Just Chilling

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Haydom

By Jacob -
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Tuesday last week I flew out with another MAF pilot, Kirstein, to Haydom. Our schedule was full with flights out to even more remote villages, and we would not return back to Arusha until Friday. On one of the afternoons we needed to haul to the maximum capacity of the aircraft, and so I was left on the ground.  As I waited to catch a few pictures of Kirstein taking off to the villages, these two girls kept begging me to take a picture of them so they could see themselves. They were quite pleased, and a little shy, when I showed them my camera screen. After he was off, I began my hike to the large hill beside the town of Haydom. Having grown up in the mountains of Idaho, I miss the tranquility and peace of being in the wild. Being away from busy city life gives me time to think and process. I began to contemplate how different Tanzania is from the world I grew up in. For instance, it took me multiple visits to the Haydom airstrip before noticing the ridicu...
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Arusha

By Jacob -
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On Friday, Carmen, the girls, and I left for Arusha. We have some meetings with MAF regarding our future move to Arusha and scheduling. The boys are staying in Dar Es Salaam with Dinah. We plan to return to Dar Keshokutwa (the day after tomorrow) which will be Monday. We would appreciate prayer for the meetings on Monday with MAF. There are many things such as flight testing, Tanzania pilot certification, and our move which need to be discussed. Since Carmen and I have been carrying the girls with us wherever we have gone, they have been quite a hit. The Tanzanian women really love to hold them and are always asking if they can get selfies with them. They have been a great way to make friends and start conversations. The girls in the previous picture gave her back apologising because they got lipstick on her head. No, this is not Kilimanjaro, though Kili is nearby. It is Mount Meru at 14,692 feet (4,562m). It is a dormant volcano with its last eruption,...
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Brokenness

By Jacob -
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As the new pilot for MAF Tanzania I was able to go on a medical outreach to the village of Gorimba for the first time last month. I was deeply impacted. Hundreds of mothers crowded in a line leading into a small room where I and a Tanzanian nurse sat to fill out paperwork (in Swahili) before these women and their children could be seen by the nurses and doctors. Sweat poured down their faces as they held their babies under the harsh sun, waiting for hours before it was their turn. They had already traveled far across the dusty bushland of Tanzania to get here. Flies buzzed around the babies' faces attempting to drink the moisture around their eyes and mouth. As sad as this is, they are used to it. The dust, the dry seasons, the hard manual labor, and the struggle to survive and raise a family. Life is harsh in the remote villages. A month had passed since that first experience, and we were scheduled for another clinic in Gorimba. I looked forward...
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