A Good Day.

Yesterday I found myself in the back of the SACIDS Land Rover unexpectedly on my way back to Dar. I found out Tuesday that I needed to go to immigration to (fingers crossed) finish the processing of my resident permit; which among other more important things, also means the ferry to Zanzibar is cheaper. (boo-ya muzungo prices…BOO-YA!)

The impromptu trip worked out perfectly, as I was planning to come back to Dar on Friday and meet up with Andrew, Ameet and Goodluck to go to Zanzibar for the weekend and celebrate Eid, the breaking of the month long fast of Ramadan.

Driving out of Morogoro, it was that perfect time of evening where the air is still warm and everything is bathed in the soft, yellow-golden light of the impending sunset. Sitting in the Land Rover, being jostled over bumps and careening past dala dalas, I sat back and let the barrage of colors and smells wash over me; women walking down the street with baskets on their head, barefoot children running to get water, an old man riding a bicycle with a load of charcoal; open-fire cooking, garbage burning, brightly colored buckets at endless road side stands selling red tomatoes, green oranges, purple onions, orange carrots & green papayas. An explosion of the color, motion and rhythm that surrounds you, envelopes you and somehow seeps in to you to make you part of that moment…a moment you couldn’t imagine another place you’d want to be.

Maybe it was that I was on the way to see my friends, or that I knew I was headed to Zanzibar for the next week, or that I’d had a particularly productive week at work, or just that it was a beautiful evening…but sitting there, hot and sticky from the dust, listening to the Beatles playing, I felt a deep sense of gratitude for my year in Tanzania; in this place, with these people, for this experience.

This is where I want to be; this is what I want to be doing; this is the life I want to be living.

I am here. Right now. Big highs and big lows; there is no other place I would rather be.