The Great Bengtson Family African Adventure

After an unexpected extra week in Tanzania, courtesy of the volcano eruption in Iceland, Nick and my parents safely made it back to the US on Sunday. Hurray!

The unplanned trip extension topped off an African adventure that introduced them not only to the beautiful scenery, wildlife and beaches here, but also the logistical and planning challenges that can make everyday life here feel like a run through an obstacle course.

First KLM lost my mom’s bag.

When my family decided to come and visit me in Tanzania, I was euphoric, expectant and really excited. But I was also a little nervous, I’ll admit. This was their first major trip to the developing world and they were diving in for a two week stint. How was I going to guide them through it all? How to try to balance a great tourist experience with exposure to everyday life here? How to try to blend as a group of 4 wazungos?

So I was a tad bit nervous when I got to the airport to pick them up. But then I saw them inside the baggage claim, and nerves forgotten, started bobbing up and down like a 10 year old at Christmas waiting for them to come outside. Only they stayed inside. And kept walking back and forth between the baggage claim and KLM desk. Uh oh. A bag didn’t make it. Damn. Hope it’s Nick’s.

Two minutes later Nick walked out, gave me a huge hug, and announced, “Mom’s bag didn’t make it”. Double damn.

Mary’s catch-phrase for this trip was “go with the flow”. But as Mary herself will tell you, this was one glitch she hadn’t planned on. Not only had the bag not arrived, KLM had actually lost it, AND the bag contained important medicine she takes daily. Fast-forward through 3 days of frantically searching all over Tanzania for said lost medicine, with the grand finale being an utter and total meltdown (by nearly all parties – Nick was mostly kicking it eating a muffin during all of this) at the Dar es Salaam airport that can only be described as a story destined to become part of Bengtson-family-lore.

On the long, hot, cramped ride back to Morogoro (sans infamous bag), I was seriously considering just what the hell I had been thinking trying to organize a 2-week trip all over Tanzania, as well as trying to remember exactly how much alcohol I had at home. But as Nick wisely said later on, never underestimate the power of hitting rockbottom. And so it was.

After the fiasco at the airport, Mary bravely and maturely accepted that the bag and medicine might not make it and that it was time to move on. We got to Morogoro, opened several beers, and tried to focus on seeing my life in Morogoro and getting excited for the safari.

Two days later, and about 12 hours before we were scheduled to leave on our safari, the bag arrived. I have never been so happy to see a piece of luggage.

With appropriate shampoo, self-tanner, and medicine in hand Mary and the rest of us were ready to put the last week behind us and get ready to see some of Tanzania’s most beautiful sights – Ngorongoro and the Serengeti. We had an amazing week touring around with our affable guide Charlie and saw 23 different kinds of animals!

By the end of it the stress and chaos of the first part of the trip was long forgotten amid hugs, thank-you’s, and smiles over a great trip. I waved goodbye to them in Arusha as Charlie took them on to the airport.

That was about a half hour before we heard that a volcano had erupted.

Fast forward again through three days of trying any of the 17 different phone numbers KLM gave us that didn’t work (don’t even get me started on KLM’s customer service), trips to the airport in the US by my brother-in-law, generalized chaos at the airport in Arusha and roughly 16 hours on the bus making the roundtrip from Mogo back to Arusha. In the end, the 2 week trip was more like 3+, Russ, Mary and Nick had developed a sort of surrogate-family at the KIA Lodge (see post below), and I got a few extra days to spend with them.

The trip itself wasn’t always smooth, but it was memorable. And it was true to life here – a never ending pingpong between amazing and beautiful and frustrating and unpredictable.

Mom, Dad and Nick: thank you for coming thousands of miles to experience my life here; thank you for hanging in there through the ups and downs; thank you for coming to Tanzania.

(To see a few photos from the trip, check out the Picasa photostream at right. I'm also trying to get a couple of videos up, but so far the internet gods are not smiling on me).