Shannon and Collin's trip to Tanzania-Back to Mwanza

As I said, we were waiting expectantly for the ferry to take us back to Mwanza. A great ride this would be, compared to the trip over. As the ferry docked and lowered it's gate for us to board, we were greeted by an entire deck full of longhorn cattle. In order to get to the upper deck of the ferry we had to climb up and over piles of pallets and bags of cargo. We thought this was supposed to be a simple 8 hour ferry ride back to the mainland but we stopped at island after island after island to add even more cargo to the already full boat. Collin was pretty sick by this time. He had a cold when we left home and it had moved into his sinuses. He slept most of the trip. As it got dark they turned the lights on and the bugs came out in swarms. They were ferocious. Finally, 12 hours after leaving the island we arrived into the port at Mwanza. We later discovered the reason that the trip took so long was because the ferry was so grossly overloaded he wanted to be sure they came in after dark to avoid paying the taxes. Anyway, at this point we all wanted off this ferry and back to our better accomodations at the hotel in Mwanza. In order for us to leave the ferry we had two choices-wait for an hour or two while they unloaded all of the cargo and cattle, or climb over all of it. We climbed, literally. We had thought getting on was an adventure but after stopping at all of the islands on the rest of the trip, our tiny "walkway" had now become more of a mountain. We climbed up, up and up over bags and bags of dried fish and who knows what else. It was about three feet wide on top of these bags and if you fell one way you would fall into the lake. If you fell the other way you landed amongst the longhorns. We all made it off the ferry with all of our stuff.

After a good nights rest in Mwanza we awoke for a day off. During our group devotional time Collin was baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues(Acts 1:8). Later, Pastor Richard took us to look at temporary housing for our family once we arrive there and until the compound is built. I discovered that even as nice as some of the housing was for there, it was still very primitive to what we are accustomed to. I also discovered that prices would go up when it was discovered that it would be Americans renting.

Next we went to an internet cafe where I was able to log on to instant messenger and discovered Christine waiting for me. She had known that this was the day we would likely be near computers and had been online and awake since 2AM. Funny thing is, I came on right at the time she normally gets up. She could have slept until 6:30 as normal. We instant messaged for about 45 minutes as I also tried to read the 10 daily emails she had sent since we had left. It was good to check in and I realized how much I missed her. We were supposed to look at land this day but the land we had been planning to look at we had discovered was too near a military installation for the government to allow us to be on as foreigners. It was decided we would look in 4 more days, on Saturday.

Please pray for me as I am currently fighting a case of bronchitis that we believe came from the same virus that gave Collin a sinus infection. I am finally on antibiotics today but still running a fever.