Jan 17/06

This AM we were up and ready to check out by 8:00, Razak drove us to the Arusha Airport, which is 7 km on the other side of town, not the way we came in. We flew into the Kilimanjaro Airport, which is International, but the Arusha one is private. We passed through a sort of industrial area where there were a lot of businesses like lumber mills, furniture stores, garages and local bars, hairdressing salons and little lunch places. It was fairly grubby, like most industrial areas are, but probably a little more so than what I am used to seeing. The garages that sell oil are called "Houses of Lubricants.", which makes me chuckle.

As were were driving down a dirt road, this teeny little place careened overhead and I said to Nicole: "There's our plane." and we laughed until it banked and turned to the airport and we saw the red cross on it's tail. This plane looked REALLY small.

We drove a little further to the airport and I was surprised (and relieved) to see that the airport was tiny, but very clean and had a lovely little tower,I was beginning to think we'd see nothing but a wind sock. There were 2 little gift shops, a waiting room with about 10 chairs and a small outdoor restaurant, there was a lot of green grass about and quite a few flowers too. Because we are going on a private plane, we had no need for tickets, but we did have to send our bags through a x-ray machine, and us through a metal detector (thank goodness nothing beeped) The pilot, jacker (from Poland) was just coming towards us, so we did the introductions and he helped us take our luggage to the plane, where he promptly removed 3 seats so he could fit in our bags, plus some bags that someone else needed in Haydom, plus a backboard as he was picking up a patient in Nairobi afterwards. This plane was small, seats 5 plus a pilot. It wouldn't seat 5 big folks either, it was really tiny. He must have seen the looks on our faces as he reassured us that it was the safest bushplane ever made (and I bet he says that to all his passengers) as he handed us "a sickbag for you and a sickbag for you."

He said he had to refuel, so we should have a coffee and off he wandered towards the general direction of a shed and a bunch of jerry cans. I said jokingly to Nicole: "If he fills the plane with those jerry cans...I'll run the other way." and of course he grabbed 2 jerry cans and started to fill the plane by hand. I have never seen THAT before, maybe it's a common thing for pilots of small planes to store their gas in jerry cans in a little shed, but it was all new to me!

Nicole sat in the front with him, and I sat in the only other remaining seat, behind him. We taxied down the runway and up we went, it was very smooth, which quite surprised me as it was quite windy out that day, inside the plane itself it was a little breezy as there were a few cracks and and spaces around the windows. We flew between 7 and 10 thousand feet, he would go up a bit if it got too bumpy. The scenery was amazing, very different from the land around Dar, that was much redder and this was more brown, a pale sort of brown that reminded me of suede. There were more riverbeds (all dry) and less roads.

We flew over the Rift Valley and Lake Manyara which had a lot of water in it, but the pilot said that when he flew over only 2 days earlier, it was dry. This area has had 2 days of rain, which has helped the lake fill up a bit, but made no difference to the rivers.

As we got closer to Haydom, the land became a bit more hilly, and the colour became that rusty African red again. We could see tiny villages and settlements, each in a small circle of branches and/or shrubs and you could even see the little thatched huts.

He wasn't sure he could land at Haydon because of the weather (it was raining by this point) but he got below the clouds and decided he could, but he just wanted to make a pass first and make sure there were no cows or people on the strip. I had wondered why a bit of rain would keep him from landing until wem realized that the "runway" was a dirt strip that became thick, red, oozing clay when it got wet. He landed and mud flew up everywhere, but we came to stop and all was well.

As we were taxiing closer to the vehicle that was waiting for us, we could see all the villagers at the end of the strip, wanting to see who the new visitors were. The women were watching curiously, the children were shyly peeping through the bushes, and the men looked a little distrustful.

The vehicle was a Toyota Landcruiser that had been turned into an ambulance, so there was lots of room in the back for our stuff, so we loaded at all in, getting quite wet in the process and heased off to the hospital compound, which was just a minute or 2 away. The village is 50 meters from the airstrip, and the gates of the hospital compound are right beside the village. We entered the gates (they are guarded, but not armed guards, just security). It was still raining quite heavily and we were feeling humid and sticky. The driver took us to an elderly Norweigan woman's house and she seemed both confused and annoyed to see us and wondered if we had informed anyone that we were coming, because she "certainly knew nothing". We thought that maybe she ran a B and B and that we were staying in her own personal house. She conversed with the driver and he took us to another place, which was locked and it was all rather in a muddle for a few minutes, but eventually it was all straightened out, we had our luggage put in a room and we were invited back to the elderly lady's house for tea and a midmorning snack. The lady was Mama Kari, and she is the mother of the Hospital Director, Dr. Olson, and he and a few others joined us just then for tea (and made us feel very welcome) and then they sent us off for a quick tour of the hospital with Clementina, who seems to be the main secretary there. She took us to a few places, mostly administration; (ie) medical records and their new storage room etc..

After a quick tour, we came back to our room to try and freshen up a bit. The room is a guest room what looks like a small motel strip, 6 "units" that all adjoin each other, with a little sidewalk and an overhang to keep the rain off. There are 2 units like this, beside each other.

The room is very sparse, like a monks cell. There are 2 beds, each with a mosquito net above them, and a desk with 2 chairs. That's it. The bathroom had a toilet and sink, and the shower was just a shower head that came out of the ceiling and pointed staright down in the middle of the bathroom floor, no stall or tub, just a drain in the floor, and the floor was painted red cement (in the bedroom too) The toilet and sink were in oppsite corners, so they stayed dry when the shower (cold water only) was on.. It was basic, but all we needed.

We unpacked a bit and went to the kitchen/common room that had been pointed out to us earlier, it is directly (like 50 feet) from our room. There is a common area with a few couches and chairs (and nothing else, no shelves or end tables) and a bunch of tables that are set up in a square for an overflow of folks at dinners.

The other room is the more commonly used eating area, a very large dining room table, seats about 14 or so, and this is where most staff eat. The kitchen was beside that, and the local help would prepare the meals in there, set them on the table and then it was all self-serve.

Breakfast is $1.00, as is midmorning tea, lunch and dinner are $2.00 and the room itself is $5.00 a night. Can't really complain about that!!

The meals are very plain, but substantial. The first night was meat and gravy over rice, breakfasts are bread and jam, meat and cheese, tea, coffee and juice,; lunch