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!
