Returning Home

I write this blog with a very sad heart today because we will be returning to Colorado near the end of this month. Our decision to return was not easy but necessary.  Our stay here has richly blessed us with many wonderful memories of the Tanzanian people and the countryside. 
In January and December I wrote about the desire to serve. David and I still feel very committed to this idea and believe with all our hearts that we still can make a difference here in Africa. But over the last two months several events have occurred that have altered our  abilities to continue here for this next semester.  One, there were two sudden deaths in David's immediate family over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. He needs to return home to touch base and help with family matters. Two, we  realized that my teaching at Msalato Seminary this February would demand a real car due to the terrible roads and we were not able to secure funding to buy or lease one here. So with a heavy heart we return home to regroup and decide how to secure the money for our trip back and the car. In the meantime we are posting these pictures from our first and last trip to a wildlife preserve near Dodoma.  Hope you enjoy them.
Please look for our blog again in October of 2010.  Hopefully by that time we will have arrived back in Tanzania.

On the way to the park with  Benedict Hodrum, the Director of Planning for St. John's University.

 Elephants were everywhere in the park.

They are smaller they told us than some but it was great to watch them. 

On our second day in the park we went on a seldom used road and found three lions and a set of cubs that were about a 1/4 of a mile away in the brush.  There were vultures over head so we knew the female lions had just killed something big or had just eaten and were resting.  I took all the lion pictures from our car.  Just a normal car right out of the window in the front seat.  No zoom lense either.  Count the feet!Baby lion cub but away from mom!

David loved the hippos in the park because they did not move just breathe.

The Giraffes were wonderful.  So graceful and yet so big.  It was hard to see them from a distance because they appeared like trees and blended into the landscape.

We had a great time and look forward to going to another park when we return, maybe even the crater up north.  Hope we can continue this blog later in the fall.  God bless you all who followed us and gave us your support, prayers and money.  Charlotte and David Reid, February 18, 2010.