This blog comes from our trip to Tanzania in November ‘08. It’s out of sequence, but I have many partially finished blogs that to me are important to the overall story. Periodically, I will insert them with current ones. I hope you enjoy them. Thanks.

There must be 250 dogs outside the window of my hotel, which is an oasis, a patch of green with a sparking pool and a fence all the way around, in a sea of dusty brown. The road out front resembles a dried creek bed with rock outcroppings and deep ruts where the last rainy season water carved its path. Cement-structured storefronts border the creek-bed road only wide enough for one and a half Land Cruisers, but that doesn’t slow the drivers, nor do the pedestrians, some in traditional garb replete with spears, stray dogs or locals on their one-speed Chinese bicycles. From the front passenger seat, each confrontation looks like a fatal head-on collision until the last moment.

Sarah Wallis, our Swahili speaking, Aussie/Kiwi, Tanzanian liaison told us, over a glass of wine, about a rash of burglaries in the area. One of the doctors at her hospital held off intruders with a shotgun. They shot up his lower level but never entered. The owner of our hotel offered his own story.

Even with those stories, jetlag has softened the edges for me. As I climb into my bed with the gauzy mosquito netting wrapping from above, I figure I can sleep through anything, but the dogs bark in a chorus that’s like a complicated domino configuration—first there’s one, which elicits a response, then another, and suddenly there’s a crescendo of yelps from every direction. I still feel that I’ll drift into sleep until it sounds like a little one gets sucked backwards into a blender—four tortured yelps. I try to convince myself that my imagination runs wild in the dark. It probably isn’t a moshpit of dogs outside my door.

Sleep comes, I assume, but I’m well aware of a seamless transition from the dogs to the streetcorner preacher. Armed with two high-powered speakers, he begins at 5:30 am. Later in the week he will start as early as 4:30. I can’t understand a word of what I assume is Swahili, but the preacher’s crowd rivals that of the dogs. At 5:30 in the morning, I wonder the need—the popularity—a developing country with a belief that the next life, life in heaven or whatever will be far better. I don’t know if that explains it all or if I can begin to comprehend, but that’s what I think lying there in a cocoon of mosquito netting.

Finally, I succumb to the inevitability of not sleeping. Dave and I head out the front gate, now open in the daylight, for our second training session on a brand new vehicle. The day before we’d climbed much of the first day’s climb on Kili. The first 2000 feet up the mostly pumice stone porters’ road took me 2:42. I didn’t realize how difficult the road was until I turned to descend. On the way up I only broke traction two or three times. Dave has worked hard on this new rig, an important prototype that weighs less than 50 pounds—a far cry from the one I used in June which weighed 83. We moved the rear wheels 13 inches forward so that my hip bones are almost directly over the rear axles, greatly improving traction. Almost all of my effort results in forward motion. This new vehicle rolls so much better. I can feel the difference, but with winter covering my training routes back home in snow, I don’t know if I’ll be able to figure out what that difference will mean in terms of speed and distance covered.

We take a left out of the hotel, then the first left and a right at the big tree. Kids in forest green sweaters and skirts or pants and white shirts—the sign of a public school all-stare. Mt. Meru sits off in the distance. We’ll climb to her shoulder before it’s all done, but first the stares. I say” Jambo, hello,” some say it back, others just look. The road tilts and we climb. I push hard always with the idea that I want to make Dave walk fast. Even at 7 a.m. people are up. A woman sweeps purple petals off her front yard with something that looks more like a branch than a broom. Surrounded by dirt, she makes it tidy.

We open onto the field where the Olympic athletes train. There’s a soccer goal in one end, a basketball court behind it. The grass gathers in clumps. Three sets of men spar on the basketball court—something that looks like mixed martial arts. They stop and stare. One speaks English. He’s most concerned with the training benefits of my rig because he’s one of the skinny guys. He comments on my arms tying a direct correlation to the vehicle. He’s right. This training has made me stronger, though we impress upon him that this is one of a kind, and we move on climbing higher.

Another dried creek-bed road brings us closer to Meru’s shoulder, which is shrowded in a layer of fog like a shawl. We say “Jambo” to those we pass. It’s close to the extent of our Swahili. Most say “Jambo” back. Some are headed to work, the kids headed to school. Music blares in a tiny, transistor radio way from the hair salons. Dave and I figure that that’s the place of excitement. On one uphill section, not a steep one, I make Dave run. After a summer of him walking so slowly uphill, this is encouraging.

Looking back, we’ve collected a group of kids. I feel like Rocky running to the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. The kids talk among themselves. I wonder what they say. I wonder what they think. I could be like a UFO in this neighborhood. By way of explanation Dave and I say “wheelchair” in Swahili, or at least we think we do. I can’t even remember the word we used now. The kids seem to nod in understanding. I still want to know what they think.

So many times in the U.S. I’ve said that from the time we’re little we’re taught not to stare at someone who looks different. In Tanzania everyone stares. They stare like I’m on television—like I can’t see them. They don’t stop when I wave and smile. They continue as if it’s all part of the act. I’m told they stare because I’m white, because I use a wheelchair and because no one pushes me. Okay, I can handle those, but what do they see?

Later that day we go to the market. The sun beats down in a way that makes me think of Matthew Brodrick in the movie version of “Brighton Beach Memoirs.” As he said, “It’s Africa hot.” There are no supermarkets in Tanzania. Everyone comes to the market for their produce. Sellers stack garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, rice, etc., in artistic formations on their blanket. Occasionally, I ask Sarah to name a particular fruit or vegetable, but mostly I look at the ground. As we turn the corner having passed through the produce, the clothing and shoes, mostly American knock-offs, and the sewing machines turning bolts of cloth into traditional African wear, Sarah asks me if I saw all the people staring at me. At first I have trouble answering because another hair salon blasts a transistor radio rap song with only one lyric, “Barack Obama.” Apparently, the soon-to-be elected U.S. president’s name is music in Tanzania.

No. I didn’t see them stare because I worried so much about flipping over on the rocky terrain in between booths. From the dogs, to the street corner preacher, to climbing to the shoulder of Meru, I was exhausted. The market was the final straw. I wonder if I would ever eat if I lived in Tanzania. And I wonder how those that we hope to help with wheelchair and handcycle donation do it.