Work, Then Off for the Weekend

We woke at our regular time to meet at 7:00 a.m. for breakfast and our daily meeting with Edward. Some work assignments had changed and Melissa and I learned we would be joining Elizabeth and Stephen on the masonry crew. We spent the morning mixing concrete and coating the walls of a new classroom building. Very hard work but I think Melissa and I did well under the tutelage of our good friend Moses.

Lunch was chicken and chips and then we all prepared for the trip back to Iringa Town and then on to Ruaha Hilltop Lodge for a weekend break and safari.

Steve, Sue, Kassidy, Elizabeth, Melissa, and I joined Alex our driver at 1:00 and said goodby to Stephen and Sonja who were staying in Pommern for the weekend.

We stopped in Iringa Town for an hr. of Internet and left for our vacation destination. The trip had a few hiccups & stressful moments before we got out of Iringa Town.First there was a short 10 minute backtrack to the Internet cafe to rescue a misplaced camera. (Thank goodness the kind staff there was holding it.), and then our Land Rover experienced mechanical difficulties and we had to stop at a repair shop on a back road in town for a little over an hour while Alex & the mechanic repaired it. Once out of town it was a smooth trip where we passed many small villages and people, including many Maasai who are always great to see. I think we would all like to learn more about these fascinating people who we've seen everywhere we've been.

We arrived at Ruaha Lodge at 6:30 to a very warm welcome and we were all thrilled to see the Lodge, our accommodations and particularly the view.

At dinner that night we briefly met our Lodge companions who were a group of young medical students from England & Ireland on break from working in Iringa and German couple on holiday. We were served a delicious dinner and we all retired to enjoy a good night sleep with a cool mountain breeze blowing through the camp.