Luxury in the midst of poverty

Yeah...weekend.

Our alarm clock!

The damn church bells—which seemed quaint  on the first day—still woke us up at 5:00 but at least we knew that we didn't really need to get up. Most of us did anyways because most of the group was going on a 2 day safari and their pick-up time was around 7:00 am.

Those of us not going on safari had booked a night stay at the Kilimanjaro Mountain lodge—Rick, myself, the team surgeon Mark, our Medical lead Pat, our tester Martine and another logistic member Bev. It was not far away from the hospital so we decided to walk.

The rural roads are extremely rough and winding, heading mostly uphill (no matter which direction you are going :-) What a work out just simply walking down the road.

On our short cut through the church we happened upon a wedding. They were all sigining and waving. It was truly heart warming and the singing was amazing.

The walk to the hotel was about 45 minutes long. There were many people out walking on the road and at one point, a family stopped to talk to Mark because he had just operated on their son the day before.

Alex walked with us part of the way

We also ran into our cook, Alex, as he walking to visit his family whom he hadn't seen in a while. He seemed excited to be seeing them, but he slowed his pace so that he could walk with us. Mark explained to us that he was being polite and did not want to offend us by walking past us.

When we arrived at the hotel we were quickly taken aback by the luxury of the place. We have been living so frugally for the last week that we all were very uncomfortable living in this luxury knowing how most of the staff are living.

Kids were running with us down the road

Had drinks, a swim in the pool and then hit the Internet cafe.



Dinner was interesting because this hotel caters to people who are climbing Kili. Mark and Pat were trying to identify all of the diners who had just come off the mountain based on whether or not they looked cyanotic. Based on their opinions, there were a lot of sick people there. We all got together for drinks in one of the rooms and then off to bed. We are going to try for base camp tomorrow.