Monday, July 9
We are safely in Dar Es Salaam. Though we’ve been in Tanzania before, we’ve never been here. This coastal city on the Indian Ocean is packed with people. There’s people, people everywhere – especially at night. The men wear their neatly pressed white shirts and the womens’ colourful long dresses are beautiful in every way.
The traffic is indescribable…and for this reason we have moved across the city to another hotel this morning (Monday). We would often sit at the traffic light near the previous hotel for nearly half an hour with only slight movement. The concern was that we would miss the conference for the traffic!
This hotel, The Double View, is beautiful. The view inside is clean and neat. Here’s the view out our window. Corrugated tin forms the roof of most homes, with large rocks and used tires holding it in place. Men roam, sometimes riding bicycles, and women carry burdens in their beautiful dresses. The Universal Executive Inn below us, just off the dirt road, wouldn’t be a place any of us would enter. While another lean-to shop offers coke and candy to all who pass by. Palm trees wave in the breezes while children below squeal with delight – no toys, no bikes, just laughter.
And that’s the same joy we heard at church yesterday. Songs of delight to God. Ardent praise and worship. It makes us wonder if we are the ones who really need the “Double View” of life.
On THE Way 