Tanzania: Did and Did Not List

I'm back from Tanzania and thought I should post something new.  Here's a Did and Did Not list I made during the flight home.  I threw in a few photos that are not my favorites or best (too tired from jet lag to go through 7000+ photos or do much editing), just a few to show what the trip with The Giving Lens was like.


























Did: Get a beautiful orphan girl to smile by showing her a picture of herself.

Did: See Kilimanjaro

Did Not: Take a picture of Kilimanjaro (What?!  I know, I know, I kept waiting for a better view or the right light then clouds, got nothin’.)

Did: Go more than 2 days without a shower.

Did: Introduce myself in Swahili to a class full of kids.

Did Not: Trade my shoes for a Malachite bowl (I tried to but the man insisted on more than my shoes).

Did: Tip our driver with my shoes (The smile on his face was worth more than a Malachite bowl).

Did: See 4 types of wild cats (lions, cheetahs, leopards & serval).

Did Not: See a rhino.

Did: Get entangled in thorns when I went into the bushes to pee.

Did: Sleep in a Maasai boma hut under a boabab tree (2 nights).

Did Not: See a dung beetle rolling a ball of dung.

Did Not: Use the internet for 10 days.

Did: Get bit by a tsetse fly and bed bugs.

Did: Meet a couple with HIV and hungry kids.

Did: Get photography tips from great photographers.

Did Not: Insist or even asked the driver to stop when we saw giraffes in awesome evening light. 

Did: Photograph many beautiful people in Tanzania.

Did Not: Climb Kilimanjaro.

Did: Ride across the Serengeti standing up in the opened top 4 x 4 with the wind and dust blowing in my face trying to soak it all in.

Did Not: Jump out of the open top of a burning safari vehicle (but for a moment it appeared fairly probable that I would). 

Did: Meet people with very few resources who are doing what they can to solve problems and help people in their communities.

Did: Eat goat meat and spleen and drink goat’s blood soup with Maasai men.

Did Not: Drink fresh goat’s blood with the Maasai.

Did: Dance and jump with the Maasai men.

Did: See a lion stalk and charge a gazelle (unsuccessfully).

Did: Sleep under a mosquito net. 

Did Not: Get bit by a mosquito (that I know of).  

Did: Get stung by an African bee (had the stinger in my cheek for almost two days & didn’t realize it until my cheek started swelling).

Did: Drive past Olduvai gorge contemplating being in the area where my species evolved.

Did: Stand on the edge of the Great Rift Valley.



Did: Chop wood with a machete with the Maasai women. (Didn’t carry it back like the women did).  

Did Not: Check In on Facebook from Ngorongoro.

Did Not: Buy a silver bicep bracelet (see David Wilcox’s song “Johnny’s Camero”).

Did: Sit in the Serengeti dirt with Colby Brown taking pictures of the sunset. 

Did Not: Teach Tanzania kids a graphical proof of the Pythagorean theorem (I had a chance but I thought of it too late, from the notes on the chalkboard they were studying geometry and trigonometry).    

Did: Make new friends.

Did Not: See a pangolin (Google it).

Did: Give up my window seat on the plane over the Mediterranean Sea and was happy to do so (more on that later).

Did: Eat rice with junk on it (see Neil Peart’s “The Masked Rider”).

Did Not: Take any Cipro!