pastor spoke with us afterwards and sent a letter home to Paul Harris who had taught him at Tumaini University in Iringa; Paul was instrumental in encouraging us to come to Iringa for an extended stay. The pastor knew people we knew, so now it is a small Lutheran world. Lyn
and I had a quick bite of fast food, andazi and samosas for Lyn. The National Museum was interesting and took up our remaining time in downtown DAR. This was a very successful day with nothing dangerous happening. If there are no more mishaps we shall be home Monday at 1:40 pm.

> Love to you all,

> Mollie and Lyn

Sunday in Dar